iNn 'Is i;(* r.WM
AnoKPiSi:^ npos 'thokpi^in.
EXAMINATION OF TILENUS
BEFORE THE TRIERS,
IN ORDER TO HIS INTENDED SETTLEMENT IN THE OFFICE
or A PUBLIC PREACHER, IN THE COMMONWEALTH OF UTOPIA:
WHEREUNTO ARE ANNEXED
THE TENENTS OF THE REMONSTRANTS,
TOUCHING THOSE FIVE ARTICLES
TOTED, STATED, AND IMPOSED, BUT NOT DISPUTED,
AT THE
^gnotf of Mott
TOGETHER WITH A SHORT ESSAY, BY WAY OF ANNOTATIONS,
UPON THE FUNDAMENTAL THESES OF MR. THOMAS PARKER.
I
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR R. ROYSTON, AT THE ANGEL IN IVY LANE,
1658.
„ REPRINTED BY JAMES NICHOLS, 22, WARWICK SQUARE,
V. NEWGATE STREET,
1824.
PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.
Of the Life of Dr. Laurence Womack, the l^idrrted and
ingenious author of "the Examination of Tilenus," the
reader will find a brief sketch in the beginning of the second
volume of " Calvinism and Arminianism Compared." I
hope to procure materials for a more copious account of this
excellent Prelate, to prefix to a new edition of his Calvinists'
Cabinet Unlocked, which I have in contemplation. He
was one of many hundred divines, who, when through an attach-
ment to Episcopacy they were ejected from their benefices,
directed their attention, during the Civil Wars, to the impor-
tant differences between Calvinism and Arminianism, which
had been studiously depicted as one of the chief ostensible
causes of the contest between the monarch and his people.
Dr. Womack, in common with other great and eminent men
of that age, had been full of zeal for the system of Calvin ;
and nothing more strikingly displays the beneficial results of
the change produced in his mind, than a contrast between
his sentiments in 1640 and 1660, in two works which he
wrote at those periods in behalf of the Episcopal Church.
Many eloquent passages, in praise of Episcopacy, I have had
the satisfaction of perusing ; but never any so eloquent and
nervous as those of Bishop Womack.
Every man of feeling will be captivated with the simplicity
of style in which he relates his secession from Calvinism, in
one of the following pages, (10,) which was effected by his
perusal of the writings of the persecuted Dutch Remon-
strants : " The greater the prejudices were which had been
** instilled into me against these doctrines, the greater you
" ought to conclude the light to be which hath wrought this
*' my present conviction of their truth, and hath induced me
*' to embrace them, against all the charms of interest and
" secular advantages, wherewith the world tempts us to the
*' contrary." This was the way in which multitudes of the
Episcopal clergy became converts- to Arminianism, during the
4 EDTTOirs PREFACE.
Inter-regnum ; but Dr. Womack is the first man whom I
have found openly acknowledging his immediate obligations
to t\}e writings of the Dutch Divines. In Archbishop Laud's
days,,popi<kr as Arminianism is usually said to have been, no
.njan would own himself to be an Arminian, or indebted to the
HeriionsvrantE^for the change effected in his sentiments : The
reason for this shyness I have given in the second volume,
and an allusion to it will be found in page 688. Traces of
this feeling may be seen even in that intrepid defender of the
doctrines of General Redemption, John Goodwin, who had
nothing to fear or to hope from his Republican brethren, and
who, in all his previous writings, never once made a direct
avowal of his obligations to the illustrious and amiable Pro-
fessor of Leyden, till after he had read and admired Dr.
Womack's manly account of his departure from the ranks of
the Genevan reformer. In doing this, however. Dr. Womack
did not risk any part of his reputation ; for his pamphlet was
published anonymously, and few of his intimate friends knew
him as the writer. His enemies knew still less about the mat-
ter, and outrageously charged other two eminent men with the
publication.
After a perusal of the Examination of Tilenus, it will be
perceived, that its style is far superior to the common style of
that age : It is exceedingly chaste, and does not abound in
Augustinian "quips and quirks," the jocose allusions and
double meanings, which sometimes disfigured and sometimes
enlivened the productions of the eminent men who flourished
in that and the preceding century. But though Dr. Womack
had been educated in a knowledge of many of those doctrines
which are as much the doctrines of the Gospel as of Calvin-
ism, I regret to find, in this masterly exposition of high Predes-
tinarian intolerance, the germs of those noxious errors which,
arising from a spirit of revulsion to some even of the excellen-
ces of Calvinism, became distinguishing tenets in the creed of
~ the succeeding English Arminians. Yet, in humorously ani-
madverting upon the errors of the domineering Predestinari-
ans, it was almost impossible to avoid the extreme to which I
have here adverted ; and such passages of the work as relate
to experimental religion must be read with as much caution as
editor''s preface. 5
those wliicli contain the specious arguments of an Infidel^ and
of a Carnal^ a Slotliful, or a Tempted Professoi'.
But this pamphlet was written for the purpose of exposino-
not only a few of the doctrinal vagaries of the Republican
Calvinists, but likewise the partial and cruel conduct of Crom-
welPs Commission of " Triers,"" whom he had appointed to
regulate the admission of persons into Holy Orders and con-
sequently to ecclesiastical benefices. Of those Commissioners
" the Independents formed the majority, and were the most
active in the use of their delegated powers f This therefore
is an admirable specimen of the ilUherality and intolerant
views of that denomination of Clu'istians.
The interlocutors in the Dialogue, though generally speak-
ing in the same smooth style, were sufficiently distinguished
from each other by the sentiments which they severally ex-
pressed, and were thus rendered objects of public vitupera-
tion. The peculiarities by which each of them was then
known, not having been matters of cotemporary record, are
now nearly lost to posterity. I think, however, it would not
be difficult for a man of letters, accurately read in the singular
lore of that period, to put his finger upon several passages in
the Dialogue, and to say, " This is verbatim one of Dr.
Twisse's curious assertions,"" and " This is in the phraseology
of Dr. Owen, Stephen Marshall, or Jeremiah Burroughes.""
My reading qualifies me to pronounce, with any thing like
certainty, only upon three of them : Mr. Narrow-grace was
intended for Philip Nye; Mr. Know-littU, for Hugh
Peters ; and Dr. Dubious, for Richard Baxter. If it
be objected, " that Baxter was not one of the Trying Com-
missioners^'"' it may be observed in reply, that this circumstance
was not accounted essential to the author"'s design ; for there
is at least another di'amatic personage introduced by name,
who never had more than a sentimental existence in England :
This is Dr. Dam-man, which was the significant name of one
of the secretaries to the Synod of Dort, a person of the most
rigid Calvinistic principles. If all the other portraits were as
faithfully executed as that of Baxter, they must have been recog-
nised by cotemporaries as striking likenesses. Baxter knew
his own features in this faithful mirror ; and the sight of them
(J editor's I'KF.FACF..
roused all liis latent querulousness, to wliicli he gave abundant
utterance in the Preface to his Grotian Religion Displayed.
When I first read the Rev. Thomas Scott's Articles of the
Synod of Dort, I was strongly reminded of Baxter's com-
plaints concerning the abridgment of those Articles, which
will be found in a subsequent page. (39)
John Goodwin had been Womack's precursor in opposing
the Commissions of Triers and Ejectors. In 1 657 he pub-
lished a pamphlet under the title of " The Triers, or Tor-
mentors, tried and cast, by the Laws both of God and Men,'*
&c. In my friend Mr. Jackson's fine Life of Goodzvin, the
reader will meet with copious extracts from this most spirited
and interesting pamphlet. Mr. Hickman, a celebrated Cal-
vinistic skirmisher in those days, found himself aggrieved by
the contents of Dr. Womack's Examination of Tilenus.
Whether, like Baxter, Hickman thought he had discerned
his own face as in a glass, I have no means of ascertaining.
If, however, he had made such a painful discovery, he was
much too prudent to publish it to the world. But, for the
sake at least of the good old cause itself, he published a pam-
phlet against the Examination of Tilenns, upon which Dr.
Womack " let fall a few soft drops," according to the expres-
sion in the title-page to his Calvinists'' Cabinet Unlocked. Hav-
ing adverted to some of the railing names, — such as Ethiopian,
Scribbler.^ this poor Felloxv, — which he had " uncivilly" cast
upon the assumed Tilenus, Dr. Womack informs his readers :
" Master Hickman may pass muster for a precious saint, as
the present accounts are made below ; but I am sure he can
gather none of those^oai^^r* of rhetoric from the discourses of
the holy angels that converse above. He chargeth that
author [Tilenus] with impudence in abusing the Triers : But
I must tell him (on his behalf) when such schemes of rhetoric
are used, — as they may be with vvonderful advantage, being
not only instrumental to illustrate and adorn a truth, but also
to make it the more pungent and take impression, — the abuse
imagined to result from them is ever, amongst wise men,
ascribed to him that takes the impudence to make the appli-
cation. And whereas he saith further, that the Synod of
Dort, which Tilenus writes against, is a man made up ofhis^
KDITOR S I'KKFACi;. 7
oum ngly clouU ; I must tell you, he shall find before he
hath read these papers half way through, that those clouts, as
Vffli/ as they seem to him, are genuine parts of that home-spun
stuff which was warped, and xcoven, and milled too, by that
very Synod of the town of Dort. Neither hath Tilenus set
this web upon the tenter-hooks, nor torn any part, to make
ugly clouts of it ; but only used that liberty which is allowed
to all artists of this kind, fairly to cut out of the whole piece
such proportions as might best serve to clothe his discourse, in
XhaiJ'ashion it is now represented in."
But, not content Avith vilifying Tilenus, Mr. Hickman
" fell foul of" John Goodwin. As the brief answer which
that redoubtable Arminian returned to his rancorous assail-
ant, contains a remarkable confirmation of Dr. Womack's
fidelity of execution, in the portraits which he has here given,
I subjoin a copious extract from it :
" I understand, by some of my friends, who have had the
opportunity and leisure, (which I have not yet had,) to look
into a book not long since published by one Mr. Hickman, —
a gentleman altogether unknown to me, and not heard of until
of late, casting mine eye upon a piece of Mr. Pierce his writ-
ing, I found such a name there, — that this gentleman, pre-
tending in the said book only an answer to Mr. Pierce touch-
ing some things in his writings at which he made himself
aggrieved, two or three several times in this pamphlet stepped
out of his way to ease his mind, perhaps his conscience, in
remonstrating unto the world what high Remonstrant misde-
meanours he had found in me. In one place of his book, (as
I had the passage, transcribed by a steady hand, sent unto
me,) having charged the English Tilenus with making the
Triers to ask such questions, oftlwse that come before them,
a^ in all probability never came into all their thoughts to ask,
upon this his probable misdemeanour he advanceth this Rhada-
manthine and severe sentence, both against him and me :
Which, saith he, is such a piece of impudence as no one liath
ventured to imitate him [Tilenus] in, but that Ishmael of
Coleman-street, [Goodwin,] ivlwse hand, being against all
men, hath provoked all men, even to the common pamphlet-
eer, to lifl up a hand against him. The best is, in cas-c
8
EDITOII S PllKFACE.
Mr. Hickman's reproach here could be admitted for true,
that Jeremy of Jerusalem was ' a man of strife and a man of
contention to the whole earth ,"" as well as that IshmaelgfCole-
man-street, and yet was a true prophet, and never the less like
so to have been for the numerousness of his contests. — Noah
also was ' a preacher of righteousness/ yet his proportion of
opposers far exceeded mine ; and the number of those who
embrace my doctrine with their whole hearts, far exceedeth the
number of those who, upon such terms, received his. — ^Yea»
our Saviour himself testifieth, that, in the church and nation
of the Jews, they who had the more general approbation and
applause were ihejalse prophets, not the true : ' Woe unto
them, when all men shall speak well of them ; for so did their
fathers to the false prophets.' (Luke vi, 26.)
*' Whereas, he chargeth me with veniur'mg' to imitate Ti-
le N us, in making- the Triers to ask such questions, of those
ivho come before them, as in all prohahility never came into all
their thoughts to asJc : The truth is, that he chargeth me with
the crime of such a courage or boldness whereof I was never
conscious. I never made any venture to imitate Tilenus, in
such an attempt as is here charged upon him ; nor did I ever
go before him in any such : I no where either challenge them
or charge them with asking such questions, of those that come
hefore them, zohich in all probability never came into all their
thoughts to ask. If I charge them with asking any questions
in the case, they are only such which themselves and their
own consciences know, that they do or did ask frequently,
and from time to time. And for the questions which Tilenus
liimself makcth them to ask, as far as I remember, if they
were not the same formally et in terminis, yet they were the
same materially and in reality of import, which they were
wont to ask. And for a man in his own words to report
another man's sense uttered in his, is no such venturous piece
of impudence r
Without further Preface, I introduce my readers to Dr.
Womack's very able pamphlet.
JAMES NICHOLS.
THE
PREFATORY EPISTLE
VIKO PARI, ET FAMILIARI MEO
M. S. P.
My Dear and Good Friend,
These Papers come now to your hands, to give you
assurance, that ray many late discourses, upon the subjects here
treated of, were in good earnest. Whatever it was that occasioned
the forming of my conceptions into this shape, there is nothing
in the world hath a greater hand, (if so it may be said of motives,)
to give them birth, than your passionate opposition. For I
am weary of those debates by word of mouth, wherein men of
much zeal and prejudice grow so hot and so far transported,
that instead of solid arguments advancing oi'derly under the
command of sober reason, they can levy no other forces but
froth and choler to assist them. That I may no more break
the peace (in this kind) with you, nor endanger making the
least flaw in that dear friendship that hath, by so long a con-
versation, grown up to so great a height betwixt us ; I have
resolved to take this calmer course, — to give an account of some
grounds of my present persuasions, wherein I differ from your
judgment. Perhaps they may some time or other find your
affections so quiet, your understanding so well awakened, and
your will so willing to stand neuter, till these truths have a fair
and full hearing, that they may make a better impression, than
hitherto they have had opportunity to do, upon you. And
because I remember, (in some heat of dispute,) you have thrown
some things upon me, (which were not so much faults in me,
as prejudices and scandals taken up by yourself,) I shall briefly
wipe them off, that such rubs being removed out of your way,
B
10 Till-: KXAMINATIOX [I'REFAT.
you may have the less objection to friglit you from a further
inquiry into the Articles imder question.
Ami now, I beseech you, in the first place, to upbraid me
no more with the errors of iny education, (for so I must now
account them,) because the greater the prejudices were which
were instilled into me against these doctrines, the greater you
ought to conclude the light to be which hath wrought this my
present conviction of their truth, and induced me to embrace
thenij against all the charms of interest, and secular advantages,
wherewith tlie world tempts us, to the contrary.
Unconstancy, (one of your other charges,) I confess, is
sometimes culpable : But may we not say so too of co7istancij
many times .^ which is therefore resembled (somewhere) to a
sullen porter, who keeps out better company oftentimes than
he lets in. Our happiness that will be unchangeable commenceth
in a change ; and it is our duty to turn from darkness to light,
though we be called "inconstant" for it. We were not bora with
our eyes open ; neither shall we ever see far, if we look no
further than that prospect which some few admired writers have
set before us. " The new man," which we are to " put on," is
" renewed in knowledge ;" * and if we receive our illumination
regularly from heaven, that is given according to the capacity
of the subject. We have a dawning first, but the progress of
our light holds a proportion with the sedulity of our studies.
We are never too old to learn in Christ's school.
" But the great scandal," you say, "is, to profess myself a
disciple to such masters." — What masters do you mean > I call
no man Master on earth, (in this sense,) nor ever will give
any so great a dominion over my faith, as to sv/ear allegiance
to his doctrines. I would, others were as free from this yoke of
bondao-e. But yet I know, it is not only a thing commendable,
but a duty, to march after the standard of truth, what hand
soever carries it before us. And who do you think were
the bearers of it? If you enquire into their learning, (even
their adversaries being judges,) they were as lights shining in
the midst of a crooked and perverse nation ; t and if you ex-
amine their lives, for piety and justice, they were blameless
and harmless as becomes the sons of God ; not more polite in
their intellectuals than unreproveable in their morals, but very
* Cul. iii, 10. t rhil. ii, 15.
EPIST.] OF TILENUS 11
eminent in both. And they have declared their virtues as well
in a way of passive obedience as active. What professors were
ever more constant and cheerful in their sufferings for the word
of God and for the testimony which they held, (having been
taught it, according to their full persuasion,) as the truth is in
Jesus. * — They have been banished, imprisoned, &c ; insomuch
that one of them bespeaks his fellow soldiers (in this conflict,)
after this manner : Vos societatis nosirce decora ac lumina, quorum
v'mcidajam noti in Belgio tantum, sed pene ubique per totum orbem
ChrisHanum celebria facta sunt, qui paiientid vestrd jam per tot
mmos invicta atque infracta, adversariis totique adeo mundo Jidem
Jecistis, conscientiam Eemo7istrantihus pluris esse, quam qidcquid
uspiam carum est in mundo. Ita pergite t^c.t — " You, the lights
and gloiy of our society, whose bonds are famous throughout
-the whole Christian world, whose invincible patience hath given
proof to your very adversaries and all the world besides, that
the Remonstrants value their conscience, above all things what-
soever: March on with me," (saith he,) "to the mark, 'by
honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as deceiv-
ers and yet true : as unknown and yet well known : as dying
and behold we live : as chastened and not killed : as sorrowful,
yet always rejoicing : as poor, yet making many rich : as having
nothing, and yet possessing all things.' " — (2 Cor. vi, 8, 9, 10.)
— Thus far he.
But yovi will say, " Non pcena sed causa, S)-c. ' it is not the
suffering but the cause that makes a man a martyr ;' and those
men run after the error of Pelagius, who was condemned by
the Ancient Fathers as an enemy to the grace of God." — To
this I shall return Arminius's own solemn protestation : Inspici-
antur capita omnia Pelagiance doctriuce, proutilla in Synodis Mile-
viiana, Arausicana, et Hierosolymitana enarranlur et condemnaiitur,
etiam ut ci Pont'ifice Romano Innocentio referuntur ; et adparebit
posse quempiam Pelagianam dodrinam improbare, et tamen doc-
triuce isti (Gomari sc.,J de Predestinalione, non accedere: % And, a
* Ephes. iv, 21. f Apoloj.pro Confess, in Prefat. ad finem.
X " Let all the articles of the doctrine of Pelagius be inspected, as they
stand recorded and condemned in the Acts of the Synod of Milevia, [or
Mela, in Africa,] Orange, and Jerusalem, and even as they are related by
Innocent, the Roman Pontiff; and it will appear possible for any man to
disavow and disapprove the Pelagian doctrine, and yet not make the least
approach to this doctrine of Gomarus concerning Predestination, as it is
expounded iu these theses." — Examcn Thesium Gomari. 156.
b2
12 THE EXAMINATION [fREFAT.
little after, Vrojilcor intereu me Pelagiana dogmata, qua; ipsis
imponunlur a Sijnodis supra noviinath, ex animo deteslari, et si
<]uis connnonslrare possit, ex iis quce dico, quidpiam seqiii, quod Hits
affine est, sententiam mutaturum el correcturum. * If the protest-
ation of this person be not sufficient to clear the innocency of
these tenets, then take Vossius's Historia Pelagiana, and Gro-
Tiuis's Dlsquisilio on that very argument, for their compurga-
tors. Withal, let us remember the caveat, which Arminius
gives, (loco citato,) Neque id solum studio habendum, ut a Pelagi-
ano dogmate rccedatur quam longissime : Caxiendmn etiain ne in
Manichceismam, ant quod Manichceismo est intolerahilius, ratione
saltern consequentiw suos incidatur. f
But you object further, that " these tenets are not agreeable
to the doctrine of St. Augustine, the maul of heretics, as
he is styled." — St. Augustine must give us leave to depart from
him, where he takes leave to depart from all that went before
him, and from himself also; (and which of you will follow him
in all he held }) for it is observed, that he changed bis batteries,
as he changed his enemies ; and employed other principles
against the Pelagians, than those he used in combating the
Manichees : And from the variety of his opinions in these points
it proceeds, that his followers express themselves in such differ-
ent terras, that, though taught in the same school, and of the
same master, yet they seem, as he saith, not to have learnt the
same lesson. And yet we must not deny what Arminius
observed {ubi supra) " that St. Augustine might have confuted
the Pelagians sufficiently, and yet have omitted that way of
Predestination which he taught," And yet the doctrine of
Predestination, as it is handled by Gomarus and the rest of his-
persuasion, diffei-s much from that of St. Augustine, and lays
idowh many things which Augustine would by no means grant,
though the greatest adversary the Pelagians had.
* "In rtie mean time, I profess that 1 detest from my heart the dogmas
of Pelagius, which are assigned to him and his followers by the before-
mentioned Synods ; and if .any person be able to prove, from any thing
which I say, that such consequences ensue as are at all allied to those dog-
mas, 1 will instantly change and correct my sentiments." — Ibid, 157.
•f- " It is not only necessary, that we be desirous of receding as far as
possible from the Pelagian doctrine ; we must at the same time be cautious
not to run into the opposite extreme of Manicheism, — or into that which is
more intolerable than Manicheism itself, at least with respect to its cousfi-
queuces which arc in these ])agcs the subject of controversy."
EPisr.] or Tir.F.Ms. l:^
And therefore your objection, that " these tenets are against
the doctrine of the Synod of Dort," — is of vahie ; for, beside their
dissent from all the Ancients and from St. Augustine himself,
the manner of their proceedings, in carrying on that business
against the Remonstrants, were enough alone to beget an aver-
sation to their doctrine. Take it in their words, who had most
reason to be sensible of the injury. Scrip. Hist. Rem. (mihi
p. 211, J; where they refer us to their Historica Narratio, et
Antidotiim, in which they say, Iniquitas (Dordrac. Si/nodi, J im-
primis aiitem frandes, imposturce, et equivocationes in Canonibus
Synodicis ad horrendam illam Absolulce Predestinationis senientiam
colore aliquo fucandam et incriistandam usurpatce, clarissime dete-
gunlur. * — Tilenus, who was present there, an eye and an ear-
witness of those transactions, could discover something : but he
spares you. And yet he cannot but tell you, that the many
pitiful shifts, and thin distinctions, and horrid expressions,
which he observed to be frequently made use of, by persons of
that persuasion, have contributed very much to the rectifying
of his judgment.
Would it not startle a man, that were well in his wits, sadly
to consider that opinion so stiffly maintained by Piscator, Mac-
covius, and divers others?, viz. + "That God hath so predeter-
mined the will of every man to every action, that he cannot
possibly do any more good than he doth, 7ior omit more evil than he
omitleth." What sad inferences may be drawn, and properly
enough, from this doctrine? Will it not (in the consequence of
it,) take off the wheels of duty, and furnish the careless with an
excuse, and lay all sin at the door of the most Holy God ? Some
of you, indeed, to decline the odium of this assertion, do tell us
the quite contrary ; and affirm roundly, that men may do more
* " In which are most clearly disclosed the iniquity of the Synod of Dort,
but particularly the frauds, impostures, and the equivocations which us
members employed in their Syuodical Canons, for the purpose of disguising
by specious colours and plaisteriug over that horrid sentiment of Absolute
Predestination."
-}• In sumnvX se tueri fafetur Deum absolute decrevisse ab aterno et cffi-
caeiter, ne qmspiam homimnn plus boni fciciat, qnam reipsa facit , atit plus
maliomittar, quam reipsk omittit.. — Piscator ad Amic. Dupl. Vorstii, p. 175.
— [" In short, he confesses himself the defender of this doctrine, — that God
has efficaciously and from all eternity decreed absolulely, that no mortal
man shall do more good than he actually does, or shall neglect the commissioji
of more tvlckedness thati he cwtualli/ omits.'"'\ — See the doctrine of these
Divines recited, Act. Synodal, par. 2, pag. ."6, ?.7.
B 3
14 THE EXAMINATION [PREFAT.
good, and commit less evil, if they will. But (see the fallacy !)
they hold withal, that for them to will either, the decree of
God hath made impossible. You may as well say, that " a dog
can fly, and a horse become an excellent philosopher, if they
ivill." You cannot but take notice, when you are treating of
these points, how your doctrines and jases do interfere ; and
when it hath cost you much noise and sweat to confute, what
you account an error, in the doctrine, — how you are fain to
court the very same opinion to come in, to help you at a dead
lift, in your exhortation. You deliver it for sound Divinity,
that "Christ died only for a few ;" and yet you vehemently
urge all men to believe in him, which they cannot rationally
do unless they be persuaded of the contrary. Have you heard
the preacher inveigh against apostacy ; and yet, almost in the
same breath, tell his audience, " the Elect can never fall away,
and the r-e.yi never stood?" What is this , but to take away the
very subject of that sin ? What construction have T known
some men put upon those particles, in those texts, — " Let him
that thinketh he standeth," (1 Cor. x, 12,) and "What he seemeth
to have," (Luke viii, 18.) — as if they signified nothing but a
bare appearance or misconceit, when it is most evident, they
are either a redundance in the phrase, orim ply reality ! (Heb.iv,!.)
One while you cry Cl ^xQas ! and declaim against prying
into God's secrets; anon you are as definitive, as if you had
been of God's Counsel, and seem to be angry that others should
pretend to have as good a key to open that cabinet as yourselves.
You ascribe much to God's Omniscience, and yet you will not
allow him to see future events but by the perspectives and
optics of such decrees as yourselves fancy him to have made
to that purpose. * You set up his Sovereignty to confront
his other attributes, viz. his Justice and Mercy, and think
you do much honour him in assigning him a power to co7nmand
perjury, lying, blasphemy,t and a prerogative to cast poor inno-
* See the note in the loth paje, and particularly that passage, Idea
prasciuerit quia decreto suo sic ordinaverat, — " The reason of his fore-
knowing is, because he had so appointed it by his decree."
•f- Fateor et ipse, quod ad comniuneni sentiendi cnnsuetudinem crudum
nimis hoc videri ; Deum posse blaspkemiam, perjurmm, metidacium, &^c.
irnperare : quod tamen verissimum est in se. — Vid. Szydlovium apud Steph.
CuRCELL/EUM, de jurc Dci in Creaturas, p. 25,26. This is bound up with
Arminii Exumen Thesium Gotnari, in octavo, of small price, and great
profit. — " 1 myself acknowledge, that, according to the common custom
F.PIST.] OF TH.ENIS. 15
cent babes into hell-torments; a piece of doctrine wliich the
great Patriarch certainly never dreamt of, when he expostulated
of thinking, it seems too crude or open to say, Gnd can command bktsphetnj/
perjui;/, lies, i,;c.: hh can also command, that He shall not hhnstlf be nor-
ihipped, loved, honoured, i^;c. Yet all this is most true in itself ; and from
our p:eneral question this necessarily follows as a special consequence, and
it cannot be denied without admitting a number of absurdities." — Szvdlovh
/ indiciie OttiFst. aliquot ..ye.
In a preceding passage he says, " These are subjects of enquiry, Is any
thing antecedentlu good given to the w ill of God? Or, Jre things just and
good, on account of God having willed them .' Or, Does he uill them, because
they ace just .' It is denied that ' any thing antecedently good is pre
sented to the will of God;' and it is affirmed, that 'things are just and
good, on account of God having willeiV them,' — but not, on the contrary,
that ' God wills them, because they are just and good.' "
In a subsequent paragraph he says, " Some one will object, * It will
' therefore be possible for God to command blasphemy, perjury, lies,
' &c. ; which seems an absurdity I' — I answer. Even in those matters
which relate to the worship of God, men are plafoed under obligation
in no other way, than by conimand and through law : For if it had been
God's good pleasure, then he might have ordered other worship, or
another mode of it, to be performed to Himself. God, therefore, most
freely commanded even those matters which relate to his worship, and in
such a manner as it was possible for him to have commanded otherwise :
and therefore it is only from the hypothesis of the Divine command, that
these are vices. And it seems here to be presupposed, as tliough lies and
blasphemy affected God in some measure, — which is entirely false. It is
certain then, that it was possible for God to have commanded a contrary
mode of worship to be performed to himself. For those things which he
has once freely commanded, he could have commanded otherwise : But this
it was not possible for God to do, on the principles of our adversaries, if
this be essential and natural to him. For natural things arc immutable,
and always proceed in an uniform manner."
In the Eighth Chapter he says, "This question is asked, 'Can God
' command any thing contrary to all the precepts of the Decalogue, — but
'principally against the first, second, and third commandment.'' — A cer-
tain famous Divine rejects the affirmative opinion of some of the school-men
who say. Offences against the Decalogue are evils, soleli; because God has
prohibited them ; and it is possible, therefore, for God to dispetise irifh all
the precepts of the Decalogue. Yet, I confess, I am not only incapalde of
perceiviuj, anj' strong reason in the disputation of that famous man, but, oti
the contrary, it is possible to produce solid reasons and principles by which
that opinion may be refuted."
In the Ninth Chapter Szydlovius says, " It is objected, It is repugnant
to the Divine JVature to dent/ itself ; and it follows, therefore, from the
force of this proposition, that it is impossible for Gnd to command that He
shall not be worshipped, invoked, S(c. — I answer. We deny the consequence.
It is one thing. For God to deny Himself ; it is another, For Gnd to be able
to cnmrnand, that he be denied. The First of these things it is, without
doubt, impossible for God to do, without destroying his nature ; but it is
possible for Him to do the Second."
16 THE EXAMINATION [PREFAT.
with his Maker, and said, " Shall not the Judge of all the
world do right ?" (Gen. xviii, 25.) — Indeed you seem to magnify
the riches of Divine Grace; but when we come strictly to
examine it, it is by a false glass. For when we look through
the other end of the perspective, we find that grace infinitely
extenuated, by the flat and absolute denial of it to the far greater
number of mankind. And that you may have it the more free
to yourselves, you render it very illiberal to the most ^art of
Christians, who equally share with you in the common invitations
and dispensations of it. And that you may make it serve your
own turns in all cases whatsoever, you have laid the great
excommunication (of Reprobation) upon the rest of Adam's pos-
terity, to exclude them, utterly and for ever, from the benefit
thereof. Nay, you think you cannot sufficiently extol, as to
some persons, that special grace which is God's Jree gift,
unless you extinguish, as to others, (as far as your. opinions
These are extracts from a work entitled, A Vindication of some Difficult
Questions in Theology, that have been Subjects of Controversy, which Szyd-
lovius had published at Franeker, about two years prior to the appearance
of Professor Curcellseus De Jure Dei in Creaturas, who adds, " J judged
it proper to make these few extracts, from a multitude of other opinions,
(not only absurd but blasphemous,) with which that pamphlet abounds,
that they may serve as examples of the doctrine which resounds in the pulpits
of the University of Franeker ; and that I might shew what large camels the
reverend Fathers of the Synod of Dort could swallow in their own Maccovius,
who was Professor of Divinity in that University, and from whose instruc-
tion Szydlovius imbibed these sentiments ; while they strained, with tenacious
scrupulosity, even at the least gnats in the Remonstrants. I congratulate
the University of Saumur, [in which Amyraldus was Theological Professor,]
such [doctrinal] monsters are banished from it, and 1 humbly pray God,
that they may remain there buried in eternal oblivion. It is pleasing to me
to hope, that Amyraldus will hereafter exert the force of his genius and the
powers of his eloquence against those portentous doctrines, rather thau
against men [the Arminians] against whom he cannot frame any objection
that is in the slightest degree repugnant to piety and the Divine Glory."
The Friezland University of Franeker was in those days the grand hot-
bed of the rankest Calvinism. It is only necessary to mention the names of
three of the Theological Professors, — Sybrandus Lubbertus, John Macco-
vius, and the English Puritan William Ames!!!, — and the intelligent
reader will instantly recognize three of the greatest Calvinistic sticklers and
most pragmatical Divines of that age. Bishop Womack has given a concise
but just description of Maccovius and his opinions in his Calvinists' Cabi-
net Unlocked, — a work which abounds with the most interesting religious
information respecting the Predestinarian disputes that agitated the Christian
Church at that period. For the character of Lubbertus and Ames, consult
the English translation of The TVorks o/ Arminius, Vol. I, pp. 452, 46a,
469.— EorroR.
t.ra3
EPIST.] OF TILENUS. \.^ I''
can reach,) that Universal Juslicc which is Iiis veryy^ifre ;
to the dignity whereof it is not only disagreeable, but incon-
sistent, that he should (as you would have him,) procure himself"
glory ou^ of the everlasting misery of his own poor innocent
creatures, -or take pleasure in it. — What think ycu of that pas-
sage, which a honest ear-witness told me from the mouth of
one of your brethren ?, '' that God deals by Reprobates, as the
rat-catcher does by those vermin, who stops up all their avenues
and passages, and then hunts them with his dogs, that he may
provoke them to fly in his face." Do such expressions become
the pulpit, or that reverence which should govern our thoughts
when we speak of the Divine Majesty ? But this is one of
your excellent artifices to salve the justice of God's decree of
Reprobation, and because you dishonour him in the first act of
it, (the preterition of those forlorn wretches, without any
respect to sin,) you think to make him amends in the latter,
by saying, in effect,* " that he does necessitate them to sin, that
he may seem not to condemn them without justice." t For thus,
some of your party say, his wisdom hath contrived it, and his
will decreed it, and his power brings it to pass insuperably. I
know you will shift this off", by saying, that " the Reprobates
sin voluntarily." But will this plea more alleviate or aggravate
the cruelty ? That holy man could say, " It is better to be in
* Reprobatio facta est nuUk habitk peccati ratione. fANT. Thvsius ad
Summ. Baronis ex Piscatore.) — Ibi demum mjinitum 0a9of et abyssus est
divinadiscretionis, quando sine peccati ratione quidam reprobantur. (Ii?ein ib.
ex Wittakeri Cygn. Cant. p. 57.) — " Reprobation was decreed without any
regard being paid to sin." — " It is the very abyss and infinite profundity
of the Divine determiuation, when certain individuals are reprobated
without any consideration of sin."
•j- Ouia reprobatio immutabilis est, <^"c. darmis reprobos necessitate pec-
candi eoque et pereundi ex liacDei ordinatione constringi, atque ita constringi,
ut neque aut nan peccare et perire. — Et Mox, IVnn dubitamus ergo confi-
teriS^-c. (Zamchius de Nat. Dei, 1.5, c. 2, de Prsed. pt. 4, Respon. ad
postremum arg. p. 571, Edit. Genev. 1619.) — "This is the answer which
we return to the other reason drawn from 'that necessity of sinning by
which reprobate men are constrained even unto death :' First, Because the
reprobation is immutable by which reprobates are destined to be vessels of
dishonour through wickedness, and on that account vessels of God's wrath :
We grant that reprobates are constrained by a necessity of sinning, and
therefore of perishing, through this ordination of God; and that they are
constrained in such a manner as to be unable to do otherwise than sin and
perish. The Apostle teaches this when he returns no answer to that ques-
tion, ' TVlio liath resisted hisu'ill ?, but confirms it by his silence. St. Au-
18 THE EXAMINATION [PREFAT.
hell without sin, than in heaven with it." If a man be cast
into the gaol without fault, he carries the comforts of a good con-
science to help to bear the burden of his durance: But when
his judge contrives to draw him in to be a partner in some
crime, that the guilt and remordency of his own conscience may
make an accession to his misery, this leaves him nothing to
reflect upon to mitigate his torments. I pray, by whose decree
gustine also often says, that the will of God is the necessitating cause of
things ; and that whatever he has willed, must necessarily come to pas"s, —
in the same manner as those things will certainly occur which he has
foreseen.
"We do not hesitate therefore to confess, that, through this immutable
reprobation, an incumbent necessity of sinning rests on the reprobate, of
sinning indeed without repentance even unto death, and therefore of being
punished with death eternal. But we denj', that they are on this account
forced to sin. For it is one thing, to be constrained by necessity ; and it is
another, to be forced. We Sivc forced, when reluctantly and against our will,
and therefore with some resistance, we are compelled to do or to suffer any
thing: But we are constrained by necessity, when it is impossible foi us to
do otherwise, — although what we do is performed willingly, spontaneously,
of our own accord, and with delight. Thus, a man who is oppressed with
a violent thirst, is constrained by the uesessity of drinking, and necessarily
drinks; he cannot do otherwise than drink, — although he does it willingly
and with great pleasure, and therefore can on no account be said to do it in
opposition to his inclination, or to he forced to diink. — But when the wicked
commit sin, they do it knowingly, willingly, and with delight; so that if
you be desirous ofpreventing them from committing iniquity, they are soon
angry with you. Therefore, you did not speak correctly when yon said,
' They were forced to sin.' Yet, in the mean time, it is impossible for
them to do otherwise ; and they are constrained to it by a certain necessity
through God's ordination or appointment. This necessity, therefore, is by
uo means an excuse for sin, which is committed by a free will, — that is, by
a will which is neither forced nor reluctant, but is perfectly ready and
agreeable. From this necessity, therefore, by which wicked men cannot
do otherwise than sin, it is not to be deduced that Cod punishes and con-
demns them with injustice : For the cause of damnation is found in the
reprobates themselves, according to that passage in the prophecy of Hosea,
* 0 Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself T (xiii, 9.)"
What a mass of inconsistent sophistry do the tenets of Calvin require, to
give them an air of plausibility ! If the reader wish to behold a singular
instance of the unprofitable expenditure of intellect and ability, on the
hopeless attempt ot saving the Divine .Attributes from the open attacks
which Fatalism makes upon them, — but which Calvin's disciples assert, can-
not be justly charged on their system, — he may consult the (otherwise)
admirable works of Zanchius. The concluding passage of scripture from
Hosea, it will be perceived, is incomplete ; for the remaining clause of
the verse, [But in me is thy help,) which removes its applicability to the
reprobate, would not suit the purpose of Zanchius, by whom it has for
that reason been prudently omitted. — Editor.
E?1ST.] OF TILENIS. lf>
comes it to pass that the soul of the Reprobate is polluted at
the first ? * Their first sin comes to them only by imputation, (as
divers of your party do contend,) and that draws all the rest
after it by an unavoidable and invincible necessity, as they
acknowledge likewise. Upon which account, God should have
been less severe if he had cast them into hell innocent, and
without any sin at all, as (you say,) " He cast them off, or pass-
ed them by, at first, without any respect at all to it."
But you have one reserve behind, by the strength whereof
you are confident, after all these disputes and foils, to win the
field at last. Upon the matter you say, " God's decrees could
be no other than they are ; for Decreta et liberce Dei aclio7ies
* Unde factum est, ut tot gentes, S^c. (Calv. Instit. 1.3, c. 23, sect. 7.)
— " What other than the good pleasure of God is the cause why the
fall of Adam involved in eternal and remediless death whole nations,
with their infant offspring ? I confess, thai it is indeed a horrible
decree : Yet no one will be able to deny, that God foreknew what end man
would have before he created him ; and that he Joreknew it, solely because
he had so ordained it by his decree." — Calvin's Institutes, Book iii, ch. 23,
sec. 7.
Et in Responsione ad Calumn. Nebul. ad artic. 1, Interea hanc meam
esse doctrinam agnosco, Non solo Dei permissu,&(c. " In the mean time,
I acknowledge the following to be my doctrine :— Adam fell, not only
hy God's permission, but also by God's secret will, and drew by his
fall all his posterity into eternal destruction. — If thou hast proposed
to subject God to the laws of nature, thou wilt bring him in guilty
of injustice, because on account of one man's crime we are all considered to
be implicated in the guilt of death eternal. One man sinned, and all are
drawn on to punishment. Nor is that the only circumstance, but from the
crime [or vice] of one man all contract the contagitju, that they may be
born in a state of corruption, infected with a mortal distemper. What hast
thou to do with this, my good censor.^ Wilt thou accuse and convict God
of cruelty, because through the fall of one man he has plunged into des-
truction all his offspring ? For though Adam has destroyed himself and his
Tpostarity, yet tve must attribute the corruption and the guilt to the secret
judgment of God ; because the offence of one man would not have concerned
us, unless the Heavenly Judge had condemned us to eternal destruction."
— Calvini Responsio ad Calumn. Nebul. ad art\.
He hath also these words . Li.beri arbitriifuisse dicunt [Adam] ut fortu-
natu ipse sihi fingeret : i^'c. Tujn frigidum commentmn (so he calls it,)
si recipiatur, is^c. — Vide locum. Instit. ubi supra. " They say, that ' It
was at the option [or free-will] of Adam to shape his own fortune ;'
and that God destined nothing more than to treat him ' according to
his deserts.' If such a dull and frigid contrivance as this be admitted,
where will be that omnipotence of God by which he governs all things,
according to his secret counsel which is independent of every other thing ?"
—Calvin's Institutes, Book 3.
20 THE EXAMINATION [PREFAT.
s?int ipse Deus,-^* The Decrees of God are God himself:' — and
therefore to make a conditiortal decree, were to make a conditional
God, and if Election and Reprobation should have respect to
any qualifications in their objects, this would amount to a denial
of God's indepeiidency." And having resolved justification to
be "an immanent act of God, and consequently God himself,
it follows," you say, " from the same topic or principle, that it
must be from all eternity, and that men's sins are remitted before
they be committed; and that it is as impossible for all the most
horrid sins in the world, to cause any interruption of a man's
justification, as for Almighty God to become mutable in his
nature and being ; that faith serves not as a condition to qualify
us for our actual justification before God, but only for a mean
to procure the sense and feeling thereof in ourselves." These
opinions, with many others of like import, you say, do un-
avoidably follow from that one position, which you think as
certain as if you found it (totidem verbis) in the Gospel. But
that the very foundation, upon which you build so many gross
errors, is itself unsound, you may learn from your own Go-
inarus, who was once of that opinion with you ; but, being
afterwards awakened to a more clear sight and mature judg-
ment in this point, he hath left arguments enough upon record
in his own writings to confute you : To which purpose I shall
subjoin his own words presently :
XXVIIL Ex qua, efficientis decreti, explicatione, gravis ilia et
ad veri Dei notitiam ac cullum j)ertinens, controversia ; An decre-
TUM Dei sit Deus, nec ne.'' commodissime dirimi potest. Si-
quidem spectata, cum rei, turn Dei, natura, 7iegatio?iis Veritas
perspicue demonstratur. *
XXIX. Nam a natura rei hcec demonstratio est; Nulla actio,
a consilio et voluntate Dei, libere agente dependens, est Deus :
Deus ejiim, a se, natura est : non vcro, a consilio ac voluntate libere
agente, dependet : Atqui decretum Dei, est actio, a consilio et
* " XXVIII. From this explanation of the efficient decree, may be very
exactly determined that weighty controversy relating to the knowledge and
worship of the true God, which is thus stated, Is God's decree God fiimself,
or not ? For if regard be had to the nature of the thing itself and to the
nature of God, the truth of the negative proposition is plainly demonstrated.
" XXIX. The demonstration from the nature of the thing itself, is the fol-
lowing ; A'o action dependent on the coimsel and will of God when freelif acting,
is God himself. For God is naturally from himself ; and he is not dependent
on his counsel or will when it is freely acting: But the decree of God is an
EPIST.] OF TILENLS. 21
voluntate Dei, libere agente dependens : Ergo decretum Dei,
non est Deus.
XXX. A natura vero Dei Cut causce efflcienlls dec?-eti,J altera
etiain invicta demonstratio promanat ; Deus est ens, absolute ne-
cessarium : Decretum Dei non est ens absolute necessarium ;
Ergo decretum Deij non est Deus.
XXXI. Ex quibiis etiam (ut alia omittamus,) clarissimum,
aeternitatis Dei et decreti discrimen, elucet. Nam ui Dei existen"
tia sit a;terniias ejusdem, ahsoltde necessaria est. Contra verb, el
decreti existe?itia, a causa, liberrime agente, dependet, sic ejusdem
ceternitas mere arbitr aria est ^ nt quce sic est, ut non esse potuerit :
actiou dependent on the divine counsel or will when freely acting ; therefore
the decree of God, is not God.
"XXX. But another invincible demonstration emanates from the nature
of God, as the efficient cause of the decree : God is a being- that is alsoluteli/
neccssari/. But God's decree is not an absolutely necessary being : There-
fore the decree of God is not God himself.
"XXXI. From these premises, omitting other arguments, is most lumin-
ously traced the difference between God's eferniti/, and the eternity of the
decree. For it is absolutely necessary, that God's existence be his eternity.
But, on the contrary, as the existence of the decree depends on a cause
that acts with the greatest freedom, so the eternity of the decree is merely
arbitrary ; it being such as it might have been possible for it not to be, —
which is evident from what has just been declared. The decree therefore is
analogicalli/ called " eternal," not si/noni/moitsfi/, or in the same respect as
God is styled " eternal." Wherefore, from this argument the Deity of the
decree is not established, but is completely overturned.
" XXXII. From the personal actions [of the Deity], that is, from the
generation of the Son by the Father alone, and from the breathing forth
[spiratiou]of the Holy Spirit from both Father and Son, it is proved, that, if
every thing which is in God be 7iot God himself, such a simplicity of the Divine
Essence as the Sacred Writings attribute to it, isnot on that account violated.
" XXXIIl. For it is clearer than the sun, that those personal actions are
in God, in such a manner as not to be God himself, and this without any
injury to his simplicity. For the Essence of God is, absolutely and simply,
common to the three persons ; but, on the contrary, a personal action, such
as the generation of the Son, is not absolutely and simply common to the
three persons, but is peculiar to an individual : Therefore a personal action
is not the Essence of God. — Wherefore, God is predicated synonymously
concerning each of the Divine Persons, but a personal action of God is not
synonymously predicated of each of the Divine persons : Therefore, a per-
sonal action is not God.
" XXXIV. It is not therefore a matter of wonder, if the most free act of
the will of God, in determining future things at his pleasure, may be in
God, and yet not be God himself. — That the celebrated Ursi.vus was not
entirely ignorant of this truth, is apparent from his Explanation of the
Catechism, on the 58th question concerning life eternal ; though he does
not seem to have expounded it with any great accuracy."— Go.mar. J)isj)ut,
22 THE EXAMINATION OF TILENUS.
quemadmoduvi ex superioribus constat. Ideoque decretum, ?ion
syuojipnus , sen eadem prorsus ratione, qua Deus ; sed analogus,
eeternum appellatur. Ac propter ea ex eo, decreti deltas, no7iJirma'
lur; sed evertitur,
XXXII. Neque tameii, essentiaj divince simplicitatem (qualem
Sacrce literal ei allribuiuilj ideo violari, si non omne quod in Deo
est, sit Deus, ex actio7iibtis peisonalibiis (generatione FiUi a solo
Patre, et spiratione Spiritus sancli, ab utroque) evincitur.
XXXIII. Eas eiiim, sic in Deo esse, ut tamen, illccsa illius
slmplicilaie, non sint Deus, sole clarius apparet. Essentia enim
Dei, absolute ac simpliciler, communis est tribiis personis : contra
vero actio personalis, nt generatio Jtlii, non est absolute et simpli-
ciler coinmunis iribiis personis ; sed propria certx : Ergo actio
personalis, non est essentia Dei. Deinde, Deus synoiii/mus prce-
dicatur, de singulis personis divinis: actio personalis Dei, non
prcedicatur si/nonyrnus de singidis personis divinis : Ergo ea non
est Deus.
XXXIV. Ideoque mirandurn non est, si Uberrima voluntatis Dei,
in rebus J'uturis, pi-o arbitrio, determinandis, actio, in Deo sit, nee
iamen sit Deus. Idquc sane non ignorasse, Clar. Ursinum, ap-
paret ex Catechesis explicatione, ad quoist. 58, de vita celerna
qucest. 1, etsi mifius acctirate exponere videatur. — Gomar. Tom. 3,
DiSPUT. 9} ThES. 28, ET SEQQ.
In the mean time, if there be in any one word of this ad-
dress, more asperity, than I ought to use, or yourself can well
digest, I desire you to pardon it, for God's honour's sake,
which I am zealous to vindicate from that foul impeachment,
'vvhich something more than a mere jealousy prompts me to be-
lieve your opinion guilty of. " Nevertheless, (to conclude with
the words of the great Apostle,) whereto we have already
attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same
thing. Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace." * — I have two things which I must yet beg of you
upon the score of our old friendship, viz. the continuance of
your affection and your prayers ; which, I will assure you,
how freely soever you lay them out, shall not be cast away
upon.
Sir, ^
Your true and faithful Friend,
N.N.
* riiili]! iii, 16. — Ephcs. iv, 3.
THE EXAMINATION
OF
TILENUS
BEFORE THE TRIERS IN UTOPIA.
THE TRi
ERS.
Dr.
Absolute, Chairman.
Mr.
Fatality.
Mr.
Prf.terition.
Mr.
Fry BABE.
Dr.
Dam MAN.
[grace
Mr.
Narrowgrace,
alias Sunt-
Mr.
ElFICAX.
Mr.
Indefectible.
Dr.
Confidence.
Dr.
Dubious.
Mr.
Meanwell.
Mr.
SiMULANS.
Mr.
Take-o'-trust.
Mr.
Knowlittle.
Mr.
iMPERriNENI.
The Clerk examined Tilenus, [who
is] a well-wilier to some tenets of the
Remonstrauts, and [who becomes]
by fiction of person,
1. Infidelis, an unbelieving person.
2. Carnalis, a carnal profane person.
3. Tepidus, } « ^«'^^"«'-'« slothful
■> person.
4.TENTATUS, y^'M<^t^d despair-
' ) ing person.
The Commissioners being all sate,
and Tilenus presenting himself (with
a Certificate and a legal Presentation)
before them, the Chairman addresseth
his speech as followeth •
Dr. Absolute. — The great prudence and piety of the govern-
ors of this Commonwealth, (considering how apt the people
are to be influenced by the principles and examples of their
constant teachers,) have been pleased, (out of an ardent zeal
to God's glory, and a tender care of men's precious souls,) to
think upon a course how their dominions may be made happy
in the settlement of an able and godly Ministry amongst them ;
for which purpose they have appointed Commiscioners to ex-
amine the gifts of all such as shall be employed in the office of
public preaching. And seeing you have addressed yourself to
us for our approbation in order to your establishment in that
office, we hope you understand the natiu'c and weight thereof.
24 THE EXAMINATION
You are to be a pastor, not of beasts, but of reasonable creatures,
framed after God's own image, and purchased with his blood.
Having undertaken this charge, it is incumbent upon you to
watch for those souls under your inspection, as one that must
give an account ; and what shall perish through your default,
will be required at your hands. And that we may not be
found betrayers of the great trust reposed in us, we must
receive some satisfaction, how you stand qualified for the carry-
ing on so great a work as you pretend to be now called unto.
And because it is to be suspected that he who hath been so
regardless of his own soul, that he is not sensible of the work
of grace in himself, will not be very zealous in his endeavours
to procure it to be wrought in others ; therefore let us be in-
formed, in the first place, what assurance you have that you
are in the state of grace.
TiLENus. — Sir, I trust, you shall find, that I am no Repro-
bate.
Dr. Confidence. — Methinks you speak very doubtfully.^
Til, — Sir, I humbly conceive, it becomes me not to be too
confident, when the modesty of the great Apostle Avas content
(upon occasion) with the very same expression which I used.
(2 Cor. xiii, 6.)
Efficax. — But can you remember the time and place, when
and where, that work of grace was wrought in you .'' By what
means, and upon what occasion ?
Til. — I suppose they are violent and sudden changes only,
(from one extreme to another,) that fall under such a punctual
observation. — Had I, with Mary Magdalene, been so notoriously
lewd as to make the city ring of my crimes : — Or had I travelled
with a design of blood, as Paul did, and procured a commission
to execute it upon the Church of Christ, my conversion, if
sincere, in that case must needs have been very remarkable : —
Or had I committed adultery, and then tempted the injured
party with so much artifice to cloak it, and because I could not
with all the wicked charms of intemperance prevail to induce
him to it, [^had I] deliberately contrived and commanded his
murder : — Or had I (though upon a surprise,) so passionately
denied and foresworn my Lord and Master, (as you very well
remember who did,) — the solemnity requisite to attend repent-
ance for such offences, would have made as deep an impression
in my memory, as the frequent inundation of tears did in those
OF in. EN US. :io
transgressors' cheeks, and there would have been no need of
red letters in my calendar to render such a time observable with
me. But, blessed be God !, by whose providence it was, that,
being dedicated to the service of Christ in mine infancy, the
piety of my parents took an early care that I should not be
alienated from him through the allurements of the world, for
want of a religious education ; and from a child having been
acquainted (as Timothy was) with the holy Scriptures, "which
are able to make us wise unto salvation, through faith which
is in Christ Jesus ; herein I have exercised myself, through the
assistance of his grace, to have always a conscience void of
offence towards God and towards men."
Narrowgrace. — You speak as if regeneration came by na-
ture and education.
Til. — No, Sir; to say "regeneration comes bi/ nature," were
a contradiction.
Take-o'-trust. — Do you not remember what the Apostle
saith ?, " We have all sinned and come short of the glory of
God." (Rom. iii, 23.) And, "We are dead in trespasses and
sins, and are by nature children of wrath." (Ephes. ii, 1, 2.)
Can there be so great a change wrought in a man, as is a change
from death to life, and he have no apprehension or feeling
when such a change is wrought in him?
Til. — When I reflect upon the exuberance of the Divine
grace under the gospel, I persuade myself, there is some differ-i
ence betwixt Christians, born of faithful and godly parents,
and from their childhood educated and instructed in the ways
of faith and piety ; — I say we must make a difference betwixt
these, and those Jews and Gentiles of whom the Apostle speaks,
before they were made Christians. I know you will not allow
Heathens to stand in competition with the servants of Jesus,
devoted to him from their very infancy : neither is the law and
discipline of Moses an equal standard to measure the dispens-
ations of the grace of Jesus Christ by ; and yet, if you consider
Zachary and Elizabeth, (who were trained up under the peda-
gogy of Moses,) and date their practice of piety from their
youth, * (as you ought to do, — for why should we make an
exception where God makes none ?,) you will find, that " being
righteous before God, and walking in all the commandments
and ordinances of the Lord blameless," (Luke i, 6,) they were
* 1 Kiii"^ wiii, 12.
26 THE EXAMINATION
not capable of answering your question. When and where and
how the work of grace was wrought in them. Now, if the minis-
tration of Moses (which was, in comparison, " a ministration
of death,") " was thus glorious," how shall not " the minis-
tration of Christ," which is the ministration of the Spirit, " be
rather glorious?" (2 Cor. iii.) Under the gospel that covenant
is fully accomplished, wherein God bound himself to Abraham
by the sacred tie of an oath, to grant ns a power " to serve him
in holiness, and righteousness, all the days of our life." (Luke
i, 74^0 And the conveyances of this powerful grace being all
put so freely into our hands, (this word and sacraments,) it
is required of us as a duty, "to have grace, whereby we may
serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear :" (Ileb. xii,
28.) And doubtless it is only our own inexcusable fault if we
have not; for indeed (be it spoken with holy reverence!) the
administration of our sacred baptism were no better than a
piece of solemn pageantry, if grace were not conferred upon us
in receiving that sacrament ; for therein are begged, on our
behalf, the blessings of Christ, — grace and pardon, with the
renewing and assistance of the Holy Spirit. The church by
prayer seeks for these, on our behalf, by virtue of that cove-
nant wherein God hath promised and engaged himself to
bestow them ; " which promise he for his part will most assur-
edly keep and perform." Then upon this, we engage our vow,
" to forsake the devil and all his works, and to keep God's holy
will and commandments." Can we think, either that God, in
goodness or justice, would require such an engagement at our
hands, (under peril of a greater condemnation,) or that the
church of God in prudence could oblige us to undertake it,
without good assurance of sufficient assistance and power from
his Gracious Spirit to enable us to perform it according to the
tenor of the gospel ?
Frybabe. — It seems you are for universal grace, and you
hold, that all the children of the faithful, (dying in their infancy,
and before they have the use of reason,) are saved by virtue of
that covenant* (made with us in the blood of Christ,) into
which they are consigned at their baptism ; as if all such were
invested with some privilege to exempt them from the absolute
decree of reprobation !
* Isa. xlix, 8.— Heb. xiii, 20.
OF TILENLS. 27
Til. — This, Sir, is the faith into which I have been baptized
and catechised ; for I am taught to profess, that, in my baptism,
" I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an in-
heritor of the kingdom of heaven."
Knowlittle, — But you know, that "without holiness no
roan shall see the Lord." (Heb. xii, 14.)
Til. — That I very well remember : but withal I consider, that,
besides that federal holiness which removes all obstacles in the
children of the faithful, and renders them recipients duly
qualified for the sacrament, I am instructed in my creed to
believe "in God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth me," (that is,
if I do not resist his work and quench his motions,) and am
further directed to beg " by diligent prayer his special grace"
to enable me to discharge my duty to God and my neighbour.;
of which grace (if I be not wanting to my duty,) I have reason
to assure myself, upon the strength of our Saviour's promise.
(Luke xi, 13.) — The short is, baptism being styled "the laver
of regeneration," (Tit. iii, 5, 6.) and the children of the faithful
being in no capacity of putting a bar against the efficacy of it,
the learned Davenant (one of the Divines of the Synod of
Dort,) concludes, that therein they are truly justified, regener-
ated, and adopted ; and, by this means, a state of salvation is
conferred upon them suitable to the condition of their infancy;
and, arriving to the use of reason, if they walk in the strength
of Divine grace, under the command and conduct of the Holy
Spirit, and fight under Christ's banner, as generous soldiers
should do, [^who are]] engaged by solemn covenant and armed
with assistance from above to that purpose, — we are assured, that
" sin shall not get the dominion over them ;" (Rom. vi, 14.) "for
he is greater that is (engaged) in them (for their assistance)
than he that is in the world," (against them.) (1 John iv, 4.)
Whereupon the same Apostle is confident to conclude, " We
know that whf soever is born of God, sinneth not : but he that
is begotten of God, keepeth himself, and that wicked one
toucheth him not." (v, 18.)
Knowlittle. — You speak as if a man might live without sin,
and so be saved without Christ.
Til. — Sir, I believe it is the duty of the children of God, and
therefore possible, " to be blameless and harmless, without
rebuke, shining as lights, in the midst of a crooked and perverse
nation," (Phil ii, 15.) "that at Ciirist's coming they may be
28 THE EXAMINATION
found of him in peace, without spot and blameless." (2 Pet.iii,!^.)
But this is done, not without Christ, but through the power of
his grace, rescuing them from the polhitions that are in the
world through lust, and from all the carnal invitations that do
so earnestly solicit them. Yet this is not, to live without sin ;
for there are sins of ignorance and inadvertency, which, many
times, through the levity of the matter, insensibly steal from us ;
sins of infirmity, wherein we are surprised on a sudden ; and
sins wherein we are overtaken through the daily incursion and
tiresome importunity of temptations : But these, upon a general
humiliation and petition, being put upon the accounts of Christ's
cross, and pardoned (as it were) of course to the regenerate, do
not interrupt his estate, nor impeach his interest in God's
favour : And hereupon such men are reckoned by our Saviour
in the accounts of " just persons which need no repentance," *
(Luke XV, 7,) or [ need ] no more washing, save of their feet, +
* The reader is desired to advert to the introductory remarks, at the
beginning of this pamphlet. But since tlie reasoning of the assumed Tilenus
in this place may be mistaken by the unlearned, it seems requisite to state,
that his application of the phrase, " just persons which need no repentance,"
is sufficiently explained by the sentence immediately preceding, in which
the same persons have all the marks of true penitents ascribed to them by
the author. His words are, " But these [sins], u])on a general humiliation
and petition, being put upon the accounts of Christ's cross, and pardoned," &c.
Without some such necessary qualification as this, the phrase in its com-
mon acceptation can never be applicable to any man living, as long as
the following passages, and others of like import, remain constituent parts
of the revealed will of heaven : — " But row God copimandeth all men every
■where to repent. — There is no difference : For, all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God." (Acts xvii, .30. — Rom. iii, 23.)
No employment can be more inconsistent with the principles of the man
who espouses the benevolent and scriptural doctrines of General Redemption,
than that of endeavouring to narrow the evangelical obligation, which is
binding alike on all men, to repentance, faith, and holiness. Yet there are
individuals, who, while they would shudder to set bounds to the illimitable
mercy of God, can deliberately fritter away by their carnal comments the
essence and glory of the gospel, and reduce it from its Divine and poAferfOl
elevation to as low and inefficient a condition as that of a system merely
ethical. — Such a course of conduct is only another proof of the great obliquity
of which the human intellect is occasionally seen to be capable. But Bishop
Womack was too wise a master-builder in Israel, to engage in such a dese-
crating occupation ; and accordingly, in the very passage which has elicited
these observations, he carefully guards against any popular misapprehension
of his meaning, while he states the advantages of baptism and of a religious
education in as strong and pointed a manner as the scope of his argument
required.
f John xiii, 10.
OF TILENUS. ^
■which is ordinarily performed in the daily use of their prayers
and other holy offices.
Take-o'-trust. — But we see, by daily experience, that the
dearest of God's children do frequently complain of their cor-
ruptions, and bitterly bewail them, and groan under the ap-
prehension and burden of them : " O wretched man that I
am !" &c.
Til. — No doubt, it is fit a Christian should entertain such
a holy jealousy over himself, as may make him humble, and
keep him upon his guard, vigilant and industrious. " Blessed
is the man that feareth always." (Prov. xxviii, 14.)
Narrowgrace. — Yea, but we find also, that the most eminent
of the saints of God have fallen foully.
Til. — We must walk by precept, not by example ; especially
we should take heed we do not transcribe a foul copy, though
written by the hand of the greatest saint in heaven, who, we
know, had never been admitted thither, had not that hand been
washed in the streams of repentance and the blood of Christ. But
the truth is, such is the frailty of our human nature, and the
lubricity, the flexible and wax-like temper of youth, so apt to
receive the impressions of vice, and such the precipitancy of
our passions, — that, if we be not bridled by the benefit of a
more severe and holy institution, and taught to improve our
talents of grace and nature for our own preservation, the de-
ceitful paintry of pleasures, and the snare of occasions, and the
witchcraft of ill company and examples, with the sundry strata-
gems of that politic enemy, (who manageth all the rest to his
best advantage,) will surprise, and foil, and most miserably
"womad us. But as to deny the possibility of j)reventing this mis'
i:hief, were a huge disparagement to the power of the Divine
grace ; so, having that grace so abundantly administered, (as
it is under the dispensation of the gospel,) to prevent, and
assist, and follow us, not to co-operate therewith, but to let loose-
the reins uulo our lusts, and give way for sin to abound, that
grace may much more abound to the working of a remarkable
repentance, that, having such a signal experience of sin and
misery, we may be able to give a punctual account of the time
and manner of our conversion, — what were this but to grow
desperate and tempt God !, a ridiculous folly joined with a
most execrable impiety. Like a man that sets his house on
fire, that he may make light for others to read his evidence by
30 THE EXAMINATION
which he holds it, he turns God's grace into lasciviousness, and
ventures upon a certain evil for an uncertain good ; " whose
damnation is just."
Dr. Confidence. — If a man should do so, wilfully and of set
purpose, I grant it : But if you cannot satisfy our question
concerning your certainty of being in the state of grace, how will
you be able to obey that of the Apostle ?, " Sanctify the Lord
God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to
every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you,
with meekness and fear." (1 Pet. iii, 15.;
Til. — That you may not think I have a desire to wave your
question, by telling you, " that 1 perceive you do many times
allege Scriptures very impertinently," I shall shape my answer
directly to what I conceive to be your meaning. We must
consider therefore what our Saviour Christ saith, Cvery appli-
cable to our purpose,) "The kingdom of God" (in the work we
speak of,) " cometh not (alv/ays) with observation :" (Luke
xvii, 20.) but (many times) it is "as if a man should cast seed
into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day,
and the seed should spring, and grow up, he knoweth not how."
(Mark iv, 26, 27.) And therefore, I observe, our Saviour and
Z}ns2 Apostle do direct us to make our judgment a posteriori,
** from the effects:" " By their fruits ye shall know them ;"
and " let every man prove his own work, and then shall he
have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another." (Gal. vi, 4.)
The children of God are called " Saints of light;" (Col. i, 12.)
and the wise man saith, " The path of the just is like the shin-
ing light, that shineth more and more urito the perfect day."
(Prov. iv, IS.) It is only the conscience loaded with guilt, and
fear, and horror, that, having fire put to it, like a gun charged
with powder and shot, makes a bounce when it is discharged.
Experience teacheth, that the natural day breaks, without a
crack to report it to us ; and so does the day of grace too, in
many souls. Though the sun rise under a cloud, and so
undiscernibly, and the clock of conscience do not strike to give
us notice of the hour, yet we may be assured he is up, by
the effects ; viz. if his influences have dried up the dirt, and
made the plants and herbs to spring out and flourish. Grace is
more discoverable in Uie progress iha?i in the dawning of it.
Impertinent. — But the Apostle saith, "He that hath not
jthe Spirit of Cluist, is none of his."
OF TILENUS. 31
Til. — And I say, as the same Apostle to another purpose, " I
think also, that I have the Spirit of God." (1 Cor. vii, 40.)
Dr. Confidence. — You said well even now from our Saviour,
that " the ti-ee is known by the fruits ;" can you give us a good
account of the fruits, that the Spirit of Christ hath brought
forth in you, so as we may be able to distinguish them from
counterfeit, and discern that they proceed from the Holy Spirit,
and not [^from]] a lying one ?
Til. — That I may not deceive myself nor you herein, I think
the surest way is, not to go by the common Inventory of the
world; whereby I find men pretending to godliness, to be
generally very partial in their reckoning. If they abhor
idols, they think it tolerable enough to commit sacrilege and
sedition; and if they be not drunk with wine or strong drink,
they think it is no matter though the spirit of pride and disobe-
dience stagger them into any schism or heresy. I choose
therefore to follow the Apostle's catalogue, and (if I can find
that in myself,) I hope 1 am safe : " The fruit of the Spirit,"
saith he, " is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good-
ness, faith, meekness, temperance : against such there is no law :"
(Gal. V, 22, 23.) That is, (as I conceive,) " the love of Christ in
sincerity," as it is in Ephes. vi, 24 ; which sincerity discovers
and approves itself, in a constant and uniform observation of all
his commandments. (John xiv, 15.)
Efficax. — How did the Spirit of God bring forth these
fruits in you, if you find them ? Did you ever feel it offer a
holy violence to your will and affections, so that you were not
able to resist the power of it ? You have read how Paul was
surprised in the height of his rebellion, his spirit subdued and
forced to yield, and he cast down to the earth in great astonish-
ment.
Til. — Though I have intim.ated mine opinion in this particu-
lar already, yet I shall add, that the conversion of St. Paul was
not according to the common way and rule, but extraordinary,
in regard whereof he may very well style himself "an abortive."
(1 Cor. XV, 8.) For the ordinary course is not for the kingdom,
of heaven to offer violence to us, and to take us by force ; but for
us to do so by it. (Matt, xi, 12.)
Efficax. — You speak as if the grace of conversion were
resistible ; and so you would make man stronger than God :
But the Apostle tells you, that God exerts and putteth forth a
32 THE li X z\ M 1 N A TU) N
power for the conversion of a sinner, equal to that " which he
wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead." (Ephes.
i, )iO,) And indeed there is a necessity of such a power, for
the accomplishment of this work ; because the sinner is as a
dead person, — "dead in trespasses and sins." (Ephes. ii, 1.)
Til. — It is a rule we have learned in the schools, that ThcO'
login SijmhoUca noii est argumentativa, " Metaphors never make
solid and cogent arguments." Sinners are like dead men; but
no like is the same. If they were absolutely dead, then it were
impossible for them to make any opposition or resistance at all,
to any the least dispensation of grace. Resistance implies re-
action; but the dead have no power at all to act : And yet it
is acknowledged, that the sinner hath a power to resist, and
doth actually resist. But that which is maintained generally
by that side, is, that the power of grace is so prevalent and
invincible that at last it will svibdue and take away the resisti-
bility of man's will. And therefore man is not dead in every
sense. We- find him sometimes resembled to one halt dead ;
(Luke-x, SO.) and sometimes to one asleep :' CEphes. v, 14.)
So that you cannot certainly infer the conclusion desired,
from such figurative expressions. Besides, [^that passage in]]
Ephes. i, 20, speaketh of God's power towards those that were
already believers, and not of his power that works belief in
them.
Impertinent. — It is said of those that disputed with Stephen,
that "they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit
by which he spake." (Acts vi, 10.)
Til. — He speaks of that conviction which the force of his
arguments (dictated to him by the Holy Spirit,) made upon
their understandings, so that they were not able to answer
him in disputation. But he speaks not of any irresistible im-
pression that the internal Divine grace made upon their wills ;
for there was no such effect wrought in them, as appears in the
following verses : but rather the contrary, as you may conclude
from St. Stephen's word, " Ye do alv/ays resist the Holy Ghost !"
(Acts vii, 51.)
Efficax. — By rcsisling the Holy Ghost there, Stephen's mean-
ing is, that they opposed the outward ministry, which was
authorized and sent out by the Holy Ghost.
Til. — The words are plain in themselves, and so they are
literally clear against you. But that this evasion may not
OF TILENLS. 33
serve your turn, we find the Word and the Spirit both together,
in Zach. vii, 12.* Yet it is said, " they hardened their hearts
like an adamant," and resisted both. (Isa. Ixiii, 10.) But (2)
men may, and do resist that power of Divine grace which doth
effectually and eventually convert others ; yea, [[they resist^ a
greater power than that which doth it. " The men of Nineveh
shall rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall con-
demn it ; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah : and
behold, a greater than Jonah is here !" (Luke xi, 32.) And as
much is implied in those other words of Christ: "Woe unto
thee, Chorazin ! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! For if the mighty
works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and
Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes."
(Matt, xi, 21.) — Those Heathen cities would have been wrought
upon by these, gracious dispensations ; but you, to whom they
are so freely and earnestly administered, do resist them. And
why should our Saviour work so many miracles to their senses,
to induce them to believe and be converted .? Ad quid perditio
hcsc? " Why so much pains lost?" For, if that had been the
way, that one superlative miracle, — the irresistible operation of
internal grace, — had superseded the necessity of all others, and
made them utterly superfluous.
Impertinent. — What say you to that text in Luke xiv, 23 ?,
" Compel them to come in." Doth not that imply an irresistible
power upon them }
Til. — This place in St. Luke speaks of a charge given to a
minister, whose office it is to call, invite, and importune, (to
say nothing, that it is a part of a parable ;) and I remember
even now, when you were urged with that in Acts vii, 51, ("ye
always resist the Holy Ghost,") then you could allege, that that
was spoken concerning the outward ministry of the word,
which, you confessed, might be resisted. But now, you pro-
duce a text yourselves, which, though it doth most evidently
belong to the outward ministry, yet because it hath the word
COMPEL in it, and will serve your interest, it must needs signify
* The passage inZechariah reads thus : " Yea, they made their hearts as
aa adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which
the Lord of Hosts hath sent in his Spirit by the former prophets."
'The next passage from Isaiah is, "But they rebelled, and vexed his
Holy Spirit : Therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought
against them." — Editor.
34 THE EXAMINATION"
"irresistible." So that, in the Acts, " the Holy Ghost" must,
according to your interpretation, signify the oiitward minislri/,
and that must be the only thing resisted; but, in St. Luke, the
outward ministrij shall signify "the inward working of the
Holy Ghost," and that shall be irresistible.
Efficax. — The Apostle saith, " It is God which worketh in
you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Phil, ii, 13.)
Til. — The Apostle doth not say, that " God doth this immedi'
ately and irresistibly ;" for if he did, that would evacuate the
force of his exhortation, (which is both a mean and suasion,) to
the duty of " working out our salvation," &c. ; for the en-
forcing whereof that is rendered as the reason, which is " the
cord of a man." He speaks not of the means or manner of
God's working. * And that he works the ability, I grant; but
not the very act itself of our duty, (which if he did, it would be
his act, not ours, and so not obedience, for he hath no superior,)
much less doth he work it immediately and irresistibly.
Efficax. — The Prophet acknowledgeth, that the Lord "work-
eth all our works in us." (Isai. xxvi, 12.)
Til. — If the text were to be read " in us," there were some
small colour for your pretension ; but in the original, it is " for
us ;" and, therefore, rejecting the sense which you would put
upon the words, some vinderstand " all the benefits, which God
nad bestowed upon them," answerable to the former part of the
verse, " Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us : for thou hast
wrought," &c. Others understand it of "their afflictions and
distresses," in opposition to that former branch of the verse, and
agreeable to the verse following, " Other Lords have had dominion
over us " But if you would have the meaning of that (or any
other place of scripture,) to be this, " that God doth im?nediately
and irresistibly produce all our spiritual works," (which are
works as well of duty as of grace in us,) and "that he hath
tied himself by covenant and promise so to do," (as is affirmed
by some,) then it will undeniably follow, that God himself,
being so engaged, ought to believe, and repent, and pray, and do
all other necessary good in us : As Servetus said, " The fire burns
*' not, the sun shines not, bread nourishes not : but that God
" alone doth immediately all these things in his creatures, with-
" out having given them such properties." And then, sure, it were
* 1 Pet. i, 22.— 1 Cor. xv, 10.
OF TILENUS. '85
fitter for the preacher to direct his admonitions to God alone,
that he would perform his undertaken work in men's hearts,
by his omnipotency, unto which they may never find ability
to make resistance. But the truth is, it standeth not with God's
wisdom, neither doth he ever use to work upon the will of man
after this manner, and that for three reasons.
Dr. Dubious. — I pray, let us hear them clearly from you.
Til. — First, then, Though (speaking of his absolute power,)
God can compel and necessitate the will of man, (and so we do
not make him stronger than God, as is very weakly concluded
by some,) yet he will not; because he will not violate that
order which he hath set in our creation. He made man after
his own image, invested him with a reasonable soul, having
the use of understanding and the freedom of will. He endowed
him with a power to consider and deliberate, to consult and
choose ; and so, by consequence, he gave him dominion over
himself and his own actions; that, having made him lord of the
whole world, he might not be a slave to himself, but imprimis
animi sui possesione regnaret, " might first exercise bis sovereignty
in the free possession of his own mind," saith TertuUian. To
force his will, were to destroy the nature of his creature, (which
grace is not designed to do, but only to heal and assist it,) an^i
therefore God deals with man as a free agent ; by instructions
and commands, by promises and threatenings, by allurements
and reproofs, by rewards and punishments. So true is the
saying of that father. Nemo invitusjit bonus. * With this accords
the Son of Syrach : " God made man from the beginning, and
left him in the hand of his counsel. If thou wilt keep the com-
mandments, and perform acceptable faithfulness. He hath set
fire and water before thee : stretch forth thy hand unto whether
thou wilt. Before man is life and death, and whether him
liketh shall be given him." (Ecclus. xv, 14 — 17.)
Knowlittle. — That text is Apocryphal, and therefore will
not serve your turn, if you produce it to confirm a point of
faith.
Til. — My Second Reason shall confirm it out of the au-
thentic canon, and it shall be this: viz., because God will
have our faith and our repentance, and his whole service wherein
we engage ourselves, to be a work of our own choice, — as it is
* " No man is made good iu opposition to his own inclination."
36 THE EXAMINATION
said of Maiy, " she had chosen the good part ;" and hereupon
our Saviour propounds the query, " Will thou be made whole ?"
(John V, 6.) And so the Prophet Jeremiah before him, " O
Jerusalem, wilt thou not be made clean ? when shall it once be ?"
(xiii, 27.) — God doth not necessitate nor irresistibly determine
his people's will, but only directs, and conjures, and assists
them to make the best choice. ' ' Behold I set before you this
day a blessing and a curse ;" (Deut. xi, 26.) and more fully,
*' See, I have set before thee, this day, life and good, death and
evil;" (xxx, 15.) and, "I call heaven and earth to record this
day against you, that I have set before you life and death, bless-
ing and cvirsing : therefore choose life." (verse 1 9-) And this
is rendered as the reason of man's rejection, " Because ye did
not choose the fear of the Lord." (Prov. i, 29.)
Narrowgrace. — By this reasoii you make man to have free-
will.
Til. — Under favour. Sir, it is not I, but it was God that
made him to have it : and he that denies all freedom of will
to man, deserves no other argument than a whip or a cudgel to
confute him. Sure, the smart would quickly make him find
liberty enough to run from it. Our woful experience tells
us, we have too much fi*ee-will to do evil; and Scripture
teacheth us plainly, that we have liberty in moral things ; * and
for the service of God and things spiritual, our Saviour Christ
saith, " If the Son shall make you free," (John viii, 36,) (and
he doth so by the ministry of his gospel,) " ye shall be free
indeed ;" (verse 32.) and " sin shall have no more dominion
over you," — unless ye yield yourselves up to the power of it.
(Rom. vi, 14, 16.) Joshua v/as so well assured hereof, that
he puts it to the people's choice, t (which implies their
liberty,) to serve the Lord or other gods. % Yourself acknow-
ledged even now, out of the Philippians, that " God Avorketh
in us to will and to do," which signifies a liberty, else it could
not signify an ability; whereupon St. Paul saith, la-^vui, ''I
am able to do, or suffer, all things." (Phil, iv, 13.)
Narrowgrace. — The Apostle addeth in that place, "through
Christ strengthening me ;" for " without Christ we can do
nothing." (John xv.)
« Nunb. XXX, 13.— 1 Cor. vii, 36, 37. f Jos. xxiv, 15.
X Yet were llicy not under so ^icat means as wc arc.
OF TILENUS. 37
Til. — Nothing spiritual, that puts us into possession of hea-
ven, or accompanies Siilvation. But, observe, it is not " through
Christ FORCING," but " through Christ strengthening me."
The grace and the ability are from Christ ; but it is our part and
duty to actuate that ability, and co-operate with that grace:
And therefore it will be worth your notice to observe, that what
God promiseth to do himself in one place, He commands the very
same things to be do7ie by us in another; to intimate, that,
although the 'power of acting be derived from his assistance, yet
the act itself, as it is a duty, depends upon our co-operation.
Thus, " Circumcision of the heart" is pi'omised, as from God,
in Deut. xxx, 6; but commanded, as to be done by us, in Deut.
X, 16, and in Jer, iv, 4. — "A new heart and spirit" promised in
Ezek. xxxvi, ^6 ; but commanded in Ezek. xviii, 31. * — " I will
be your God," promised in Jerem. xxxii, 38 ; but commanded
Exod. XX. 3 ; and " if ye forsake him, he will cast you off for
ever." (1 Chron. xxviii, 9) " One heart and one way," pro-
mised in Jer. xxxii, 39 ; yet commanded, Ephes. iv, 3, 4.
1 Cor. i, 10. — So in Jer. xxxii, 40, it is promised, " I will put
my fear in their hearts ;" yet in Prov. i, 29, ^it is said,^ " be-
cause they did not choose the fear of the Lord," and 1 Pet. ii, I7.
— So it is promised, " I will write my laws in their inward
parts, and they shall be all taught of God." (Jer. xxxi, 33,
Isai. liv, 13.) Yet, in other places, it is commanded, "Be swift
to hear ; take heed how you hear ; as new-born babes, desire
the sincere milk of the word." (1 Pet. ii, 1, 2. See Prov. vii, 1,3;
and Rom. x, 8, I7.) — So it is promised in Isai. i, 25, "I will
purge;" yet, in 2 Tim. ii, 21, "He that purgeth himself." —
So it is promised in Jer. xxxiii, 8, " I will cleanse them from
all their iniquity;" yet in James iv, 8, Isai. i, 16, IS, it is com-
manded, " Wash ye, make ye clean." — And it is evident, that
God many times fulfilleth his promise and performeth his part,
when man altogether neglecteth his part and duty. " I have
purged thee and thou wast not purged." (Ezek. xxiv, 13.)
— See Matt, xi, 21, Luke vii, 30.
Dr. Dubious. — Enough of this ! You promised us a third
reason, why God doth not (as you pretend,) work man's con-
version and his faith, by a power of grace irresistible : I pray
let us hear that also.
* Ephcs. iv, 23.
38 THE EXAMINATION
Til. — Sir, you shall have it in a few words, and it is this :
Because he will not save us, (I speak of the adult, who have
the use of their faculties,) but in a way of duty. " If thou do
well, shalt thou not be accepted ?" (Gen. iv, 7.) " To them
who by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory and
honour, and immortality," (Rom. ii, 6, 7,) to them, and to them
only, will he render "eternal life ;" and therefore He is said to
be " the Author of eternal salvation, only to them that obey
him." (Heb. v, 9-) Now, observe, that which is not wrought
by the omnipotent impulse and irresistible motion and operation
of God, — that cannot be the duty of a poor frail creature. Or
thus, what is a work of Ahnightiness in God, cannot be a work of
obedietice in us; if it were, it would conclude us to be omni-
potent. Besides, the act could not be an act of duty ; Christ
could do nothing, that was duty for us, till he had submitted
himself to the condition of our nature;* because God, sup-
posed to be the doer of it, is not under obedience. But repent-
ance and amendment of life, &c., are required, as a duty, of us,
and as pai't of our obedience. " Amend your ways," (Jer. vii,
3, 5,) " and make you a new heart and a new spirit." (Ezek.
xviii, 31.)
Knowlittle. — By this doctrine, you seem to make a man his
own saviour.
Til. — If I should, not only seem to do so, but do so in good
earnest, (so it be in a way of suhordinalion to Christ,) I see no
harm in it. St. Paul saith, "Work out your salvation." Yea,
St. Peter, exhorting to repentance, saith expressly, " Save your-
selves." (Acts ii, 40.) To our safety our own sedulity is re-
quired, according to that trite saying, " He that made thee
without thyself, will never save thee without thyself."
Dr. Absolute. — Methinks, this doth hardly sound like that
doctrine which the Apostle labours so earnestly to establish, to
shut the creature for ever out of all ground and occasion of
boasting. Rom. iii, 27.
Til. — For a man to boast himself in his riches is vanity, —
in his wickedness is impiety, — in his works, performed in obedi-
ence to the law of Moses, or out of the strength of nature, (as
if they could justify and save hinti,) is arrogancy: — But to
glory in the Lord, and rejoice in his salvation, is not only allow-
* Phil, ii, 7.
OF TILENUS. 39
ed, * but also enjoined, t and practised. " Our rejoicing (or
glorying) is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in sim-
plicity and godly sincerity, not by fleshly wisdom, but by the
grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world."
(2 Cor. i, 12.) "Let every man prove his own works," (per-
formed in the faith of Christ, and through the power of his
grace,) " and then shall he have rejoicing, (glorying, boasting,)
in himself." (Rom. xv, 17. — Gal. vi, 4.) — Tt is the same word
in these two places, with that in the text objected, Rom. iii, 27.
Dr. Damman. — Are these your tenets consonant to the Articles
of the Stjnod of Dort ? What opinion have you of that, and the
doctrine held forth by the Divines in that assembly .''
Til. — I have had as great a reverence for that Synod as any
man living; the principles, therein delivered, being instilled
into me from my youth. But, I thank God, studying the best
method for the cure of souls, and the opportunity of reading
better books, have already altered my judgment quite.
Dr. Damman. — Do you think you have changed so much
for the better, that you have reason to give God thanks for it .''
Til. — Yes, truly ; and, I persuade myself, you would be of
that mind too, if you would patiently attend to my objec-
tions against their doctrine, and weigh them without preju-
dice or partiality. But, before I propound those objections, it
will be requisite that we take a brief view of that doctrine ;
which I shall therefore concisely, yet truly and clearly, sura up
in these Five Articles following :
They hold, — J . That God by an absolute decree hath elected to
salvation a very little number of men, without any regard to their
faith or obedience whatsoever ; and \liatir\ secluded from saving
grace all the rest of mankind, and appointed them by the same dt"
cree to eternal damnation, without any regard to their infidelity or
impenitency.
2. That Christ Jesus hath not suffered death for any other, but
for those elect only ; having neither had any intent, ?ior commandment
of his Father, to make satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.
3. That by Adam's fall his posterity lost their free-7vill, being
put to an unavoidable necessity to do, or not to do, whatever they do
or do not, whether it be good or evil ; being thereunto predestinate
by the eternal and effectual secret decree of God.
* Rom. ii, 7. f 1 Cor. i, 31.— Phil, iv, 4.
40 THE EXAMINATION
4. That God, to save his elect from the cor nipt mass, doth beget
faith in them, by a power equal to that whereby he created the
world and raised up the dead ; insomuch that such unto whom he
gives that grace, cannot reject it ; and the rest, being reprobate,
cannot accept oj it, though it be offered unto both by the same
preaching and ministry.
5. That suck us have once received that grace by faith, can never
fall from it finally nor totally, notwilhstatiding the most enormous
sifts they can commit.
Dr. Damman. — I confess you have done the Divines of that
Synod no wrong in setting down their tenets. But what ob-
jections have you against the doctrine.
Til. — I shall insist only upon this, (and it is so comprehen-
sive I need mention no more,) It doth not only evacuate the
force and virtue, but quite frustrateth the use, of the ministry
of the word, and all other holy ordinances instituted by our
Saviour Christ, and commanded to be continued, for the edi-
fication and benefit of his church, to the world's end.
Dr. Dubious. — How can you make that appear ?
Til. — For the ministry of the word, it is employed either
about the wicked or the godly. The wicked are of two sorts, —
either infdels despising, or car7ial persons professing, the holy
gospel. The godly are of two sorts, or two tempers likewise, or
we may consider them under a two-fold estate, — either as remiss
imd tepid, or else as disconsolate and tempted : so that the minis-
try of the word is designed to a four-fold end, in respect of
man :
1. The conviction and conversion of an infidel.
2. The correction and amendment of the carnal.
3. The quickening and provocation of the tepid and slothful.
4. The comfort and consolation of the afflicted and tempted.
But the former doctrine of the Synod of Dort, is so far from
being serviceable to any of these four ends, that it is directly
repugnant to them all, and therefore not consonant to that holy
Scripture given by inspiration of God, which is prof table for all
those ends, as the Apostle saith, — " for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of
God, who is a helper of the people's joy, * may be perfect,
thoroughly furnished unto every good work." (2 Tim. iii, 15, l6.)
* 2 Cor. i, 24.
or TILF.NLS, 4r
That tin's may the more evidently appear, I desu-e you with
Avhom that doctrine is in so high esteem, to make a practical
attempt of it : Herein I desire you to be true to your own prin-
ciples, and not to shuffle, as usually in your popular sermons,
wherein the Sijnodical and Calvinian principle in your Doctrine,
is always confuted by an Arminian exhortation in your Applica-
tion. In the mean while, I am content to personate successively
those four sorts of men ; and, for method's sake, I pray address
your discourse. First, for the conversion of Tilenus Infidelis.
I. TILENUS INFIDELIS.
Dr. Absolute. — Most gladly will we undertake this task;
that we may convince you of the errors in which we see you
are immersed ; pi-ovided you do not study to be obstinate, nor
allege any other reasons to justify your recusancy and averse-
ness to the Christian faith, than what you clearly deduce from
the doctrine of the Synod and the Divines thereof. — To begin
the work then, we will take it for granted that you acknowledge
a Deity; and [^we]] demand of you, with what attributes this
Deity is, according to your apprehension, invested and clothed.
Til. Infidelis. — The school of nature hath determined that
question by so many irrefragable arguments, that I am convinced
long since, that there is a Sovereign Power called God ; and
when I consider such beams and characters of wisdom and
knowledge in the soul of man, such impressions of truth and
justice upon his conscience, with so great a variety of goodness
in all creatures, I must conclude, that God, the Maker of all
these, is an Eternal Being, inJiniteJy wise, good, and just. I
believe further, that this most wise God in communicating so
much goodness unto man, intended hereby to oblige him to
pay, according to his ability, such homage and service as is
due to his sovereign excellency and bounty, and in performance
hereof we may be confident to find protection and reward.
SiMULANS. — The God whom we profess and worship, and he
alone, is such a God as you have described ; but niore merciful
and gracious, hifinitcly, than you have been acquainted with ;
to whose service, therefore, we do most earnestly invite you.
Til. Infid. — I thank you for your pretended kindne.ss. But
if you can produce no fairer glass to represent the nature of
your God, than the doctrine of that Synod, I must tell you,
I shall have no temptation or inducement at all to believe in
him : For that doctrine is so for from exalting the attributes of
D
42 THE EXAMINATION
wisdom, goodnpss, arid justice in him, that it doth in a high
measure impeach them all.
Fatality. — You will never be able to make that good.
Til. Infid. — I beseech you, hear me patiently. For his
WISDOM first : I conceive that is extremely eclipsed, in that he
hath made choice of no better means to advance his own honour,
but hath stooped to such mean and unworthy designs to com-
pass that end, as all but tyrants and bankrupts would be
ashamed of.
Dr. Dubius. — How so?
Til. Infid. — Your doctrine, if it does not belie the Majesty
you profess to worship, supposeth him to have made a peremptory
decree, whereby his subjects are necessitated to trade with hell
and Satan for sin and damnation, to the end he may take advan-
tage out of that commerce to raise an inconsiderable impost to
augment the revenues of his own glory.
Preterition. — We have his own word for it, " Is it not law-
ful for me to do what I will with mine own?" (Matt, xx, 15.)
Til. Infid. — (1) Your , Scripture must not conclude me,
while I personate the Infidel. — But (2) We are not now argu-
ing what God may do by his absolute poiver and right of dominion,
but what is agreeable to his infinite wisdom. — And (3) Your text
speaks of a free disbursement of his favours : but our discourse
proceeds upon the account of appointing men to sin and punish-
ment. Now I hope you will not call sin " God's own," though
your doctrine concludes him fairly to be the Author of it; and
for the punishment, — he is pleased to call that opus alienum, not
his own but " a strange work." But if your God, for his mere
pleasure only, and to make demonstration of his absolute power,
hath appointed to eternal torments the greatest part of his noblest
creatures without any respect to sin, as some of your Synod do
maintain, not regarding his own image in them, — what is this but
to play tlie tyrant ? and where then is that infinite goodness, which
you profess to be in your God, and which I expect to be in that
God whom I fear and honour? " A righteous man regardeth the
life of his beast;" (Prov. xii, 10.) yet his mercy is to be but a
a copy transcribed from that original in God. * But if your
God be of that temper, the righteous man may very well be a
precedent of mercy unto him.
Preterition — Indeed some of the Synod do maintain that
rigid way , but the Synod itself determined otherwise, viz. that
* Luke VI, 36.
OF TiLENus. ■ 4:3
Almighty God, looking upon mankind as fallen in the loiii.t of'
Adam, passed over the greatest pail of them, leaving them in
that lapsed estate, not affording them sufficient gi'ace for their
recover}', ordaining finallj' to condemn them.
Til. Infid. — If for the sin of another man, and that pardoned
to him that did wilfully commit it, but imputed to his posterity,
(who never were in a capacity to taste the pleasui'e of it, to
consents unto it, or protest against it,) your pretended God
deals thus cruelly with them, depriving them for ever of his
grace which should enable them to repent, and sealing them
up by an irrevocable decree under an irresistible necessity con-
tinually to sin and then to perish everlastingly for so sinning ;—
where is that infinite justice, accompanied with that super-
abundant MERCY and graciousness, [[which]] you affirmed to be
in him ? I have heard, that the God whom Christians do adore,
is so infinitely merciful, that he " will have all men to be saved,
and none to perish ;" and [[that^ not able to swear by a greater,
[[he^ swears by himself, that he " wills not the death of a sin-
nei-, but that he may repent and live ;" that he protesteth the
sufficiency of his own applications, and bewaileth their wilful
obstinacy, and expostulateth most earnestly : " What could
have been done more that I have not done } O that there were
such a heart in you ! Why will ye die ?" Indeed there is so
much grace and sweetness in these expressions, they would
bring a poor wretch presently upon his knees to such a God.
Dr. Dubius. — These are all the very expressions of that
God whom we serve, into whose gracious arms and bosom we
so earnestly desire to bring you.
Til. Infid. — If you could teach me how to reconcile these
expressions to the doctrine of your Synod, I should say some-
thing : but I conclude that impossible.
SiMULANs. — I shall willingly undertake that work, as hard as
you make it, and a great deal more too, to gain your soul out
of the state of infidelity. There is a three-fold distinction used
amongst our Divines, that will untie the knot presently. (1)
Mr. Calvin (in Ezek. xviii, 23,) hath very learnedly observed,
that God hath two wills : One outward and revealed, whereby
he doth most sweetly invite sinners to his grace, and most
graciously calls them to repentance, seeming as though he were
most earnestly desirous of their salvation. The other will is
imvard and secret, which is irresistible and takes effect infallibly ;
44 THE EXAMINATION
and by this he brings, through ways unavoidable, to an estate
and course of sin here, and then to eternal damnation and
punishment hereafter." Now, to apply this ; you must under-
stand those places of scripture, forementioned, of God's outward
and revealed will which is uneifectual, not of his inward and
secret will which is unresistible.
Til. Infid. — A very useful distinction, and tending much to
the honour of your God, as you have applied it ! I see you
have not your name for nought, Mr. Simulans ! But for my
part, I think Homer was much more honest than you and your
God, when he says, that Ep^Ggor /x£v i^oi, &c. " Who speaks
contrary to what he means, ought to be held as a common ene-
my, and hated as the very gates of hell." But perhaps your
second distinction may be more satisfactory. 1 pray let us have
that.
Simulans. — We must make use of distinctions to clear our
doctrines from contradiction ; and if that doth not like you, we
have another which cannot be denied. When it is said, that
" God would have all men to be saved," the word "■ all" is to be
understood, non de singulis generum, but de generibus singulorum :
" not for all of every kind," but " for some few only of every
sort and nation."
Til. Infid. — Methinks, Sir, if this be the meaning of the
words, the Scripture might have said with far more reason, that
*' God will have all men to be damned," since of every nation
and condition the number of the damned do so far exceed the
number of the saved, according to your doctrine ; and reason
requires, that the denomination should be made according to
the major part. But perhaps your third distinction will help
this out.
Simulans. — The will of God is either approhans tanliim, or
else approbans et efficiefis simid. * God, we say, will have all
men to be converted and saved approbative, non effective : " he
approves of it and likes it well in himself that all men be con-
verted and saved, but he wills it not effectively ;" that is, he
hath decreed the contrary, not to give them means necessary
to the attainment of it.
Til. Infid. — This distinction I conceive no less unreasonable
and absurd than the former. That your God should appoint by
* God's will is either that oi approbation alotie, or that of approbation and
efficiency together.
OF TILENUS. T^
a secret, absolute, and irrevocable decree, that those things
which he doth naturally hate and abhor should be most prac-
tised, and those which he naturally loves and likes should be
omitted ; — this is so inconsistent with that infinite wisdom and
goodness, which you proclaim to be in him, that I cannot find
myself, in any measure inclined to acknowledge him the Go-
vernor of the world. I suspect rather, that you have a design
to make me become a proselyte to the Manichseans, who pro-
fess two principles, — a wicked one as well as a good one ; and
having acknowledged my persuasion of a good God, who loveth
righteousness and hateth iniquity, you tempt me to believe a
wicked God also, which is the Author of all evil, and in per-
petual hostility against the former. It were so great an impeach-
ment of his sincerity, that no civil person would endure to have
his words so interpreted as you interpret those of your gospel ;
the unavoidable consequence whereof is, that your God is the
true Author of all the sins and wickedness of this world, both
past, present, and to come.
Fatality. — We say. Dens est causa cur peccatum existat, sed
non cur sit, " God is the cause of the existence, but not of the
essence, (if I may so speak,) of sin ;" as he that drives a lame
horse is the cause of his halting, but not of his lameness.
Til, Infid. — This distinction will hardly help the lame dog
over the style : For, he that drives a horse unavoidably into
that motion, which necessarily causeth his first halting, is cer-
tainly the cause of his lameness: and so did your God drive
Adam (according to your own doctrine,) into the first sin ;
which made him and his posterity halt ever since.
Fatality. — You must distinguish the materiality of sin from
Xhe formality of it ; or the act from the deformity. God, we say,
is cause of the act, or the materiality : but not of the formality,
the defect, or obliquity of it.
Til. Infid. — I reply, (1) That there are sins of omission,
which happen (according to your doctrine,) by reason the offender
is deprived of necessary and sufficient grace to perform the duty,
and these sins are not capable of that distinction ; and if the
deficient cause in things necessary be the efficient, you know to
whom such sins are to be imputed, — (2) There are sins of
commission not capable of that distinction neither ; as in blas-
phemy, murder, adultery, wherein the act is not to be distin-
guished from the cxorbitayicy ; were such a distinction allowable
D 3
46 Till': EVA Ml NATION
before God, (and if it be not, sure it is not to be alleged on his
behalf,) every transgressor might shew a fair acquittance, and
justly plead not guilty. The adulterer might say, he went in
to his adultress at a woman, not as she was married to another
tnan ; and that he humbled her for pi-ocreation, or for a remedy
of his concupiscence, not for injury io her husband. The blas-
phemer might say, what he spake was io make use of tlie foicidly
of speech which God had given him, and to keep his tongue in
use, not to dishonour the Almighly. And so (might every offender
have leave by virtue of this distinction to separate his siiiful act
from the enormity of it,) every sin would become a miracle,
that is, it would be an accident v/ithout a subject. If your God
stands in need of this logic himself, there is all the reason in
the world, that (when he sits in judgment) he should allow
the benefit thereof to others. — But (3) the greatest Doctors of
your Synod have written, that " God doth predestinate men as
well to the means as to the end :" but the natural act (granting
your distinction,) is not the cause of man's damnation, as it is
an act, but only as it is sin ; and therefore those unfortunate,
forlorn Avretches whom the absolute pleasure of your God hath
invincibly chained to the fatal decree of Reprobation, can no
more abstain from following sin (the means,) than avoid damn-
ation (the woful end,) to which they are so peremptorily
designed.
Fatality.— We do not desire that you should launch out
any further into that unfordable abyss of horror and astonish-
ment,— the decree of eternal Reprobation. It is more for your
comfort, to " make your calling and election sure ;" to get an
interest in Jesus Christ through faith; by whose means the
eternal decree of mercy may be accomplished to you.
Til. In fid. — If the decree of God be really such as you
propound it, my endeavours would be to as little purpose as
your instruction is like to be : For if every man be inrolled
from all eternity, (after such a sort as your Synod hath deter-
mined,) in one of those two fatal books of life or death, it is
as impossible to be blotted out of either, as for God to deny
himself. To what end then serves all your importunity }
Impertinent. — It were too great an arrogance m us to piy
into God's secrets. " Till he gives us a key (of his own making)
to unlock that cabinet, we must not undertake to read the
mysteries [^which^ he hath locked up in it. 'I'liere are visible
OF TILENUS. 47
marks by which we may discern the Elect from the Reprobate,
and those we must reflect upon, to the making out of our
assurance : And because our vocation is the next saving benefit
that results from our Election, and it is altogether uncertain
when God will vouchsafe it to us, whether at the third, or at
the sixth, or at the ninth, or at the last hour of our lives;
therefore every one ought to keep himself in readiness, to
answer when God knocks, and to obey when he calls. What
you utter in your ignorance and unbelief is capable of so much
alleviation that it proceeded from you in such a state; other-
wise I should tell you it savours much of a spirit of Reprobation,
to say, " that, since such as God hath elected, are elected to the
means as well as to the end, men work in vain to believe, and
do the exercises of piety, as well as to be saved ; and to perform
these in oi*der to their salvation."
Til. Infid. — If it be so great an arrogance to pry into these
secrets, why do you so positively define in them, and so per-
emptorily obtrude your definitions upon others ? — But (2) If
all men be infallibly enlisted under one of those two regiments,
of Election or Reprobation, and we be not able to distinguish
to which we do belong, till God be pleased to call us over and
give us our special marks and cognizance; and if that vocation
be not in our own power to procure, all our works and endea-
vours that are brought forth before it, being born in sin and
children of wrath, (as your doctrine teacheth,) and so not con-
ducible to that purpose, — sure it were a piece of improvidence
at least, if not a huge presumption, to attempt thus to prevent
the will of God and anticipate the decrees of heaven ; notwith-
standing, it is a part of our faith, (as you define it,) that we
must needs stay till that saving call of God doth ring so loud in
our ears, that it is impossible we should be deaf or disobedient
to it.
Dr. Confidence. — None but a Reprobate would argue after
this manner.
Til. Infid. — If you be of that opinion, I will hear no more
of your instructions : For I understand, it is one of your tenets,
that " the gospel is preached to the greatest part of the world,
to no other end but to aggravate their condemnation ;" as it is
recorded by a chief professor of that doctrine, called Mr. Calvin,
that God doth direct his word unto such, "that they may
become the more deaf; and that he doth set his light before
48 Till-: EXAMINATION
t'lem, ofpurj-o'^e to make them the more blind," (Instit. Ill,
chap, xxiv, sec. 13.) And it' this be the infinite wisdom, good-
ness, and JUSTICE of your God, those at whose ears there
never arrived any inteHigence of him, are the more liappy, or at
least the less unfortunate and miserable, than those who are
brought into some acquaintance with him and yet cannot
believe, because the notice they have of him, through his own
unprovoked restraint, is not attended with grace necessary to
■work belief in them.
Impertinent. — We advise you to betake yourself to your
prayers, " that these thoughts of your heart may be forgiven
you," and that God would put you into a better mind.
Til. Infid. — I am weary of these absurd contradictions:
for if the best works of the unregenerate be not only unfruitful,
but noxious and hurtful, (as they are accounted by the test and
scale of your doctrine,) and if it be " impossible to please God
without faith" in Christ, and that faith not to be ushered into
the soul but by the dead-aAvakening call of the Almighty, my
pra3'ers in this state of infidelity will rather provoke and ex-
asperate that God unto whom you advise me to pray, than
propitiate and appease him. That philosopher, therefore, gave
those wicked passengers whom the violence of a tempest had
stormed into a fit of devotion, a great deal better counsel, when
lie said, Slide, ne dii vos 7iebulones hie fiavigare scntiant : He bid
them " hold their peace, lest their cries should give the Gods
warning to take their advantage to shipwreck and destroy them."
By this, gentlemen, you see with what success you are able
to manage your plea according to your Synod's principles,) in
behalf of your God against an Infidel; perhaps you may come
off better in your attempt to correct a wicked Christian : I
desire, therefore, in the next place, that you Avould make proof
of your discipline upon Tilenus Carnams.
II. TILENUS CARNALTS.
Fatality. — Herein, methinks, I should make no great diffi-
culty to prevail, if the power of reason can but fasten upon your
understanding, or the tie of religion upon your conscience, or
the sense of gratitude upon your heart and affections. Do but
reflect upon those obligations Avhich Almighty God hath laid
upon you, in your creation and redemption. Fie hath a fair
title to J our best obedience by right of dominion, in regard of
that excellent nature and being which he freely conferred upon
OF TILENUS. 49
you ; but a stronger title, (if stronger may be,) by the right of
a clear purchase, maile by no lower a price than his own blood.
These obligations, as common equity hath drawn them up, so
(with respect to the benefit that would accrue to you hereby,)
your own ingenuity hath drawn you on to subscribe and seal
them. You have been solemnly devoted unto God and listed a
sworn soldier under the banner of your Redeemer. Are you
imder his pay, and fight against his interest ? Do you wear
his livery, and eat his provisions, and expect his reward, — and
yet spend your time and strength and talents in the service of
his mortal enemy ? How execrable is the sacrilege of this
ingratitude and rebellion ! Remember, it will not be long ere
the justice of God sends the trumpet of the law, (which will be
so much the shriller if it be sounded by the hollow lungs of
death,) to give your now-secure conscience a hot alarum. And
when you are once awakened with the terror of those dreadful
threatenings, you will be amazed at the horror of that appre-
hension, when you shall behold all those shoals and swarms of
sin (you are guilty of) mustered up in their several ranks and
files to charge and fight against you, for the momentary and
trifling pleasures whereof you have so improvidently forfeited
all the comforts of a good conscience and refreshments of the
Holy Ghost, with your portion in heaven and your interest in
God's favour. In exchange whereof, like a foolish merchant,
you have procured nothing but the coals of eternal vengeance
and the flames of hell, which the crowds of your condensed sins
have thrust wide open, ready to swallow up and devour you,
unless you presently prevent it, by an unfeigned repentance
and universal reformation.
Til. Carnahs. — Sir, I beseech you, suffer not your zeal
of a holy life to transport you beyond the rule of sacred truth ;
lest, while you pretend to honour God on earth, you cast re-
proach upon his eternal designs in heaven. I am jealous, Tilenus
Infidelis hath so disturbed your passions, that you know not
where you are : For you have quite forgotten your Synod and
your principles, and (I think) your own name too, and seem to
have lost your creed in your commandments. Recollect your
senses, and recal your wandering phantasy, and awaken your
judgment to consult the oracle of your belief, Cyour Synod,) and
speak accordingly, for " whatsoever is not of faith will be sin"
in you. And is it not one of the articles of that creed which
50 THE EXAMINATION
you profess ?, that " all the good and evil whatsoever that hap-
pens in the world, doth come to pass by the only immutable
and ineluctable decree of God, and by his most effectual ordi-
nance; that the First Cause doth so powerfully guide and
impel all second causes, and the will of man amongst the rest,
that they cannot possibly either act or suffer sooner than they
do, or in any other manner." I am sorry I am no more master
of myself and my own actions, that I am so divested of my
liberty and carry a nature about me so debauched, that I
cannot choose but suffer myself to be carried captive under the
power of those sins that reign in me : But, my comfort is, I am
assured, by the judgment of such sound Divines as yourself,
that the secret will of God (which procured Judas's treason no
less than Paul's conversion,) hath so decreed it. And you
know it is not in my power to procure a writ of ejectment, to
cast out that sin which came in and keeps possession by the
uncontrollable order of the Divine Predestination. I cannot
get grace, when God will not give it me ; nor keep it, when
he is pleased to take it aAvay from me. I have no lure to throw
out, that the Dove of heaven will vouchsafe to stoop unto.
The Spirit blows where He pleases, inspires whom He pleases,
retires when He pleases, and returns when He pleases. And so
if it comes with an intent to amend me, it will be as impossible
then to put him back as it is now to draw him on. It were an
intolerable presumption in me, to make myself so much a task-
master over the Holy Spirit, as to prescribe him the time and
hour when he shall effect that work for me, whereunto I am
able to contribute no more than to mine own birth or resurrec-
tion. * I can affirm with confidence, I never was so much an
Atheist as to entertain the least distrustful thought of the
Divine Power. When he hath been four days dead and lies
stinking in his grave, Lazarus may be raised; and the more
putrid I am in my corruptions, the triumphs of the Divine
grace will be so much the more glorious in my restitution ; but
* Atque licoc est ilia tantopere in Scripturis prcedicata regeiieratio, nova
creatio, suscitatio e mortuis, et vivificatio, quam Deus sine nobis in nobis
opcratur. — Can. 12, Art. 3 & 40, Synodi Dordracenae. — "And this is that
regeneration, second creation, raising from the dead and quickening, (so
often inculcated in the Holy Scriptures,) which God worketh in us, but not
wnn us." — Old EniiUsh Translation : Printed by John Bill, 1619, — the
very year in which the Synod of Uorl was held.
OF TILENUS. 61
it may be the last hour of the day with me, before the Day-
spring cloth thus visit me. In the mean while, to shew my
detestation of that arrogant doctrine of the Arminians, I will
not strive to do the least endeavour towards piety ; lest, by
attributing some liberty to myself, I should eclipse the glory
of God's grace, which I acknowledge [[to be]] as well most free
in her approaches, as unresistible in her working. I confess,
for the present, my sins have brought such a damp upon my
grieved spirit, that he doth not afford me so much grace as to
cry, "Abba, Father!" Nevertheless I can call to mind, I have
sometimes heretofore had such heavenly motions and gracious
inspirations in my heail, as could be breathed from no other
than the Spirit of the Almighty, and hereby there hath been
begotten in me a faith in Christ's merits, not only true (which
can never be lost,) but so firm also, that I am even now "per-
suaded nothing shall be able to separate me from the love of
God towards me in Christ Jesus." This faith is rooted in a
rock, which all the powers of darkness are not able to root up,
though to your present apprehension (for want of the fruits and
blossoms of piety and devotion,) it be as ti'ees and herbs
in winter, which seem dry, dead, and withered, but are
not so. Besides, being one of God's Elect (as every one is
bound to believe, according to the doctrine of the Synod of
Dort, or is declared " foresworn" by that of Alez,) it follows,
by the same doctrine, that my sin, though never so abominable,
doth co-operate to my salvation ; yea, and that my pardon is
sealed already ; and this, Mr. Fatality, you intimate yourself, in
your exhorting me to repentance : For repentance (you know) is
of no worth without faith, and faith itself is defective except it
believes the forgiveness of all sins, past and to come. How-
ever, if I be a Reprobate, (which no temptation shall induce
me to believe, contrary to my duty, as I am instructed by the
doctrine of the Synod,) yet, unless you have a commission to
disannul the decrees of heaven, your threatenings and exhort-
ations cannot avail me : but may do me this disadvantage, that
they may anticipate my hell-terrors, and beget a worm in my
bosom to torment me before the time.
K Take-o'-trust. — I like it well, you are so fully persuaded of
the All-sufficiency of the Divine grace, and that you profess so
much averseness to the proud conceits of the Arminians, (not
daring to ascribe any thing to your own endeavours,) and that
62 THE EXAMINATION
you are so careful to avoid the comfortless suspicion of your
being under the state of Reprobation. But I much bewail your
dangerous error in one thing, and must endeavour your correc-
tion in that, as the most likely foundation of all your practical
miscarriages.
Til. Carnal. — I beseech you, what may that be ? I should
be glad to have it discovered to me.
Take-o'-trust. — Because (as you argued very well according
to the mind of the Synod,) the Holy Spirit doth immediately
produce repentance in the sinner's heart, therefore you seem to
set light by the ordinance of the word; and this is a very
dangerous error in you : For the word (preached especially)
with threatenings and exhortations, are the means and instruments
by which the Holy Ghost worketh, to the conversion and cor-
rection of a sinner.
Til. Carnal. — When we take our principles, without any
examination, upon the credit of our admired authors, we are
apt to embrace their contradictions as points of faith, and their
absurdities as parts of our belief. And so it hath happened to
yourself in this particular : For you must observe, that that
manner of working only is called ''immediate" Avherein no
means do concur. Now, if the repentance and conversion of a
sinner be attributed to the immediate working of the Holy Ghost,
it implies a manifest contradiction to say, that "exhortations and
threatenings are the instruments and mea?is thereof." Besides,
the very essence and being of an instrument is placed in the
aptitude and fitness which it hath for the use and office to
which it is designed : so a knife is a knife, in that respect only
—that the quality and form of its matter give it an aptitude to
cut : an eye is therefore an eye, because it is apt to see. So
every instrument hath a suitable fitness to that office for the
performance whereof it is designed to be an instrument ; and
tiierein lies its subserviency to the principal efficient.
Take-o'-trust. — By this very reason I conclude, the ministry
of the word to be the means and instrument of the sinner's
conversion and repentance : For it is most apt to inform his
understanding of his duty, and to quicken his will and affec-
tions to pursue and follow the same.
Til. Carnal. — Sir, you are much mistaken ; indeed if a
moral efficiency would serve the turn, there are most excellent
arguments of persuasion to work upon a reasonable creature :
OF TTI.ENUS. 53
But this is the very tiling that the Arminians do plead for.
Our Synod, and the Divines thereof, teach us otherwise, —
namely, that " the conversion of a sinner cannot be wrought but
by a physical or hyper-physical action ; an impression of grace
that is irresistible ; to which effect the ministry of the word
(as exhortations and commands, promises and threatenings,)
can no more avail, (having no more aptitude thereunto,) than
to the raising of the dead, or the creation of the world."
Impertinent. — We do read, at the raising up of Lazarus,
and the creation of the world, that " God spake the word and
it was done." (Gen. i, 3, 6. — John xi, 43.)
Til. Carnal. — The word that produced those effects, was
not the word of exhortation, such as we speak of; no, nor yet
that outward word consisting of sound and syllables, which did
but signify what God was about to work by his irresistible
omnipotency. But it was the word of his power, * which is
said to be his Son. t And as there could be no resistance
made against that power, exerted and put forth for that creation
and resurrection ; so your Synod teach us to believe, that " that
power, which is employed to effect the conversion of a sinner
from the error of his ways, is equally irresistible ;" but that the
ministry of the word hath no svich power or energy, appears too
manifestly, in the frequent and almost general contempt and
frustration of it. This therefore having no aptitude to such an
use or office, (which nothing but an irresistible force can
accomplish,) it can with no propriety of speech be said to be
the means and instrument thereof.
Knowlittle. — Then you will allow the ministry of the word
to be of no use at all in the Church of God.
Til. Carnal. — One function it hath, and no more, according
to the consequence of the Synod's doctrine ; it serves for a sign
or object, to represent outwardly what the Spirit works inwardly,
as well in the will as in the understanding. But, because it is
like the raising of the dead and the creation of the world, it
requires an omnipotent and irresistible opei'ation ; therefore the
Scripture, though it represents and urgeth conversion so many
sundry ways, (as by way of command, exhortation, promise,
and threatening,) yet, to speak congruously to our principles,
it can imply and signify it but a* a work of God's, not as a didy
* Heb. i, 3. f Ibid, verse 2, compared with Col. i, 16, 17,
34 THE K\ A Ml NATION
ofour's. And then, why should we trouble ourselves about it,
any more than Adam troubled himself about the creation of
Eve, or Lazarus about his own resurrection ?, especially seeing
we must believe it is nothing in our power to help it forward,
and that God, in pursuance of his own decrees, will infallibly
perform it, though we be cast into as deep a sleep (of security)
as Adam was, or lie stinking in the grave of our corruptions
(though insensible of it) as did Lazarus.
Dr. Dubius. — Do you then think the use of the ministry a
thing indifferent, and purpose to decline it ?
Til. Carnal. — Seeing the most the word can do, is, to make
us moral men, (if yet it can do that !) which are of no great
esteem in God's kingdom, as our Divines generally have
resolved ; seeing the Spirit is no more bound to Avait upon the
preaching thereof, than to be at our command ; and seeing
when He does come. He needs none of those auxiliary forces to
atchieve his irresistible conquest over our rebellions ; and yet
God hath been pleased, (out of his unsearchable wisdom, and
to shew his own dominion and liberty,) so to order the matter,
that, although the word cannot really promote our spiritual
good, (which is a work far above the sphere of its power and
activity,) yet, receiving it in vain, (though it be not in cur
power, confessedly, to receive it otherwise,) it will aggravate
our condemnation; — for this cause I think it prudent to avoid
the certain danger, which the no-probable good that, accord-
ing to those principles of the Synod, will accrue by it.
Narrowgrace. — If you be of that mind, we must leave you
to the mercy of God and the use of your own prayers, Avhich
are the only reserve we can commend to your assistance and
benefit.
Til. Carnal. — Alas ! Sir, you are as much out of the story
now as ever : For the grace of prayer (without which the duty
will be a vain oblation, if not abominable,) must be derived
from the same Supernal Fountain ; and we cannot pump it up
ourselves, it comes freely ; and when it comes, it is so impetu-
ous, and overflows the soul with such inundations of the Spirit,
that it is impossible to resist it. And since you see me altogether
silent to this office, you may conclude, that this silence begins in
heaveji, and that God will not have me pray, in that he denies
me his grace to that effect. But, Sir, you do well to take your
leave of me ; for it is e\ident that God hath not employed you.
or TTLENUS. 55
as intending my amendment by your ministry ; since I find the
confusion of your doctrine more apt to furnish a cushion for
the secure and careless, or a halter for the doubtful and des-
pairing, than any sacred amulet against the charms and
poison of impiety. And yet because, when the wheel is once
in motion, a little strength will be sufficient to continue it, and
the fire is easily blown up after it is once kindled ; therefore
you may please to make your third experiment upon Tilenus
Tepidus. I am afraid you can produce no argument to quicken
his remissness into a more thorough-pace of devotion, which
the dexterous use of that buckler (of the Synod's doctrine) will
not be able to put by. Let us hear therefore how you will
urge him to a further progress in piety.
III. TILENUS TEPIDUS.
Efficax. — Do but reflect upon Peter's redoubled exhortation,
2 Pet. i, 4. He supposeth, that " they had escaped the (foul)
corruption that is in the v/orld through lust." And, " Besides
this," saith he, "giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue,"
&c. ; and " give diligence to make your calling and election
sure." (verse 10.)
Til. Tepidus. — If Saint Peter had understood "our calling
and election" in the same sense [[as that in which^ the Synod
understands them, his exhortation had been to little purpose :
For (in that sense) it is as sure already, as the wisdom, truth,
and power of God, or as the blood of Christ or the seals of the
Divine decrees, can make it. " The foundation of God standeth
sure, having this seal, The Lord hioweth them that are his."
(2 Tim. ii, 19) It were arrogance to go about to lay any other
foundation ; and a folly to imagine we are able to fortify it by
our endeavours.
Simulans. — But, Sir, we should make a conscience of the
duty, though there were no other necessity of it, but necessilas
lircecepli, " because it is the will of Almighty God."
Til. Tepid.— I perceive. Sir, you have forgotten your own
distinction, though it is so little while since you used it. You
told us, God hath a two-fold will, — an outward revealed will,
and an inward secret will. — His outward will is signified by
his commands :" "But," saith Piscator, "they are not properly
God's will, for sometimes he nills the fulfilling of them. As
for example, * He commanded Abraham to offer up Isaac, yet
* Gen. xxii, 2, 12
60 THE RXAMINATION
he nillecl the execution of it," But his secret -will is the will of
his good pleasure, which he hath therefore decreed shall ever
come to pass. Whereupon, one of your Divines concludes,
" there is a kind of holy simulation in God," Unde percipitur
esse simulalioneni qnandam sanctam, S^-c. Now, whereas you urge
me to give all diligence that 1 may grow in grace, if this were
the will of God's heiieplaciture he would move and impel me
indeclinably to effect it. But if it be only his outwai'd will, and
improperly so called, (He having, by an irrevocable deci'ee,
predetermined my not doing of it, though it be outwardly com-
manded,) then my not doing his outward will, is the perform-
ance of his secret will ; and this being his proper will, wherein
consists his good pleasure, my compliance therewith must needs
be the more acceptable ; especially since to this he affords me
his providential concurrence, which he denies me towards the
accomplishment of the other.
Knowlittle. — We are taught, that there are degrees of
glory, — " One glory of the sun, another of the moon, and
another of the stars ;" and so there shall be in heaven. (1 Cor.xv.)
Now, grant that you are secure (as you presume) as to the estate
of glory ; yet you should be earnest in your endeavours to
capacitate yourself for the highest degrees of it.
Til. Tepid. — There are some [[who^ have made a question
of those different degrees of glory. In the parable, every one
at the end of the day received his penny, as much they that
had wrought but one hour, as they that had " borne the heat
and burden of the day." And the righteous shall all shiiie as the
sun in the kingdom of the Father ; and everi) one shall enter into
the joy of the Lord, which is "fulness of joy." But, beside this,
"if a sparrow falleth not to the ground without God's provi-
dence," and if " the hairs of our heads be all numbered," (as
our Saviour saith they are,) shall we not think as well, that
every degree of happiness and every beam of glory and spark
of joy, are likewise apportioned and predetermined for all the
Elect.?
Dr. Absolute. — It is true, the state of eternal bliss, as to all
the degrees of joy and glory in it, is firmly and irreversibly
decreed to all the Elect; but yet, through your remissness,
and especially if that betrays you to any wasting sin, you may
dam^ your hopes, and lose the sense and comfortable appre-
hension of the influences and effects thereof, which, you know,
was David's case: "O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger.
OF TILENUS. 57
neither chasten me m thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon
me, O Lord, for I am weak. O Lord, heal me, for my bones
are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed; but thou, O Lord,
how long ? Return, O Lord, deliver my soul : O save me for
thy mercies' sake, and restore to me the joy of thy salvation !"
(Ps. vi.) " For in death there is no remembrance of thee."
(Ps. li.) From hence, you see, there is ground enough for the
Apostle's exhortation : " We desire that every one of you do
shew the same diligence, to the full assurance of hope firm unto
the end." (Heb. vi, 11.)
Til. Tepid. — I know, Mr. Diodati, in his Annotations upon
the fifth verse of that sixth Psalm, saith : " Hereby is shewn
the fear of God's children, anguished and pressed by the feel-
ing of his wrath, lest they should die out of his grace unrecon-
ciled ; and by that means be excluded and debarred from their
desired aim, to be everlastingly instruments of his glory." But
it is probable David had no intelligence of that comfortable
doctrine, (defined by the Synod in this last age,) as appears by
his fearful complaint and expostulation, (if that Psalm were
his,) in the Seventy- seventh Psalm : " I remembered God and
was troubled. I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed:
My soul refused to be comforted. Will the Lord cast off for
.ever, and will he be favourable no more ? Is his mercy clean
gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore.? Hath
God forgotten to be gracious .'' Hath he in anger shut up his
tender mercies .''" There could not have been this conflict of
diffidence and anxiety in him, if he had been established in the
principles of the Synod : For, annexing the Lord's public
declarations, (by the mouth of Samuel touching him,) * to the
conscience of his own integrity, he might have collected a cer-
tainty of his present regeneration, (wiien he was anointed king,)
and from thence have concluded undeniably his election from all
eternity, and consequently the impossibility of his rejection
from God's favour. But there is some likelihood, he thought,
that in the designation of his everlasting mercy towards them,
God considered men as faithful, (according to the way of the
Arminians,) and as persevering in their faithfulness. For he
saith, " Know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for
himself." (Ps. iv, 3.) If that text will not serve the turn, yet
* 1 Sam. xiii, 14, & xvi, 6, 7.
E
58 THE EXAMINATION
there is one unavoidable : " The mercy of the Lord is from
everlasting to everlasting, upon them that fear him : to such as
keep his covenant: and to those that remember his command-
ments to do them." (Ps. ciii, 17, 18.) And "to him that
ordereth his conversation aright, will I shew the salvation of
God." (Fs. 1, 23.) And governing his persuasions by these
principles, there is no wonder he was so exceedingly transported
with a fear of God's displeasure. And that such were his prin-
ciples, may be collected also from hence, in that, when the
pai'oxysm of the temptation was soracAvhat over, he doth not
make his recourse to the invnulahle decree of God's Election, to
cure the remanent palpitation of his spirits ; but only to former
experience of God's merciful dispensations towards his people.
*' I will remember the works of the Lord : Thou hast with thine
arm redeemed thy people, &c. Surely I Avill remember thy
wonders of old : &c. Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary. Who
is so great as our God ?" (Ps. Ixxvii, 1 1 — 1 5.) But since the clear-
ing up of this soul-settling doctrine by the great judgment and
piety of the Synod, he that hath once tasted the graciousness of
the Lord in his effectual vocation, and firmly believes " that the
things concerning his everlasting happiness are so established
and carried on by the irresistible power of an irrespective decree,"
(as is there taught,) — he may cast away all anxiety and care,
and repose himself with confidence under the wings of that
security.
Dr. Absolute. — But the Synod declares, Fidelihus perpctud
esse vigilandum et orandvm, ne in tentationes indiicantiir, S)C. " That
the faithful must watch and pray, lest they fall into temptations ;
and that when they grow remiss and torpid, quit their guard
and neglect their duty, (as you do,) they are many times sur-
prised of the flesh and the world, and carried captive into
heinous and enormous sins; whereby they offend God, and
grieve the Holy Spirit^ and incur the guilt of death," and the
like.
Til. Tepid. — It was well you stopped there, Mr. Doctor.
But I had thought your worship had been better versed in this
point. For ray part, such Mormoes and bug-bears never
trouble me. lam taught by the Synod to believe, "that all
THE SINS IN THE WORLD sliall ncver be able to separate an elect
person from the love of God ;" but [|shall]] ratlier make for his
jireatcr advantage.
OF TILENUS. 59
Indefectible. — But, suppose by your sins you should pro-
voke God to anger, so far forth that he should cut you off, as
our Saviour threatens the Jews : " Ye shall die in your sins."
And, " When the righteous turneth away from his righteous-
ness, and comniitteth iniquity, and doth according to all the
abominations that tlie Avicked man doth, shall he Hve? All
his righteousness that he hath done, shall not be mentioned : in
in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he
hath sinned, — in them shall he die." (Ezek. xviii, 24.)
Til. Tepid. — I did not expect such a supposition or objection
from you, of all men living : For, to speak properly, God is
never angry but with the Reprobates ; and I know it is your
avowed opinion, " that the Elect can neither fall finally nor
totally,"— and all the Synodists are of the same judgment.
They distinguish, therefore, of righteousness, into that which is
inherent or the righteousness of works, and that which is imputed
or the righteousness of faith. And they confess, the Elect may
forsake his inherent righteousness, and fall into the most foul
and horrid sins, but yet he doth not fall from his imputed
righteousness, — the righteousness of Christ, which he hath by
faith. — They do also distinguish between death temporal, and
death eternal; affirming that the sins of the Elect, though
never so many or heinous, do not incur the guilt of eternal
death, but only temporal, — which is never inflicted upon them,
neither as a curse, nor before their restitution : For if you ask
them. What doom had David lain under, if death had surprised
him in his murder and adultery ? they will tell you roundly,
" It was impossible he should die without repentance."
Dr. Dubius. — I suppose David's case was extraordinary ;
and a special reason is given by them of the Synod, why he
could not die before repentance, viz. "because after his sin
he was to beget a son, of whom the Messias should descend."
Til. Tepid. — I conceive, that ground is too loose to bear
the superstructure, Cwhich;] the men of that opinion would
raise upon it: For they are not all saints, [[who are mentioned;]
in our Saviour's Genealogy ; neither did David's sin bereave
him of the faculty of generation. The son of Jesse might have
propagated a stem for the Messias to branch out of, and yet
have died in his sin afterwards. The impossibility, therefore, of
his dying without repentance, is grounded upon a more solid
and impregnable foundation, viz. the eternal decree and love of
E 2
(50 THE EX A ^] IN ATI ON
God, which equally concerns all the Elect. That immutable
love wherein God elected them, doth exert itself and prompt
Him infallibly to confer the grace of repentance upon them
first or last, into how great and how many sins soever they run.
And if men had the will to improve this most excellent com-
fortable doctrine, the advantage of it would be unspeakable.
Men do beat their brains and exhaust their treasure in experi-
ments to find out and extract the Elixir of Paracelsus, to preserve
them in life and health to perpetuity. But here is the only
ijifallible medicine, ten thousand times more sovereign than the
poets' fabulous Ambrosia, or Medea's charms that are said to
Ijave restored Jason's father to his youth. Here is a moral
antidote against death, easy to be made and pleasant to be
taken; a receipt to niake us shot-free, sword and pistol-proof;
the ingredients are not many, nor chargeable, nor hard to
be attained. Let a man get a firm persuasion tliat he is elected,
(which, the Synodists say, every one is bound to believe,) then
let him be sure to espouse some beloved lust, and keep it very
warm hi his bosom, being careful (as he hath free-will to evil.
Matt, xvii, 12; John xix, 11 ; Dan. v, 19;) not to cast it off
by repentance; and he may ventui'e himself securely in the
midst of the greatest perils. Let such elect persons take up
arms against their lawful governors, in the pretended defence
of their religion, rights, and liberties, and they shall hew down
thousands of their enemies before them, and none of them shall
fall in the attempt, (for they cannot die in sin,) — unless some
few, whose pusillanimity and cowardice do melt their hearts
into an unseasonable relenting and repentance of their rebellion,
while they are in pursuit of their design.
Impertinent. — But, Mr. Tepidus, to grant you, "that the
Elect can never ftill from grace," (v^hich is our avowed tenet,)
yet, certainly, we are bound "to be rich in good works," out
of gratitude, that God may have the more glory.
Til. Tepid. — I need not tell you, that it will be all our
business to glorify God in heaven ; and so we may adjourn that
work, till we come thither : For our Divines hold, " that sin
is as much a means for the setting forth of God's glory as virtue
is, and that God decreed to bring it into the world to that pur-
pose;" and if it be the riches of his grace that we should glorify,
how can M'e glorify that better than by an absolute resignation
of-oursjelves up to it, (in despite of raging sin,) and a confident
OF TILENUS. 61
depentlance upon the free pardon thereof? And, doubtless, if
God would really have me shew my gratitude in any other way
of service, he would irresistibly press me to it : For " what-
soever the Lord pleases, that he thus efFecteth;" (Ps. cxxxv,6.)
— for to that purpose this text is alleged by our Divines. And
therefore it is the resolution of Maccovius, (he instanceth in
David committing murder and adultery,) " that if we consider
the power of the regenerate, in respect of the Divine decree,
and in respect of the actual Divine providence, and in respect
of the permission of sin, then (and in these respects, which are
not in our power,) a man can never do more good than he doth,
nor commit less evil than he committeth." His reason is, " that
otherwise the will of man might be said to act independentlij to
the will of God." Now if it be thus impossible to "add one
cubit to the stature of the new man," it will (bj'^ our Saviour's
argument. Matt, vi, 27,) be impertinent and ridiculous to take
thought about it. See Luke xii, 26.
Knowlittle. — Mr. Tepidus, Mr. Tepidus ! Vv'hatever you
say, the doctrine of the Synod doth not overthrow the practice
of piety and the power of godliness, as you go about to infer
from it : For we know, the Doctors of that assembly were very
worthy, godly men ; and so are many (as you cannot deny,)
that embrace their tenets.
Til. Tepid. — Though the persecution and banishment of
their brethren, (only for dissenting from them in these opinions.)
be no great sign of godliness, yet I speak not concerning the
quality of the persons that hold such opinions, but of the nature
and tendency of the doctrine, the conclusions which immediately
and necessarily flow from it. They may be good men : But,
then, they are ill logicians at least, C^and^ order not their
works by their faith or principles : and their godliness is not
the result of these principles, but flows from some other, with
which these are inconsistent, if they wei'e rationally improved
and practised, — as is now evident to you from this three-fold
experiment already made.
Impertinent. — The power of grace will subdue such carnal
reasonings.
Til. Tepid. — That is, in those men who suffer their reason to
be debauched, and then arrested by such principles. But you
have yet another part for me to act : I shall not be satis-
fied till that is over. Another main end of the offiCe ministerial^,
E ."
62 THE EXAMINATION
is, to comfort the afflicted and doubtful ; and, I am persuaded,
this is rendered ineffectual by the doctrine of the Synod and its
adherents, as well as the other fore-mentioned : For proot
■whereof, I desire I may now have leave to exhibit my com-
plaints and grievances under the person and title of Tilenus
Tentatus.
IV. TILENUS TENTATUS.
Dr, Confidence.— Let us hear what they are.
Til. Tentatus. — Time was when I did walk comfortably
before God in my christian profession, feeling such inundations
of spiritual consolation flowing into my soul from his gracious
presence, as put me in mind of "the hidden manna," men-
tioned Rev. ii, 17, whose ravishing sweetness nothing but
experience can make credible ; and hath made me cry out in
a holy extasy of admiration, " It is good for me to be here !"
But now I feel the tide is turned, my wine is mixed with
water, or rather my joys turned into extreme bitterness : For
being continually alaruraed by the cries of an accusing con-
science, I apprehend the terrors of the Divine vengeance set
in battle-array against me, and the curses of the law thundering
out my sentence of condemnation, and the mouth of hell gaping
wide open to swallow me up and devour me. These frightful
apprehensions are my constant attendants ; they lie down and
rise up with me, and pursue me so uncessantly that I am
become a burden to myself.
Dr. Confidence. — This is some sudden storm raised in your
bosom through the power and subtilty of Satan. But there is
refuge at hand, — an immoveable rock to anchor on, that will
not suffer you to be overwhelmed. Remember that '' Jesus
Christ is the propitiation for our sins, and hath purchased
eternal redemption for us." By the sacrifice of himself, " He
hath purged our sins, and delivered us from the curse of the
law, and from the wrath to come, and satisfied the Divine
justice, and obtained reconciliation with the Father for us,''
Every one that is sensible of his misery by reason of sin, and
understands what need he hath of a Redeemer, and runs into
the arms of Jesus Christ, and embraceth him for his Saviour,
and depends upon his merits and mediation, and pays a dutiful
subjection to his sceptre and authority, by a true and lively faith,
—he hath an interest in all those benefits, (as actually applied to
him,) he receives the privilege of justification and adoption, and
" being justified by faith, he hath peace with God." (Rom. v, 1.)
OF TII.ENIS, G3
Til. Tent. — Sir, I know these are excellent cordials to the
soul that is persuaded she hath a real interest in them : but
they are designed only for a very small number, as the doc-
trine of the Synod hath determined. For those Divines tell us,
" that Almight}' God did h^aii ahsolule decree elect certain particu-
lar persons to salvation, — neither considering the death of his Son,
nor the faith of those elect, in that decree, — ^but then decreed
to give his Son to die for them, and irresistibli/ to work in them
a saving faith to lay hold upon that his Son, and actually to
apply all the said benefits to themselves ; for whose sahafion ■
only they \\he benefits^ were all prepared and designed. Now
all the promises of salvation in Christ, how universally soever
propovmded, being by your doctrine restrained only to these
Elect, (amongst whom that I should reckon myself, neither
any particular mention of me in Scripture, nor any revelation
by Angel or Prophet out of it, doth assure me,) and the number of
them according to your computation being so small in proportion
to the Reprobates, there is so much odds against me, that I have
reason to be afraid, that I ana enlisted under the greater multi-
tude. When Christ said to his Apostles, " One of you shall
betray me," though the odds were eleven to one on the inno-
cent part3''s side, yet it raised so much scruple and suspicion in
all their bosoms, as made them very anxious and inquisitive :
" Master, is it I ?" (Matt, xxvi, 22.) Were the number of the
Reprobates, " for whom," you say, " Christ died not," far
more disproportionable to the Elect; j'^et the sad apprehension
of those eternal torments fatally linked to the end of that hor-
rible decree, would prompt me to entertain fears and jealousies
more than enough, lest I should be filed upon that chain,
having no assurance to the contrary. How much more should
" fearfulness and trembling surprize me," Avhen I consider how
few the Elect are, even among the vast multitudes of such as are
CALLED !
Simulans. — Seeing it hath pleased the wisdom of Almighty
God, to keep his immutable decrees, — as well that of repro-
bation as that of election, — locked up in the secret cabinet of
his own unsearchable counsel ; we are to govern our judgment
hy the rule of charity, " which believeth all things, and hopeth
all things." (1 Cor. xiii.)
Til. Tent. — I confess, (1) the judgment of charity is a tried
and equal beam in many cases ; but if you extend it generally
64 THE EXAMINATION
and apply it unto all particulars, it must needs be very false.
And I am confident, you dare not avouch the truth of it in such
a latitude ; oi*, if you dare, you are no more able to maintain it
than I can believe these two contrary propositions at once, —
"that Jesus Christ died for all," and yet "that he died for a
very small number." — (2) It is not the judgment of my charity,
but the certainty of my faith, that must give me assurance and
comfort in this particular. — (3) Charitable judgment is a fair
standard to measure the doubtful actions of our neighbour by,
and commands us to cover his infirmities and stifle the too
light conception of suspicions and sinister opinions touching
him, but binds us not to preach falsehood to him, to induce
him (against his own reason) to foster too good an opinion of
himself — When I see a man present himself to the holy Sacra-
ment, the judgment of charity persuades me, (knowing nothing
to the contrary,) that he addresses himself to it with that pre-
paration of heart that becomes a good Christian. But that
" such as are rightly prepared and qualified, do partake thereof
to their salvation," — this I believe by the judgment of faith,
which admitteth nothing that is or can be false. — So when 1 see
a sick man render his soul up, with much devotion and resign-
ation, into the hands of Christ, / believe charitably, " that he
dies as becomes a faithful Christian." But, " that God com-
municateth his salvation to such as die in the profession and
obedience of the right faith," — this I believe by the certainty
of faith ; Avherein it is impossible I should be deceived,
though the judgment of charity deceives us very often. — In a
word, the judgmetit of charity is a good standing measure be-
twixt man and man; but it is not current betwixt man and his
own conscience, much less betwixt him and God. I know,
I am not to be relieved but by such succours as are levied
upon the Divine promises ; and those promises having their
foundation and infallibility in the ujideceivable truth of God,
they require such a certainty of faith as will admit no mixture
of any thing false or doubtful. Besides, when I do enquire
which act of faith hath the priority, viz. " to believe in Christ,"
or " to believe Christ to be my Saviour," (in particular) I am
taught by some of your Divines, (Maccovius by name,) that
I " must, in the first place, believe that Christ is my Saviour, and
that is the cause of the other act," or the reason why I place
nvy faith in him. Now if Christ died only for a few particular
OF TILENUS. 65
persons, and if all the promises (made in bim) belong to those
few only, unless I could find some mention of my name amongst
them, or could receive some revelation from heaven to that
effect, how can I with any certainty or assurance build my
faith upon it, that I am one of them ?
Take-o'-trust. — We are bound to think, every one is of the
:;?mber of the Elect, till it appears to the contrary.
Til, Tent, — This is but singing the old note over again. This
is still your judgmcnl of charity ; which, though it suppresseth
all suspicion in you towards me, yet can it not cure those fears
and jealousies which I have (but with too great reason) con-
ceived of myself. As for your appeai-ances to the contrary, I
cannot understand them, much less set any value upon them;
For " by such outward things," the Synod is ready to tell us,
" we can never perceive any thing of what belongs to the state
of Election or Reprobation," I am beholding to you, that,
waving the severity of your reason, you will make use of a
charitable supposition to flatter me into an opinion that I am one
of that " little flock" for which Christ died. But there is no-
thing can secure and comfort me, but a full and certain persiiasion
that I am one of them ; which you will never be able to work
in me, denying that Christ died for all, unless you can find
some particular and undeniable evidence of my interest in him.
Indefectible, — You should reflect upon your former ex-
perience of God's gracious work in you. That Spirit of adop-
tion sent out into the hearts of God's Elect "to bear witness to
their spirits," though he may become silent, and not speak peace
to them in such an audible language of comfort as is alwa)'S
apprehended by them, yet "abides with them for ever."
Spiritual enjoyments are different from these outward and
carnal ones : We may lose their taste and relish, as to sensible
refreshment ; but not their real presence, as infuencing to sal-
vation.
Til. Tent. — Some comfortable apprehensions might be awak-
ened and kindled in those bosoms that have been Avarmed with
such sweet and heavenly experiences, if they were not all
overcast and darkened again by other black and dismal clouds,
which the observation of some of your greatest Divines have
spread over them. For Mi'. Calvin himself saith, " The heart
of man hath so many starting-holes and secret corners of vanity
and lying, and is clothed with so many colours of guileful
66 THE EXAMINATION
hypocrisy, that it oftentimes deceiveth itself. And, besides,
experience sheweth, that the Reprobates are sometimes moved
•with the same feelings that the Elect are, so that in their own
judgment they nothing differ from the Elect." * (Instit. 1. 3,
chap, ii, sec. 10, 11.) But the truth is, though I have lived a
good moi'al life hitherto, and in a way of duty have had a
comfortable dependence upon the mercy of God in Christ Jesus,
yet, I am now afraid, I have had none of those extraordinary
suavities and refreshments of God's Spirit, and consequently
have no assurance of the presence of that Comforter who, it is
promised, shall " abide with us for ever."
Knowlittle. — You are to consider, that all the Elect are not
called at the same hour.
Til. Tent. — I should not stand upon the hour; I could be
content, that God may take his own time to call me, if you
could, in order to my present comfort, insure me that I shall
be called, though it be but at the hour of death. But this is
that, for [[whichj I am afraid you have no grounds.
Take-o'-trust. — You may be confident, that Christ is dead
for you, and that you have an interest in him, so you can
believe it.
Til. Tent. — I would desire to ask but these two questions :
(1) Whether this comfort be applicable to all and every sick
and afflicted persons? — And (2) Whether it be grounded upon
the truth ? For if it be not to be applied unto all, I may be
amongst the excepted persons, and so am not concerned in it;
or, if it be not grounded upon the truth, you offer me a
delusion instead of comfort.
Take-o'-trust. — It is applicable vmto all and every one, and
grounded upon the unquestionable truth of the Holy Gospel.
Til. Tent. — If it be applicable to all and every one, as j'ou
affirm, and grounded upon the truth, (that is, as I conceive, a
truth antecedent to their believing,^ then it follows undeniably,
that Christ died for all in general and for every one in
special, — else how can the comfort of this doctrine be so ap-
plied to them, as you would have it.^ — But if your meaning be,
that it will become true to me or to any other person " that
Christ died for us," by that act of faith which you would have
me or any such other person give unto your speeches, — then
* Sec Heb. vi, 4, 5,
OF TILENLS. 67
you run into a manifest absurdity, maintaining, "that the
object of faith, or the thing proposed to be believed, doth
receive its truth from the act of the believer, and depend upon
his consent;" whose faith and approbation can no more make
true that vi'hich in itself is false, than make false by his unbelief
that which in itself is true. Well may the infidel deprive
himself of the fruit of Christ's death ; but he cannot bring to
pass, by his unbelief, that Christ hath not suffered it as a proof
of his love to mankind. On the other side, the believer may
receive benefit from the death of Christ; but his act of faith
doth not effect, but necessarily suppose that death as suffered
for him, before it can be exercised about it or lay hold upon
it. Nay, my believing is so far from procuring Christ's death
for me, that, on the contrary, our great Divines do maintain,
quod nemo unqiuun fdem hahcal, nisi morte et meritis Christi pro-
curatam, "that I cannot have faith, unless it be procured for
me by the merits and death of Christ." And because I cannot
find this faith in me, I may conclude. He hath not prociired it
for me, and consequently that He hath not died for me, neither :
And this, you know, is the ground of all my trouble.
Dr. Dubius. — Sir, I wish you to take heed of that "evil
heart of unbelief," as the Apostle calls it; (Heb. iii.) and to
that end remember the words of our Saviour, " He that be-
lieveth on the Son, hath everlasting life : and he that believeth
not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth
on him." (John iii, 36.)
Til. Tent. — Sir, instead of lending me a clue to guide me
out of that maze of difficulties into which the prodigious di-
vinity of the Synod hath led me, you entangle me much more
in it. For whereas the Apostle saith, that " God sends strong
delusions to such as will not receive the love of the truth, that
they may be saved," (2 Thes. ii,) you, governing your discourse
by those principles, would first persuade men to believe a false
proposition, when you exhort evert/ man to believe that Christ
died for him, which is false according to that doctrine ; and then,
having believed this falsehood, they are punished by the spirit
of error to believe a lie ! I beseech you, which way would you
have me turn myself, to get out of these perplexities ? ; having
instructed me to believe a doctrine, that turns my obedience
into punishment, and makes my following the truth (according
to that calculation) the sure way to aggravate my damnation.
68
THE EXAMTNATtON
' For if the Synod saith true, and Christ be not dead for them
that beh'eve not in him, how do they deserve to be punished
for not believing that which is false? And those that do obey
the commandment and believe in his death, (though but for a
time,) Avhy suffer they the punishment due only to the refrac-
tory and incredulous, which is io believe a lie ?
Knowlittle. — Sir, you must not think to beguile us with
your " vain philosophy." We are too well established in these
saving truths, to be perverted by such sophistry.
Til. — If you have no better cordials for afflicted consciences,
nor firmer props to support the necessity of your ministry, than
■what the doctrines of the Synod will afford you, I am afraid
the most vulgar capacities will find logic enough to conclude,
from the premises, that your office is altogether useless and im-
pertinent. Laying aside therefore the person of the Infidel,
Carnal, Tepid, and Afflicted, whose parts I have hitherto acted,
to make a practical trial of the efficacy of your ministry upon
them, according to the tenor and consequence of those doc-
trines, I beseech you sadly to reflect upon what hath already
passed betwixt us ; and consider fuither what a vertiginous
spirit presided in that Synod, that led those Divines (raaugre
all the reason to the contrary,) to deny some things which
the scripture expressly doth affirm, and to affirm other things
which the Scripture doth as expressly deny. — They deny the
universality of the meiits of Christ's death, which the Scripture
abundantly proclaimeth; and yet they do exhort and enjoin all
men, upon peril of damnation, to believe in him, — as if the
Author of all truth did not only allow, but also command,
some men to believe falsehood. — They exhort and command
every one to believe "that he is elected to salvation," (though
indeed he be a very reprobate,) and " that he cannot lose faith
and grace once received," which the Scripture in express terms
denieth. And as the denial of Christ's universal redeinption takes
away all the solid ground of comfort, so the asserting {^qf^ the
Saints' indefectibility overthrows the necessity of exhortation,
with the usefulness of promises and threatenings to enforce it.
For who will value such admonitions, * when he is instructed
to believe, that he can never be so far wanting to the grace of
God, nor harden his heart, nor fall from his standing, so far as
* Harden not your hearts, take heed lest ye fall, receive not the grace
of God in vain.
OF TILENUS. 69
to endanger his salvation ? And who will deny himself (upon
the assault of a gallant temptation especially,) the present satis-
faction of his lusts and passions, for the reversion of a kingdom,
who is persuaded " there are several decrees past in heaven as
well to necessitate, as secure him in the succedaneous enjoy-
ment of them both ?" And who Avill be frighted from the plea-
sures of sin with the threatened danger of damnation, (unless a
fit of Melancholy transports him into that folly,) which, he
believes, it is no more possible to happen to him, than for God
to lie, or his immutable decrees to be rescinded? In brief,
when we consider the consequences of that doctrine, " that
the absolute decrees of heaven do not only over-rule, hut also
predetermine every individual action of mankind," (so that it is
impossible for the endeavours and wit of man to make any one
of them happen at any other time or after any other manner
than they do,; may we not (as far as that doctrine can warrant
us,) conclude, that it is God's only fault that so 'many men
prove infidels and profane, lukev.arm and desperate ?, because
it is He that doth withhold that grace which is absolutely
necessary to work an effectual alteration and change in them.
And [|may we not^ resolve, that it were therefore fit, that all
preachers (forbearing to importune the weak creature to attempt
any of those mere impossibilities to which he hath, at most, but
a passive power,) should direct their admonitions to God alone,
that he would perform, what is his own work only, in the
hearts of men, — that is, to convert, correct, provoke, and com-
fort them, by such an invincible arm of efficiency as cannot be
resisted ?
The benefit of the word preached being thus totally evacu-
ated by these doctrines, we shall find no more use or comfort in
the sacraments, but so far forth as we can observe the very
same ministers, in the very administration of them, to overthrow
their own unhappy doctrine. For to every one [^whom]] they
baptize, they apply the promises of the covenant of grace, con-
trary to their own tenet, — which is, " that they belong nothing
at all to the Reprobates." Likewise the Lord's Supper is given
to all, with the assurance, Christ died for all them that receive it,
— though their own tenet is, " that he no way died for them
who receive it iinwortliily and to their condemnation ;" whose
number is not small among our Reformed congregations, even
by their own confession. — What more } The very exercises of
70 THE EXAMINATION
prayer, wherein the pastor and the flock are joint petitioners,
shall be found of no use or comfort unto either, since they all
be either Elect or Reprobate: For the Elect obtain no new
thing by this means, if "God hath written them," as the
Synod says, " from all eternity in the Book of Life, without
any relation to, or consideration of, their faith and prayers ;
and that it is impossible they should be blotted out of it." And
the Reprobates can never cause themselves to be inrolled
therein by any exercises of faith or prayers, no more than they
are able to disannul the immutable decree of God.
Gentlemen, I beg your pardon, and shall trouble you no
further, but only to desire you to ponder those many preju-
dices that lie against such a religion, as is rather repugnant than
operative to the conversion of an infidel and the correction of
the carnal, to the quickening of the careless and the consolation
of the afflicted : And if the doctrine maintained and delivered
by the divines of that Synod, and their adherents, doth frus-
trate and nullify the preaching of the word, the use of the
Sacraments, and the exercise of prayer ; if it overthrow the
sacred function of the ministry, (which consists in the faithful
administration of wholesome doctrine and good discipline,)
and if it give such a total defeat to the whole design of the
Divine ordinances, I hope you will, out of your great piety
and prudence, not think it reasonable to make the profession
of such faith or doctrine, your Kpirxptov, or Shibboleth * to
discern your examinats, and pass them in the account of the
godly ministers.
Dr. Absolute.
Mr. Fatality. }■ Withdraw, withdraw, withdraw !
Mr. Fry-babe.
Dr. Absolute. — Brethren, what think you of this man, now
you have heard him discover himself so fully .''
Fatality. — The man hath a competent measure of your
ordinary unsanctified learning : But you may see he hath stu-
died the ancient Fathers, — more than our modern Divines, such
as Mr. Calvin and Mr, Perkins. And, alas ! they like ancient
Fathers]] threw away their enjoyments (and their lives too,
some of them,) for they knew not what. They understood
little or nothing of the Divine decrees, or the power of grace
* Judges xii, 6.
I
OF TILENUS. 71
and godliness : This great light was reserved for the honour of
after-ages, to be held forth and displayed in.
Efficax. — He may be an honest moral man ; but I cannot
perceive that he hath been much acquainted with sin, nor very
sensible of the nature of repentance. I confess for my own
part, I was never much taken with these Obadiahs, that cry,
" I thy servant fear the Lord from my youth :" (1 Kings xviii, 12.)
Give me your ea'perimenlal Divines. The burnt child will dread
the fire ; and, as Jude adviseth, "will have compassion" upon
their brethren, (having been tempted themselves,) and will
" save them with fear," using a holy violence to " pluck them
out of the burning." I remember Mr. Calvin confesseth, in an
Epistle to Bucer, " that he had a great conflict with that wild
beast of impatience that raged in him, and that it was not yet
tamed." He would frequently reproach his brethren (especi-
ally if they dissented from him in the matter of predestination,
&c.) by the name of " Knave," " Dog," and " Satan." And he
so vexcl the spirit of Bucer, that he provoked the good mild
man to write thus to him : Judicas prout amas, vel odisti : amas
autem vel odisti, prout Zibet. " That his judgment was governed
by his passions of love and hatred, and these by his lust."
And for his bitter speeches, Bucer gave him the title of "a
fratricide." — Reverend Mr. Beza confesseth also of himself, per
quindecim annorum spalium, quo alios docuit justitiw viam, nee
sohrium se factum, nee Uberalem, nee veracem, sed hcerere in luto :
" That for the space of fifteen years together, wherein he taught
others the way of righteousness, himself trod neither in the way
of truth, nor bounty, nor sobriety : but stuck fast in the mire"
(of sin.) Men that have had trial of the powerful workings of
sin and grace, and have been brought upon their knees, like the
great Apostle, with a bitter complaint, 0 me miserum ! " O
wretched man that I am ! ;" these are your none-such Divines,
of which, methinks, our Saviour gave an intimation, in that
passage to Petei*, et tu aliquando conversus conjirma fratres tuos.*
(Luke xxii, 32.)
Narrowgrace. — He attributeth so much to the ministry of
the gospel, that he seems to be superstitiously addicted to it,
and turns it into an idol. Whereas, we know, of itself it is but
a dead letter ; and therefore Maccovius handling that question,
* " And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren."
72 THE EXAMINATION
Whetlter the word of God may he savhigb/ heard befo7-e regeneration,
concludes negatively ; and, to avoid his adversaries' argument,
he affirms, " tliat that hearing of the word which produceth
faith, doth presuppose regeneration." To this agrees the opinion
of some Divines, who think " that regeneration is effected after
another manner than faith is." To which purpose Johannes
Rysius, in his Confession, saith thus. Fides Dei gratia per ver^
hum concipiiur : Regeneraiio \\iero'] a Deo per Chrisltivi nine
nllius ret creatce intervenlu projiciscitur : " Faith is conceived
by the grace of God through the word ; but regeneration pro-
ceeds from God through Christ, without the intervention of
any created thing whatsoever."
Take-o'-trust. — I conceive. Sir, when we see the ministry
so much eclipsed and undervalued as it is, if there were nothing
else in it. Christian policy should teach us, not to vent such
doctrines as are apt to bring more contempt upon it. But the
Holy Ghost hath set it at a higher rate, by clothing it with
titles of a greater reputation: He calls it, "the word of grace,
the word of faith, the word of life, the word of reconciliation,
the ministration of the Spirit, the word that is able to save the
soul, the power of God unto salvation, the word of God that
effectually worketh in them that believe." *
Knowlittle. — I conceive the ministry of the word hath
these excellent titles bestowed upon it, in regard it is the in-
strument by and through which God doth infuse, into the
Tinderstanding and heart, his special grace, or rather that
regenerating virtue which alone doth powerfully effect the work
of regeneration : So that the outward word, as an instrument,
conferreth nothing at all to that effect, but is only as the tunnel
whereby water is poured into a vessel; and yet that water
receives no tincture at all from the nature or quality of the said
tunnel.
Take-o'-trust. — I have seen this alleged: But they say, we
should consider that the nature and property of the word, is,
to be intelUgible (in expression) and to carry such a sense as is apt
to move the party, to whom it is addressed, by working upon his
understanding, and inciting his heart to love or hatred, hope or
fear; and this is the true efficacy the word is endowed with.
But if the word contributes no more to our conversion or re-
* John vi, 63.— Heb. iv, 12.— 1 Cor. xiv, 24, 25.
OF TILENUS. 73
g^eneration, than the tunnel (that only conveys the liquor,) to
the filling of the vessel ; then it matters not whether the word
be intelligible, yea or no : For that regenerating virtue being a
distinct power infused beside it, the word doth not woi-k as a
verbal, that is, a rational instrument, but only concurs as an
instrument destitute of sense and reason. And, therefore, as it
matters not what metal the tunnel be made of, whether wood,
or brass, or tin ; so (had the word no other kind of instrument-
ality than that hath,) it were all one, whether the language
were barbarous non-sense, (as is usual amongst some sectaries,)
or significant. And to what end, then, did God confer the gijl
of tongues upon his Apostles, and they take such care to con-
descend and apply themselves to the capacity and apprehension
of their hearers ? Besides, if the word hath no more to do in
this work than is pretended, why should it consist of precepts,
and those established with promises and threatenings ? For a
precept (so established especially,) doth prescribe the thing
(under command) as a duty, and concurs unto that duty as the
reason moving and obliging a man to perform it. But if that
special grace, or regenerating virtue, so infused, doth alone
effect a man's regeneration, (taking nothing at all from the
word,) how can that effect be said to be "the performance
of his duty, and an act of obedience to the command of the
word ?"
Knowlittle — It is a question, whether there be any pre-
cepts, properly so called, under the new covenant, yea or no.
Some absolutely deny it. But we confess it ; and they [^the
precepts^ niay be said to concur to our conversion and believing
2}er modum signi, "as a sign or object" representing what God
by his free grace is said to effect and work in us. Indeed they
declare what man ought to do; but they serve rather to dis-
cover and convince his weakness, than to promote his duty.
Take-o'-trust. — This doctrine doth cancel the very formal
reason and force of all the commands of Christ, and makes the
word of God, intended for an instrument of man's conversion,
to serve only for an object and mere doctrine for his faith and
repentance to converse with ; for they are not to be wrought
(it seems) by this means, but immediattli/ effected and wrought
of Almighty God, in the heart, by a special action and opera-
tion : and, consequently, makes all the exhortations and pre-
cepts, as such, all the promises and threatenings, complaints
F
74 THE EXAMINATION
and obtestations, wherewith the word of God aboundeth, to be
nothing else but empty signs and busy trifles, (if not a ludi-
crous stage-play,) conducing nothing to that effect to v/hich
they pretend to be designed. But, that faith and regeneration
which flow from it, are both wrought (in a rational way) by the
outward ministry of the word, moving and inciting the under-
standing and heart of man, — will evidently appear to be the
doctrine of Christ and his Apostles.
First. For faith, take that expression in our Saviour's
prayer, " Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word is truth.
Neither pray I for these (Apostles) alone ; but for them also,
which shall believe on me through their word." (John xviii,
17,20, See John xx, 31; 1 John v, 13.) And "Therefore
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
(Rom. X, 17.) — (1) That he understands faith working hy love,
which the gospel determines to be the only means by which
we may and ought to be saved, — appears in the 9th and 10th
verses : " If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and believe, with thy heart, that God raised him up from the
dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the tongue confession is made
unto salvation." — (2) That by the word which works this
faith, he understands the outward word, appears by the whole
contexture of the chapter : For he saith (i) " This is that word
of faith which we preach." (verse 8.) — (ii) That word, which
cannot be heard unless it be preached, not internally by God,
but externally by men, sent out to that purpose. * — (iii) That
word which is heard with the ears of the body, and (iv) may
be disobeyed, t
Secondly. As the working of faith is attributed to the mi-
nistry of the word, so is the working of regeneration too :
" Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth ; where-
fore let every man be swift to hear, " &c. (James i, 18, 19.)
To this add, " Being born again, not of corruptible seed but
of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth
for ever ; and this is the word which by the gospel is preached
unto you." (1 Pet. i, 23, 25.) Hereupon St. Paul tells the Co-
rinthians, not only that he was a minister of God, " by whom
they did believe ;" but tells them also, that " He was their
* Verses 14, 15. f Verses 16, 18.
OF TILENUS. 75
father; for in Christ Jesus he had begotten them, through
the gospel." (1 Cor. iv, 14, 15.)
Knowlittle. — The Apostle saith, "I have planted and
Apollos watered: but God gave the increase." (1 Cor. iii, 6.)
Take-o*-trust. — So the Apostle saith, " God giveth to every
seed his own body, as it hath pleased him :" (1 Cor. xv, 38.)
But still it is in the ordinary way of husbandry ; and therefore
the sower goes out to sow his seed, and so " the king himself
is served by the field." (Eccles. v, 9.) But "the sluggard,
who will not plow by reason of the cold, shall beg in harvest
and have nothing." (Prov. xx, 4.) In these natural things, we
see, God doth not bring forth fruit by any peculiar divine
action distinct from that of planting and watering; but, by
preserving that force and vigour once put into the earth and
•water, (wherein and whereby such plantation and watering is
made,) he concurs to make the labour of the husbandman
successful, and so gives the increase. " Thou visitest the
earth, and waterest it : thou greatly enrichest it with the river
of God, which is full of water : thou preparest them corn when
thou hast so provided for it : Thou waterest the ridges thereof
abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it
soft with showers, thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou
crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fat-
ness." (Psalm Ixv. 9 — 1^0 So it is here, in a spiritual sense :
"Ye are God's husbandry, or God's tillage;" (1 Cor. iii, 90
and he hath instituted a ministry, to bring you unto fruitfulness.
" I have planted," — laying the foundation, or first principles,
of Christian faith among you, (of heathens making you believers ;)
" Apollos watered," — he baptised you, and promoted that faith
to some further growth in you : But yet there is no great mat-
ter imputable to him or me, that you should make a schism upon
this account, as if either of us were the author of your faith;
but it is God alone who gave us our ability, * and put all the
force and efficacy into those sacred ordinances which we admi-
nister, and so gave the increase. Thus, I say, God gives the
increase, not by any peculiar special action distinct from that
plantation and watering of Paul and Apollos ; but by continu-
ing to prosper that vigour and efficacy which he was pleased to
put into that ministry. Hence the Apostle saith, " We are
* See 2 Cor. iv, 6 ; 1 Cor. iv, 7 ; 2 Cor. iii, 4, 5,6.
f2
7G THE EXAMINATION
labourers together with God," (verse 9,) and "ministers by
vhorn ye believed." (verse 5.) To this purpose, the Apostle is
" a chosen vessel to bear the gospel to the Gentiles :" (Acts
ix, 15.) And his commission is, " To open their eyes, and to
turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan
unto God." (Acts xxvi, 18.) And he doth so well manage and
execute this commission, that he is confident to say, " I have
whereof I may glory, through Jesus Christ, in those things
which pertain to God." (Rom. xv, 17.)
Knowlittle. — There is a promise: " Thine ears shall hear
a word behind thee, saying. This is the way, walk ye ifi it," Sfc.
(Isai. XXX, 21.)
Take-o'-trust. — {I) That promise is made to such as are
already converted, * and signifies no more than what is more
clearly expressed in Isaiah lix, 21. t — (2) If the word, there
promised, be a thing distinct from the word of the ministry,
then I ask. Whether it be an intelligible word or not. If not,
then it is no fit mean to work upon a reasonable soul, and to
bring it to perform to God a reasonable service, as ours ought
to be. I If it be an intelligible word, then either it hath the
same sense with the word written and preached, or a different
sense from it. If it be of the same sense with the word written
and preached, then it is to no purpose : Fruslra sit per plura,
quodjieri potest per pauciora, et entia non sunt multiplicando sine
necessitate, " it is frivolous to multiply means without cause." If
this word be of « different sense from the word written or preach-
ed, then this (to the dishonour of the word!) will argue the
insufficiency of it "to make us wise unto salvation, and the
man of God perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good
work;" and this will lay an imputation, not only upon the
veracity and truth of God, but also upon his wisdom and
goodness, for commending and enjoining the use of his written
word to us, for an end and purpose to which it is insufficient.
* It is observed, that the Holy Spirit (not in his miraculous gifts only,)
is most frequently said to be given to men after their conversion. (Luke
xi, 13 ; Acts v, 32 ; xix, 2.)
f "As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My
Sjiirit that is upon thee, and my words which 1 have put in thy mouth,
shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out
of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for
£yer."
X Rom. xii, 2.
OF TILENUS. 77
But, that we may understand the Prophet's meaning, consider,
that we are commanded to " walk before God ;" (Gen. xvii, 1.)
according to which expression, we are to think God always at
our heels, (as we say,) observing our steps ; and consonantly
to that metaphorical expression, if we step aside, what means
soever his providence useth to set us right and direct our goings
in his paths, it is as if we heard " a voice behind us." Not that
God would exempt us from following the direction of the mi-
nistry : No, — for the promise is thus expressed in the former
verse, " Thine eyes shall see thy teachers :" * And that we
may not think it lawful to run on in error, till the enthusias-
tical charm recals us, remember, it is our duty to seek the law,
at the priest's moidh. (Mai. ii, 7-) Hence, we have these caveats,
not only, take heed hojv you hear, and wliat you hear, but also,
whom you hear ; " for many false prophets are gone out into
the world ; and therefore try the spirits whether they are of
God." (1 John iv, 1.) What need of all these caveats, and so
much ado, if the ministry ^of^ the word ha^h no influence or
energy in our faith and regeneration, and the work of grace
in us }
Knowlittle. — But, we see, the Scripture every where as-
cribes the work of faith, conversion, and regeneration in us, to
the power and gift of God, to Christ, and to the Holy Ghost.
Take-o'-trust. — The Scriptures do attribute to Almighty
God that which he doth mediately by any of his creatures or
Ministers. In John iv, 1, Jesus is said to have baptized more
disciples than John ; yet, in the next verse it is said, that " Jesus
baptized not, but his disciples." t Though the ministry of the
word be instrumental in the work of grace in us, yet must we
acknowledge the Blessed Trinity the chief cause and author
thereof, and are bound always to render them the honour of
that efficacy that is wrought by this instrument ; because all
the light, force, and efficacy, which appear therein, flow from
God alone, — and had not been in it at all, if he had not (as it
were) implanted it therein. " We have this treasure in earthen
vessels," as the Apostle, in a like case. (2 Cor. iv, 6, 7.) % Cer-
tainly there we have it, and God associates what other divine
* See Deut. xvii, 9, 11. f See John vi, 45, 4G.— With Luke x, IC;
2Cor.v, 19; lThess.iv,8; Heh.xii,25; Acts v, 39— vii, 51. % 2Cor.
iii, 3, 4, 5.
I' 3
78 THE EXAMINATION
internal aids he pleaseth with it : * To Him therefore we must
ascribe the glory, who hath annexed such an excellency of
power to such (otherwise) weak and feeble instruments. (2 Cor.
X, 4.)
Dr. Absolute. — Leave your wrangling. Gentlemen, that we
may despatch Mr, Tilenus one way or other. Have any of you
any more objeciions against him ?
Indefectible. — He holds the possibility of the Saints' Apos-
tacy, notwithstanding the decrees and promises of God to the
contrary ; and concludes David's adultery and murder to be
wilful, wasting, deadly sins, and inconsistent with the state of
regeneration. So that should a godly man through the
frailty of the flesh suffer the like infirmity, he would be ready
to discourage and grieve his spirit, telling him " he had for-
feited his interest in God's favour, and lay under a damnable
guilt, liable to the wrath of God and the torments of hell ;"
and so in danger to bring him to desperation, if he does not
forsake his sin and mortify his lust, and bring forth fruits meet
for rei>entance upon his admonition.
Narrowgrace. — What was worse than that, to my mind ; —
he flouted the Divines of the Synod, saying, "If their doctrine
were well improved, it would prove an antidote against the
power of death, and teach a man how to become immortal, even
in this life."
Impertinent. — That slipt my observation. I pray, what
was it he said ?
Narrowgrace. — It was to this purpose: " If the elect can-
not be cut off in a state of impenitency, notwithstanding they
fall into most grievous sins ; then," saith he, " let them aban-
don themselves to some horrid lust or course of impiety, and
they shall be sure to be immortal."
Indefectible. — But we know the elect cannot do so. They
have a principle within them, and a guard without them, to
defend and secure them from such courses. " They are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation." (1 Pet. i, 5.)
There is their guard : And their inward principle that inclines
and moves them, you have in 1 John iii, Q. " Whosoever is
born of God, doth not commit sin : for his seed remaineth in
him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."
Mark xvi, 15,20; Rom. xv, 16, 19.
OF TTLENUS. 79
Dr. Dubius. — Under correction, Sir, I conceive man is never
immutably good till he arrives in heaven. As long as he con-
verseth here below he is like other sublunary things, subject to
change. * The reason is, beside temptations from without to
allure and draw him, he hath a two-fold pi'inciple, a new and
an old man within him, — the flesh and the spirit in contestation :
" The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the
flesh." (Gal. v, 17.) This conflict is in the regenerate: And
that he hath liberty to side with either of these parties, and so
to change, I think cannot be denied. He hath a liberty through
God's grace to side with the Spirit against the flesh ; and here-
upon he is exhorted to " abstain from fleshly lusts, to mortify
his earthly members, and to walk in the Spirit." His liberty to
side with the flesh, is but too evident. And therefore the words
" CANNOT sin" must be taken, not physice but eihice, " Not for
a natural impotency but a moral one." — He cannot do it legally ; f
or for an averseness of mind, which, notwithstanding, is capable
of being altered. It is said of Christ sometimes, that " He
could do no mighty work." (Mark vi, 5.) And so it is said,
that the brethren of Joseph " could not answer him." (Gen.
xlv, 3.) And the angel " could do nothing against Sodom,"
till Lot were escaped into Zoar. :j; (Gen. xix, 22.) And it is
usual in our common speech to say, " We cannot do a thing,"
when the thing is not impossible to be done, but only it is nnlan^
Jul or inconvenient for us to do it : If we set aside the incou'
venience and step over the hedge of the laiv, (as many times we
do,) we can find power enough to do it. And so it is here.
Therefore to that of our Saviour, (Matt, vii, 18.) "A good tree
cannot bring forth evil fruit," St. Jerome addeth, Quamdiu in
honitatis studio perseverat, " as long as it perseveres in the study
and love of goodness." Thus " he that is born of God," while
he acteth according to the nature of the principles of his new
birth, and studies to follow and resemble his Heavenly Father,
—cannot deliberately yield to any kind of sin. Hcec nan admittet
omnino qia natus e Deojtierit; nonfaturus Deijllins si adniiserity
* Quod Angelis casus honiinibits mors. " That which is a fall to Angels,
IS DEATH to meu."
f Idpossumus, quod jure possutnus. " VVe can do that which may lawftilli/
be done."
+ SecJos. xxiv, 19,21.
80 THE EXAMINATION
saith Tertullian ; " He that is born of God, will not at all admit
such sins as these ; he shall not be a child of God, if he doth
admit them." As for that guard you mention out of St. Feter,
" They are kept by the power of God:" We must consider that
we are to add a guard of our own to it, as is required, fjude
XX, 21.) " But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most
holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in
the love of God :" And St. Peter adds, " through faith." (1 Pet.
i, 5.) The Psalmist saith, " Except the Lord keepeth the city,
the watchman waketh but in vain." But he doth not say,
" The Lord will keep the city, whether the watchman waketh,"
yea or no. He that setteth the watch, and is Captain of the
guard over us, saith, " Watch and pray, that ye enter not into
temptation ;" and we can promise ourselves safety no longer
than [[while^ we are upon our duty. " He that is begotten of
God, keepeth himself; and that wicked one toucheth him not."
(1 John V, 18.) That is the effect or event of his dut}', if he be
careful to observe it. But though Christ hath freed us from the
dominion of the enemy, yet if we do voluntarily render our-
selves up again to his power, *' his servants we are to whom
we obey." (Rom. vi, 14, l6.) Or if we quit our guard, and
suffer ourselves to be surprised through our wilful carelessness,
we are involved in a like thraldom ; for " of whom a man is
overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage." (2 Pet. ii, I9.)
Indefectible. — Sir, the Apostle hath taught us to distin-
guish betwixt " a sin unto death," and " a sin not unto death."
(1 John v.) We confess, the regenerate may fall into sin, but
not into sin unto death. " Though he fall, he shall not be
utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand."
(Psalm xxxvii, 24.)
Dr. Dubius. — For that place of the Psalmist, the context
doth clear the meaning to be of falling, not into sin, but into
ajffiiclion and misery. Yet I do not deny, but God out of his
abundant mercy is ready, in a way agreeable to liis wisdom
and justice, to assist such as fall into sin, in order to their rising
again. But I am in some doubt, whether the regenerate may
not "sin a sin unto death:" and that as well if you consider
the event, as the demerit of his sin. For the moderate, and those
not inferior in learning to the more rigid, of the Synod of Dort,
do acknowledge, " that the regenerate may not only fall from
certain degrees of grace, and intermit the acts of grace : but
OF THEN IS.
likewise that they may fall into such sins as leave them under
a damnable guilt, so that they have need of an actual renewal of
repentance, and a new absolution ; that they lose their present
aptness to enter into the kingdom of heaven, into which no
unclean thing shall enter." * And that David and Solomon fell
thus far, will be evident, if you consider the nature of their
sins, and apply these following Scriptures to them : 1 Cor. vi,
9, 10 ; Gal. v, 21 ; Apoc. xxi, 7, 8 ; 1 John iii, 1.5. Now let
us consider, whether it be not possible for a man, that is fallen
into this estate and condition, to be cut off in his sins before
his repentance be renewed, and his new absolution received to
remove his guilt, and restore him to an aptitude and a present
actual capacity to enter into the kingdom of heaven. If it be
possible for him to be cut ofFin this condition, then it will follow,
that either he .shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven at all;
or else there must be some purgatory after this life Cfor him to
pass through) to cleanse and fit him for heaven — of which Pro-
testants will not admit. But if we say, " It is not possible for
such a man to be cut off in his sin ;" then it must follow,
(l.) That he hath a lease of his life granted, till his restoration;
which will be a hard matter to make appear : And (2.) That
God is bound by some covenant or promise to afford him as well
grace as time to repent; and this will be as hard to evidence as the
former; for, I presume, it is not to be denied, that there is re-
quired a greater measure of grace to raise up such a sinner, being
fallen, than to keep him, while he stood, from falling. Now if
God's covenant and promise did not bind him to give that less
measure of grace to keep him actually from falling, how can we
persuade ourselves that he is bound by it, to confer that
greater measure of grace whereby he shall actually arise.?
Indefectible. — The Apostle tells the Philippians, " he is
confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good
work in them, will perform (or finish) it until the day of Jesus
Christ." (Phil, i, 6.)
Dr. Dubius. — I need not say, the Apostle's persuasion is not
always an infallible argument of God's purpose. + For he had
a persuasion of charity, as well as of faith; % and that his per-
* lid. Si/nops. pur. Theo. Disp. 31, Tlies. 38, Synod. Dordra., Cap.v,
Art. 4 and 5.
f Acts xvi, 6, 7. + Heb. vi,9.
82 THE EXAMINATION
suasion touching the Philippians was of this nature, appears by
the verse following that which is alleged. But I say, God
doth as well carry on as begin the Avork of grace in man's heart,
in such a way as doth not evacuate but establish the necessity
of man's duty; and, therefore, he backs that his confidence,
with a vehement exhortation, " As ye have always obeyed,
work out your own salvation with fear and with trembling ;
for it is God, that Avorketh in you to will and to do, of his good
pleasure." (Phil, ii, 12, 13.) And we may observe in the
Epistle to the Angel of the Church of Philadelphia, where God
makes a promise to preserve him in a time of trial then at
hand ; though that promise was something of the nature of a
reward, being made to him upon a consideration of his former
fidelity, yet he subjoins an obligation of duty : " Thou hast a
little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my
name : Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also
will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come
upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth."
(Rev. iii, 8, 10.) But to shew that his own care and constancy
was requisite in order to the accomplishment of that promise,
he adds, " Behold, I come quickly ; hold that fast which thou
hast, that no man take thy crown." (Verse 11.) Notwithstand-
ing God's promise, if we grow careless, we may forfeit our
reward and incur damnation, as is clearly threatened in Ezek.
xviii, 24 : " But when the righteous turneth away from his
righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doth according to
all the abominations that the wicked man doth ; shall he live ?
All his righteousness that he hath done, shall not be mentioned :
in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he
hath sinned, in them shall he die."
Indefectible. — How can this consist with God's covenant
and promise.?, "I will make an everlasting covenant with
them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good ;
but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart
from me." (Jer. xxxii, 40.)
Dr. Dubius. — That God doth not engage himself in that
place to confer upon his people aii irresistible power of grace,
infallibly to effect the gift of perseverance in them, will be
manifest, if we consider that the covenant, there mentioned,
concerned the people of the Jews, and contained the favour that
God would vouchsafe to do them presently upon their return
OF TILENUS. 83
from the Babylonish Captivity, as appears clearly in the fore-
going and following verses ; and yet, through their fault and
want of compliance, this did not take effect, their renewed
defection crossed God's promise, and the event happened far
otherwise. For if you consider that people soon after their re-
turn from that captivity, they grew worse and worse, as appears
from Neheraiah, the last [^chapter]] : And if you will refer the
fulfilling of the promise till after the exhibition of the Messias,
though that is against the scope of the words, yet then they
grew worst of all. " They resisted the Holy Ghost, (Acts
vii, 5,) and rejected the counsel of God against themselves ;
(Luke vii, 30.) and judged themselves unworthy eternal life,"
blaspheming and persecuting the Author, means, and ministry
of it ; (Acts xiii, 45, 46, 50.) and so were " cut off for their
wilful unbelief" (Rom. ix, 32.) In the covenant therefore we
are to consider two things: (1.) A promise on God's part;
and (2.) A stipulation of duty on their part who are concerned
in the promise. — The promise on God's part is, " I will be their
God, and I will not (that is, of myself , ov without provocation,')
turn away from them to do them good ; but I will put my fear
in their hearts." But to what end is all this > Why, " that
they may be my people, and fear me, as my people, and not
depart from me," as is expressed in the 39th and 40th verses
of that chapter. — This then being a voluntary duty which God
requires, we must not imagine it to be intimated as the infallible
effect or event of his promise, but as the end why he makes that
promise to them, and the engagement which it puts upon them.
But if they will not choose to have " the fear of God before their
eyes," and to excite that grace which he puts into their hearts,
but " out of an evil heart of unbelief, depart from the living
God," they by this their prevarication and apostacy becoming
Noji pojmlus, " ceasing to be his people," he ceaseth likewise to
be their God. Thus the Spirit of God by Azariah hath resolved
it to Asa and all Judah and Benjamin : " The Lord is with you,
while ye be with him ; and if ye seek him, he will be found of
you : But if ye forsake him, he will forsake you :" (2 Chron.
XV, 2.) " Yea, and cast you off for ever," — as David addeth to
his son Solomon. (1 Chron. xxviii, 9-) So that there is a kind
of reciprocal engagement betwixt God and man, and something
is to be performed by either party in order to salvation. Now
it so happens many times, that all which is promised to be
84 THE EXAMINATION
done on God's part, is effectually done in regard of the sttfflcicncij
of it, — and yet nothing done that is I'equired to be done on
man's part, in respect to the event. * Hence it is, that some-
times God is said to have done all, viz. all his part. " I have
purged thee, but thou wast not purged;" (Ezek. xxiv, 13.)
and, "for my purl, what could have been done more ?" (Tsai.
V, 4.) Sometimes again, he is said to have done nothing : " To
whom is the arm of the Lord revealed.?," (Isai. liii,!,) that is, in
respect of the effect, or the eve?it: For God was not wanting in send-
ing his Prophets to make the revelation. So, (Deut.xxix,4,) " The
Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see,
and ears to hear, unto this day." Not that God was wanting in
affording necessary means and assistance hereunto : For then
Moses should rather have upbraided God's illiberality, than
the people's obstinac}'^ ; v.hich he had no reason to do, God
having wrought so many signs and miracles of mercy for them,
and of justice upon their enemies, as many times gained credit
and acknowledgment among the Egyptians, and other nations
as they passed along, and captivated the understanding, and
subdued the will and affections of Joshua and Caleb. But God
is said, " not to have given them hearts," &c., in regard of the
event; because, though he had administered abundant means
to that purpose, yet through their wilful ohduration he could not
prevail so far with them. They had frustrated the effect, as it is
said of our Saviour's countrymen in respect of his ministry ;t
and therefore Moses must not be thought to excuse them, by
laying their blindness and stubbornness at God's door, — but to
upbraid them, that they had made their hearts so impenetrable
hitherto to all those gracious and powerful dispensations, that
by them, though sufficient, God had not effected such an ad-
vertency as might 'have begotten a willingness thoroughly to
confide in him and obey in him. ^ This was the end, which
God seriously intended and- aimed at.
Indefectible. — This is inconsistent with that of the Apostle,
" The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." (Rom.
xi, 29.)
Dr. DuBius. — Sir, It will be a very hard matter, to draw an
argument from that scripture to infer your conclusion. " The
gifts and calling of God are without repentance," Ergo, JVhat ?
* Sec2Tim.ii, i:i. f Matt, xiii, 58. + Iliid. verse G.
OF TILENUS. 85
"The regenerate cannot fall from grace, and their interest in
God's favour ?" Which is a plain non sequitur, " It does not
follow." For of whom speaketh the Apostle that ? Doth he
not speak it of the Israelites? And yet he tells you, but ten
verses before, " that they were broken off for their unbelief."—
All that can be concluded from those words will amount but to
this, that God is so faithful and tenacious of his promise, (where-
with he had gratified their fathers,) that, (as it is in verse 23,)
" if they abide not still in unbelief," he is no less willing and
ready than " able to graft them into the covenant again." And
upon this occasion, my brethren, give me leave to acquaint you
with a few more of my doubts and scruples, in order to my
better satisfaction and settlement in these points. For I hope
you will not mistake me, as if I were perem.ptory in my asser-
tions; for I speak only tentative, to try whether I can draw out
of you any better arguments or answers to objections, than I have
hitherto met with in those that have handled these controversies.
I tell you then, that the text last quoted, with some other pas-
sages in the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Chapters of that Epistle
to the Romans, have begotten a great doubt in me, Whether the
Apostle in his discourse (chap, ix,) treateth at all of that absolute
and peremptory decree of reprobation, whereby men are irrevo-
cably excluded from salvation and all the necessary means that had
to it. Let me give you the reasons of my doubting.
Preterition. — lam afraid we shall not have time now to
examine them; yet, seeing you are so desirous, let us have them
briefly, that we maybe the better prepared to deliver our opinion
about them at our next meeting.
Dr. DuBius. — Then take them thus. I suppose it will be
granted, that the Apostle in those chapters applies his discourse
more especially to the case of the Jews, yet haply so as to con-
clude all others in their example. If so, then, that he speaks
not of their absolute and peremptory reprobation, is very probable,
rot only from his way of arguing, but also from his passionate
sorrow, hearty prayer, and earnest exhortations to them.
I. Let us reflect upon the Apostle's sorrow, and his option upon
it ; "I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my
brethrer, my kinsmen according to the flesh."(ix, 2, 3.) — What
is the ground of this heaviness and his vote upon it } If it were,
" that God, by an absolute decree of reprobation and out of his
86 THE EXAMINATION
sole beneplaciture, had excluded them from the grace aud power
of believing unto righteousness and salvation," (as some interpret
it,) then, where was the piety of the great Apostle exprest in
this sorrow ? Where was his prudence in this option ? For if
such were the decree of God, and the Apostle knew it, and was
about to demonstrate it to be such, he must grant it to be most
wise and most just, and much conducing to the illustration of
God's glory ; and then it were impiety in any man to repine and
grieve at it, — much more in him, who was therefore called
** a vessel of election," because he was designed and called so
eminently to be instrumental to the glory of the Divine dispen-
sations. And if he knew such a Divine decree, to be immutably
fixed to all eternity, it was against prudence to interpose such a
wish for the avoidance of it. If the common opinion be true,
" that, in respect of the manifestation of the Divine glory, it is
better and more eligible to be miserable than not to be at all;"
and if it be " out of an erroneous and inordinate judgment,
that the very damned in hell- torments judge otherwise," as some
great school-men maintain, then certainly we must set an ill
character upon the Apostle's sorrow and option, if we make that
l^to be^ the cause and ground of it [[which is^ alleged in this
supposition. And it will not excuse, to say, " This vote past
the Apostle in the hurry of his passions," or, " that it was but
a siidden sally of his affections, in their eager pursuit after the
salvation of his nation :" For all the circumstances of the dis-
course, and that solemn preface wherewith it is ushered in, do
manifestly argue that it was uttered considerately and with great
deliberation. " I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience
also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost." (ix, 1.) And it is
a sufficient indication of his calm and composed mind, that he
did commit this option to writing and transmit it in an Epistle to
the Churches.
2. To this let us add his prayer, "Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved." (x, 1.; What
Israel he means, is expressed in the third verse : "They who being
ignorant of God's righteousness, went about to establish their
own righteousness, and did not submit themselves to the right-
eousness of God." How can this prayer or option of the Apos-
tle consist with his knowledge or belief of their absolute and per-
emptory reprobation ? For his prayer, according to that opinion,
must be after this manner : " Lord, I know by Divine revelation,
OF TILENUS. 87
" (and am now declaring it in an epistle to the Romans, and so
" to all the world,) that it is thine absolute will and good plea-
" sure, utterly and irrevocably to abandon this people under an
*' immutable decree of reprobation: yet I do most heartily desire
" and beseech thee, to grant that they may be saved." Such a
prayer had been directly against his faith, and therefore [[had
been^ sin, (Rom. xiv, 23.) and against the very rule* of prayer,
and obedience in that kind, and so sin too. Sure the Apostle,
after his conversion, was not wont thus to break his faith, and
cross the counsel of his Maker.
3. To this we may add all other his endeavours and stratagems,
to gain them to the faith of Christ, and consequently to salvation,
of which we read in Rom. xi, 14, and elsewhere. All which had
been as ridiculous as the encounters of the Knight-errant in Don
Quixote, if the Apostle had believed these men to be absolutely
excluded from all possibility of salvation, by such a decree as some
fancy to be treated of in that Ninth Chapter.
4. I conceive my doubt more reasonable, when I consider the
Apostle's way of ai'guing, in Rom. xi, 1. For, to intimate (at
least according to my apprehension) that the ground of his sor-
row was not their absolute, irrespective and irrevocable reprobation^
but the danger of their rejection J'ro7n the covenant and divine grace,
wherein they had hitherto stood, as God's pecvdiar adopted peo-
ple, (J.) He makes their own wilful iinheliefxhe cause and ground
of this their rejection and misery : " Because of unbelief
they were broken off;" (Rom. xi, 20.) which cannot be said of
the decree of Reprobation. For the maintainers of that
decree do not make unbelief the cause of reprobation, but rather
repi'obation the cause of unbelief. — (2.) He saith, there is a pos-
sibility and hope of their restitution. This is intimated in Romans
xi, 1 1 and 29, and expressed in verse 23 : " If they abide not
still in unbelief, they shall be grafted in ; for God is able to graft
them in again." And this cannot be said with respect to the
decree of Reprobation : For, " the decree of God is God him-
self," as Maccovius and others do affirm ; and so did Gomarus,*
till, being impugned by Arminius, he changed his opinion in this
particular. And " God cannot deny himself." (2. Tim. ii, J 3.)
Besides, the men of that opinion lay the foundation of all mercy
and judgment to come, in those their absolute decrees of election
* " Thy will be djne." f Vide Gomar. Tom. 3, Disp. 9, Thes. 28,
&c. — See them ia the Preface to this Examination of Tilenus, page 20,
88 THE EXAMINATION
and reprobation ; and make Christ but a part of the superxlrtiction
cr the Executor of those decrees ; whereas this Apostle saith,
" Other FOUNDATION can no man lay, than that is laid, which is
Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. iii, 11.) And we may observe, that, con-
sonantly hereunto, he shutteth up that his discourse : " What
shall we say then ?" (Rom. ix, 30.) Or, What is the sum of all that
hath been spoken ? Namely this : " That the Gentiles, which
followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness,
even the righteousness which is of faith, ^ut Israel, which fol-
lowed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the
law of righteousness. W^herefore ?" Not because they were
excluded by aii absolute and irresistible decree, as the Apostle
should have said if he had argued regularly according to that
opinion ; but "because they sought it not by faith," as they
were taught, enabled and obliged to do, " but, as it were, by the
works of the law : for they," quitting the only foundation,
" stumbled at the stumbling-stone ; as it is written. Behold I set
up in Zion" the deliverer of Jacob, v;hom they shall take occasion
to make " a stumbling-stone, and," through their wilful infide-
lity and perverseness, he shall become to them "a rock of offence :
but whosoever buildeth upon him," by a lively faith and a holy
obedience, " shall not be confounded." (Verses 31, 32, 33.) For
" as he hath tasted death for every man," t according to the
Scriptures, even for them that perish ; and bought, with the
price of his heart's-blood, them that deny him, as St. Peter saith,
so the Father " would not that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance and be saved." (2 Pet. iii, 9- 1 Tim.
ii, 4.) And to that end " He now commandeth all men every
where to repent," (Acts xvii, 30.) and to "kiss the Son," (Psalm
ii, 12.) and submit to his sceptre, who is " the propitiation for
their sins, and for the sins of the whole world," (1 John ii, 2.)
having made our atonement and our peace, (Col. i, 20.) and
" purchased grace and eternal redemption for us ;t sufficient
abilities and glorious privileges, whereby we might be enabled
and encouraged to serve him " acceptably, with reverence and
godly fear, who is the author of eternal salvation to all them that
obey him." (Heb. v, 9) These are all express parts of the Divine
Revelation, and therefore part of the object of our faith, and
t Hcb. ii, 9. 1 Cor. viii, 11. 2 Pet. ii, 1.
t Rom. V, 11. John i, 16". Heb. ix, 12. 2 Pet. i, 3, 1. Heb. xii, 28.
OF TILENUS. 89
therefore infallible assei'tions of Sacred Truth. What slender
distinctions are invented and what texts of Scripture wrested, to
elude some of them, I shall take my opportunity to represent,
when you will vouchsafe to give me a friendly meeting, to debate
these and other emergent doubts touching these great points of
controversy. In the mean time, I could wish you would not
exclude, from the exercise of their ministry, men legally ordained
thereunto, if they be otherwise well-qualified, though they differ
somewhat from you in these matters. But I am single, and
must submit my vote to the suffrages of my brethren.
Chairman, — Brother Doctor, we may think upon your advice
and doubts hereafter ; but, for the present, we must agree as one
man to carry on the great work of Reformation [^which^ we have
in hand ; and therefore, gentlemen, what say you to Mr. Tilenus ?
Do you approve of him as a man well-gifted and fitly-qualified
for the Ministry ?
Fatalitv. "^
Preterition. V No ! By no means ! We do not like
Indefectible. £ his principles.
and the rest. i
CALL HIM IN.
Chairman. — Sir, The Commissioners are not satisfied in your
Certificate. You may be a godly man, — we do not deny ; but
we have not such assurance of it as we can build upon ; and,
therefore, we cannot approve of you for the Ministry. And, that
you may be at no more expence of purse or time in your attend-
ance, we wish you to return home, and think upon some other
employment.
Tilenus. — Sir, I could wish I might be acquainted with the
reason of this my reprobation, unless the Decree that governs your
votes, or proceeds from them, be irrespective. I think I am not
so ill-beloved amongst the most learned of the Godly Clergy,
(though differing a little in judgment from me,) but I can procure
a full Certificate from the chiefest and most moderate of them.
Chairman. — That is not all the matter we have against you.
What have we to do with moderate men } We see your temper
and want of modesty in that expression, and therefore you may
be gone.
G
90 TUB EXAMINATION OF TILENUS.
TiLENUs. — Then, jrentlemen, I shall take my leave, and com-
mend you to more sober counsels and resolutions.
END OF THE EXAMINATION OF TILENUS.
The leaders of this people \^Heb. they that call them blessed^
came f hem to err. (Isa. ix, 16'.)
Therefore behold, I am against the Prophets, saitk the Lord, that
steal mi/ TV or d ever 1/ one from his neighbour. (Jer. xxiii, SO.)
Ye take away the key of knowledge. (Luke i, 52.)
Behold I am against them that prophesy false dreams, suilh the
Lord, and do tell them, afid cause my people to err by their lies and
their lightness. (Jer. xxiii, 32.)
Thus have ye made the word of God of none effect by your tradi-
tion. (Mat. XV, 6. & Mark vii, 13.)
The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that
rvhich was sick, iieiiher have ye bound zip that tvhich was broken,
neither have ye brought again (hat which was driven away, neither
have ye sotight thai which was lost, but with force and with crttelly
have ye ruled them. And they were scattered, because there is no
shepherd. (Ezek. xxxiv, 4, 5.)
If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words,
even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is
according to godliness, fro7n svcJi withdraw thyself : For if
the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch. But they
shall proceed no further ; for their folly shall be manifest unto all
men. (1 Tim. vi, 3—5. Matt, xv, 14. 2 Tim. iii, 9.)
THE
FIVE ARTICLES
CONTROVERTED BETWIXT
THE
REMONSTRANTS AND CONTRA-REMONSTRANTS,
COMMONLY CALLED
ARMINIANS AND CALVINISTS.
TO THE READER.
When those points of doctrine maintained by Melanc-
thon and other moderate Lutherans, came to be managed by
the acute wit, solid judgment and great learning of James
Heumine, Public Reader in the University of Leyden,
they appeared to the unprejudiced examiners so much more
consonant as well to the Sacred Scriptures and right reason
as to primitive Antiquity^ and so much more agreeable to
the Mercy, Justice and Wisdom of ALMIGHTY GOD,
and so much more conducing unto Piety, than the tenets
of the rigid Calvinists, that they quickly found a cheerful
reception and great multitudes of followers in the Belgic
Churches. Hereupon their adversaries, (having so passion-
ately espoused the contrary opinions, and being so vehe-
mently carried on with a prejudice against these,) that they
might the more effectually decry and suppress the propug-
nators of them, caused some of their confidants to represent
92 THE TENETS OF
them and their doctrine under such odious characters as
were indeed proper to their own opinions. It was given out
that, among their heresies, they held : First, " that God
was the author of sin," and Secondly, " that He created
the far greatest part of mankind, only of purpose to glorify
himself in their damnation,"" — with several others of like
nature ; which indeed are not only the consequence and
results of Calvin's doctrine, but positively maintained and
propagated by some of his followers.
That thy credulity, good Reader, may not be abused
and betrayed by such practices, the following papers are
hereunto annexed, to give thee, in a short view, a true
account of the difference that is betwixt the disagreeing
parties, with the grounds thereof.
Farewell !
THE RKMONSTRANTS. 93
THE FIRST ARTICLE
TOUCHING
PREDESTINATION
WHAT THE REMONSTRANTS HOLD.
Tliat God to ifie glory and praise of his abundant good-
ness, having decreed to make man after his own image., and to
give him an easy and most equal law, and add thereunto a
threatening of death to the transgressors thereof, and fore-
seeing that Adam laould xvilfully transgress the same, and
tlierehy make himself and his posterity liable to condemnation ;
though God zaas, notxoithstanding, mercifully affected totcards
man, yet, out of respect to his justice and truth, [Ae] would
not give way to his mercy to save man, till his justice should
he satisfied, and his serious hatred of sin and love of righte-
ousness [should^ be made known.*
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
" God decreed to make vian after his own Image.'"} So God
created man after his own image. Gen. i, 26, 27. See Col. iii,
1 0 ; Eph. iv, 24.
* These Articles are not exactly thesame as those which were exhibited by
the Remonstrants at the Synod of Dort, and which are found in the Synodical
Acts: But whatever may be their formal ditference, in substance they are
not dissimilar. In transposing some of them, and in separating the affirm-
ative from the negative propositions, Bishop Womack ap|-*ars to ha\e
intended the introduction of a more logical method, or a more perspicuous
arrangement, than is to be seen in the original Articles. Indeed, ihe Re -
monstrants had particular reasons for intermingling their own sentimen s
with those of their adversaries : They wished to present the tenets of ea' U
system in close contrast, being confident, that, when viewed thus in oppos -
tion, the common sense of mankind would soon decide to which (■• de I'f
doctrines the preference must be given. They accordingly prepared \\v; r
First Article in such a form, as to make one half of its Ten Tenets to cons st
G 3
94 THK TENETS OF [aHT.
" And to give him an easy law," c^c.]] Of the tree of know-
ledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. Gen, ii, l6, 17. See
Rom. ii, 14', 15; Levit. xviii, 5; Ezek. xx, 11; Rom. x, 5;
Gal. iii, 12.
"Added thereto a threatening of death."] In the day that thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Gen. ii, 17,
" Foreseeing that Ada^n would wilfully transgress the same.'"^
And who, as I, shall call and shall declare it, — and the things
that are coming and shall come ? Isa. xliv, 7. See Isa. xli, 22,
23, — Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of
the world. Acts xv, 18.
" And all mans works too.'"^ Thou understandest my thoughts
afar off. Psalm cxxxix, 2. Gen, iii, 6 ; 2 Cor. xi, 2 ; 1 Tim. ii,
13, 14; Eccles. vii, 29 ; Isa. xlv, 21.
" A?id thereby make himself afid his posterity liable to condemna-
tion." 1 All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Rom. iii, 23, — By one man sin entered into the world, and death
by sin. v, 12, 18, I9, — The wages of sin is death, vi, 23, Acts
xvii, 26; Heb, vii, 10; Jobxiv, l, &c, ; 2 Cor, v, 14, xi, 3;
Rev, ii, 7; Gen. iii, 24; Deut. xxvii, 26; Gal. iii, 10; James
ii, 10.
" God was mercifully affected towards man'"^ The Lord God,
merciful and gracious. Exod. xxxiv, 6.— He loved us first. 1 John
iv, 19; see verse 11. — Thou art a God gracious and merciful,
slow to anger. Jonah iv, 2 ; 2 Chron. xxx, 9. — For thou. Lord,
art good and ready to forgive — a God full of compassion and
gracious. Psalm Ixxxvi, 5, 15. — The Lord is slow to anger. As
a father pitieth his children. Psalm ciii, 8, 13. — His tender mer-
cies are over all his works. Psalm cxi, 4, and cxlv, 8, 9- — The
riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering. Rom.
ii, 4. — Be ye merciful, as your Father is merciful. Luke vi, 36.
Isa. Iv, 7: " Jer. xxxi, 20; Joel ii, 13 ; Numb, xiv, 18, 19; Neh.
ix, 17; Deut. v, 9, 10; Jer. xxxii, 18.
" Out of respect to his justice he would not give ivay" &c.)] He
will by no means clear the guilty. Exod. xxxiv, '^. — For thou
both of an affirmatiGti and a neo:ation, and the remainder to contain entire
negations. For this mode of stating their opinions, it will be seen by a
subsequent note, they received a reprimand i'rom the reverend Fathers in
Synod assembled, who regarded Absolute Reprobation as one of those
sacred things which might woX be touched by hands profane. In the Four
Articles which the Remonstrants afterwards presented, they did not insert
such a number of negatives, and there is consequently less variation between
them and the Articles here inserted. The IJishop's model has been the
regular scholastic arrangement of Tenkts and Rejections, which was
adopted by the British Divines and others of " the Colleges," as they were
termed, at the Synod of Dort.
The title which the Remonstrants prefixed to their Articles was the follow-
ing: " These are the sentiments of the Remonstrants concerning the First
Article on Predestination, which in their conscience they have hitherto
thought, and still do think, to be agreeable to the word of God." — Editor.
PIRST.] THE REMONSTRANTS. J>5
art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil
dwell with thee. Psalm v, 4. — But your iniquities have sepa-
rated. Sec. Isa. lix, 2.
" And to his truth."'] Thou shalt die the death; and He is a
God that cannot lie, nor repent, nor deny himself, Gen. ii, I7.
Tit. i, 2 ; Heb. vi, 18 ; Num. xxiii, 19; 2 Tim. ii, 13.
" Till Justice be satisfied." ] The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all ; and made his soul an offering for sin. He was
Avounded for our transgressions. Isa. liii, 5, 6, 10. — Thus it
behoved Christ to suffer ; Luke xxiv, 26, 4-6.-the just for the
unjust: 1 Pet. iii, 18.-togive his life a ransom for many. Matt.
XX, 28 ; 1 Tim. ii, 6. — I restored that which I took not away.
Psalm Ixix, 4. Phil, ii, 7, 8; Matt, iii, 15, v, 17; Gen. iii, 15 ;
Mark x, 45 ; 1 »Tohn iii, 8 ; Luke ii, 14.
" And till his hatred of sin be made A*«o//'??,"4'C.^ Thou art not
a God that hath pleasure in wickedness ; thou hatest the workers
of iniquity ; thou abhorrest the bloody and deceitful man, &c.
Psalm V, 4 — 6'. — Thou hatest iniquity. Psalm xlv, 7- — The fro-
ward are an abomination to the Lord. Prov. xi, 20. — Your ini-
quities have separated between you and your God, and your sins
have hid his lace from you. Isa. lix, 2. Psalm vii, 11, 12;
Isa. Ixv, 12.
"And his love of righteousness." ] Thou lovest righteousness.
Psalm xlv, 7. — Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, to
declare his righteousness ; that he might be just, &c. He is the
avenger of unrighteousness. Rom. iii, 24 — 26.
And, therefore,
TENET I.
For the satisfying of Jus justice, he did ordain the Media-
tor Jesus Christ, who shoidd he made a sacrifice for shxful
men, suffer death for them, and \sliould^ by his blood, shedjor
their reconciliation, obtain light of saving them upon terms
befitting mercy and justice.
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
" Christ ordained the Mediator."'2 To us a Son is given. Isa.
ix, 6. — So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten
Son. John iii, I6. — In this was manifested the love of God
towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the
world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that
we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. 1 John iv, 9> 10. — But God commcnd-
eth his love towards us, in that, wliile we were yet sinners.
90 THE TENETS OF [ART.
Christ died for us. Rom. v, 8, &c. — For there is one God, and one
Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who
gave himself a ransom for all. 1 Tim, ii, 5, 6. See Heb. xii, 2,
24, 25.
" Made a sacrifice, and suffered death for sinful men."'2 He
became obedient unto death. Philip, ii, 8.' — I lay down my life
for my sheep. John x, 11, 15 — 18 : see John xv, 13. — He tasted
death for every man. Heb, ii, 9- — Christ died for our sins. 1 Cor.
XV, 3. — He died unto sin once. Rom. iv, 25, vi, 10. — Who his
own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, 1 Peter ii,
24. — Christ ourpassover is sacrificed for us. 1 Cor. v, 7. — When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. Isa. liii, 10. — Who
loved us, and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice of a
sweet-smelling savour. Ephes. ii, 2. — He is the propitiation for
our sins. 1 John ii. 1, 2. — Whom God hath set forth to be a pro-
pitiation through faith in his blood. Rom. iii, 25; see Heb. v, i,
&c. ; viii, 3, &c. ; ix, 11— -14, 22, 26—28 ; x, 5, 10, 12, 14.— He
is the Lamb of God, that takethaway the sin of the world, John
i, 29, — He gave his life a ransom, Mark x, 45 ;-and purged our
sins. Heb, i, 3. — He was made sin for us, 2 Cor, v, 2 1 ;-and
made a curse ; Gal. iii, 13. — to redeem us that were under the
Law ; and delivered us from the curse of the law. Gal, iii, 1 3 ;
from the power of darkness, Col. i, 13 ; from the fear of death,
Heb. ii, 14; Hos, xiii, 14; 1 Cor. xv, 55: and from the wrath
to come; 1 Thes. i, 10; Rom, v, 9 ; and obtained eternal redemp-
tion for us. Heb, ix, 12 ; Luke i, 68 ; 2 Tim, 1, 10.
" Bi/ his blood shed for their reconciliation." ] This is my blood
of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission
of sins. Matt, xxvi, 28. — He washed us from our sins in his own
blood. Rev. i, 5 ; see Rev. v, 6, 12 ; 1 John i, 7 ; 1 Pet, i, 18 —
20, — God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. 2 Cor.
V, 18, &c. — When we were enemies, we were reconciled to
God by the death of his Son, Rom. v, 10. — Having made
peace through the blood of his cross. Col. i, 20 — 22 : ii, 12 — 14.
through him we have access unto the Father. Ephes. ii, 13, 18.
" Should obtain right of saving ihem.'"^ He shall see his seed
and justify many. Isa. liii, 10. 11. — Ye are bought with a price.
1 Cor. vi, 20. — Which he (God) hath purchased with his own
blood. Acts XX, 28 ; 1 Peter ii, 9 ; 2 Peter ii, 1. — All are deliv-
ered unto me of my Father. Matt, xi, 27; xxviii, 18. — The
Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son John iii, 35 ;
V, 22 ; xvii, 2. — The Son of man is come to seek and save that
which was lost. Matt, xviii, 1 1 ; Luke xix, 10 ; see Heb. ii, 14,
^17. — In whom we hare redemption. Col, i, 14; Ephes, i, 7> 8;
1 Cor. i, 30; 1 Pet. i, 2, 3 ; Rev. iii, 14,
" Upon terms befitting mercy and justice." \ For this purpose
the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works
of the Devil, 1 John iii, 8, — For he shall save his people from
FIRST.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 97
their sins. Matt, i, 21 ; see Rom. vi, 1,2; Ephes, i, 4, 6. — I am
come to call sinners to repentance. Matt, ix, 13. — That he might
redeem us from all iniquity, and from our vain conversation;
Tit. ii, 11 — 14; and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zea-
lous of good works. 1 Peter i, 18. — He hath redeemed us unto
God, that we might become servants to God, Rev. v, 9; see 1
Peter iv, 1, 2 ; might have our fruit unto holiness, Rom. vi, 22 ;
and live unto righteousness ; 1 Peter ii, 24 ; that the righteous-
ness of the Law might be fulfilled in us; Rom.viii, 3, x, 4; that
the Lord God might dwell amongst us, Psalm Ixviii, 18 ; and
that we might live to him, 2 Cor. v, 14, 15 ; Rom. xiv, 9 ; Heb.
V, 9 ; and set forth his pi'aise and glory. 1 Pet. ii, 9 ; 1 Cor. vi,
30. — Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
2 Cor. v, 17.
TENET II.
Upon ihe consideration of his blood, as shed, he decreed that
all those who should believe in that Redeemer, and persevere in
that faith, shoidd, through mercy and grace, by him be made
partalcers of salvation ; but such as would not believe in him,
but die in injidelity, shoidd therefore be pimished with eternal
death ; repr'obation being decreed upon precedent infidelity
and dying tlierein.
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
" Upon the consideration of his blood as shed.'"^ The Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. Rev. xiii, 8. — Behold my
servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth.
Isa. xlii, 1 ; see 1 Peter i, 20. — Thou art my servant, O Israel, in
whom I will be glorified. Isa. xlix, 3. — According to his own
purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the
world began. 2 Tim. i, 9.
*' Who should believe in that Redeemer.'"^ That whosoever belie-
veth in him should not perish but have everlasting life: He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. John iii, 14 — 16', 3(). —
And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which
seeth the Son and believeth on him, may have everlasting life.
John vi, 40; see verses 47, 54, 58. — I live by the faith of the
Son of God. Gal, ii, 20. — Whosoever believeth on him shall not
be confounded. 1 Peter ii, 6, 7 ; see Rom. ix, 30, 33. — He that
believeth and is baptized, shall be saved. Markxvi, l6. — Who are
keptbythepower of God throughfaithunto salvation. I Peteri,2,5.
Now the just shall live by faith. Heb. x, 38. — Thou standest by
faith. Rom. xi, 20. — Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by
grace, &c. Rom. iv, l6, — The Saviour of them that believe.
98 THK TENETS OF [aKT.
iTim. iv, 10. — Verily, verily I say unto you, He that hearethmy
word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life,
and shall not come into condemnation ; but is passed from death
unto life. John v, 24. — These things have T written unto you
that believe, that ye may know that ye have eternal life. 1 John
iv, 1 3. — We believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ we shall be saved. Actsxv, 11.
" A?id persevere in thai faith, should he made partakers of salva-
tion, <5'C.]] To them who by patient continuance in well-doing,
&c. Rom. ii, 7- — But he that shall endure unto the end, the same
shall be saved. Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he
Cometh, shall find so doing. Matt, xxiv, 15, 46; 1 Tim. ii, 15. —
He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, hath the Father and
the Son. 2 John 9- — If that which ye have heard from the be-
ginning shall remain in you. 1 John ii, 24. — If ye continue in
his goodness. Rom. xi, 22. — If ye continue in the faith, rooted
and built up. Col. 1, 23 ; ii, 5 — 8. — If ye hold fast stedfastly
unto the end. Heb. iii, 6, 12, 14. — If ye mortify the deeds of
the body. Rom. viii, 13. — Cast not away your confidence. Heb.
X, 35. to the end. — Hold fast till I come, that no man take thy
crown. Rev. ii, 25 ; iii, 11. — Receive not the grace of God in
vain. 2 Cor. vi, 1. — Beware lest, being led away with the error
of the wicked, ye fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in
grace. 2 Pet. iii 17, 18 — Workout your own salvation with fear
and trembling. Phil, ii, 12. — If a man strive for masteries, yet is
he not crowned except he strive lawfully. If we deny him, he
also will deny us. 2 Tim. ii, 5, 12. — To him that overcometh
vail I give of the hidden manna and grant to sit with me on my
throne, and make him a pillar, and he shall not be hurt of the
second death. Rev. ii, 11, 17, 26; iii, 12, 21. — Be thou faithful
unto the death, and I will give thee a crown of life. Rev. ii, 10. —
I have fought a good fight, I have finiehed my course, I have
kept the faith ; henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righte-
ousness. 2 Tim. iv, 7. 8; see Job xxvii, 3 — 6; Luke viii, \5.
" Such as would not believe, but die in injidelilii, should therefore
he punished with eternal death.'"^ He that believeth not, sh.all be
damned. Mark xvi, l6. — He that believeth not is condemned
already, the wrath of God abideth on him. John iii, 1 8, 36. —
Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of
Christ, hath not God. 2 John v, 9 : see Isa. xxvii, 11. — Because
of unbelief they were broken off. Rom. xi, 20. — For the wages
of sin is death, Rom. vi, 23. — The wicked shall be turned into
hell. Psalm ix, 17. — Upon the ungodly he shall rain snares, &c.
Psalm xi, 6. — But the fearful and unbelieving and abominable
&c., shall have their portion in the lake that burnetii with fire
and brimstone. Rev. xxi, 8 ; xxii, 15. — Because of these things
Cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
Ephes. V, 5, G. — Be not deceived, — the unrighteous shall ijot in-
FIRST.] THE REUONSTR.ANTS. 99
herit the kingdom of God. 1 Cor. vi, 9, 10; see Gal. v, 19 — 21.
Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish. Luke xiii, 3, 5. —
This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and
men love darkness rather than light. John iii, 19. — The Lord
shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance of
them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thess. i, 7, 8 ; see Matt, xiii, 41, 42, 49, 50 ;
XXV, 41, 42. — Wherefore if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.
Mark ix, 43 — 49- See Heb. xi, 6, xii, 14 ; Rev. xxi, 27 ; Ezek.
xviii, 26; Matt, iii, 10, 12, v, 20.
TENET III.
And because shifulman could not possibly of himself ^ by his
natural ability, believe in this Redeemer, and persevere in such
faith, he decreed to affo7'd man means sufficient and necessary y
(as he saw befitting his own wisdom and Justice,) for the
worTiing of faith and repentance, whereby man might be
enabled to believe, or more and more prepared and in certain
steps or degrees brought on at length to true faith.
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
" Sinful man coidd not of himself," ^'c.'2 Which of you by tak-
ing thought can add one cubit unto his stature ? Matt, vi, 27. —
If I speak of strength, lo ! he is strong. Job ix, ] 9, 20. — Thou
hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help. Hos. xiii, 9. —
I,even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Saviour. Isa. xliii,
1 ; xlv, 21. — Trust in the Lord with all thy heart; and lean not
to thine own understanding. Prov. iii, 5. — Woe unto them that
are wise in their own eyes, but look not unto the Holy One of
Israel, neither seek the Lord! Isa. v, 21 ; xxxi, 1.
" Could not believe by his natjiral abilihj," S)'C.'2 VVithout strength.
Rom. V, 6; viii, 3: see 2 Cor. iv, 6. — Not that we are sufficient
of ourselves. 2 Cor. iii, 5. See Rom. xi, 32 ; Gal. iii, 22; John
iii, 3, 5. — Make the tree good, and (then) the fruit good. Matt,
xii, 33, 35. — God giveth the increase. 1 Cor. iii, 4. — Unto you ic
is given. Phil, i, 29. — Whose heart the Lord opened. Acts xvi,
14. — It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do.
Phil, ii, 13; see Ezek. xxxvi, 22. — Fiesh and blood hath not
revealed this unto thee. Matt, xvi, 17. — Every good gift is from
above, &c. James i, I7. — Except the Father draw him. John vi,
44, 65. — Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and
he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Matt, xi, 27. — With-
out me ye can do nothing. John xv, 5. — No man can eay, that
Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. 1 Cor. xii, 3. — For by
grace are ye saved through faith, *and that not of yourselves ; it
100 THE TENETS OF [aUT.
is the gift of God. Eph. ii, 8 ; see Rom. iv, l6 ; v, 15, &c. ; vi,
23. — By the grace of God I am what I am. 1 Cor. xv, 10 ; Gal.
iij 20. — Who have obtained like precious faith with us, according
as his Divine Power hath given us all things that pertain unto
life and godliness. 2 Peter i, 1, 3 ; Eph. iii, 14, &c., vi, 23. —
Grace and peace from God the Father, &c. Rev . i, 4 — He that
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 1 Cor. i, 3; see Rom. i, 8 ;
1 Peter i, 3.
" And could not persevere in such faith," t^-c.^ He that abideth
in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit : for
without me ye can do nothing. John xv, 5. — Jesus, the Author
and Finisher of our faith. Heb. xii, 2. — Now our Lord Jesus
Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us
and given us everlasting consolation, and good hope through
grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good
word and work. 2 Thess. ii, 16, 17- — The God of all grace make
you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. 1 Pet. v, 10. — See
Ephes. iii, 14, &c. ; Phil, i, 6; Heb. xiii, 20.
" He decreed to afford man means sufficient and necessary."^
He that spared not his own Son — how shall he not with him
also freely give us all things ? Rom. viii, 32. * — He hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in Christ. Ephes. i, 3. — That thou
mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth ; to open the
blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them
that sit in darkness out of the prison-house. I will give thee for
a covenant to the people. Isai. xlix, 6, 8, 9 ; xhi, 7- — To perform
the promise — that he would grant unto us \\ power^ that we
might serve him in holiness and righteousness, all the days of
our life. Luke i, 72 — 76. — His Divine Power hath given unto
us all things, that pertain to life and godliness. 2 Pet. i, 3. —
He gave unto them his talents. Matt, xxv, 14, 15,27,29. —
To you it is given to know. Matt, xiii, 11, 12. — The promise
is to you and your children. Acts ii, 4, 5, S9, 41. — The kingdom
of God is come nigh unto you. Luke x, 9. — I was made mani-
fest to them that enquired not after me. Isai. Ixv, 1 ; Rom. x, 20.
— For the grace of God that bringeth salvation unto all men
hath appeared : — the reneAving of the Holy Ghost, which is
shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Tit. ii,
11, 12 ; iii, 5, 6. t — Sin shall not have dominion over you, for
ye are not under the law but under grace. Rom. vi, 14. — To him
that hath shall be given. Mark iv, 23, 26 ; Luke viii, 18. — If
any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. John
vii, 17. — He will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask and
obey him. Luke xi, 13 ; Acts v, 32. — What could have been
done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it .'' Isai. v, 4.
» See Rom. X, 14, &c.; 2Tim.i, 9 10; Isaiah lix, 21.
t See Heb. iv, 12 ; 1 Cor. xiv, 24, 25 ; James i, 18; 1 Cor. iv, 15.
FIRST.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 101
—Wherefore, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God
acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Heb. xii, 28.
TENET IV. f
Wlience ariseth the last decree, concerning the iah'a,i<'on qf
this or that man hi particular, rcho by these tiieans shouM
be brought unto faith and persevere therein ; this bcir.g the
condition required in every one that is to be elected unto
eternal life, and the consideration of this or that man in
particular who should die in unbelief
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
" The condition required in ever?/ one that is to be elected unto
eternal life."'^ Hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich
in faith? James ii, 5. — God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief
of the truth, &c. 2 Thess. ii, 13, 14. — Elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the
Spirit unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
Christ. 1 Pet. i, 2. * — Whom he did foreknow, he also did
predestinate. Rom. viii, 29- — If a man therefore purge himself
from these, he shall be a vessel of mercy unto honour, &c. Rom.
ix, 32; with Tim. ii, 21. — See Psalm iv, 3, and ciii, 17, 18;
Rom. X, 10, 11; and all those texts cited above under these
heads, " W/io should believe (page 97) and persevere (page 98).
Who have not bowed the knee unto Baal. See Rom. xi, 4, 5.
" And the consideration of this or that man, who should die in
unbelief. "'2 Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot
out of my book. Exod. xxxii, 33. — As truly as I live, saith the
Lord, because all those men which have seen my glory and my
miracles, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have
not hearkened to my voice, surely they shall not see the land
which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that
provoked me see it. And ye shall know my breach of pro-
mise. Numb, xiv, 21 — 35. t — And to whom sware be that they
should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not ?
So we see, that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Heb. iii, 18, I9. — Now these things happened unto them for
Qypes,:}: or^ ensamples unto us. 1 Cor. x, 6, 11. — Because of
unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be
not high-minded, but fear : for if God spared not the natural
* Mark xiii, 20. f The very form of actual Reprobation,
the appUcatioa Heb. iv, 11.
102 THE TEMKTS OF [aRT.
branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold there-
fore the goodness and severity of God : On them which fell,
severity ; but towards thee, goodness ; if thou continue in his
goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. Rom. xi, 20.—
If tJiou KC'ik him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake
him,-^ be- will cast thee off for ever. 1 Chron. xxviii, 9. — If we
deny him, h-s^ will deny us. 2 Tim. ii, 12. — He that rejecteth
ioe,'hath jije that judgeth him. John xii, 46, 48. — The angels
whicii kept not their first estate, and Sodom — ^giving them-
selves over to fornication, are set forth for an ensample. Un-
godly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness,
were before of old ordained to this condemnation, to wdiom is
reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. Jude 4, 6, 7, 13.
See 1 Pet. ii, 7, 8 ; 2 Pet. ii, 4, 7 ; and 2 Thess. ii, 12 ; &c. See
also the texts cited above, under this head, " Such as would not
believe," S^c. (Page 98.)
TENET V.
Christ is not only the Executor of election, hut thefound'
ation of the decree itself.
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
" Ch7ist the Executor of election.'"} So God loved the world,
that he gave his only-begotten Son. John iii, l6. — Neither is
there salvation in any other. Acts iv, 12. — This is life eternal,
to know thee, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. John
xvii, 3. — I am the way, the truth, and the life. John xiv, 6.—
Abide in me, and I in you : as the branch cannot bear fruit of
itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye
abide in me. John xv, 4. — Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Col. i, 27. See 1 Cor. ii, 2.
" Bid Christ is the foundation of the decree itself ."'^ According
to the eternal purpose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord: Ephes. iii, 11, 12. — According to his own purpose and
grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. 2 Tim. i, Q, 10. — Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,
and of his fulness, &c. John i, I6, 17- — God was in Christ recon-
ciling the world unto himself See Col. i, 19, 20; 2 Cor, v, 19.
— By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand. Rom. v, 2. — Blessed with all spiritual blessings in
Christ ; God has chosen us in him, predestinated us by him,
made us accepted in him ; in whom we have redemption, for-
giveness, and an inheritance. — See Ephes. iii, 11, 12, and i, 3,7,1 1.
— Jesus Christ being the Corner-stone. Ephes. ii, 10, 21, 22.—-
Other foundation can no man lay. 1 Cor. iii, 11. — See the texts
FIRST.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 103
cited above, under this head, " Made a sacrifice and suffered
death," 4'C. (Page 96.)
WHAT THE REMONSTRANTS DO UTTERLY DENY
CONCERNING PREDESTINATION.
REJECTION I.
They do utterly deny, that " God decreed to elect some to
eternal life, and to reprobate others from the same, before he
decreed to create them."
THE REASON OF THIS.
" God did 7iot. decree to elect some," &c.^ For he hath chosen us
in Christ. Ephes. i, 4. — But in Christ we cannot be, unless we
be considered, (1.) As Sinners. (2.) As Believers, and there-
fore Creatures.
(1.) As Sinners. For Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners. 1 Tim. i, 15. — See Matt, i, 21 ; John i, 29; Matt,
xviii, Jl ; Luke xix, 10; John vi, 5! ; Heb. ii, 14, &c. ; 2 Cor.
V, 19, &c. See all the places cited for " SalvatioTi hy faith."
(Page 98.)
(2.) As Believers. For, They that receive him, are they
that believe in his name. John i, 12. — See Ephes. iii, 17.
" And not to reprobate others."^ For reprobation is an act of
God's hatred, who hateth nothing but sin and for sin, which the
creature could not be guilty o£ before it had a being. — Whosoever
hath sinned, him will I blot out. Exod xxxii, 33. * — The soul
thatsinneth, it shall die. Ezek. xviii, 4, 20. — See all those places
where damnation is said to be for sin, especially for infidelity.
(Page Q8.) See also those places cited to siiew God's hatred of
si.i, and his inclination to mercy, (page 94,) as Exod. xxxiii,
13,19; xxxiv, 6, 7 ; Lam. iii, S'3 ; Pt.ahn cxlv, 8,9; Ezek.
xxxiii, 11 ; 2 Pet. iii, 9; Ezek. xviii, 23, 32. — Hell made for
devils. Matt, xxv, 41.
REJECTION IL
They do not liold, that " any such decreCy in order before
the decree of Creation, wa^ made for the demonstration of
the glory of God's mercy and justice, or of his poiver and
absolute dominion.''''
* See E/ck. xviii, 23, and xxxiii, 11.
104 THE TENETS OF [ART.
THE REASON OF THIS.
(1.) The vessel that he made of clay, was marred in the
hand of the potter ; so he made it again another vessel, as
seemed good to the potter to make it. Jer. xviii, 4, — See to the
10th, 12th verses. *
(2.) I will give thee for a covenant of the people, to restore
the preserved of Israel, and to enlighten the Gentiles. Isaiah
xlix, 8, 5. — Thou art my servant, O Israel, [^Christ^ in whom
I will be glorified : Verse 3. — See John xv, 8, and Proverbs
xiv, 28. Consider what is noted before, and what followeth,
for further evidence of this.
REJECTION III.
They do utterly deny, that " God did, with this intent,
create all men in Adam, ordain the fall and permission
thereof, withdraw froin Adam grace necessary and s,\x^~
c\ent, or procureth the gospel to be preached, and men to be
externally called, and bestoweth certain gifts of the Holy
Ghost upon them, — and all this with this intent, that these
should be means lohereby he woidd bring some unto life, and
disappoint others of the benefit thereof according to such
decree.''''
THE REASON HEREOF
In the several branches, is to be collected from the proof of
the foregoing and following articles. Yet, that it may further
appear,
1. " That God did not create," &c.. Consider,
(1.) That He made man after his own image: Gen. i, 27.
(2.) Gave him the tree of life. Gen. ii, 9-
(3.) That he hates sin : Psalm v, 4, 5 ; Habak. i, 13.
(4.) And cannot be tempted with evil. James i, 17.
(5.) And desirethnot the death of a sinner: Ezek. xviii, 31 ;
xxxiii, 11.
(6.) That sin was from the suggestion of the devil : Gen. iii, I.
(7.) And man's voluntary compliance with him: Eccles.vii,29.
2. " That he procureth not the gospel," &c.. Consider,
(1.) He is merciful to all : Psalm clxv, 8, 9 ; Acts xiv, l6, 17 ;
xvii, 26, 27. — Would not that any should perish : Ezek. xviii,
23, 31; xxxiii, ll.t — But that all should come to faith and
repentance : 1 Tim. ii, 4 ; 2 Pet. iii, 9. — And,
* See Isaiali xxvii, 11, the last part ; Hosea ix, 15.
t Sec Juhu iii, 17 ; 2Cbrou. xxiv, 19.
FIRST.] THE RKMONSTSANTS. 105
(2.) Christ having died for all : 2 Chron. v, I9, 20; Heb. ii, 9.
— he invites all : Matt, xi, 28. — and upbraids such as wilfully-
refuse to embrace his offered grace and salvation. John v, 34, 40.
REJECTION IV.
They do utterly deny, that " Christ the Mediator is only
tlie Executor of the decree of Election, and not the Found-
ation thereafT
The places cited (above) in proof of the affirmative, is suffici-
ent REASON HEREOF. And note here once for all, that " when-
" soever the affirmative is sufficiently proved, the negative is
" thereby utterly overthrown ; because both parts of a contra-
" diction can never be true."
REJECTION V.
They do utterly dexy, that " the cause uhy some are
effectually called, justified, ■persevere \n faith, and are glori-
fied, is, because they are absolutely elected to eternal life."
THE REASON.
God is no respecter of persons : but in every nation he that
feareth him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
Acts X, 34-, 35.* — For the Scripture saith. Whosoever believeth
on him, shall not be ashamed : for the same Lord over all, is
rich unto all that call upon him. Rom. x, 11, 12. — See James
ii, 5 ; 2 Thess. ii, J 3, and all the rest of those places cited above
for the affirmative Conditional Election. (Pages 97, 101.)
REJECTION VI.
They do utteriy deny, that " the cause why others are
left in the lapse [/?///] and Christ not given to them, and that
they are, not at all, or uneffectually, called, and so hardened
and damned, is, because they are reprobated from eternal
life by an antecedent decree.""
THE REASON.
His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall
be holden with the cords of his sin. Prov. v, 22. t — Rut your
iniquities h^^ve separated between you and your God, and your
* See Gen. iv, G, 7. f See Micah viii, 18.
H
106 THK TEN UTS OF [ART.
sins have hid his face from you. Isa. xlix, 2. — See the places
cited above for the affirmative, viz. for Rcspcdivc Reprobation.
(Page 101.) Also the texts cited for Christ's Satisfaction, and
the Administration of Necessary and Sufficient means unto sal-
vation. (Pages Q6, 100.)
REJECTION VII.
They do utterly deny, that " God did decree, without
respect unto actual sins coming between, to leave, in the
fall of Adam, the Jar greater part qfmanhind shut out of all
hope of salvatimi.'"
THE REASON.
Christ is promised and given for a Covenant and means of
restoration. Gen. iii, 15; ix, 8, 9; xxii, l6, 18; Isa. xlix, 8.
See Rom. i, 18; ii, 8; Deut. xxiv, IG; 2 Kings xiv, 6; Eph.
V, 7, 11. See the texts cited for his satisfaction. (Page 9^)'
What mean ye that ye use this proverb?. The Fathers have eaten
sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. As I live, saith
the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this
proverb. Behold all souls are mine, as the soul of the father,
so also the soul of the son is mine : the soul that sinneth, it shall
die. Ezek. xviii, 2, 3, 4.— They shall say no more, The fathers
have eaten a sour grape and the children's teeth are set on edge. But
every one shall die for his own iniquity, every man that eateth the
sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. Jer. xxxi, 29, SO. See
Isa. xxvii, 11. It is a people without understanding, therefore he
that made them will have no pity on them. Gen. iv, 6, 7. The
wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience. Ephes.
V, 5, 6.— Because I have called, and ye refused, &c. Prov. i, 24,
&c. — I keep imder my body and bring it into subjection : lest
that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself
should be a cast-away. 1 Cor. ix, 27. See Proverbs v, 22 ; Isa.
lix, 2.
REJECTION VIII.
They do utterly deny, that " God did destine by an abso-
lute decree, to give Christ a Mediator only to the elect, and to
give faith to them alone by an effectual calling, to justify and
continue them in thejaith, and glorify them alone.
THE REASON OF THIS
Appears in the texts cited above for Christ's Satisfaction (page
95,), and those which follow for the Universality of his Merit,
FIRST.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 107
in tlie Second Article or Question, (page 1 1 5,) to which nothing
is needtul to be added.
REJECTION IX.
They do utterly dexy, that " many^ even all the repro-
hates, are rejected from eternal I'lfe and from means sufficient
thereunto, by an absolute and antecedent decree, so as neither
the merit of Christ, nor vocation, nor any gift of the Spirity
can or do avail unto their salvation.''''
THE REASON.
Because God created man after his own image and approved
him to be very good. Gen.i, 27, 31. And to the Judge of all
the earth the righteous are not (dealt with) as the wicked. Gen.
xviii, 25. For he is good to all and his tender mercies are over
all his works. Psalm cxlv, 8, f). He willeth not the death of a
sinner. Ezek. xviii and xxxiii, almost throughout. See Job
xxxiv, 23 ; 1 Tim. ii, 4 : 2 Peter iii, 9-
Man's destruction is of himself. Hosea xiii, 9 •' Rora. vi, 23, i, 32.
Forhe despiseth mercy. Rom. ii, 4, 5 : Luke vii, 30 : Acts xiii, 46.
See Matt, xxii, 2— 15: Lukexiv,24; Heb. x, 26 &c : John iii, 19;
2 Chron. xxiv, 19, xxxvi, 15, l6. This is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world; and men love darkness rather
than light, because their deeds are evil. Ezek. xxiv, 13. In thy
lilthiness is lewdness ; because I have purged thee and thou wast
not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any
more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee. 2 Thess. ii,
10 — 12. See Prov. i, 29 — 31; Romans ii, 8, i, 18. Because
they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved:
For this cause, God shall send them strong delusions, that they
should believe a lie : That they all might be damned who be-
lieved not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. See
likewise all the places cited for the affirmative, viz. Respective
Reprobation, page 101.
REJECTION X.
They do utterly deny, that " God hath destined Repro-
bates ('a,? Mt^ a?'^caZ/riZ,^ to infidelity, 'imp'icty, and sins,
as means and causes of their damnation."
THE REASON.
1 . God himself hath stigmatized Jeroboam with this character,
as a brand of infamy : " Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made
II 2
108 THE TENRTS OF [aRT.
Israel to sin." 2 Kings xxiii, 1 5.— Wo unto him that giveth his
neighbour drink, that pattest tliy bottle to him, and makest him
drunken also ; that thou mayest look on their nakedness. Hab.
ii, 15.
2. If a Prince should make a decree to takeaway the life of his
subject, and then necessitate him by force, or wind him in by
subtlety, to be instrumental (and subservient to his own ends,) in
the perpetration of an act which tlie said prince himself had made
to be criminal, that the execution of his said subject might appear
to be just, — this argues clearly, that his first decree against him,
even by the verdict of his own conscience, was unjust, and so is
his execution also.
3. It is accounted an act of horrid tyranny in Tiberius, who,
because it was unlawful to strangle virgins, caused the hangman
first to deflower a virgin, and afterward to strangle her.— -See
also the reason of the next.
REJECTION XI.
They do utterly deny, tliat " God is tJie Author of ^i^i."
THE REASON.
1. Because He is holy, and a pattern of holiness. Lev, xi, 44,
xix, 2; 1 Pet. i, 15, l6".
2. His ways are right and equal, and he can do no iniquity.
Ezek. xviii, 25, 29; Hosea xiv, 19; Psalm xlv, 7, xcii, 16;
Zeph. iii, 5 ; Deut. xxxii, 4.
3. He hates sin. Psalm v, 4, 5, xlv, 7 ; Prov. xi, 20 ; Isa. lix,
2 ; Deut. xii, 31 ; Isa. Ixi, 8 ; Zech. viii, 17 ; Amos vi, S ; Jer.
xliv, 4; Hab. i, 13.
4. It is a burden to him. Isa. vii, 13, xliii, 24.
5. He forbids sin. Exod. xx, 1, &c ; Job xxxvi, 21 ; Ezek.
xlv, 9 ; Rom. vi, 12 ; 1 Cor. xv, 34.
6. He cannot be tempted with evil. James i, 13—15.
7. He is provoked to anger by it. Isa. iii, 8; Hosea xii, 14 ;
Exod. xxiii, 21 ; Mark iii, 5.
8. It is enmity to him. Romans viii, 7.
9. It is the work of the Devil. John viii, 44; Genesis iii, 1.
10. He sent his Son to destroy it. 1 John iii, 8 ; Titus ii, 14;
1 Peter i, 1 8.
11. He doth revenge it and punish the sinner for it. Jer.v,
2.5,29; Deut. xviii, 12, i3; Rom. i, 18 : Eph. v, 6; Psalm xi,
5,6.
12. Man's destruction is from himself. Hosea xiii, 9; Prov.
V, 22.
FIRST.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 109
REJECTION XII.
They do utterly deny, that " election of particular pev
sons is made ^vithout consideration of faith and perseverance
therein, as ilie condition pre-recpnred in him that is to be chosen
\imto glory. '\
THE REASON.
But the mercy of the Lord is from exerlasting to everlasting
upon them that fear him [^considered as such^. Psalm ciii, 17,
18. — The Lord hath set apart the man that is godly for himself.
Psalm iii, 3. — To him that ordereth his conversation aright, will
I shew the salvation of God. Psalm 1, 23. — Thou hast a few
names, even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments, and
they shall walk with me in white : for they are worthy. Rev. iii,
4. — I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. Isa. xlviii, 10.
— Blessed is the man that endureth temptation : for when he is
tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath
promised to them that love him. James i, 12. — Who through
faith and patience inherit the promises. Heb. vi, 12. See Heb.
X, 36'; Rev. vii, 14, 15. See also the proofs of the Second and
Fourth affirmatives, pages 97, 101.
REJECTION XIIL
They do utterly deny, that ^' pai-ticidar men are repro-
bated from eternal lije^ without consideration had of sin and
infidelity and perseverance therein, cls going before'''
THE REASON.
Whosoever sinneth — him will I blot out. Exodus xxxii, 33.
See the Second and Fourth Affirmatives, pages 97. 101. With-
out are dogs. Rev. xxii, \5. — The unrighteous shall not inherit
the kingdom of God. 1 Cor. vi, 9- See 2 Thess. ii, 12 ; Luke
xiv, 17. 21, 24.
A GENERAL REASON
OF
BOTH THE FORMER NEGATIVES.
The EXECUTION of God's decree sheweth what the decree
itself was; for God " worketh \j.n time]] all things accordino- to
the counsel of his own wiil" from eternity. Eph. i, 11. So that
man must be considered in the decree, as he is considered in the
execution of it : Otherwise the act decreeing, and the act exccu'
H 3
116 THE TENETS OF [aUT.
ting should have respect to different objects, and consequently
ihis act could not properly be called the execution of i/iot deci'ee.
For instance : If a decree be past against T. B. as a Malcfcc'or,
and R. S. doth arrest T. B. being clear and innocciit ; this action
cannot be said to be the execution of the former decree, which
was made against T. B. the Malefactor, though II, S. pretends to
do it in piirsuance of the same. So in other cases. But, in the
execution of the Divine decree of Election and Reprobation, we
see men are looked upon according to their several qualifications.
*' Then shall the King say, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit
the Kin ii,dom prepared for you : For I ivas a7i hungered, and yc gave
me meat. — Go, ye cursed : For I was 8fC. Matthew xxv, 31, 41.
—He shall render to every man according to his works. To them
who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory and
honour and immortality, — eternal life : But unto them that are
contentiovis, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness,
■ — indignation and wrath. Rom. ii, 6' — [). — For if ye live after the
flesh, ye shall die : but if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the
deeds of the body, ye shall live." Rom. viii, 13. See Psalm xi,
5 to the end ; an emphatical place !
CONCERNING CHILDREN
THEY HOLD.
*' That all tfie children of the Jhitliful are sanctified in
Christ ; so as none of them, departing' this life before tJtey
come to the use of reason, can perish.''''
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
The seed of the woinan shall bruise the sei-pent's head. Gen.
iii, 15. This seed (which is Christ,) v/as promised before ever
any seed of mankind was conceived : Christ came, to seek and
to save that which was lost. Matt, xviii, ] 1 ; Luke xix, 10 ; see
Matt, xviii, 11,12, He came to destroy the works of the Devil.
1 John iii, 8. — As, by the offence of one,judgment came upon all
men to condemnation, even so, by the righteousness of One, the
free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. Rom. v, 12,
1 8. — For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself took part of the same, that through death he
might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the
Devil, and deliver and make reconciliation, &c. Heb. ii,
14, 15, 17. — Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid
them not ; for of such is the kingdom ox God. See i'salm cxxvii, 3.
Consider' 1 John ii, 12, with Matt, xix, 14.
FIRST.] THE REMONSTRANTS. Ill
CONCERNING CHILDREN, WHAT THEY DO UTTERLY DENY.
REJECTION I.
They do utterly deny, that " some infants (children) of
thejluthjulare to he accounted in the number of reprobates.''''
THE REASON.
For if the first-fruits be holy, the lump also is holy ; and if
the root be holy, so are the branches. Rom. ii, l6. — And I will
establish my covenant belween me and thee, and thy seed after
thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a
God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. Gen. xvii, 7. — The
promise is unto you and to your children. Acts ii, SQ. — Words,
whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved. Acts xi, 14. —
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy
house. Acts xvi, 31. — The unbelieving husband is sanctified by
the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband ;
else were your chidren unclean, but now are they holy, 1 Cor. vii,
14.
REJECTION II.
They utterly deny, that " some infants of the faithful^
departing- this life in tlie'ir infancy , before they have commit-
ted any actual sin, in the'ir men persons, are reprobated.''''
THE REASON.
That be far from thee, to do after this manner — to slay the
righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should be as
the wicked, that be far from thee ! Shall not the Judge of all the
earth do right? Gen. xviii, 25. — Thou hast had pity on the
gourd, for the which thou hast not laboui"ed, neither madest it to
grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night : And
should not I spai'e Nineveh, Avherein are more than six score
thousand persons, that cannot discern between their right hand
and their left? Jonah iv, 11. — What mean ye that ye use this
proverb, saying. The Fathers have eaten sour grapes and the chil-
dren'slceth are set on edge? (See Deut. xxiv, l6;2 Kings xiv, 6.)
As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any
more to use this proverb. Behold all souls are mine: as the soul
of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine : the soul that
sinneth, it shall die. Ezek. xviii, 2, 3, 4. — In those days, they
shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the
112 THE TENETS OF [AHT
cJdldren's teeth are set 07i edge. But every one shall die for his
own iniquity, every man that eateth the sour grape, liis teeth
shall be set on edge. Jer. xxxi, 29, 30.
REJECTION III.
The?/ do utterly deny, tJiat " the sacred laver of baptism
and the prayers of the Church, can iw ways avail such iiifants
unto salvation.''''
THE REASON.
" The sacred laver of baptism," <^"r.]] Go ye therefore, and dis-
ciple all nations, baptizing them, &c. Matt, xxviii, 19. — The like
figure whereunto even baptism doth also now^ save us. 1 Peter,
iii, 2] . — He saved us by the washing of regeneration. Titus iii, 5.
Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it ; that he might
.eianctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.
Ephes. v, 25. 26. — Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy
sins ; for the promise is to you and to your children. Acts ii, 38,
39; xxii, 16. — As many as have been baptized into Christ, have
put on Christ ; aifd there is now no condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus. Gal. iii, 27; Rom. viii, 1.
" And the prayers of the Church," c^x.^ This the confidence that
we have in him, that if we a&k any thing according to his will,
he heareth us. And if we know that he hear us, — whatsoever
we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of
him. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto
death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life, for them that sin
not unto death. 1 John v, 14 — 16. And shall not God hear the
prayers of the Church in behalf of Infants }
REJECTION IV.
They do utterly JiTLtiY, that '■'■someofthefaHhfids'' child-
ren., baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost, wliile they live in the state of their
iiifancy, are reprobate by an absolute decree.''''^
THE REASON OF THIS,
Appears sufficiently in the Reasons of those Negatives fore-
mentioned.
* At the close of their First Article, the Dutch Remonstrants thus address
the niemdfrs oft/,e Siinod, of which ihey were themselves allowed to form no
part, but were called the Citf.d 1'f.r.sons ; "Most reverend Fathers and
lirethren, you have now before you the proposition of our opinions respect-
ing' the First Article on Election and Reprobation. These sentiments we are
FinST.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 113
THE STATE OF THE CONTROVERSY
TOUCHING
PREDESTINATION, OR ELECTION TO ETERNAL LIFE,
OR REPROBATION THEREFROM.
Whether of Divine and perempto7ij Election to [ghry or]
eternal Tife^ the first and adequate object he " all and onlj
" those zchich persevere in trne faith unto their lives' end, as
" such: or certain particular persons not at all considered a^
" believing and persevering injciith, as such.''''
See all the Texts alleged for Conditioned, and against Absolute
Irrespective Election, pages 95 — 110.
prepared to defend ; we are also prepared to combat the contrary opinions,
which are those of the Contra Remonstrants. A\'e thinl<. it greatly concerns
the Truth itself, the glory of God, our own conscience, and the edification
of the Churches, for us to propose these opinions in this order, and to explain
and defend them as much as we are able and as tar as we shall think
ueedful."
In the Jets of the Si/nod, it is stated, " In addition to this, the Synod
declared it to be displeasing tu them, ' that the Cited Individuals, in the
' propositions exhibited, had employed themselves more in rejecting the
•opinions of other people than in stating their own ; that they disclaimed
* those senti7)ients iihich were imt their ovn, rather than asserted what were
* really theirs ; and that they had mixed many topics in their First Article,
< which belonged more properly to those which had to succeed.' it was
therefore resolved to admonish the Remonstrants, that in their subsequent
Articles they might beware of these grievances, and pay a stricter attention
to the commands of the Synod."
The next tiav, which was the 14th of Dec. Ifilft, the Remonstrants were
enjoined to have their other Four Articles ready to exhibit on the ITth of the
same month. " It was also the pleasure of the Synod ♦ to warn the Cn i:d
' Persons to prepare their propositions in an aflirniative rather tlian in a
' neo-ative manner, that a judgment might be the more easily formed con-
' cerning their sentiments : Were it aftei wards their wish to refute the con-
' trary doctrines, thev should be at liberty to add their Rejections.' When
the Remonstrants ha'd been called in, they received these injunctions from
the Synod. The President also reminded them, ♦ that they ought in prefer-
* ence to apply themselves to a discussion of those questions w hich related
* to the sweet doctrine of Election, and not iti an odious muiiner agitate
' that of Reprobation.' The Remonstrants answered, that ' they would
« take into consideration the admonitions which had been given by the
' President.'"
This was very good advice; but it was not the most disinterested, when
proceeding from men who were the great teachers of Lnconditional Repro-
bation. The result of this admonition w ill be seen in a note, at the close of
tlifise Five Articles.— Editor.
114 THE TENETS OF [aUT.
11.
Whether of peremptori/ Reprohathn unto everlasting tor-
ments, thcjirst and adcqiiated object be^ " all and only unhe-
*' lievers dying in their unhellef^ as such ; or certain
*^ partictdar persons (the greatest part of manJcind,) not at
" all considered as impenitent, unbelievers and disobedient, as
" such:'
See the Texts fore-cited for Respective and against Irrespective
and Absolute Reprobation: (pagesQS-llO) to which you may add
Isaiah xxvii, 11. " Because this people have no understanding,
therefore/' &c. Ezek.xviii;, 13, 23.
THE SECOND ARTICLE CONTROVERTED,
CONCEENTNG
THE UNIVERSALITY OF CHRIST'S DEATH.
WHAT THE REMONSTRANTS HOLD.
TENET I.
They hold, that the p?-ice of Redemption which Christ
tendered unto his Father, zcas not only in itself svPFiciviisiT
for the Redemption of all mankind, but was also (according
to the decree, the will, and the grace of God the Father,)
PAID FOR ALL and EVERY MAN.
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
" The price of Redemption Christ paid for all and every man." ]
For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all : 1 Tim.
ii, 5, n. — We trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all
men. iv, 10. — Behold the Lamb of God that taketh>way the
sin of the world. John iii iQ; i, 29. — We have an Advocate
SECOND.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 115
with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and he is the pro-
pitiation for our sins : and not for ours only, but also for the
sins of the \yhoIe world. 1 John ii, 2. See John vi, 33, 51. —
He tasted death for every man : Heb, ii, 9- — For the unjust :
1 Pet. iii, 18, &c. — For the ungodly, for sinners, for his ene-
mies. Rom. V, 6, 8, 10. — See the places cited before for Christ's
satisfaction. (Page QQ.)
" According to the decree, the will, and the grace of Cod," ^'C.'2
So God loved the world, &c. John iii, l6. — We have seen and
do testify, that the Father sent the Son, to be the Saviour of
the world. 1 John iv, 14. — He spared not his own Son, but de-
livered him up for us all. Rom. viii, 32. — In this was manifested
the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-
begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us ;
and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John iv,
9, 10. — For God sent not his Son into the world, to condemn
the world ; but that the world through him might be saved :
John iii, 17. — That He by the grace of God should taste death
for every man. Heb. ii, Q. — It pleased the Father by him
to reconcile all things to Himself Col. i, 19;, 20, 21. — After
that the kindness and pity of God our Savioiir towards man
appeared. Tit. iii, 4. — For 1 came, not to judge the world, but
to save the world. John xii, 47. — Greater love hath no man
than this, — that a man lay down his lite for his friend. John
XV, 13. — He loved us and washed us from our sins in his own
blood. Rev. i, 5. — The love of Christ constraineth us ; because
we thus judge, that if one died for all, &c. 2 Cor. v, 14, 15.
TENET II.
The?/ Jiold, that Christ hy the merit of his death, hath so
far forth reconciled God the Father to all mankind, that the
Father, hy reason of his Soil's merit, both could, and xvould,
and did enter [into] and establish a ncio and gracious cove-
nant with sinful man liable to condemnation.
PROOFS OUT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not
imputing their trespasses unto them. 2 Cor. v, 19- — And you
that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by
wicked works, yet nov/ hath he reconciled, in the body of his
flesh through death. Col. i, 21, 22. — I will give thee for a Cove-
narit of the people. |^" That is, a Mediator and Foundation of
the Covenant of Grace." Dxodati's Annot.'^ Isai. xlix, 8. — When
thou shalt make his soul an offering lor sin, he shall see his
li(> THE TENETS OF [aIIT.
seed and tlie pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hands: By his knowledge shall my righteous servant
justify many. Isai. liii, tlie whole chapter, 10, 11, 12. — To him
give all the Prophets witness, that through his name, whoso-
ever believeth in him, shall receive remission of sins. Acts x, 4.3.
■ — He is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was estab-
lished upon better promises, viz. I will put my laws into their
mind and I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, &c. See
Jer. xxxi, 31, 34; xxxiii, 8; Micah vii, 18, 19, 20 j Heb. viii,
6, Sec. — How much more shall the blood of Christ and for
this cause he is the Mediator of the new Testament, that by
means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that
were under the first Testament, they which are called might
receive the promise of eternal inheritance. Heb. ix, 14, 15, &c.
—See Heb. x, the whole chapter ; vii, 22 ; xii, 24, 25.
TENET III.
The?/ hold, that though Chi'lst hath merited reconcUiation
icith God and pardon of' sins for all and every man, yet, ac-
cording to the tenor of the new and gracious Covenant, none
is indeed made partaJcer of the benefits purchased by the
death of Christ, otherwise than by faith : A^or are a man's
sins pardoned, before he actually believes in Christ.
PROOFS OUT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
" None made partakers of Christ's benefits otherwise than hy
faith." "l Being justified freely by his grace, through the re-
demption that is in Jesus Christ : whom God hath set forth to
be a propitiation through faith in his blood. Rom. iii, 24, 25. —
But without faith it is impossible to please God. Heb. xi, 6, —
Whosoever believeth on him shall not be confounded. Rom.
ix, 33. — He is the Saviour, — specially of those that believe.
1 Tim. iv, 10. — For it pleased the Father by him to reconcile
all things unto himself. — And you hath he now reconciled — to
present you holy and unblamable, and unreprovable in his sight,
if ye continue in the faith, &c. Col. i, 19 — 23. — We are made
partakers of Christ, if we hold f^st &c. Heb. iii, 6, 14. — He is
the Mediator, — that by means of death they which are called
\j:nm eveiitii^ might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
Heb. ix, 15. — But as many as received him, to them gave he
power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on
his name. John i, 12. — See Gal. iii, 22.
" Nor are a man's sins pardoned btfore he octiiallij believes." 2
To him give all th.e Prophets witness, that through his name,
■whosoever believeth in hun, shall receive remission of sins. Acts
SECOND.] THE RE MoN SI II A NTS. 117
X, 43. — See Acts xxvi, 18 ; xlii, 39; John iii, 36. — The right-
eousness of Gud, without the law, is manifested, — even the
righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto
all and upon all them that believe. Rom. iii, 21, 22. — Abraham
believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness ;
and it shall be imputed to us also, if we believe. Rom. iv, 3, 2-i.
See the whole chapter. — We have believed in Jesus Christ, that
we might be justified by the faith of Christ. Gal. ii, 26*. — The
just shall live by faith. Gal. iii, 11, — See Gal. iii, 22. — Being
justified by faith, we have peace with God. Rom. v, 1. — See
Acts ii, 3S ; Isai. liii, 11.
TENET IV.
Thet/ hold, that only they for whom Christ died are hound
to believe, that Christ died for them ; and if there were any
Jhr whom Christ died not, they should not he hound to believe
he died for them, or condemned for not beheviiig ; yea, if
there were any such Reprobates, they should rather be bound
to believe, tJiat he died not for them.
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
" Only they for whom Christ died hound to believe" c^-c.^ Ye
were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, who was
manifest for you, who by hiai do believe in God that raised
him up from the dead, and gave him glory, that your faith and
hope might be in God. 1 Pet. i, 18, 19» 21. — Believe also in me.
Why.'' 1 go to prepare a place for you, and I will receive you
to myself John xiv, 1, 2, 3.
See 1 Cor. xv, 2, 3, 14. Whence it follows, that " they for
whose sins Christ died not, and for whose justification he rose
not again, to them preaching is vain, and their faith is vain ;"
for' they do but believe an untruth, and lean upon the staff of a
broken reed. Accordingly (as was alleged above,) Maccovius
saitli, " A man must first believe Christ to be his Saviour
[^which he cannot be, unless he hath died for him,]] and that
must be the reason why he placeth his faith in him."
" And such Reprobates should rather believe, that he died not for
them." I For those things which are revealed belong to us.
Deut. xxix, 29. — O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that
the Prophets have spoken ! Luke xxiv, 25. — If it be a revealed
TRUTH, that " Christ died not for the Reprobates ;" then are
they bound to believe, he died not Jot them. But if it be not a
truth revealed, why is it then preached and urged as an Article of
fuilh ?
118 THE TENETS OF [aRT.
WHAT THEY DO NOT HOLD, TOUCHING CHRIST's DEATH.
REJECTION I.
They do utterly deny, that " the p?-ice of Redemption,
which Christ tendered unto God his Father, was not (accord-
ing to the decree, will, and grace of God the Father,) paid
for all and every man, that so the greatest part of manlcind
slwuld, by an absolute and antecedent decree of God, he pre-
cisely shut out from the participation of the benejits qfCJirisfs
death.'''
THE REASON.
1 . Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. Matt,
xviii, 11 ; Luke xix, 10. — God was in Chi-ist reconciling the
world unto himself. 2 Cor. v, I9. — He laid upon him the iniquity
of us all. Isai. liii, 6. — And Christ died for all, for every man,
for the world, for the Avhole world, for the unjust and disobedient,
(finally such,) 1 Pet. iii, 18, 20; — for the ungodly, for sinners,
for his enemies; — as was said above. (Page 96.)
2. Also for as many as died in Adam. 1 Cor. xv, 22. — As by
the offence of one man, &c. Rom. v, 12, 18 ; 2 Cor. v, 14.
3. For as many as are bound to believe in him ; — as was de-
clared above. (Page 11 7-)
4. For as many as are bound to adore and serve him. — Ye are
bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your &c. 1 Cor,
vi, 20. — We thus judge, that if one died for all, then Avere all
dead : and that he died for all, that he vnight be Lord of all,
that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves
but unto him which died for them. 2 Cor. v, 14, 15 ; Rom. xiv, 9»
See Ephes. i, 12.
5. For as many as we are bound to pray for in Christ's name.
1 exhort, that supplications be made for all men — For there is
one Mediator, who gave himself a ransom for all. 1 Tim. ii,
1, 5, 6.
6. For such as crucify him afresh to themselves. Heb. vi,
4, 5, 6 ; X, 29. — For such as deny him, and finally do perish.
2 Pet. ii, 1. See Rom. xiv, 15; 1 Cor. viii, 11.
REJECTION II.
They do utterly deny, that " the immediate fruit of the
death of Christ is the actual pardon of sins :'''' Or, (zvhich is
second] the remonstrants. 119
tJte smne in effect,) tJiat " sins are pardo7ied unto shiners^
before they do actuaUij hclicve in Christ.''''
THE REASON.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. Rom.
X, 10. — But -without faith it is impossible to please God. Heb.
xi, 6. See Gal. iii, 22. — He that believeth not, shall be damned.
Mark xvi, l6. — He is condemned already: the wrath of God
abideth on him. John iii, 18, 36". — See proofs for the affirma-
tive, page 116.
REJECTION III.
The?/ do utterly deny, that " Reprobates (as some call
them,) for lohom Christ died not, (if there xco-e any such,)
are bound, notzciths{a7idinff, to believe in him, and to believe
that tbey are elected unto glory ; and that, therefore, those
that believe not shall be condemned justly, yea, shall therefore
be punished with more grievous torraents by Almighty God.''''
THE REASON.
1. Will ye speak wickedly for God ? And talk deceitfully for
him.'' Job xiii, 7- — He is the God of truth. Jer. x, 10, — that
cannot lie. Tit. i, 2 ; Heb. vi, 18. — All his commandments are
truth, righteousness, and faithfulness. Psalm cxix, 86, 151, 172.
Christ was a minister for the truth of God, and no lie is of the
truth. Rom. xv, 8 ; 1 John ii, 21.
2. If we meet with false Prophets and dissemblei's, (for all
their fair speeches,) he bids us Believe them not. Jer. xii, 6;
Matt, xxiv, 23; Prov. xxvi, 25.
3. He denounceth grievous judgments against such Prophets
as go about to induce the people to trust in a lie. Jer. xxviii, 25 :
xxix. Si.
4. It is a sore judgment, inflicted only upon the obstinate
and refractory, (and therefore certainly no duty of them that
are not such,) to be given up to such errors. " Because they
received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved ;
for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion, that they
should believe a lie : that they all might be damned, who be-
lieved not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
2 Thess. ii, 10, 12. — So that the God of truth and righteous-
ness doth not bind men (as a pai-t of their duty) to believe
falsehood, much less doth He punish thera with " more grievous
torments for not believinrj it."
120 THE TENETS OF [ART.
5. Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty per-
vert justice ? Job viii, S. — Yea surely, God will not do wickedly,
neither will the Almighty pervert judgment, xxxiv, 10, l!2.
He will not lay upon man more than is right, that he should
enter into judgment with God. Verse 23.
THE STATE OF THE CONTROVERSY,
TOUCHING
THE UNIVERSALITY OF CHRIST'S DEATH.
Whether Christ Jesus, out of a serious and gracious pur-
pose and decree of God the Father, suffered that most bitter
and shameful death, that he might bring into Jctvour with
God ONLY SOME FEW, and thosc formerly and iu particular
chosen to eternal life by an absolute decree : Or that hemiight
merit and obtain reconciliation with God, for all and every
sinner, without difference, by doing and siiff'ering those things
which Divine Justice, by sin offended, did require to be dune
and suffered before he would enter \jnto'\ a neio gracious cove-
nantwilh sinners, and ojjen the door of salvation to them ?
THE DECISION IS CONTAINED IN THE FORMER ASSERTIONS
AND NEGATIONS.
I
» III AND IV.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 121
THE THIRD AND FOURTH ARTICLES CONTROVERTED,
WHICH ARE TOUCHING
THE GRACE OF GOD IN THE CONVERSION OF MAN-
WHAT THE nEMOXSTBAXTS HOLD.
TENET 1.
They hold^ that a man hath not saving Juith of himself^
nor Jrom the power of his own free-will ; seeing, while he is
in the state of sin, he cannot, of himself nor hy himself,
think, or will, or do, any saving good, (in which kind,Jaith
in Christ is eminent,) hut must needs, hy God in Christ,
through the power of the Holy GJiost, he regenerated and
renexoed, in his mind, qffl'ciions, will, and all his powers,
that he may aright understand, will, and meditate, and do
that which is savingly good.
PROOFS OUT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
" A man hath not faith or any saving good of himself ," SfC.'^ Ye
were sometimes darkness. Ephes. v, 8. — When we were in the
flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work iv
our members, to bring forth fruit unto death. Rom. vii, 5. — God
hath concluded all in unbelief. Rom. xi, 32. — For by grace are
ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God. Ephes. ii, 8. — To you it is given — to believe. Phil,
i, 8, 9- — None can say, that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy
Ghost ; (who is therefore called) the Spirit of faith. I Cor. xii, 3.
— Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing, as
of ourselves: but our sufficiency is of God. 2 Cor. iv, 13;
2 Cor. iii, 5. — For when we -were yet without strength, in due
time Christ died for the ungodly. Rom. v, 6. — Without me, ye
Can do nothing. John xv, 5. — No man can come to me, except
the Father draw him. Everv man, therefore, that hath heard,
i
122 THE TENETS OF [aRT,
and hath learned of the Fatlier, cometh unto me. John vi,
44, 45, 65.
" He musi needs be regenerated," c^-c.]] That which is born of
the flesh, is flesh : and this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God. John iii, 6 ; 1 Cor. xv, 50. —
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God. John iii, 3, 5. — But ye are washed,
but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the
Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Cor. vi, 11. — Not by
works of righteousness which we had done, but according to
his mercy he sa-'cd us, by the washing of regeneration, and
renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly,
through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Tit. iii, 4, 5, 6. — The Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ hath begotten us again, not of cor-
ruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God. 1 Pet.
i, 3, 23 See Ezek. xxxvi, 26, 27.
'• He must be renewed in tindersfandhig, will, affections" t^'c]
Eenewed in the spirit of your minds : Ephes. iv, 23. — In know-
ledge. Col. iii, 10. See 1 Cor. i, 4, 5. — To whom I send thee,
to open their eyes, to turn them from dai'kness to light, and
from the power of Satan unto God. Tit. ii, 11; Acts xxvi, 1 8.
God, through the Holy Ghost, purifying their hearts by faith.
Acts XV, 9. — The blood of Christ purge your conscience from
dead works, to serve the living God. Heb. ix, 14. — Seeing ye
have purified your souls in obeying the truth, through the
Spirit, — and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. 1 Pet.
i, 22 ; i Thess. v, 23.
" That he tmti/ do that which is savinsly good" Sfcr\ Make
the tree good, and his fruit good. Matt, vii, 17;, 18 ; xii, 33 — 35.
But now being made free from sin, and become servants to
God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting
life. Rom. vi, 22. See verse 18.
TENET II.
They Jiold, that the grace of God is the beginning, pro-
ceeding, and FULFILLING of ALL GOOD; SO as even the
regenerate man himself, without grace preventing, ex-
citing, FOLLOWING, and CO-WORKING, cannot thinJi, will,
or do good, or resist any temptation to ill : so that the good
deeds and actions zohicU any man can conceive, are to be
ascribed to the grace of God in Christ.
PHOOFS OUT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
" The grace of God is the beginning," c^r.^ Every good gift,
and every perfect gift is from above. James i, 17, 18.— If the
Ill &. IV.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 123
Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. John viii, S6.
See 2 Cor. iv, 6.- Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
2 Cor. iii, 17- — It is God, which hath begun a good work iii
you, which worketh in you to will and to do of his good plea-
sure. Phil, i, 6 ; ii, 13. — The Author and Finisher of our faith.
Heb. xii, 2. — Whereunto he called you by our gospel. 2 Thess.
ii, U. See verses 15, l6, 17; 1 Pet. v, 10, &c.— His Divine
Power hath given us all things that pertran to life and god-
liness. 2 Pet. i, 1, 3.
" The regenerate man himself cannot, tvithout grace, resist any
temptation to ill," S^c.'} Wherefore take unto you the whole
armour of God, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day.
Ephes. vi, 13. — Watch and pray, &c. Matt, xxvi, 41. — Lead us
not into temptation. Matt, vi, 13.
" The good we do, is to be ascribed to the grace of God in
Christ. "'2 By the grace of God, 1 am what I am. 1 Cor. xv, 10.
— The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the
Son of God, Gal. ii, 20. — Blessed be God, even the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy,
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, &c. 1 Pet. i, 3. —
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal
glory, by Christ Jesus ; to him be glory and dominion for ever
and ever. Amen! 1 Pet. v, 10, 11. — See Rom. i, 8 ; 1 Cor. i,
4, 5 ; Ephes. i, 3, &c. ; Rom. xvi, 25, 26, 27 ; Rev. i, 5, 6.
TENET III.
They hold, that to hear God's word, to be sorry for s'm
committed, to desire saving" grace and the Spirit of reno-
vation, (nothing of which, not-ioithstanding, can a man
DO WITHOUT GRACE,) IS profitable and needful for the ob-
taining (f faith and tJie Spirit of renovation.
PROOFS OUT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
Negotiamini dum venio : " Trade, till I come ;" for whoso-
ever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abun-
dance. Luke xix, 13, 26. See Matt, xiii, 10 — 17; Luke xvi,
11, 12 ; xix, 17. — Every man that hath heard, and hath learned
of the Father, cometh unto me. John vi, 45. — Faith cometh by
hearing. Rom. x, 17. — They (of Berea) received the word with
all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures, Therefore
many of them believed. Acts xvii, IJ, 12. — If any man will do
his v/ill, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.
John vii, 17. See Psalm xxv, 12, 14; cxi, 10; Prov. i, 7. —
Godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation. 2 Cor. vii, 10.
See Acts ii, 37, 38 ; xvi, 29, 30. — If thou wilt incline thine ear
I 2
124 THE TENETS OF [aKT.
unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding if
thou seekest her as silver then shall thou understand the
fear of the Lord. Prov. ii, 1 — 5. — I love them that love me;
and they that seek me early, shall find me. Prov. viii, 17- —
Your Heavenly Father will give the Spirit to them that ask
him. Luke xi, 13.
See the example of Sergius Paulus, Acts xiii, 7, 12; especi-
ally that of Cornelius, Acts x, 1,2, 4, 5, 34, 35. See also Gal.
iii, 24; Prov. iii, 32; Job. xxviii, 28; 2 Tim. ii, 21; James
i, 21 ; 2 Pet. ii, 1, 2. See the reason of the negative following,
page 129.
TENET IV.
Tkei/ Jwld, thai effectual grace, wlierehy a man is convertedy
is resistible : and though God doth so worTc upon the zvill by
his word and the inward operation of his Holy Spirit, as
that he gives both power to believe and supernatural abilities,
and makes a man actually to believe, yet can man, of him-
self, despise that grace, not believe, and so, through his oicn
default, 'perish.
PROOFS OUT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give
them an heart of flesh, that they ma)'^ walk in my statutes, and
keep mine ordinances and do them But whose heart walk-
eth after the heart of their detestable things, and their abomi-
nations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads.
Ezek. xi, 20 compared with 21. — Then began he to upbraid
the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because
they repented not. " Woe unto thee, Cliorazin ! Woe unto thee,
Bethsaida ! for if the mighty works which were done in you,
had been done in Tyre and Sydon, they would have repented
long ago in sackcloth and ashes. And thou, Capernaum,
which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell :
for if the mighty works which have been done in thee, had been
done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day." Matt,
xi. 20-23. -I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged. Ezek.
xxiv, 13. — They that gladly received his word, were baptized.
Acts ii, 41. — Ye received it, not as the word of man, but (as it
is in truth) the word of God, which effectually worketh also in
you that believe. 1 Thess. ii, 13, 1 p. See verse 19 ; Acts xi, 21 ;
Rom. i, 16 ; Acts xiii, 46, 48. — He sent out his servants, saying,
" AH things are ready : come unto the marriage." But
they made light of it. Luke xiv, 16, &c.; Matt, xxii, 4, 5. —
He that despiseth you, despiseth me : he despiseth not man.
Ill &, IV.] THE REMONSTKANTS. 125
but God, who hath given us of his Spirit : Luke x, 16 ; 1 Thess.
iv, 8. — How often would I have gathered thy children '.
and ye would not ! Matt, xxiii, 37 ; Luke xiii, 34-. — These things
have I spoken, that ye might be saved. And ye will not come
to me, that ye might have life, Johin v, 34, 40. — Because I have
called and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand and ye
regarded not, &c. Prov. i, 24. — Despisest thou the riches of
his goodness and forbearance and long suffering, not knowing
that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance ? Rom.
ii, 4, 5. — They rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit. Isai. Ixii, 10.
See Zech. vii, Jl, 13. — Ye have always resisted the Holy Ghost,
and done despite to the Spirit of Grace. Acts vii, 51 ; Heb.
X, 29. — And rejected the counsel of God against themselves.
Luke vii, 30. — And turn the grace of our God into lascivious-
ness. Jude, verse 4. — We then, as workers together with him,
beseech you also, that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.
2 Cor. vi, ]. — Looking diligently, iie qiiis desit gratice Dei, lest
any man be wanting to the grace of God. Heb. xii, 15. See
Psalm Ixxviii, 40, &c. ; 2 Cor. iii, 15; iv, 4. Also see the
reason of the second negative following, page 130. See Exod.
xxi, 5, 6, compared with Isai.lxi, 1, 2 ; and Rom. vi, 14, I6.
TENET V.
They hold, that though grace be dispensed in drffering
measure, according to God''s most J^'ee-zvill, yet on all tlwse
io whom the word qfjaith is preached, the Holy Spirit
bestows, or is ready to bestow, so much grace as is sufficient,
injitthig degrees, to bring on their conversion.
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
" Though grace be dispensed in differing measure," t^'C.]] God,
■who at sundry times, and in divers manners hath in
these last days spoken unto us by his Son. Heb. i, 1, 2. — A
greater than Jonah is here. Matt, xii, 41. — I came, that they
might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
John x, 10. — How shall we escape, if we neglect so great sal-
vation .f* Heb. ii, 2, 3. — To one he gave five talents, to another
two, to another one. Matt, xxv, 15. — There are diversities of
gifts. 1 Cor. xii, 4. — The grace of God is manifold. 1 Pet. iv, 10.
— According to the effectual working in the measure of every
part, Ephes. iv, I6. — Him that is weak in the faith, receive
you. Rom. xiv, 1. — There is not in every man that knowledge.
1 Cor. viii, 7-
" The Holy Spirit bestows so much grace as is sufficienl," Sfc.'^
God having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in
126 THE ThNETS OF [aHT.
tiirninn- away every one of you from your iniquities. Acts iii, 26.
—Him hath God exalted, to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to
give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Acts v, 31. —
Christ is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sancti-
fication and redemption. 1 Cor. i, 30. — The grace of God which
bringeth salvation, hath appeared unto all men, &c. Tit. ii, 11, 12.
See 2 Chron. xxiv, 19- — To whom I send thee, to open their
eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power
of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins
and an inheritauce, &c. Acts xxvi, 18. — Our sufficiency is
of God ; who also hath made us able ministers, — not of the
letter, but of the Spirit. 2 Cor. iii, 5, 6". — Go ye and teach—
and lo I am with you. Matt, xxviii, 19, 20. See Matt, xviii, 20.
, Now then we are Ambassadors for Christ, as though God
did beseech you by us ; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye
reconciled unto God. 2 Cor. v, 20. — Receive not the grace of
God in vain. 2 Cor. vi, 1.
" In ^^'"'^ degrees," c^c.^ With many such parables spake
he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it. Mark iv, 33.
And delivered to his servants his talents, to every one accoi-d-
ing to his several ability. [[Agreeable to his capacity, and compe-
tent to his office and employment, and the exigence of business
entrusted to him of his Lord.^ Matt, xxv, 15. See Heb, v,
13^ 14. X^e path of the just is as the shining light, that
shineth mor^ and more unto the perfect day. Prov. iv, 18. —
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have
more abunda^^ce. Matt, xiii, 12. — He that is faithful in that
which is leasts is faithful also in much: If therefore ye have not
been faithful i^ ^^e unrighteous mammon, who will commit to
your trust the true riches } And if ye have not been faithful
in that which is another's, who shall give you that which is
your own ? — Z}^ yu be not faithful in the use of things tem-
poral, howsliall God intrust you with things heavenly and spiri-
tual.!"^ Luke xvi, 10, 12. — Wherefore let us have grace [[hold
it fast by employing iC\ whereby we may serve God accept-
ably, Heb. xii, 2, 8,— and grow in it. 2 Pet. iii, 18.
TENET VI.
They Ju)lcl, that a man by the grace of the Holy Spirit,
may do more good than indeed he doth, and omit more evil
than indeed he omitteth.
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin :
but now they have no cloak [[excuse]] for their sin. If I had not
Ill & IV,] THE REMONSTRANTS. 127
done among them the works which none other man did, they had
not had sin : but now have they both seen and hated both me
and my Father. John xv, iJ2, 24. — The times of this ignorance
God winked at. Acts xvii, 30; 1 Kings xxi, 25 ; Zach, i, 15.
— But the righteousness wliich is of faith, speaketh on this wise.
The word is very nigh thee, in ihy mouth and in thy heart, that thou
mayest do it. Deut. xxx, 14< ; Rom, x, 6, 8. — Wliere the Spirit of
the Lord is, there is liberty. 2 Cor. iii, 17; see John viii, 32, 3Q.
—Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of
righteousness. Rom. vi, 18. — Thou hast a little strength, and
hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Rev. iii, 8.—
I am able to do all things, through Christ which strengtheneth
me. Phil, iv, 13. — If the mighty works which have been done in
you, had been done in Tyre, Sidon or Sodom, they would have
repented. Matt, xi, 21, 23. See the four [^succeeding]] negative
propositions.
TENET VII.
They hold, that xvhomsoever God calls unto salvation^ lie
calleth him seriously, that is, with a sincere and iirifeigned
intention and will to save him.
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
1. His COMMAND. — But now he commandeth all men every
where to repent. Acts xvii, 30.
2. His INVITATIONS. — And the Lord sent to them by his mes-
sengers rising up betimes and sending. 2 Chron. xxxvi, 14 — 16.
See xxiv, IQ. — And he sent out his servants and he sent other
servants, saying, Go out qtiickly and compel them to come in.
Matt, xxii, 2, 4, &c. ; Luke xiv, 21. — The Spirit and the Bride
say. Come. And let him that heareth, say. Come. And let him
that is athirst, come. And whosoever will, let him take the water
of life freely. Rev. xxii, I7. — Ho, every one that thirsteth, come
ye to the waters. Isa. Iv, i. — Behold, I stand at the door and
knock. Rev. iii, 20. — Wisdom crieth without : she uttereth her
voice in the streets. How long, you simple ones ! Ttirn yo\i at
my reproof: Behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, Sfc Prov.
i,20,&c.
3. His RECEPTION. — Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise
cast out. John vi, 37. — Come, and I will refresh you. Matt, xi,
28. — He shall sup with me. Rev. iii, 20.
4. His OPTIONS. — (1.) For the time past. — But my people would
not hear. O that my people had hearkened unto me ! Psalm
Ixxxi, 9 — 14. — Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer 1 am the
Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee
by the way that thou shouklest go, O that thou hadst hearkened
128 THK TENETS OF [aKT.
to my commandments !, then had thy peace been as a river, and
thy righteousuess as the waves of the sea. Isa. xlviii, I7 — 19.
(2.) For the Fului'e — O that there were such a heart in them,
that they would fear me, and keep my commandments always,
that it might be well with them ! Deut. v, 29. — O that they were
wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their
latter end ! Deut. xxxii, 29.
5. His PKECATioNs and beseechings. — I have spread out my
hands (a posture of prayer. Exodus ix, 29; Psalm lxiii,5.) all the
day unto a rebellious people. Isa. Ixv, 2 ; Rom. x, 21. — God
doth beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead. Be ye
reconciled unto God. 2 Cor. v, 20.
6. His OBTESTATIONS. — I Call heaven and earth to record this
day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing
and cursing : therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed
may live. Deut. xxx, 19- — Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O
earth! I have nourished and brought up children, and they have
rebelled against me. Isa. i, 2-
7. His COMPLAINTS — O my people, what have I done unto
thee, and wherein have I wearied thee .'' Testify against me.
Micah vi, 3. — What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that
they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity and are
become vain? Jer ii, 5- — Have I been a wilderness unto Israel ?
Wherefore say my people, fVe will come no more unto thee ? Jer.
ii, 31.
8- His LAMENTATIONS. — O Jei'usalem, wash thine heart from
wickedness, that thou mayest be saved ! How long shall thy vain
thoughts lodge within thee! Jer. iv, 14. — O Jerusalem, Jerusa-
lem, thou that killest the pi'ophets and stonest them which are
sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children
together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and ye would not! Matt, xxiii, 37- — He beheld the city and wept
over it, saying, " If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in
this thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace !" Luke xix,
41, 42.
9. His EXPOSTULATIONS. — Cast away from you all your trans-
gressions, and make you a new heart and a new spirit : for why
will ye die, O house of Israel.^ Ezekiel xviiii, 31, 32- See Jer.
xiii, 27-
10. His iNCREPATioNSanc? EXPROBRATioNS. — Thcsc tilings I
say, that ye may be saved. And ye will not come to me that ye
might have life. John v, 40, 34. — Despisest thou the riches of
his goodness — not knowing, that the goodness of the Lord leadeth
thee unto repentance .'' Rom. ii, 4. — Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem !
wilt thou not be made clean .'' When shall it once be? Jeremiah
xiii, 27,
11. His coMMiNATioNs and THREATENiNGS. — Therefore will
J judge yoM, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways.
III. Sw IV.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 129
saith the Lord God ; repent and turn yourselves from all your
transgressions: so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Ezek. xviii,
30. — Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah saying,
" Thus saith the Lord, Behold I frame evil against 3'ou, and de-
vise a device against you : return ye now every one ti-om his evil
way, and make your ways and your doings good." Jerem, xviii,
10,11.
12. His OATH and protestation. — As I live, saith the Lord
God, I have no pleasure in the detith of the wicked, but that the
wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your
evil ways : for why will ye die, O house of Israel ? Ezek. xxxiii,
11. [] Are not these arguments of seriousness?]] If the Lord
were pleased to kill us, he would not have shewed us all these
things, nor have told us such things as these. Judges xiii, 23. —
See the reason of the fifth negative, page 134.
WHAT THE REMONSTRANTS DO NOT HOLD,
TOUCHIKG
THE SAID ARTICLES,
GOD'S GRxiCE AND MAN'S CONVERSION.
REJECTION I.
Thei/ do NOT hold, that " all zeal, care and study Jir the
ohtalning nf salvation, zchich a inayi shall use before he hath
faith and the Spirit of renovatixm, is vain and to no purpose ;
much less, that it is ratlier hurtful than profitable andfrmtfid
to him.''''
THE REASON.
1. The neglect hereof is complained of . — There is none that stir-
reth up himself to take hold of thee. Isa. Ixiv, 7- See Isa. xliv,
19. — But none saith, "Where is God my Maker, who
teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us
wiser than the fowls of heaven ?" Job xxxv, 10, 11. — No man
repenteth him of his wickedness, saying, " What have I done .''"
Jer. V, 24, viii, 6.
2. This neglect is threatened. — He that is unjust in the least, is
unjust also in much. If therefore you have not been faithful in
130 THE TEiNETS OF [aUT.
that which is another's, &c. Luke xvi, 10, 12. — Because when
they knew Cod, they glorified him not as God. Rom. i, 21.
3. This is a duty expccled even of the Heathens. — That they
should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find
him. Acts xvii, 27.
4. And it is commanded. — He that hath an ear to hear, let him
hear. — Remember this, and shew yourselves men. Isa. xlvi, 8.
—If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. James i, 5.
— Strive to enter in at the strait gate. Prepare the way of the
Lord. Luke iii, 4, 6; Jer. iv, 3 ; Hos. x, 12.
5. This is commended as a disposition and preparative to faith in
Christ, and the Spirit of renovation. — To him that hath shall be
given : To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of heaven. Matt, xiii, 10 — 12. — Thou hast revealed them to
babes. Even so. Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. Matt,
xi, 5, 25, 26. — But he that doth truth, cometh to the light. John
X, 27, iii, 21. — That on the good ground, are they, which, in an
honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring
forth fruit with patience. Luke viii, 15. — Of such is the kingdom
of God. Mark xix, 14.
6*. This care and study is encouraged, — He will not quench the
smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed. Matt, xii, 20. — Ho
every one that thirsteth, that labours ! Isa. Iv, 1 ; Matt, xi, 28.—
Draw nigh unto God, and he will draw nigh to you. James iv, 8.
— They that desire to fear thy name. Nehemiah i, 11: Psalm
xxxviii, 9-
7. He adjourns the judgment upon Ahab's humiliation. — 1 Kings
xxi, 27, 29; see 2 Chron. xii, 12 ; Exodus i, 17, 20, 21.
8. He sends direction to stich as are pricked to the heart, and en-
quire after hirn. — Acts ii, 37, 38. To the publicans and soldiers.
Luke iii, 8, 10. To the jailor. Acts xvi, 29, 30. To Cornelius,
after a most eminent and extraordinary manner. Actsx, 1 — 35.
9- He gives persons of such study and inclination, satisfaction and
a hlcssi7ig.—B>\e&se(\ are they that hunger and thirst after right-
eousness, for they shall be filled. Matt, v, 6; see Luke i, 53.-—
God is a rewarder of all them that diligently seek him. Heb. xi,
6 ; Matt. xi,28. — Arise therefore, and be doing, and the Lord be
with thee. 1 Chron. xxii, l6.
REJECTION II.
They do utterly deny, that " effectual grace, whereby a
man is converted, is an unresistible power.'''' *
* The RKsiSTiBiLiTY and the iRRESisrrBiLiTY of Divine Grace, are the
prand questions which have to be decided between the Calvinists and the
Armiiiians. Were it impossible to resist this grace, or to pervert it from its
HI. & IV.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 131
THE REASON.
1. Conversion is enjoined (on) us as our duty, and we are ex-
horted to it with promises and threatenings.™Turn j e, turn je.
Prov. i, 22 ; Ezek. xviii, 30, 32 : Jer. vii, 3.
2. It is a matter of choice.— Chuse whom ye will serve, chuse
life. Deut. xxx, 19; Jos. xxiv, 15. See 2 Cor. v, 20; Isa. i, 12,
20.
3. The duty and the grace, enabling to it, maybe neglected.
—How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation .'' 2 Cor.
vi, 1 ; Heb. ii, 3 ; Jer. xxxvi, 6, 7- — Therefore we are admonished
" Harden not your hearts." Heb. iii, 7, 8 : Psalm xcv, 7, 8.
— Some temper of mind better qualified. See the First Nega-
tive, page 129.
4. God requires our endeavours (1.) by way of preparatio7i.-—
Laying aside the vail, (2 Cor. iii, 15.) prejudice, (John vii, 3—5,
62.) ambition, (John v, 44, xii, 42, 43.) all malice, and all
guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all superfluity of naugh-
tiness ; (see Acts xiii, 45; Luke xvi, 14.) that we may with
meekness, (Psalm XXV, 9, 12, 14; see Acts ii. 41.) as new-born
babes receive the ministries of grace. (James i, 21 ; 1 Peter ii, 1,
2.) and as many as [^being in pursuit of the world to come,]]
were [^thus^ ordained, [[addicted, disposed^ to eternal life, be-
lieved. Acts xiii, 48.
When being wrought into this temper and frame of spirit, by
God's preventing grace, we are fit for the kingdom of Christ,
Luke ix, 62.
5. God requires our endeavours, (2.) by way of co-opera I mi,
to make his saving grace effectual, which argues it is not an tin-
resistible power. — Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any
man hear my voice, and open the door, (which door turns upon
two hinges, faith and obedience, Rom. i, I6; 1 Thess. ii, 13;
Ephes. iii, 17; Rom. vi, 17-) I will come in to him &c. Rev.
iii, 20.
proper use, the warnings and threatenings of scripture would be nugatory
and of no practical effect: Under such circumstances there would be no
need for saying to sanctified persons, ' Grieve not the Holy Spmt of God,
whereby VE ARE sealed unto the day of redemption.''
The Calvinists are unwilling to put the matter upon this issue, and they
always try to evade the question. Vet that part of the Dkclauation of Ar-
niinius before the States of Holland is not the less true, in which he says:
" The whole controversy reduces itself to the solution of this Question, ' Is
the grace of God a certain irresistible force /' That is, the controversy does
not relate to those actions or operations which may be ascribed to grace, (for
1 acknowledge and inculcate as many of these actions or operations as any
man ever did,) but it relates solely to the mode of operation, — whether it be
irresistible or not : With respect to which, 1 believe, according to the scrip-
tures, that many persons resist the Holy Spirit and reject the grace that is
otfered." (A#^rA»- f/AK.^iiNics, Vol.1, page GOO.) — EonoR.
132 THE TEXETS OF [aRT
6. That this grace is 7iot utiresistiblc, appears further, by God's
option : O that tfiere were such a heart in them, that they would
fear me &c. (as above.)
7- He complains also of men's peri)fr.y<?»e** and coH/M?n^Cj/, ob-
structing the work of gi'ace in themselves. — What could have
been done more to my vineyard that I liave not done in it? Isa.
V, 4 ; see Mark vi, 6. — They have eyes to see and see not : they
have ears to hear and hear not, for they are a rebellious house.
Ezek. xii, 2; see Matt, iii, 15. — But they rebelled, and vexed his
Holy Spirit. Isa. Ixiii, 7 — 10. — But theyi*efused to hearken, and
pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they
should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant
stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the
Lord of hosts hath sent in his Spirit, by the former prophets- Zech.
vii, JO — 12.
8. Some are captivated to the obedience of this grace, while
others stand outinreieffio^zagainstthepower of it. — Some gladly
receive it, others do thrust it from them, contradicting and blas-
pheming. Actsii, 41 : xiii, 48, 45. See 1 Thess. ii, ]3 : 2 Thess.
ii, 10, 11. — Thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech —
Surely had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto
thee ; but the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee. Ezek.
iii, 5 — 7. — Tyre and Sidon, and Sodom would have repented :
but you will not. Matt, xi, 20 — 22. — The men of Nineveh re-
pented at the preaching of Jonah; but [you resist a greater
light and force of grace^ behold, a greater than Jonah is here.
Matt, xii, 41. — To the one, we are the savour of life nnto life;
and to the other, the savour of death unto death. 2 Cor. ii, 14 — 16.
9. The Lord punisheth the refractory, for resisting the work of
his grace and Spirit. — For the earth which drinketh in the rain,
and bringeth forth fruit receiveth blessing from God.
But that which beareth thorns and briers, is rejected, and is nigh
imto cursing, whose end is to be burned. Heb.vi, 7, 8. ---Because
I have called and ye refused, &c. Prov. i, 24 &c.— Therefore
came a great wrath from the Lord. Zech. vii, 11-— 13. ---This is
the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love
darkness rather than light. John iii, 19.— In thy filthiness is
lewdness : because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged,
thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have
caused my fury to rest upon thee. Ezek xxiv, 13. See Matthew
xiii, 15 &c. ; Actsxxviii, 24 &c. ; 2 Chron. xxiv, I9, 20. — God
resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble. James iv, 6.
See the Fourth and Seventh Affirmatives, pages 124, 127.
REJECTION III.
They do utterly deny, that " God doth bestoxo grace suffi-
cient for faith and conversion, only upon those whom, accord-
Ill &- IV.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 133
ing' to the decree of his election, hewiUeth to convey't ^inresist-
ihly ; and that he neither doth nor zoilleth to bestow on the
Reprobates grace necessciry tojaithand salvation!'''
THE REASON.
1. The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all
his works. Psalm cxlv, 8, 9- — He will have all men to be saved.
1 Tim. ii, 3, 4 — He will not that any perish. 2 Peter iii, f). —
Go, preach the Gospel to every creature and they went
forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them,
and confirming the word with signs following. Mark xvi, 15,20.
What could have been done more ? Isa. v, 4. See Mark vi, 0" :
Jer. xxxvi, 6, 7. — Why will ye die? Ezek. xviii, 31. — As 1 live,
saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
Ezek. xxxiii, 11. See the proofs for Conditionate Election, ad-
ministration of necessary and sufficient means, (pages 97 and ()'^.')
and the seriousness of God's call : being the Seventh Affirmative
proposition above, page 127.
2. He threatens to withdraw his grace from men, otih\ for
their stubborness and rebellion agai?ist him and it. — Therefore
the kingdom of God shall he taken from you. Matt, xxi, 41, 43.
— Or else I will remove thy candlestick out of his place. Rev.
ii, 5. — None of those men who were bidden, shall taste of my
supper. Luke xiv, 24. — How often would I, and ye would not !
Bat now are they hidden from thine eyes. Luke xiii, 34:
xix, 42. — But whosoever hath not [ made good use of preventing
grace, ] from him shall be taken away even that he hath. There-
fore speak I to them in parables ; because they, seeing, see not :
And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, by hearing ye
shall hear, and shall not imderstand for their eyes have they
closed, lest at any times they should see with their eyes, and hear
with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and
should be converted and I should heal them. Matt, xiii, 12 — 15.
See .\cts xxviii, 26, &c. Who hold the truth in unrighteousness
and turn it into a lie ; for this cause God gave them up to
vile affections. Rom. i, 18, 21, 24, 25, 28. — Because they recei-
ved not the love of the truth, that they might be saved ; for this
cause God gave them up. 2 Thess. ii, 10 — 12. — Because I have
called, and ye refused Ye also shall call, and I will not
answer you ; I will laugh at your calamities. Prov. i, 24, &c. —
God resisteth the proud, but giveth gi-ace to the humble. James
iv, 6. See the Texts cited againit Absolute Reprobation, page
103, 1 Chron. xxviii, 9; 2 Chron. xv, 2 ; 1 Peter ii, 7, 8; Zech.
ix, 15, 17. 1 will love them no more, because they did not
hearken-
134 THE TENETS OF [aUT.
REJECTION IV.
They do utierly deny, that " God is simply unwilling that
a man should do (1.) more good than he doth, or (2 J omit
m,ore evil than he omittcth ; or ihat he hath precisely decreed
Jrometenvity, thathoth good and evil should be so dnne as
tliey are?''
THE REASON.
1. His command. — Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with
all thy heart, and with all thy mind and Avith all thy soul, and
with all thy strength. Abstain from all appearance (kind) of
evil. 1 Thess. v, 22. — Have no fellowship with unfruitful works
of darkness. Ephes. v, 1 1 . — Wherein have I wearied thee ? Mi-
cah vi, 3. See Phil, iii, 12—15. My yoke is easy. Matt. xi,29.
Receive not the grace of God in vain. 2 Cor. vi, 1. — Grow in
grace. 2 Peter iii, 18. — Negoticnnini dum venio, " Trade till I
come." Wherefore (hast thou kept my talent in a napkin, and)
gavest it not into the bank, that at my coming I might have re-
quired mine own with usury ? Cast that unprofitable servant,
&c. Lukexix, 12, 20. — Ye did run well, who did drive you
back ? Gal. v, 7,
2. But what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those
things they corrupt themselves. Jude 10. — Their heart is fully
SET IN THEM to do evil. Ecclcs. viii, 11. — They devise iniquity
upon their beds. Micahii, 1. — They rebel against the light. Job
xxiv, 13. Consider verses 15, \6, 17. See Rom. i, 32 : Isaiah
XXX, 8 — 11. See also the proofs of the Affirmative in the Sixth
Assertion, page 126.
REJECTION V.
They do utterly deny, that " God doth outwardly call
some, whom he is unwilling inwardly to call and truly to con-
vert, andthat before theyhaverejected the grace of conversion.''''
THE REASON.
1. This is a faithful saying, ihai Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. iTim.i, 15; Luke xix, 10. — To call sin-
ners to repentance, (Matt, xi, 13.) to call them to the obedience of
faith, (Rom. xvi, 25, 26.) unto holiness, (1 Thess. iv, 7) out of
darkness into his marvellous light, that we might set forth his
praise. 1 Peter ii, 9; Eph. i, 12. Why should he not be serious
in all this, seeing it is according to his purpose and GR.'iCE.''
2 Tim. i, 9.
Ill & IV.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 135
2. And the motive of it is his compassion. — The Lord sent to
them by his messenj^ers : because he had compassion on his peo-
ple. But they mocked the messengers, &c. 2 Chron.xxxvi, 15.
See 2 Chron. xxiv, 19 ; Marl-i xii, 6, 7 : Beloved and called.
Rom. i, 7- — I will mention the loving-kindness of the Lord. —
He was their Saviour ; in all their afflictions he was afflicted ; in
his love and in his pity he redeemed them. But they rebelled
and vexed his Holy Spirit. Isa. Ixiii, 7 — 10. — With this affection
the Lord calls such as are finally disobedient, (See 1 Peter iii, 19,
iv, 6.) till they provoke him to wrath that there be no remedy
left. 2 Chron. xxxvi, l6- This affection is testified, by options
and intreaties, by expostulations and increpations, by his lamen-
tations and oath. See the proofs of the Seventh Affirmative, page
127.
3. His CHARGE. — Son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto
the house of Israel : therefore thou shalt hear the word at my
mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked,
O wicked man, thou shalt surely die !, if thou dost not speak to
warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his
iniquity : but his blood will I require at thine hand. Ezek.
xxxiii, 7 ; Acts xx, 28.
4. His EXPECTATION. — He looked that it should bring forth
grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. Isai. v, 2. See 1 Pet.
iii, 20.
5. His appeal to our own judgment in the cases. — Judge, I
pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have
been done more to my vineyard, [ dare any man alledge the want
of a serious inward call?,] that I have not done in it? Where-
fore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, bnought
it forth wild grapes? Isai. v, 3, 4. — [.See Luke xiv, 21. He
was angry at their refusal.^ — O house of Israel, are not my
ways equal ? Are not your ways unequal ? Ezek. xviii, 29, &c.
6. He charges their non-conversion (as ivas proved above J tipon
their own refractoriness: and punisheth them for it. — Jer-
XXV, 4 ; xxxv, 15; 1 Sam. ii, 30 — (1.) With desertion. 2 Chron.
xxxvi, 16"; 2 Thess. ii, 10, 11, 12. See Rom. i, 28 — And
(2.") With destruction. 2 Thess. i, 8 — See the proofs of the
Seventh Affirmative, page 127.
REJECTION VI.
They do utterly deny, that " there is a secret zvill in
God, so contrary to his will revealed in his word, that,
according to his secret will, he nilleth the conversion and
salvation of the greatest part of those whom, hy the word of
his gospel and revealed will, he seriously callcth and inriteth
to faith and salvation; so as there should be acknowledged
in God, a holy simulation and a double person.''''
136 THE TENETS OF [aBT.
THE REASON.
1. He calls us out of compassion and according to his purpose
and grace. 2 Chron. xxxvi, 15 ; 2 Tim. i, 9- !5ee 2 Chron.
xxiv, 19; Mark xii, 6.
2. He is a God of truth, and adds his oath for confirmation of
our faith in this particular. " He cannot lie, nor deny himself."
Numb, xxiii, 19; Tit. i, 2 ; Heb. vi, 18; 2 Tim. ii, i3.
5. He condemneth a double heart and punisheth dissemblers
and hi/pocrites, no less than unbelievers. Matt, xxiv, 51 ; Luke
xii, 46.
4. And besides, our conversion, sanctification, and salvation,
are according to his secret, acceptable atid perfect n'ill. Ephes.
i, 9; 1 Thess. iv, 3 ; Rom. xii, 2. See the proofs of the Seventh
Affirmative, page 127. See 1 Tim. ii, 3, 4.
REJECTION VII.
They do utterly deny, that " God calletli Reprobates for
these ends, viz. that he may harden them the more, make them
unexcusable, punish them the more grievously, manifest their
weakness ; and not for this end, — that tkey may be
CONVEUTED, BELIEVE AND BE SAVED.""
THE REASON.
1. See it in the Reasons of the Fifth and Sixth Negatives,
immediately foregoing, (page 134,) to which add Ephes. iv, 1 :
" I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, that ye
walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called." * And
what answer doth such a call deserve, as is given to no other
end than those now mentioned.'' But God calleth us with an
holy calling. 2 Tim. i, 9. — And he saith unto me, write : Blessed
are they which are called unto the marriage- shipper of the Lamb!
And he saith unto me. These are the true sayings of God. Rev.
xix, 9. See Luke x, 24; Matt, xvi, 17.
2. He upbraids such as make no better use of his calls, than
to aggravate their own damnation. Deut. xxix, 2 — 6; Ezek.
ii, 5 ; John xv, 22, 24. — These things I say, that ye might be
saved. And ye will not come to me that ye might have life.
John V, 34, 40- — Despisest thou the riches of his goodness — not
knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance ?
But after thy hardness, and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto
thyself wrath against the day of wrath ? Rom. ii, 4, 5. See
Proofs of the Seventh Affirmative, page 127.
• See 2 Cliroi). xxiv, 1!). His desig;ii is to reduce them [bring them back]. •
Mark xii, (j. Beiovfd, and called .Rom. i, 7.
III. & IV.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 137-
REJECTION VIII.
They do utterly deny, that " by the force and efficacy of
the secret will and decree of God, not only good things but
\^also\ evil do necessarily come to pass T
THE REASON.
1. It is man's duty to eschew evil and do good ; 1 Pet. iii, 11 ;
Psalm xxxiv, 13 ; (see 2 Sam. xxiv, 12, 13 ; 1 Sam.xxiii, 11, 12 ;)
good being commanded upon pi-omise of life, and evil forbidden
under j)cril of damnation. — If thou wilt enter life, keep the
commandments. Matt, xix, 17. — The wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all unrighteousness of men, who hold the
truth of God in unrighteousness. Rom. i, 18. See verse 32.
2. The good and evil which men do, are matters of choice.
See John xix, 11 ; Josh, xxiv, 15, 22. — If ye be willing and
obedient, &c. But if ye refuse and rebel, &c. Isai. i, 19, 23. —
AVhether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. Sec.
Ezek. ii, 5. See Jer. xxxvi, 6, 7. — Woe to them that devise
iniquity, and work evil upon their beds : when the morning is
light they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.
Mic. ii, l.^Let him do what he will. 1 Cor. vii, 36. See Matt,
xvii, 12 ; Deut. xxx, I9.
3. God's exprobration. Jer. v, 22, 23, under different laws.
4. Good and evil are attended with praise and dispraise,
which such actions deserve not as come to pass necessarily. —
The wise shall inherit glory : but shame shall be the promotion
of fools. Prov. iii, 35; see Rom. ii, 29: Phil, iv, 8. — Do that
which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. Rom.
xiii, 3. See 1 Cor. iv, 5. — This is thank-worthy with God.
1 Pet. ii, 19, 20. — Well done, good and faithful servant !
Luke xix. See Gal. vi, 4. — Who seek for glory and honour
and immoi'tality. Rom. ii, 7.
5. God propounds examples to our imitation.
6. That is omitted which God loves, and that comes to pass
which he hateih. See Jer. xliv, 4, 5. — They did evil before
mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not. Isai.
Ixv, 12, and LWi, 4. — All these are things that I hate. Zech.
viii, 17. See 1 Kings xx, 42.
7. Lastly, God is sometimes said to expect that which does
not come to pass. See Mark xii, 6; Ezek. xxii, 30 — When once
the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah. 1 Pet.
iii, 20. — He looked, that it should bring foj-th grapes, and it
brought forth wild grapes. Isai. v, 2, 4. — See the places cited
for God's haired of sin, and against absolute antecedent decrees,
pages 9i and 103.
K
138 THE TENETS OF [aKT.
THE STATE OF THE CONTROVERSY
TOUCHIKG
THE WORK OF GRACE IN THE CONVERSION OF MAN.
Whether a man^ when God seriously xcills that he helkve,
and he converted^ can nill to believe and convert.
THE FIFTH ARTICLE CONTROVERTED
IS TOUCHING
PERSEVERANCE.
WHAT THE REMONSTRANTS HOLD.
TENET I.
They hold^ that God doth furnish the true believers with
supernatural power of grace^ as, according- to his Injinite
IVisdmn, he judgeth sufficient Jbr their perseverance and
conquest over the temptations of the Devil, the Jlesh, and the
•world ; and tlmt he is never the cause tvhy they persevere
TWt.
PROOFS OUT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
" God furnishes true believers rvith supernatural powers of grace,
siifficietit for their perscvermice.'"^ Whosoever is born of God,
doth not commit sin : for his seed remaineth in him, and he can-
not sin, because he is born of God. 1 John iii, 9- — Whosoever
FIFTH.] THE REMONSTRANTS, 139
drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst
See John iv, 14, and vi, 53. — My grace is sufficient for thee.
2 Cor. xii, Q. — I am able to do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me. Phil, iv, 13. — My yoke is easy, and my bur-
den light. Matt, xi, 30 ; 1 John v, 3.
" And svfficient for their conquest over temptations."'^ They
shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my
hand. My Father, which gave them m.e, is greater than all :
and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
John X, 28, 29. — If God be for us, who can be against us .'' Rom.
viii, 21. — God is faithl d, who will not suffer you to be tempted
above that you are able. 1 Cor. x, 13. See Luke xxii, 32. —
Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou
hast given me- John xvii, 11. — For this thing I besought the
Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto
me. My grace is sufficient for thee ! 2 Cor, xii, 8, 9- — Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? Rom. viii, 35. — For what-
soever is born of God, overcometh the world. 1 John v, 4, 5. —
I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong,
and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the
wicked one. 1 John ii, 13, 14. — Because greater is he that is in
you, than he that is in the world. 1 John iv, 4.
" He is never the cause why they persevere not.""^ Being con-
fident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work
in you, will perform it, until the day of Jesus Christ. 1 Cor.
i, 8 ; Phil, i, 6. — The Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you,
and keep ye from evil. 2 Thess. iii, 3- See 1 Thess. v, 23, 24.
— Now to him that is able to keep you from falling. Jude 24.
— Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our
Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Cor. xv, 57.
TENET II.
They liold, that true believers may fall from true faith,
and into those sins which cannot staiid zaith true and Justi-
fying faith; neither is this only possible, but oft cometh
TO PASS.
PROOFS OUT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
" True believers may fall from true faith" S^c^ They on the
rock, are they which, when they hear, receive the word with
joy ; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and, in
time of temptation, fall away. And that which fell among
thorns, are they which, when they have heard, go forth, and are
choked with cares and riches, and pleasures of this life, and
K 2
140 THE TENETS OF [aUT.
bring forth no fruit unto perfection. Matt, xiii, 20, 21, 22, and
Luke viii, 13, 14. — Because of unbelief thoy were broken off.
Rom. xi, 20, 21, 22. — Ye did run well: Ye are fallen from
grace. Gal. v, 4, 7. — Holding faith and a good conscience,
■which some having put away, concerning faith have made ship-
wreck. 1 Tim. i, 18, 19 — Some shall depart from the faith,
iv, 1. — Some are already turned aside after Satan. Having
damnation, because they have cast off their first love, v, 12, 15.
— See 1 Tim. vi, 10 ; 2 Tim. i, 15 ; ii, 17, 18 ; Gen. iii, 6, 24.
" 7'nie believers mai/ foil info sins which cannot stand with jus-
tifying faith," S)xr\ They allure through the lusts of the f^esh,
through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from
them, who live in error. — It hath happened unto them according
to the true proverb : The clog is turned to his otvn vomit again, and
the sow, that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire. 2 Pet.
ii, 18. See verse 1, &c. — Then began Peter to curse and to
swear, saying, / know not the man. Matt, xxvi, 70, 72, 74. —
David, a man of great faith and integrity ; (1 Kings xv, 5 ;) yet
he committed adultery and murder. 2 Sam. xi, 4, 15; xii, 9-
— And Solomon was beloved of the Lord ; (2 Sam. xii^ 25 ;
1 Kings iii, 10;) yet, through the love of strange women, his
lieai't was turned from the Lord God of Israel, — which had
appeared unto him twice, and went after other gods. 1 Kings
xi, 1 — 10 — And that these sins of adultery, rnnrder, and idolatry,
are inconsistent with true justifying faith, see Gal. v, 19, 20 ;
1 Cor. vi, 9> 10; Hev. xxi, 8; xxii, 15. — Demas, one of St,
Paul's fellow-labourers, (Philem. 24 ; Col. iv, 14,) [j^was one of
those^ whose names were written in the book of life; Phil,
iv, 3 ; yet he embraced this present world. 2 Tim. iv, 10. —
How great a sin that is, in a person so engaged, (2 Tim. ii, 3, 4,)
see James iv, 4 ; 2 Pet. ii, 20 ; 1 John ii, 15. — My people have
committed two evils : they have forsaken me the fountain of
living water, &c. Jer. ii, 13. — Jezebel seduced my servants to
commit fornication, and eat things sacrificed to idols — and they
commit adultery with her. Rev. ii, 20, 22. — When the unclean
spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places,
seeking rest : and, finding none, he saith, / ivill return Jinto mine
house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it
swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven
other spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in, and
dwell there. Luke xi, 24.
TENET III.
They hold, that trite believers mai/, through their otcm de-
fault, fall into crimes and heinous offences, continue and die
in thou, and so finally f (ill away and perish.
FIFTH.] THE RliMON STR A >f TS. 141
PROOFS OUT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
If thou forsake him. He will cast thee off for ever, 1 Chron.
xxviii, 9- — Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh
away ; — and it is withered, and men gather them and cast them
into the tire, and they are burned. John xv, 2, 6. — When the
righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth
iniquity, and doth according to all the abominations that the
wicked man doth, shall he live ? all his righteousness that he
hath done, shall not be mentioned : in his trespass that he hath
trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he
die. Ezek. xviii, 24. See verse 26; and xxxiii, 12, 13, IS.—
Then his Lord said unto him, 0 f/ioii wicked servant, I forgave
thee all that debt, hecanse thou desiredst me : Shoiddest not thou
also have had coiupassioii on thy follow -servant, even as I had pity
on thee ? And his Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the
tormentors. Matt, xvi, 26, ad Jincm. — See the reason of the
Second and following Negatives, and the proofs of the Second
Affirmative, pages 147 and 139.
TENET IV.
They hold, that true believers, though they Jlill sometimes
into grievous sins, and [iritoj sueh as zcaste the conscience,
yet ftdl not from all hope i)f repentance ; hut that God,
according to the multitude of his mercies, can and often
DOTH bring them bach again, by his grace, unto repent-
ance ; although they cannot certainly be assured, that this
sluill certainly and undouhtedly be done. *
PROOFS OUT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
" Believers who sometimes foil into sins, foil not foom all hope
of reventance.'"^ Repent and turn yourselves from all your
* This Tenet, and the two which succeed it, are directed ag:ainst the Cal-
viuistic perversion of the doctrine of the Assurance of Salvation. " In-
stead of allowing it to remain the scriptural criterion of a believer's actual
enjoyment of God, the Calvinists overcharg-ed it with their own inventions:
They no lone,-er applied it to ffie jtrcsent txpei-unce of the j)eoplc of God , but
to a very different and unhaliowiu^ purpose, — to the creation of a presump-
tuous confidence, that, ' whether in tlie way to the kingdom, or by the
* way-side, they should never fall totally and finally from grace.' In the
spirit of their Creed, they did not make it hel|>ful in ascertaininir the coi -
scious growth of their Christian graces, the perceptible elevation of their
religious character, or their actual standing in the Divine Favour; but ibey
employed it to work themselves up to a persuasion of their individual or
personal election, (which, according to their doctrine, was determined at
K 3
142 THE TENETS OF [aIIT.
transpfressions: so iniquity shall not be 5'oiiv ruin, Ezek xviii,
30. — Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers ; yet return
again unto me, saith the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children :
I will not cause mnie anger to fall upon you ; for I am merci-
ful : I will not keep anger for ever : For I am married unto
you. Jer. iii, 1, 12, 14. See Rev, ii, 4; iii, 3; Psalm li, 17. —
1 will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely. Hos.
xiv, 4. — Is Ephraim my dear son ? Is he a pleasant child ?
For, since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him
still : therefore my bowels are troubled for him : I will surely
have mercy upon him, saith the Lord. Jer. xxxi, I9, 20. —
Therefore I will look unto the Lord : I will wait for the God
of my salvation: my God will hear me. Rejoice not against me,
O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise: Mic vii, 7, 8, 9. —
How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him ?
Jesus saith. Until seventy times seven. Matt, xviii, 21,22. — As
your Father which is in heaven, is merciful. Luke vi, 36. —
Aaron makes a calf and provokes the Lord, Exod. xxxii, 2 — 10,
—yet, he is consecrated to the Priest's office, xl, 13. — Hezekiah
humbled himself, the wrath of God was removed from him.
2 Chron. xxxvi, 26. — Peter Aveeps bitterly. Matt, xxvi 75. —
David's sin is put away. 2 Sam. xii, 13. — The incestuous Cor-
inthian finds indulgence. 2 Cor. ii, 7, 10. — A broken and a
contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Psalm li, 17-
" Ahhough they cannot certainly he assured, that they shall be
brovght again hy God's grace to repentance.'"^ In meekness in-
structing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure
will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth ;
and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the
devil. 2 Tim. ii, 25. — Who knoweth if he will return and
repent, and leave a blessing behind him ? Joel ii, 14. See Jonah
iii, 9- — For it is a people of no understanding : therefore he
that made them, will not have mercy on them; and he thnt
formed them, will shew them no favour. Isai. xxvii, 11. — Then
shall they call upon me, but I will not answer : they shall seek
me early, but they shall not find me. Prov. i, 28. — They rose
up early in the morning, saying. We will go up unto the place
which the Lord hath promised : for we have sinned [[viz. in re-
fusing to go up at his command^ : And Moses said. It shall
not prosper. But they presumed to go up, and were discom-
fitted. Numb, xiv, 40, &c. See 1 Cor. x, 6, 11; Heb. iii, 18;
iv, 11. — Afterward when he would have inherited the blessing,
he was rejected ; for he found no place of repentance, [^in his
first in the Divine Mind, without any regard to faith or holiness in the par-
ticular subjects of it,) and consequently to « complete certainty o/'M«r
FINAL PERSEVERANCE." For a curious 'liistory of the variations of this doc-
trine, especially among the rigid Prcdcstiuarians, see tlw ff'or/is o/Armi-
Nius, Vol.1, page 603.— Editor.
FIFTH.] THE RK MON STR A N TS. 143
Father, who had passed away the blessing from him,^ though
he sought it carefully Avith tears. Heb. xii, 17.
If these places do not make a saving repentance, especially after
grievous sins (see Acts viii, 22.) and after an obstinate continu-
ance in them, somewhat doublful, yet doubtless they imply a
difficuUij, — and the more difficult the more doubtful. So do the
places following : — He taketh seven other spirits more wicked
than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. And the last
state of that man is worse than the first. Matt, xii, 43 — 45. — For
if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through
the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are
again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse
with them than the beginning. 2 Peter ii, 20; compare this with
verse 1, c^-c. — For it is impossible, (that is, very difficult, asLvike
xvii, 1, or xviii, 27-) if they fall away, to renew them again unto
repentance. Heb. vi, 4 — 6. See the last Negative precedent.
Concerning propitiation, be not without fear to add sin unto sin.
Ecclesiasticus v, 5. — Despisest thou the riches, c^-c. Rom. ii, 4, 5.
Strive to enter in at the strait gate ; for many, I say unto you,
will strive to enter in and shall not be able. Luke xiii, 24.
TENET V.
They hold, that the true believer may for the present
he assured of the integrity of his faith and conscience, and
FOR THAT TIME may and ougM to hc assured of Ms salvOr-
Hon and the savinglove of God towards Mm.*
PROOFS OUT OF SCRIPTURE.
If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth
* In his Declaration before the States of Holland, Arminius says, " My
opinion is, that it is possible for him who believes in Jesus Christ to be cer-
tain and persuaded, and, if his heart condemn him not, he is now in reality
assured, that he is a Sun of God, and stands in the grace of Jesus Christ.
Such an assurance is wrought in the mind, as well b// the action of the Holy
Spirit inwardly actuating the believers and hy the fruits of faith, — as from
his own conscience and the testimony of God's Spirit witnessing together
■with his conscience. I also believe, that it is possible for such a person,
with an assured confidence in the grace of God and his mercy in Christ, to
depart out of this life, and to appear before the throne of grace, without any
anxious fear or terrific dread : And yet this person siiould constantly pray,
* O Lord, enter not into judgment iiuth thy servant ." — But 1 dare not place
this certainty on an equality with that by which we icnow there is a God, and
that Christ 'is the Saviour of the world." — See, in page 155, another extract
from Arminius, which is further illustrative of his sentiments.
Such were the holy and practical views of that great man on this impor-
tant subject; and corresponding with them are those of Bishop Worn ack
and the Remonstrants, in this and the next Article. — Editor.
144 THE TENETS OF [ART.
US from all our sin. 1 John i, 7. — And hereby we do know that
we know him, if we keep his commandments, ii, 3. — We know
that we have passed from death to life, because we love the bre-
thren, iii, 14. — By this we know, that we love the children of
God, when we love God and keep his commandments,and his com-
mandments are not grievous, v, 2, 3. — But let every man prove
his own works and then shall he have rejoicing in himself. Gal.
vi, 4. — If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence
towards God. 1 John iii, 21 — Our rejoicing is this, the testimo-
ny of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not
with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God we have had our
conversation in the world. 2 Cor. i, 12. — Therefore, being justi-
fied by faith, we have peace with God, and rejoice in hope of the
glory of God. And hope maketh not ashamed, because the
love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost
which is given unto us. Romans v, 1, 2,5. — Hereby know we,
that we dwell in him and he in us, because he hath given us of
his Spirit. 1 John iv, 13. — The Spirit itself beareth witness with
our Spirit, that we are the children of God: Rom. viii, l6 — For
if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die ; but if ye through the
Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as
many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
verses 13, 14. — And the work of righteousness shall be peace;
and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever-
Isa. xxxii, 17-
TENET VI.
They hold, that the true believer may and ought to he
assured, fob the time to come, that, in the use of •watch-
%ng and prayer and other holy exercises, he may persevere in
faith, and that God's grace shall never he wanting thereto.
But hoza he may be assured, for the time to come, that
*' HE HIMSELF shoU uot be wanting to do his duty, but that
" he shall, in the actions of fait] i, piety and charity, as he-
" seems the faitlful, persevere in this school of Christian
" warfare,'" — they see not, nor thi?iJc it necessary that a
believer should be assured thereof.
PROOFS OUT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
" In the use of rvatching and prayer a believer may persevere in
faith, Sfc.'\ Put on the wholearmour of God, that ye may be able
to stand against the wiles of the Devil, and, having done all, to
stand. Ephes. vi, 1 1, 13 — 19 — Pray without ceasing. 1 Thess.
V, 17. — Watch and pray. Matt, xxvi, 41 ;xxiv, 13j 42. — Let your
FIFTH.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 145
loins be girded about and your lights burning : and ye yourselves
like unto men that wait for their Lord. Luke xii, 35-^37. — Take
heed lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting
and drunkenness^, and the cares of this life. Watch ye therefore
and pray always. Luke xxi, 34, 36. — Be sober, be vigilant ; be-
cause your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about,
seeking whom he may devour; whom resist, stedfastin the faith.
1 Peter v, 8, 9.— Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.
James iv, 7- — He that is begotten of God, keepeth himself, and
that wicked one toucheth him not. 1 John v, IS- — And we desire,
that every one of you do shew the same diligence, to the
FULL ASSURANCE OF HOPE uuto the end. Hebrews vi, 11-
" That God's grace shall never he wanting."'^ Surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Psalm xxiii,
6". — For I am persuaded, that ueither death nor life &c. shall
separate us from the love of God. Rom. viii, 38. — He which hath
begun a good work in you. Phil, i, 6. — Every branch that bear-
eth fruit he pui'geth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. If ye
abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will
and it shall be done unto you. (See Luke xi, 13 ; Acts v, 32.)
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even
as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.
John XV, 2, 7, 10. — For sin shall not have dominion over you;
for ye are not under the law, but imder grace. Rom. vi, 14. —
My grace is sufficient for thee. 2 Cor. xii, 9. — Ye are of God,
little children, and have overcome them, [|^the false teachers,]
because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
1 John iv, 4.
" But how a believer may be assured for the lime to come, that he
himself shall not be tvanlitig to do his duty." &c.^ For
1. Man is many times deceived in his present condition. — Thou
say est, / «?« rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing:
and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and
POOR and blind and naked. Rev. iii, I7 ; Gal. vi, 3.
2. Man's heart is deceitful above all things. Jer. xvii, 9 ; see
John xvi, 2.
3. It is God's prerogative to know future contingencies. — Isa.
xli, 22, 23. — The righteous and the wise and their works are in
the hand of God : no man knoweth either love or hatred by all
that is before him. Eccles. ix, 1.
4. A man may resolve v/eU for the present, and be confident
[^thatj he shall stick to such principles and resolutions as he hath
once made and espoused; and yet [|may^ fall quite off from
them. — Hazael practised afterward what he then abhorred.
2 Kings viii, 1 3. — Peter said unto him. Though I should die with
thee, yet 7vill I not deny thee. I^ikewise also said all the disciples.
Matt, xxvi, ^^, 35 ; see Mark xiv, 31. — But he denied before
them all, saying, / do not know the man. And again he denied
146 THE TENETS OF [aKT
with an oath, (verses 70, 72.) Then began he to curse and to
swear, (verse 74.) And tliey all forsook him and fled. Mark xiv,
•^0. — So Hezekiah wroiight that v/hich was good, and right, and
truth, before the Lord his God. And in every work that he be-
gan in the service of the house of God, and in the law, and in
the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart,
and prospered. (2 Chron. xxxi, 20, 21.) But Hezekiah rendered
not again according to the benefit done unto him. For his heart
was lifted up; therefore there was wrath upon him, and upon
Judah and Jerusalem, xxxii, 25. — See David's fall, 2 Samuel xi.
5. Hence " Woe to him that is wise in his own eyes !" Isa. v,
21 ; Rom. xii, l6.
6. Our life is a warfare: (Job vii, 1.) and only death dischar-
geth us from that service. Rev. xiv, 13. — Happy is the man that
feai-eth always. Prov. xxviii, 14. — For thou knowest not what
a day may bring forth. Prov. xxvii, 1 .
7. Therefore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest
he fall. 1 Cor. x, 12; see Rom. xi, 20. — Watch and pray. Matt,
xxvi, 41. — Take heed lest at any time, ^c (Luke xxi, 34, 36.)
and work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Phil, iij 13.
Vv^IIAT THE REMONSTRANTS HOLD NOT,
TOUCHING
PERSEVERANCE.
REJECTION I.
Thei/ HOLD NOT, that " a Believer's Perseverance injuiih
is an effect of that absolute decree, wherein God is said to have
chosen some particular persons, zvithout all respect to any con-
dition of obedience!'''
THE REASON.
They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which can-
not be removed, but abideth for ever. Psalm cxxv, 1. — Thou
standest l)y faith. Rom. xi, 20. — Kept through faith unto salva-
tion. 1 Pet. i, 5. — As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, ex-
cept it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me.
If ye abide in me, c^c. John xv, 4, 7- — If ye love me, keep my
commandments; and I will pray the Father, and he shall give
you another Comforter, that may abide with you for ever. John
xiv, 15, l6. — This is the will of God, even your sauctificalion.
FIFTH.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 147
1 Thess. iv, 3, 4. — I keep under my body, and bring it into sub-
jection ; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others,
"i myself should he a cast-away, 1 Cor. ix, 27. — If ye mortify the
deeds of the body, ye sliall live. Rom. viii 13, iG. — But grow in
grace 2 Peter iii, IS. — This is thank-worthy, if a man for con-
science towards God (not of necessity) endure grief. 1 Peter ii,
1(). — If ye do these things, ye shall never fall. Psalm xv, .5 ;
2 Peter i, 10. — Take unto you and put on the whole armour of
God, t^'C Ephes. vi, 10 — 19. — Give dilicrence to make your call-
ing and election sure. 2 Pet. i, 5. — Fight the good fight of
faith, lay hold on eternal life. 1 Tim, vi, 12. — I pursue hard after
IF THAT I may apprehend, c^'c, Phil, iii, 12.
REJECTION II.
Thei^ do utterly deny, that " true believers cannot sin of
deliberation, but only of ignorance or infirmity.''''
THE REASON.
1. From EXHORTATIONS, — Receive not the grace of God in
vain, 2 Cor, vi, I. — Quench not the Spirit: 1 Thess, v, 19. —
Grieve not the Holy Spirit. Ephes. iv, 30. — Cast not away your
confidence ; if any man draw back, my soul shall have no plea-
sure iu him. Heb. x, S5, 37, 38.
2. From EXPOSTULATION? and admiration, &c. — Will ye also
go away ? John vi, 67. — How is the faithful city become an har-
lot! Isa. i, 21. — Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this; — For
my people have committed two evils : — Yet I had planted thee
a noble vine, wholly a right seed : how then art thou turned into
the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me ! Jer. ii, 12, 21.
3. He taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than him-
self. Matt, xii, 43 — 45 ; Luke xi, 24.
4, David's example- — He sent messengers for Bathsheba, and
lay with her, 2 Sam. xi, 4. — He sends for Uriah to cover the fact,
(verse 6.) and tempts him to that pui'pose. (verse 8) He made
him drunk, (verse 13.) plotted and contrived his death, (verses
14,15.
REJECTION III.
They do utterly deny, that ^' trtie believers can by no sins
fall from thejuvour of God .""
THE REASON.
If thou continue in his goodness ; otherwise, thou shalt be cut
off. Rom, xi, 22. — The thing that David had done displeased the
148 Tiir. trnu;ts of [aut.
Lord. 2 Sam. xi, 27. See xii, 10 — 12. — And the Lord was angry
with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord.
1 Kings xi, 9- See 1 Chron. xxviii, 9 ; Canticles v, 2 — 6. — Be
not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for
ever ; behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people. Isa.
Ixiv, 5, 7, 9. — All their wickedness is in Gilgal ; for there I hated
them. For the wickedness of their doings, I will drive them out
of mine house, I will love them no more. Hosea ix, [5, 17- — He
8a\(\, Surclij they are my people, children {hat rvill nol He : So he
was their Saviour. But they rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spi-
rit : therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought
against them, Isa. Ixiii, 7 — 10. — There was wrath upon Hezekiah.
2 Chron. xxxii, 25. — When the Lord saw it, he abhorred them,
because of the provoking of his sons and of his daughters. Deut.
xxxii, 19. — I will spue thee out of my mouth. Rev. iii, I6. —
Thine own wickedness shall correct thee : Know therefore,
and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken
the Lord. Jer. ii, 19. — But we are not of them who draw back
unto perdition : but of them that believe to the saving of the
soul. Heb. X, 39; see verse 38.
REJECTION IV.
They do utterly deny, that " every man is bound to believe
that HE IS ELECTED, uitd, Consequently, that he camiot Jail
from that election : or that a thousand sins, yea, the sins of
the whole world, cannot make his election void.''''
THE REASON.
See the places cited for conditional Election, (page 101,) and
the Second and Third Affirmatives of this Article, (p.nge 140,)
and the Reason of the foregoing Negative. To which add: —
If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. Rom. viii, 13. — His ser-
vants ye are, to whom ye obey, vi. If). — For of whom a man is
overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. 2 Peter ii,
19. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth, as a branch, and is
withered ; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and
they are burned. Johnxv, 6. — Remember therefore from whence
thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works. Rev. ii, 5. —
Bewatchful and strengthen the thingswhich remain, thatare ready
to die, c^-c. iii, 2. — I wovdd thou wert cold or hot, c^c verses 15,
If). — Judas, being one of those whom the Father had given to
CHRIST, was lost. He had power over all devils ; (John xvii, 12.)
yet through covetousness he made way for Satan to enter into
his heart. (Luke ix, 1.) It seems that he had some title also to
ONE of those TWELVE THRONES, (Luke xxii, 3, ■i. See Matt.
FIFTH.] THE REMONSTRANTS. 149
xxvi, 14, 15.) But he forfeited his interest and never came to
sit on it. (Matt, xix, 28.)
REJECTION V.
They do utterly deny, that " no sins of the faithjid, hoio
great and grievous soever they be, are imputed unto them ;
or that all their sins, present and future, are forgiven themP
THE REASON.
When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, all
his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned ; in
his trespass and sin shall he die. Ezek. xviii, 24. — I will visit
their iniquity with rods. Psalm Ixxsix, 3(, 32; 2 Sam. vii, 14.
— Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house.
2 Sam. xii, 10. — O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath; thy
hand is heavy upon me. For mine iniquities are gone over my
head : as a heavy burden, they ai-e too heavy for me. Make me
to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken
may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all
mine iniquities. Cast me not away from thy presence, and
take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Psalm li, 8, 9j iO; see
vi, and xxxviii. — I have somewhat against thee. Rev. ii, 4, 14. —
For this cause many are weak and sickly amongst you, and
many sleep. 1 Cor. xi, 30. — You only have I known of all the
families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your
iniquities. Amos iii, 2 — See the reason of the Third Negative,
page 147.
REJECTION VI.
They do utterly deky, that " true believers falling into
deadly heresies arid most heinous sins, as adulteries and
murders, (for which the Church, according to Christ's insti-
tution is freed to testify, that she cannot tolerate them in
external communion^ and that, unless they repent, they shall
have no part in the kingdom of heaven,) cannot, notzoith-
standing, fall totally and finally from faith^'' *
THE REASON.
If yoa forsake him, he will cast you off for ever. 1 Chron.
xxviii, 9 — Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take
* On ihe 17th of Dec. 1C18, according to appointment, the cited Remon-
strants delivered to the Synod of Dort the remaining Four Articles, and
added at the conclusion: '"Most reverend Fathers and Brethren, since we
150 THE TENETS OF [aIIT.
thy crown. Rev. iii, 11. — Look to yourselves, that we lose not
tliose things which we have wrought. 2 John 8. — Have ye
suffered so many things in vain ? Gal. iii, 4. — And I will give
unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever
thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven. Matt,
xvi, 19- — For it is impossible [^the laws of the Church permit it
not^ for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of
the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the
■world to come, — if they shall fall away, — to renew them again
unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of
God afresh, and put him to an open shame. Heb. vi, 4, 5, 6";
and X, 26, &c. — Wherefore giving all diligence, add to your
faith virtue ; and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge tem-
perance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness,
and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness
charity : for if you do these things, ye shall never fall. For so
an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the
everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
2 Pet. i, 6", 8. — See the Second and Third Affirmatives, (page
140,) and the First and Third Negatives, page 147.
*^* These Jive last Negatives the Remonstrants do reject
•with their whole heart and soul, as enemies to piety and
good life.
were admonished in the last session by his reverence the President, ' that
* we should abstain from negative propositions, and should treat on Election
' rather than on the odious subject uiJiejjrobation,' — after having more accu-
rately examined the matter as we promised, — we have now proposed our
seutiraeuts on the before-mentioned Articles, as much as possible in atfirni-
ative terms. Yet we have occasionally rejected the coutrarv opinions, where
necessity seemed to require us to adopt this course. That this may not
appear to have been done without weig'hty reasons, we will present your
Reverences with some of them for your consideration, which nave induced
lis sometimes to express our sentiments in a neg^ative form, and not to treat
on Election alone, (which is only one part of Predestination,) but also on
Reprobation which is the other part."
They then adduce fifteen powerful reasons why they should be allowed to
discuss both parts of Predestination, and seven why they should expose the
abuses of Absolute Reprobation. After replying to some objections, they
proceed thus: —
" Of one thing alone we desire to be informed by this venerable Synod,
that is, whether they own for their doctrine and that of the Church those
assertions which are contradictory to our propositions, and particularly
those which affirm, — * the creation of the greater portion of the human race
' for destruction; the reprobation of [some] infants, even though born of
* believing parents ; the necessity of the fall; the Divine call [given to some
' men is] inefficacious througli tlie will of God ; the inevitable necessity of
' all sins ; the secret and revealed will of God ; the operations and decrees
' of God i'or tlie existence of sm ; the impossible defection of believers from
* justifying faith, even when they fall into horrid crimes ;' — with other points,
which are maintained by many Conlra-Remonstrauts and those who are
FIFTH.] THE RKWONSTRANTS. 151
attached to their opinions, both in these provinces and in other countries,
but which are rejected and disapproved by us in the Articles just recited.
" We acknowledge with his reverence the President, the doctrine of
Election to be ' sweet and full of consolation,' and that of Reprobation
to be disagreeable. But we consider the consolation which is elicited fronj
an Election that is absolute and unconditional, to be full of peril, and, if
judged according to its nature, to grant man an encouragement to commit
sin. We also consider the opposite doctrine of Absolute Reprobation to be
truly and deservedly odious, because it is pregnant with despair and con-
trary to Divine Justice. The sole employment of the Pastors of the C^hurch
must not be the consolation of sinners ; but it ought likewise to be their care
and study to warn the wicked and ungodly to flee from the wrath to come
which is consequent on Reprobation. The visible Church contains the
children of God ; it also contains the slaves of Satan, although thev by pro-
fession seem also to be the children of God. In this state of things, therefore,
both doctrines are needful : To the children of God must be announced the
inheritance which was fore-ordained by an eternal Election; and to the
wicked must be denounced those punishments which were fore -ordained by
an eternal decree of Reprobation.
" Your reverences easily perceive, that the present questions and contro-
versies are not concerning the parings of nails or other matters of trivial
importance : But they relate to those points of Practical Divinity which tend
greatly to illustrate the glory of God and to promote the exercise of piety, if
correct sentiments concerning them be entertained ; or, on the contrary,
if incorrect opinions be received, they detract materially from the Divine
glory and impede the progress of true piety. — Jt is the duty of an evangelical
teacher to pursue, above all others, those objects which promote the truth
which is according to godliness ; and to banish out of Christian schools and
churches those dogmas which are believed to be capable of furnishing exci-
tation and nourishment to ungodliness. If your venerable Synod pass by
these [erroneous] dogmas in silence, we shall conclude, and our Churches
will form the same judgment, that such dogmas are approved by the tacit
assent of your reverences. Jf they do obtain your approbation, it will then
be our duty diligently to warn the flock of Jesus Christ that is committed to
our trust, seriously to avoid and guard against dogmas of this description.
But if those dogmas be condemned by the public voice of the .?ynod, (which
we hope will be the result,) we will return thanks to God Almighty for
having begun to cleanse and purify his Church from such tares and errors."
It is scarcely necessary to add, because it is generally known, that the
result did not accord with the hopes, but with the fears, which the Remon-
strants expressed. In a few davs afterwards, that Calvinistic Synod excluded
the Remonstrants from all further communication with their choice assernblt/ :
and, instead of employing themselves in carefully refuting the Five Articles
which the Remonstrants had delivered, they culled sentences and expres-
sions from the insulated productions of ditferent individuals that had previ-
ously written in defence of General Redemption, or from the statements
which three or four of them (unauthorized by the remainder) had agreed to
make, in a particular Conference between them and as many of the Contra-
Remonstrants. It is amazing, that in the lucubrations of the Synod, which
occupy several hundred folio pages, very slight allusion is made to these plain
and scriptural Articles, — a tolerably strong proof of the distant respect which
the Synodical members felt for them, and of their unwillingness to attempt a
confutation. It was not therefore without reason, that Bishop Womack in
the title-page of this pamphlet emploj'ed these expressions: "The Tenets
♦' of the Remonstrants touching those Five Articles voted, stated, and
*' imposed, but not disputed, at the Synod of Dort." — In the treatise en-
titled, " Arcana Dogmatum Anti-Remonstrantium, or The Calyinists'
Cabinet unlocked," which is a Vindication of this " Exaimination ofTi-
lenus," our author has most ably exposed the intolerant conduct and the
desecrating doctrines of the Dort Sj-nodists.
The judicious Mosheiivi published a Latin Dissertation on this subject, in
1724, which he entitled, ^^ JJ Consultation respecting- the Autlioiity of the
S\N0D OF Dort, — an Assembly destructive of Sacred Peace ;" and which lie
prefixed to his Latin version of " The Rev. John Hales'.^ Letters and Ex-
152 THE TENETS OF [aHT.
pi-esses concerning the ^YSOD of Dort." — After recounting several instances
of intemperance and inipetuositv in the judgments of the Foreign and Pro-
vincial Afcmhers of the' Synod, Mosheim says : " But, this warmth of
spirit, with which the Fathers of the Synod were inflamed against the Armi-
nians, was so far from abating, that, ou the contrary, some of them
proceeded to such a length as to determine that they should be punished by
the sword, with penalties and exile. Omitting the decisions of those who
gave similar directions but in a manner somewhat more obscure, I will here
quote the suffrages and judgment of the Deputies of South Holland, and
those of the Guelderland Divines, from both of which this fact will Le ren-
dered very apparent. The former of them address the Representatives of the
States Geiieral who were present at the Council, in these words : ' We turn
' to you, illustrious delegates, and by the precious name of Jesus Christ we
* beseech you strongly to insist before their High Mightinesses, who are
* your Lords and ours, that those persons who have thus, like unskilful
' husbandmen or destructive hirelings, audaciously mixed tares with the
* good seed, may be restrained by ecclesiastical censures, and may be
* visited with a lighter or more severe degree of punishment, in proportion
' to the extent of each of their offences.' (Acts of the Synod, pt. iii, 330.) —
Those of Guelderland in like manner suggest inflicting on them the punish-
ment of perpetual exile, or something still more grievous : (Ibid. 32.5.) 'We
' arc fully persuaded, that, unless all and each of these Five Articles and
* those who teach them be ordered into perpetual banishment from the
* Dutch Churches, it will be impossible far any Christian peace to be estab-
' lished among us, or, if once established, to be long preserved. ^ little
* leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Iviould they ivere even cut off which,
* trouble or have hitherto troubled you ! (Gal. v, 'J, 12.)' — I mentioned, in a
preceding passage, that ' only some of the Fathers of the Synod wished the
' Arminians to be visited with punishment :' But the man who may attribute
such a disposition to the whole assejiblv, will be guilty of no great error.
For, omitting all mention of the actual issue of the matter, (which is a
sufficient proof of the wishes in which all the members indulged,) it has
been placed beyond all doubt or controversy, that John Bogerman who
presided over that Synod, and several others who were present, entertained
the same sentiments as Beza and Calvin, — that the attempts of perverse
teachers must be avenged by fire and faggot. Since therefore all these indi-
viduals accounted the Arminians to be little superior to the worst of heretics,
there is no reason for proposing this enquiry, ' Did they [the Synodists]
' desire to have a capital punishment inflicted on the Arminians .-'' \Ve have,
besides, an eminent authority in Sir Dudley Carleton, at that period Ambas-
sador from the King of Great Britain to the States General, from whom we
learn, that, a long time before judgment was pronounced on the doctrines .
of the Arminians, the punishment of exile with some other mark of infamy
had been determined against the principal Divines of the Arminian party."
After having quoted the Ambassador's letter to Dr. Abbot, Archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr. Mosheim thus proceeds : " It will now be the duty of
Protestants, and especially of those among the Reformed who are more
celebrated than their brethren for wisdom and moderation, to form from
their own feelings an estimate of ours when we read these expressions, and
at the same time reflected, that the men from whom these rigid decrees
proceeded were still accounted characters in no respect inferior to the Am-
bassadors OF OUR BLESSED SAVIOUR ! Thesc are not the sayin2:s of private
persons, but of a Council which represented the whole of their Church, and
the decrees of which they considered inviolable and on no account to be
contemned. We do not deny, that some persons among us [the Lutherans]
have acted with greater vehemence and warmth than was proper, (which
concession has probably been made by the individuals themselves,) but
their violent conduct will not be ascribed to the whole of our body ; and I do
not think, there is one even among the violent of our Divines who will con-
clude, that men are to be molested and tormented on account of the doc-
trines which they hold in common with the Calvinists. But that Assembly
of the gravest and most respectable Divines, who were collected together
from the whole of their Church, expelled meji [from their communion]
merely in consequence of those Five Points which nearly coincide with our
FIFTli.] THE REM ON ST HANTS. 153
doctrine, and classe'l them not only with heretics, but with malefactors
and the worst or' criminals. What would the Reformed [the Calvinists]
have said, if we ['he Lutherans] had not only ordered off to the shades,
but had also sanctioned an order for punishing-, the followers of Jansenius,
when thej- deserted the communion of the Fajjiits aud placed themselves
under our protection, — ahhough the Calvinists are aware that the dogmas of
the Janseuists are not on many points much disr.imilar to their own ? The
Calvinists have also plainlj- and without any ambiguity confessed, that not
only the cause of the Armir.ians, but ours" [the Lutherans] likewise, was
adjudged and condemned by the members of the Dort Synod. At the very
period when that Synod was sitting;, Peter du Moulin became the bearer of
the conditions on wiiich peace and harmony were to be concluded between
the Calvinists and the Lutherans : But John Bog;erman, the President of
that Assembly, did not tliink it proper tkat even a ward should be mentioned
about an;/ such concord. Of this fact John Hales is witness, who related to
the Ambassador of theKinjof Great Britain tliat such was the answer
whieh was given to hiivi by Ljo2;erman. It was scarcely possible, therefore,
that peace could have been rel'used to the Arminiaus, if the Lutherans were
received into covenant and sacred alliance. That President was not ignorant
or uncousciaus of the kind of disposition which the members of the Synod
felt toward us. It is certain, that it was in the power of the Uort Fathers
to repel from themselves a great part of that hatred which they incurred, if,
after having rejected aud condemned the disciples of Armiuius, they had
manifested a disposition inclined to cultix ate amity with our body : For tiie
Remonstrants had always asserted, that their cause aud ours were identified
together. Since, therefoie, those Fathers acted difterently, and chose to
procure for themselves a greater portion of envy, in preference to the culti-
vation of a friendh' aSection for us, there can hardly be the shadow of a
doubt that the hatred which they evinced towards the Armiuians belonged
also to us in no inferior degree. The same fact is rendered evident from the
violent molestation which the Bremen and British Divines received in the
Synod from the rest of the Fathers, and especially from those of the United
Provinces, who treated them with discourtesy, abuse, and contumely, because,
on the doctrines of Predestination and of the Grace and Merits of Christ,
they were more favourable to our sentiments than to those of Calvin.
" Although they [the Calvinists] may believe, that the difference is very
little betwixt themselves aud us on those matters which contain the found-
ation of religion, what man will engage on their behalf, that, if at a future
period they obtain the supremacy, the same punishment rtill not be inflicted
on us as on the Arminiaus, for sentiments which they at present number
among errors of minor importance ? The fate of the Arminiaus w ill be
understood from the following paragraph, which is inserted in the Preface
to their own Synodical Aces : ' Those of the Remonstrants who were cited
' before the Synod are commanded either to be silent like dumb dogs, or to
* be banished with their wives and children out of their native country. On
' the rest of their pastor^t, nearly to the amount of two hundred, perpetual
' c.vile is imposed, or they are reduced to a monstrous silence in a free
' country. That nothing maybe wanting to gratify the hatred of their adver-
' saries, public edicts are issued, which forbid any man from suiiplying
' these exiled aud silenced ministers even with a farthing, with whicn they
' may prolong a miserable existence in banishment, may satisfy the cravings
' of hunger or avoid the disgrace of beggary. A reward of Five Hundred
' Guilders is placed orr the head of each of the Remonstrant Ministers, and
' t!iey are prohibited from returning to the land of their birth under the
' peualty of perpetual imprisoument, — beside other culpable instauces of
' ,\ll)au!an cruelty which are at this juncture brought into exercise!' — if
the Calvinists consider it right thus to wreak their vengeauce ou those who
are separated from ihem by a few errors of trifling importance, we, whom
they consider as involved in error, should deservedly appear foolish and
entirel}' devoid of reason, by displayirrg any degree of solicitude to embrace
thit fellowship which they otter. Xnd we must be permitted to imagine,
that they consider their persecuting conduct extremely proper, as long as
they persist to call the Synod of Dort a most troLV Assembly !"
In a preceding paragraph. Dr. Mosheiin had said : " The sentiments which
the Armiuians defended, at the comnienceiiient of these controversies, were,
L
154 THE TEN UTS OF [aKT.
Ta.?:ct\os proceedlnp: from faith which was foreseen hij Gud, the Goou-wwx.
and hovi^ of God towards all men jchatei'er, </te IJeath of Christ m'/hV/j
2>ussesses saving EFFiCArv for all men unlc,>s the;/ resist it, the Grace
which changes and converts no man except himwhnse will it is to be so con-
verted, and the Loss or Faith and Grace. If these opiuioiis, and others
which arc contained in their well known Five Points, be simply reg-arded by
themselves, no man can deny the fact that they are the same as those which
we [the Lutherans'] embrace Jor Divine Verities that are clearly re-
vealed. Siiice, therefore, it is certain, that the Synod of Dort not only
rejected and trampled upon these doctrines, but reckoned them in the num-
ber of impious dogmas that are prejudicial to salcation and of a most danger-
ous description, where can the man be found who will not confess, that ' we
* [the Lutherans] were wounded, condemned, and excluded from salvation,
' through the sides of the Arniinians?' But that this was really the case,
is a fact placed beyond all controvei'sy." — For this assertion the learned
Afosheiin quotes authorities from the judgments of the Synodical Divines,
both foreign and provincial.
In a subsequent chapter he states, tbat " the dogmas of the Supra-lapsa-
rians are injurious to the Holiness, and to the rest of the Perfections of the
Supreme Being-." He then adds : " I know, there are some among; the C'al-
vinists, w ho admit of scarcely any ditterence between the Sub-lupsarians
and the Siipra-lopsarians, and who assert, that, if v\e have reg^ard to the
foundation, they are both sutficiently at unity. This is the judgment of
Francis Junius, [the predecessor ofARMiMu.s in the Divinity Chair at
Leyden,J one of the most celebrated Divines of the Cahinistic School. His
words are these : ' Those who entertain different sentiments from each other
' on the object of Predestinatiun, do not differ wiih regard to the circura-
' stances so much as many people suppose. For when the latter [the Sub-
' lapsarians] declare, that man already fallen iriis considered hy God as
' the object of his predestincdion, they have not properly any regard to the
* cause of Election and Reprobation, but to the order a7id series of causes
' upon which damnation is consequent. But when the latter [the Supra-
' lapsarians] assert, that, in the act of pi-edesti?>afi}ig God regarded 7uan
' as not the7i created, they do not on that account exclude God from the con-
' sideration of man as fallen, but the only object which they wish to obtain
' is, — to find erery cause of predestination in God, and none out of God in
' MAN. Thus, THEY AGREE AS TO THE MA1TER ITSELF, whilc they differ
' in their mode of explanation.' [Theses de Prcdest., Cap. x.) — Similar to
these are the sentiments delivered by Andrew Rivet in his ' Orthodox
Catholic :' (Tract, iv, Quaest. 9.) — And in the article ' Paulicians' [or
Manichees] in his Historical and Critical Dictionary, that very clever and
acute man, Peter Bayle, seems to be of the same opinion."
It is remarkable, that three great Divines, difiering so much in senti-
f nient as did Junius, (who was viewed by the Dutch Calvinisls as n)ucb too
moderate in his Predestinarian notions,] Arminius, and Dr. Tw issE, the
famous English Supralapsariau, should all agree in regarding the two
schemes as most intimately allied : The only difference between them which
Dr. Twisse could perceive, was, that the Supralapsarians are more honest
and manly in boldly avowing their high notions, tlian their timid brethren.
After recounting some of these high but unhallowing notions, Mosheim
thus proceeds: " 1 declare, that unless the man who wishes toenter'ain the doc-
trine which I have now exposed, desire likewise to be completely at variance
with himself; he must first lay aside all the ideas about God, justice, holi-
ness, equity, and other matters, which we have derived from reason and the
Sacred Scriptures. This is not my ov,n solitary opinion, but that of many
others, even of the Calvinistic school, who are in high and deserved repute
for their wisdom. I will give a quotation equal to all of them in the words of
that very ingenious and most eloquent man, James Saurin, who says: *I
' frankly 'confess, that I caimot sufficiently wonder to perceive some men, who,
* with much coolness and gravity, tell us, God has Jormed thisworld with the
* design of saving- one man a7id damning' a hu7id7-ed thousand . yVo supplica-
* tions or prayers, tears or sighs, which they utter, can possihly cause this de-
' cree to he revokfd : It is necessary to submit to the sentence of God, v.'hose
' glory 7equired hi7n to create all these nations for eternal destruction. I can-
' not be sufficiently astoiiis'hed when I hear these people maintain their
FIFTH.] THE KK VIO N STU ANTS. 155
' propositions in a mamiertbus crude aud riirid. and without the least mitiga-
' tioK or exception ^ and viheu they ini mediately add, that there is notlnug
' (U(jinilf in aiii/ of thcaesenliinents, and that all those objections which can he
' urged in opposition are futile and unti'nrtki/ of an answer.' (Sermons, T. 1,
srr. 4.) Peter PoiRKT, [the famous French Alystic] who certainly was not
deficient in shrewdness and acuu\ea, asserts, in his 'Divine Economy,'
('i"om. vii, chap 13, J that the notion of the Deitv which the Supralapsaritrns
obtrude upon us, is rather that of an infernal demon. To the preceding
extract from Sanrivi I would subjoin Poiret's entire expressions, were I not
afraid that he would be immediately rejected as a fanatic ; — although, in
reference to this particular alfair, he is any thing' rather than a fanatic.
" That which above all other things renders the cause of the Supra-
lapsarians infamous and odious., is this, — It makes God the sole Cause and
yluthor of all moral evil and sin. For this consequence flows so manifestly
from their sentiments, that it has often seemed most surprising to nie how
it wfis possilile for men of learnirg to allow themselves to contend, ' that
' such a consequence has no connection whatever with their opinions.' 1
am fuilj' persuaded, that no man would be so dull or clownish, (provided
this doctrine were correctly explained to him,) as not instantly to perceive
that the origin of all wiclced actions must be sought in the Supreme Being,
whom, notwithstanding, reason itself teaches us to consider as endowed with
the greatest benignity aud holiness. For if the glory of Gad demanded an
imniensa multitude of men to be adjudged to eternal punishment, that same
glor}- likewise required God to be the Author of sin to men, ' without
which,' these persons say, ' it would be an act of injustice to punish them.'
Therefore, if we receive these men as interpreters, ' to cause men to sin, is
' so far from being an act derogatory to God, that, on the contrary, (unless
* it had been his pleasure, tor his glory to remain in concealment,) he could
* not possibly have done otherwise than instigate men to the perpetration of
* crimes and offences. Is not he the cause and author of the deed which is
' done, who is concerned that it be done, or who aptly disposes every circum-
' stance for its accomplishment .' But it was of consequence to [the glory
' ofj God, that a great number of mortals should fall into sin and should
'never be delivered from that calamity; wherefore,' if we may give credit
to this sect, 'He likewise ordained [or disposed] all things in such a way,
' that neither could our first parents by any means whate\ er avoid sin, nor
' could the greater portion of their posterity clear themselves from the stain
' which they had contract^i!.' — What therefore remains, but that we refer
this, if there he any truth in it, to God, as the origin and cause of all sin ?
Unless perhaps we may wish to state, what a))j)ears to me most absurd and
inconsistent, — that ' he who desires the death of an enemy and lays poison
' before him, who also persuades or even compels him to receive that deadly
' poison into his stomach as a salutary medicine, in all this does nothing
' amiss, nor is the cause of the death of that person who against his own
'inclination kills himself.' I feel a pleasure in elucidating this toj.ic bj' a
similitude which that illustrious individual, the late G. W. Leibnitz, whose
testimony the Supralapsarians are less likely to reject, because some of them
have expressed their confident persuasion that he was favourable to the
sentiments of their faction. He says, ' I can by no means comprehend, how
' he can possibly be acquitted of ail blame and criminality, who not only
'makes it possible for man to fall, but who likewise disposes of all circum-
' stances in such a manner as to cause them to conduce tovmrds his fall .''
(Essais de Theodicee, p. 418.)"
The reader who is acquainted with the high character for candour and
impartiality which this eminent ecclesiastical historian has obtained, will
know how to appreciate the preceding statements and remarks; They are
all corroborated by authentic docnments, and were written above a hun-
dred years after the occurrence of the transactions to which they allude.
They will be recognized as the just and ob\iotis reflections of a cool and
accurate observer, who calmly looked back upon the events connected with
the Synod of Dort, which, whether regarded as matters of history or of
the()l(>gy, reflect merited and lasting disgrace on the chief actors iu
that memorable Asseinblv. — Editor.
l2
liKJ THE TENEIS OF 5CC.
JACOBUS ARMINIUS,
IN ARTICULIS PERPENDENDIS, SAITH AS FOLLOWETII.
1. That opinion which denies, that "true believers can or ever
do fall from faith totally and finally," — was never accounted for
Catholick from the times of the Apostles to these our times ; nor
was the contrary opinion esteemed heretical; yea, the affirmative
part had ever more for it.
2. " That a believer can be assured, without special revelation,
that he shall not fall from faith," — and " that a believer is bound
to believe that he shall not fall from faith," are two points,
which were never accounted for Catht)lick in the Church of
Christ; nor was the denial of them ever judged heresy by the
Catholick Church.
3. That persuasion, whereby a believer doth certainly persuade
himself that lie cannot or shall not fall from faUli, serves, not so
much for comfort against despair, as for to breed securiti), direct-
ly contrary to that most wholesome fear, wherewith we are
commanded to work out our salvation, and which is very needful
in this place of temptation. *
4. He that thinks he may fall from faith, and thereupon fears lest
he should fall therefrom, is neither destitute of neeilful comfort,
nor tormented with anxiety of mind: t It being sufficient for
comfort and freedom from anxiety to know, that he shall not
by any power of Satan, sin, and the world, or by any affec-
tion and inifirmity of his own flesh fall from faith, unless him-
self shall willhigly, of his own accord, yield to temptation and
neglect conscionably to work out his salvation. '^
This docti'ine (according to the undeniable consequence
thereof) will uphold the necessity of an industrious duty, and
the usefulness of a settled Ministry, and the peace of a good
Conscience.
And as maiiy as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and
mere}), and upon the Israel of God ! Gal. vi, l6.
* See Heb. xii, 15; Rom. xi, 20 ; 1 Cor. x, 12; 1 Thess. v, .3; Heb. vi, II ;
Gal. vi, 1 ; Phil, ii, 13 ; 1 Peter i, 17 ; Rev. iii, 11 ; Job i)t, 28 ; 1 Cor. ix, 27 ;
I Cor. iv, 4.
^ He that gives comfort and security upon any other terms doth sevi' pil-
lows, as in Ezek. xiii, 18; &e. See Jereiii. vi, 14; Ezek. xiji, 10.
+ See John x, 2« ; Rom. viii, 35, to the end ; 1 John v, 18; James iv, 7;
Rom. vi, l(i ; 2 Peter ii, 19.
THE
POSTSCRIPT
TO THE FIRST PART.
TiLENUS thinks fit to give this further account of his design
in the foregoing paper : He resolved at first only to give the true
slate of the questions, and nakedly to lay down the tenets, as
well negative as affirmative, in as few, significant and clear ex-
pressions as was possible. Afterwards he met with some temp-
tation to affix quotations out of Scripture, in the Margin, to prove
the several branches of these tenets. Then considering, that
most men pass over such proofs as are oily referred unto, though
they have their bibles Ij'ing by them, (which are not always at
hand, neither !) rather than give themselves the trouble to turn
to them ; he thereupon concluded, it would be for the reader's
greater ease and advantage, if he cited the very words of Scrip-
ture, out of which such proofs are to be made : And he had not
gone far in this method, but it came into his mind to be a little
more distinct in setting down the grounds of his Proofs and
Reasons for his affirmative and negative tenets respectively ;
which is done accordingly in the later Articles. And yet, in
the former as well as these, are contained such topicks and
heads of arguments, as a little skill (to reduce them to the rules
of Art) will be sufficient to improve, to thy impi-egnable esta-
blishment in the present truth.
And now, reader, before Tilenus can dismiss thee, he thinks
himself obliged to make thee satisfaction for having imposed
upon thee in two or three particulars, when he personated the
Infidel and the Carnal man. One was in effect, that God is
not serious when he forbids the wicked ( " Reprobates" as
they CiU them) to sin, and invites them to repentance and
amendment of life. [^Pages ii, 50.^" He doth this," they say, " by
his revealed w'ill," which indeed they account not his will ; " but
by his secret will (which is his will, properly so called) he wills
the contrary." Cclari intcrdinn a. Deo, saith Eeza, aUqiiid ei,
quod in verba j)C!fefac'it, rcptignans. Resp. ad Acta Colloq. Monu
pel. Part 2. p. \~i3. — And Piscator in his Disp. contra Schaf'm.
saith, Dcum intcrdum verba s'lgnijicare se telle, quod reverd jion
158 Till'. POSTCR'.rT.
vi/It : aid nolle, quod rcvrrd vi/lL* Now because Go<Vs intercourse
with Abraham a'ooiit bis offering up of Isaac, (Gen. xxii,) is
the great instance usually produced to prop up that opinion, (so
dangerous to piety, and so dishonourable to the sacred veracity
and sincerity of Almighty God, if not taken airn granosnlisy
and qualified by some commodious interpretation,) according to
that saying of I.uther, Deus dixit ad Abrnhamum : Occide
TiLivM SiC. Quowodo? Ludendo, sinudando, rideudo: And a little
after, Atqui apiid Deum est Uisiis, et, si liceret ita diccre, ruciula-
ciiun est ?t Therefore Tilenus thought it an acceptable service
* Beza says, " God occasioimlly conceals something which is contrary to
that which he manifests in his word."— Piscaior says, " In his word God
sometimes intimates, that he wills what He in reality does not will ; or, that
he does not will what He in reality does will,"
f Luther was a bold Divine, though not always one of the most discreet.
It was a remari<abie instance of God's kind and watchful Providence o^er
the rising: interests of the Protestant Church, when He vouchsafed to Luther
the assistance of such a mild, enlightened, ant' judicious compeer as Me-
laucthon. F^uther's talent lay in rou^h handliug, — in puHiu": down the
strono'-holds of Satan : Melaiicthon's gifts were most conspicuous when
employed in building up the infant Church, m establishing believers, and
in tendering moderate advice for the progress of Reformation in oiher
countries.
The intention of Luther in his comment upon this passage of scripture,
was vei'v excellent; but his curious and excursive maimer of executing that
intention, must not be imitated. It becomes us indeed, to speak of God
with the greatest reverence, and only as he is pleased to reveal hiinK;lf in
scripture. The connection in which the quotation stands, is as follows : " Is
God then contradictory to himself, and does he lie.' At first he commanded
his [Abraham's] son to be sacrificed, now he forbids it. But we who are
christians, must both think and speak of these matters with reverence and
godly fear : And our God must be owned to be such a Being as can produce
contrary effects in things that are contrary. This most wonderful government
over his saints atlbrd'i to us several sweet topics of instruction, and is replete
with consolation. Yet if the saints were allowed to speak of the Divine
Majesty andTruth, wiiha St7Zi'fl in favour of reverence [forthose attributes] ,
they might use these forms of speaking : ' God feigns, lies, pretends, and
* mocks us.' And thus, when they have to encounter death, they might say
to God, [t is not death, but: life. 'Thou dost tantalize or trifle with me, as a
father with his child: for while thou speakest one thing, thy thoughts and
intentions are about another ! — Such a species of falsehood as this is salutary
t saving] to us. Happy indeed shall we be if we can learn this art from God.
!e attempts and proposes the work of another, that he may be able to
accomplish his own. By our affliction, he seeks his own gratilication [or
sport] and our salvation. Thus, God said to Abraham, Slay thy son, &c.
How? By tantalizing, pretending, and mocking. This sport is certainly
of a happy and pleasant kind.
" He likewise occasionally feigns, as though he would depart to a great
distance from us and kill us. AVhich of us believes, that this is all a pre-
tence / Yet, with God, this is otdy sport, and (were we permitted thus
to speak,) it is a falsehood. It is a real death which all of \is have to
suffer. But God does not act seriously, according to his own showing or
representation. It is dissimulation; and he is only trying whether we be
willing to lose present things, and life itself, for his sake or on his account."
Omitting all allusion to tVie dangerous and unhailowing tendency of Lu-
ther's exposition, we must account it a clumsy method of solving a difficulty,
— esjecially when viewed in contrast with that of Bishop Womack. — Editor.
L o
THE POSTSCRIPT. 159
to God and good men, if he could offer any thing to clear the
reputation of that passage from the suspicion of being accessary
to that doctrine in whose behalf it is so often pleaded.
To this end let us examine the plea, Gen. xxii, 2, " God said
unto Abraham^ Tahc now thy son, thine only son Isaac, nhom thou
lovest; and get thee into the landqfMoriah: and offer him therefor a
burnt offering, vpon one of the mountatns which I will tell thee of."
Where, by the way, the reader may take notice, that Abraham
■was to expect further orders from Almighty God before the ut-
most execution of this affair. But to the plea, " Here," say they,
" we have God's revealed will signified by a command, that
Isaac should be slaifi : But by his secret will, that he would not
have it so, appears as well by the event, as by the Angel's voice,
'Lay not thine hand upon the lad,' &c. Theretore God commands
what he nilleth," &c. — But Tilenus sees no such matter, no con-
tradiction, no opposition betwixt God's secret and revealed will
in this passage, being confident to affirm that God willed,
WITH HIS secret WILL, ALL THAT WAS COMMANDED BY HIS
revealed; which was not the occision or slaughtering of Isaac,
(to which sitigle act they usually restrain God's revelation and
command,) but it was Abraham's voluntary and free obedience,
in devoting, consecrating and rendering up his son for a sacrifice
at God's command. Some particulars whereof are set down.
Take thy son, go into the land of Moriali ; carry wood and Jire,
make an altar, and bind Isaac and expose him Jiponit. That God will-
ed this, is clear by the event according to the adversaries' own rule.
Ex eventu judicandum est de Dei J^ohintatc* And that God's com-
mand, or revealed will, intended the same and no more, ap-
pears by all those scriptures which, speaking of this matter,
do positively affirm, that Abraham did fully perform what God
had commanded. — So Hebr. xi. 17; "By faith Abraham, when
lie was tried, offered up Isaac : And he that had received the pro-
mises offered up his only son," — So James ii. 21 ; " Was not
Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered
Isaac his son upon the altar .''" And so God himself interprets
it. Gen. xxii. l6; "Because thou hast done this thing," &c.
To which purpose also it is observable, that God does not use
the same phrase of speech in the prohibition, verse 12, that he
used in the injunction, verse 2. Here God's will revealed, is
offer cum in holocaustum [^" offer him for a burnt offering''^ ; but
there the Avill of God forbidding is, not neofferas "do not offer
him," (for that [[the offering^ was done already according to
God's interpretation and requiry,) but ne injicias manu?n tuavi
super puerum, \j' lay not thine hand upon the lad"^.
Objection. — " The phrase and word of command in ordinary
" construction seemed to imply the slaying of Isaac; because
* " \N'e must judge of God's will by the cvcui."
IGO THE POSTSCRIPT.
" it was the custom to slay such sacrifices before they were burnt
" upoii the altar."
Response.— For answer to this, it needs not be replied, that
" words and phrases in Holy Scripture, as well as in other au-
thors, are used in diverse senses." But the answer is, that tliere
was a necessity (upon the matter) that Almicjhty God should
use a phrase that carried such an obvious sense with it, because
this was a special command given unto Abraham for a sienal
trial of his faith and obedience, " And it came to pass that God
did tempt Abraham." (Gen. xxii. 1.) Which there could have
been no proof of, if God had expounded to him the sense of his
command after this manner, " Go, take tiiy son, &c. But thou
" neede-st not startle at the imposition ; for my intent and pur-
'' pose is, only that thou slioiilde^t bring khn into the land of Mo-
" riah, ajid bind hi:n and expose him there vpon the altar, which
" thou shaltm?ke for that purpose, and then I will accept thy
" obedience, and rescue thy son from the knife by a voice from
" Heaven." IF God hadthusfar revealed his will, Abraham's faith
had found no difficulty to contest against, and [\C] consequently
had not been capable of an approbation. The upshot therefore
of all is this, — that in this intercourse with Abraham, God re-
vealed his will, and nothing but his will, but not his whole will,
which he was not bound to do, neither could the doing of it consist
with his design of trying the sincerity of Abraham's graces. But
this is not to be drawn into example when we speak of God's
ordinary external intercourse with sinners, inviting and calling
them to repent, believe and obey the Gospel, upon promise of life
and peril of damnation. For,
1. This would make the Divine Call, not only a continual
temptation, (which is absurd enough !) but also ridiculous : for
this would not be such a temptation as that which occurs in
Abraham's example; wherein the duty commanded was not only
possible to be performed, but was also actually performed, so
far forth, that God declared his own satisfaction in it by a voice
from Heaven. But ^according to the doctrine of those men
[^whom"] we oppose) God is supposed to be always tempting and
trying, whether that w ill come to pass which is altogether im-
possible to come to pass, — that is, [^according to them]] he tempts
and tries again and again ivhether the reprobate will believe and
convert, that is whether he [Jhe reprobate'^ will do that which God's
own decree hath retidered impossible for him to do. Which is, as if
one should be very solicitous to make an experiment, ivhether
the blind would sec, or the dead walk.
2. This would make God's calling of reprobates, which is
done by his signant will alone, (as they say) not only an act
of hypocrisy, in seeming to wish them well, by desiring their
repentance and salvation, when his beneplacent will hath
THE POSTSCKIPT. KJl
decreed otherwise: but also an act of cruelty; because by this
callinir, God is not only the occasion, or cause of" their infidelity
and disobedience, (it being impossible for reprobates to answer
that call,) but of their greater punishment likewise, into which
tliey do necessarily fall for that their necessary and unavoidable
infidelity. — From which it follows,
3. That that will whereby God wills not to give to reprobates
sufficient grace to enable then to repent and believe, (much less
irresistible grace, that actually they must do so,) should not be
Vuliuitas bencplacili, but ratlier maleplac'Ui, " a will of displea-
sure rather than of good pleasure ;" because it is an affection of
the greatest hatred and aversation ; whereas, notwithstanding,
God's calling unto faith and to salvation (which is done by the
word) is declared to be an act of his good pleasure and grace,
(Ephes. 1. 9 ; 2 Thes. 1. 11 ; 2 Tim. i. 9.) and an evidence of
his compassion and love, as may easily be collected out of Holy
Scripture. (2 Chron. xxxvi. 15 ; Rom. i. 7 ; Hos. ix. 15.) Lastly,
according to the doctrine of that distinction, and those men
that make use of it, the whole revelation and ministry of the
Gospel, goes for no more, but voluntas signi, " the will of God
to give out such a thing for a sign only," when, indeed it is ihe
will of God's beneplaciture and is expressly so called, as shall ap-
pear in the second particular, wherein Tilenus offers the reader
satisfaction, which is, about the sense of another text perversely
cited by him above upon another occasion.
Maccovius, (Colleg. de Predest. disp. 2.) to prove that God
would not have all men to be saved, (no, not voluntale signi)
" according to his revealed will," contrary to the most express
grammatical sense of sci'ipture, (1 Tim. ii, 4; 2 Pet. iii, 9;)
saith. Voluntas signi non est jiroprie dicta voluntas, scd est verbiim
Dei, " that which is revealed and signified (in holy Scripture)
to be the mind of God, is not his will properly so called, but
it is the word of God," as if it were consistent with his sacred
veracity to utter something disagreeable to his own will ! And
he affirms furdiei*, (disp. 5.) that " God doth not will, that
is, not delight in or approve of any thing, but what he doth
effect;" and this he endeavours to prove out of Psalm cxv,. 3;
a parallel place to which we have [^in^ Psalm cxxxv, 6" ; against
which doctrine these two assertions are clear:
1. That God's word or his command, revealed in holy Scripture,
is his WILL properlij so called. — " I came down from Heaven —
to do the will of him that sent me : and this is the will of him
that sent me, &c." John vi, 38, 3^, 40 ; " Thou art called a
Jew, — and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will — be-
ing instructed out of the law." Horn, ii, 18; "This is the will
of God, even your sanctification." 1 Thes. iv, 3 ; " But he that
doth the will of my Father," &c. Mat, vii, 21 ; See Mat, xii,
50; John vii, 17; ix, 31 ; Heb. xiii, 21; 1 John ii, 17.
162 THE POSTSCRIPT.
It is "that which is right in the eyesof the Lord."(Deut. vijlTjlS;
Heh. xiii, 21) It is "that good, that acceptable and perfect
will of God." (Rom. xii, 2.) And, if it be not so, how can we
be assured that we do please him, and are acceptable in his
sight, when we walk according to this rule.''
2. This iv'dl of God is not alivays done, but many times the
contrar}]. — "When I called ye did not answer; when I spake
ye did not hear, but did evil before mine eyes, and did chuse
that wherein I delighted not." Isa. Ixv, 12; and Ixvi, 4;
So Jer. xix, 5 ; and chnp. xxxii, V,b ; " They have built also the
high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt-offer-
ings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither
came it into my mind."
Now to come to those passages of the Psalmist when he
saith, " The Lord doth whatsoever pleaseth him," it cannot be
understood of man's work, whether we mean his sin or his
DUTY.
(l.) Not of his SIN ; for that cannot be said " to please God." —
For "he is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness." (Psalm
V, 4.) And therefore most of our adversaries are ashamed, di-
rectly to attribute the effecting thei-eof unto God.
(2.) Nor yet can it be understood o/ man's duty; for that
pleaseth God, not as it is opus operatum, (Isa. i, 12 ; &c.) but
as it is a duty ; and a duty it cannot be, if it be God's doing, for
a DUTY is '' a Avork performed by an inferior, in obedience to
the command of his superior, who hath authority over him ;"
and consequently man's duty cannot be a work of God's only
doing. Besides, he that commands a thing would have that
thing which he command?, to be done by him to whom he doth
command it. But he that does that thing (supposed to be under
command; himself, wills not that it be done by another: Other-
Avise he should at the same time both will and kill it to be
done by that other. The Psalmist therefore is to be understood,
not of the things which the Lord would have done (in a way of
duty) by others ; nor yet of such things as he promises to pei-forra
himself upon condition of man's obedience, — which through de-
fault hereof many times are not accomplished, as Numb, xiv, SO;
1 Sam. ii, 30 ; but of all things which he intends absolutely to exe-
cute and bring to pass himself, as Psalm xxxiii, Q. And so we
•may observe, that his power in these works is opposed to the
impotency of Idols, who are able to do just nothing. See those
two Psalms throughout, viz. cxv, 3 ; & cxxxv, 6 ; &c.
But here a question may be moved, " Whether the will of
God can at any time be defeated } " To which the answer is,
that it is most true, in a good sense, that the will of God is
always fulfilled. For the understanding whereof, we must dis-
tinguish of God's will and the objects of it.
THK POSTSCRIPT. 1G3
1. Some things God wills absoluteiy, and thei/ must of t^e-
CESsiTY coine to pass, otherwise that will of God could not be
truly said " to he fit [filled." Thus when it is said, " God will
" give Christ for a covenant of the people; whoremongers and
''adulterers God will judge; the faithful he will save:" If
Christ were not so givenj or whoremongers and adulterers
could avoid judgment, or the faithlul fail of salvation, — God's
will, declared in those promises and threatenings, were utterly
broken. Thus also, it being God's absolute will, that man, be-
ing a reasonable creature, should be a Free Agent, he must be
so OF NECESSITY,
2. Other things God wills disjunctively ; and they come to
pass CONTINGENTLY, or nol at all ; otherwise, if they should come
to pass OF NECESSITY, God's will should be crossed in them.
For in these things his will is, " that neither the one nor the
other particular should be necessary, but either that they
should NOT BE at all or be contingent."
This distinction may be seen in his judgment threatened and
propounded toDavid:(2 Sam. xxiv, 12, lo;)" Thus saith the Lord,
I offer thee three things, chuse which of them I shall do unto
thee. Wilt thou that seven years of fimine come upon the land,
or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, or that
there be three days of pestilence in thy land }" — Here God ab-
solutely willed to send a judgment, and consequently the
coming of it was necessary : but, which of the three, was re-
ferred to David's choice, and so that was contingent. But this
distinction is more evident in God's commands, established with
promises and threateninjis, relating; to man's transs-ression and
obedience I'espectively. So in his commands for temporal safe-
ty : " And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith the Lord,
Behold I set before you the way of life, and the way of death.
He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by
the famine, and by the pestilence : but he that goeth out, and
falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and
his life shall be unto him for a prey." Jer. xxi, 8, 9- Here God's
"will is disjunctive, and whether they continued in the city,
and perished there, or fled out to the Chaldeans and were pre-
served by them, it was a matter of their own free choice and
so contingent ; but whichsoever of these two courses they took
and succeeded accordingly, God's will was fulfilled.
So it is likewise in the matter of life and death eternal. " Be-
hold, I set befoi'e you this day, a blessing and a curse : A bles-
sing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God : And
a curse, if ye will not obey, but tvu-n aside out of the way,
■which I command you." (Deut. xi, 26", 27, 28.) And, " If ye
live after the flesh ye shall die : but if ye through the Spirit,
do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." (Rom. viii, 13.)
So that whether they live by one means, or die by the other.
164 THE POSTSCUH'T.
Gofl's will is necessarily fulfilled ; because his will is not, that
they shall either neccssarUji observe his commands, or necessarily
tratis^ress them : But if they do transgress, (though that trans-
gression be coulingcnt,) death is the necessary doom awarded
to it. And if they do observe them, (though that observation
be a matter of choice and so conVmgent also,) yet is life the
necessary reward, and absolutely designed to crown that
obedience.
It appears by this discourse, that God cannot fail of accom-
plishing such an end, and after such a manner as his wisdom
thinks fit to propound in his intercourse with voluntary and free
agents. For if he cannot prevail with us, (by such means, and
such a manner of working as is agreeable to the condition of
our intellectual nature,) to suffer ourselves to be saved by him,
in performing that service to which his goodness hath ordained
us, (which his good pleasure is set upon in the Jirst jilace,) then
his good pleasure is fulfilled by inflicting upon us that punish-
ment, which he threatened ; according to that saying of Saint
Augustine, Facit Deus Voluntatem suam de eo, a gtio volujitas
ejus facta non est*
* " God executes his own will concerning[or through] that man by whom
his will is not performed."
ANNOTATA
QU^DAM IN FUNDAMENTALES
W- THOM.E PARKERI
THESES
DE TRADUCTIONE HOMINIS PECCATORIS AD VITAM.
SOME ANNOTATIONS
ON THE
FUNDAMENTAI. THESES
OF MR. THOMAS PARKER,
CONCERNING THE TRADUCTION OR DRAWING OF MAN,
AS A SINNER, TO LIFE.
I
IGG
AN NOT ATA IN
LECTORI.
SisTE TE parumper, eriulite lector, ut noris cujam et qualem
pagellam comprimis, hoc scilicet solo nomine redarguendanti,
quod sit tota gemmea. In historiis, " com])endia, dispendia ;"
at in Theologia, polemioa salteni, ixsyxXoci Bi^mi, ixsyaXcx. 'Sjy,iJ.3cra,
atque instar montium, qui, quo sublinnori consurgunt cacumine,
magis sterilescunt. Optandum ex Theologorum disceptationi-
bus et colloquiis, (ut puta Moinpelgartensi, Hagiensi, aliisque,)
succum et sanguinem exprimi, responsionum lacinias abradi, in
personas nominaque (quas vere " rabiem & rixas Theologorum"
vocavit Melanchthon.) lituras expungi : quibus sarmentis, siquis
inter niSDN 'VsJ3 (quos vocat Spiritus Sanctus §) noraen suum
professus, operam daret averruncandis, plus certe quam ex alio
quovis scripto elenctico proficerent lectoi-es. Dicam quod res
est: II misere ruspamur in controversa Theologia, et si quando
§ Eccles. xii, 1. PcKpuSus, magistros coUectionum sivepandectarum. MERC.
II Vide Consilium J. HOUNBECK in Sum. ControverS'de Papismo, p,31C.
TRANSLATION.
ADDRESS TO THE READER.
Stop a little, learned reader, and learn whose pag^es these are which thou
turncst over, and what is their quality. -f- The only fault with wli.ich they
can be charged, is, t/iat the;/ are enf.irelu studded with gems. In liistorica.
■works, abridgments are said to be real detriments. But in Divinity, at
least in that which is polemic, " great books are great evils," and resem-
ble mountains, " the more elevated their summits are, the greater is iheir
stciilit}'. It is very desirable, that the juice and blood were extracted out of
the disputes and conferences of Divines, (such, for instance, as those of
RIontbelliard, the Hague, and others, :J;) that the borders of the answers
were cut away, aud that the blots upon persons and names were expni'.oed,
which Melancthon has truly called, " the madness and squabbles of Di-
vines." If there be an}' one that has placed his name among those whom
the Holy S>pirit calls " masters of assemblies, "§ and if he would attcm])t to
remove all i hose fragments and excrescence^, he would perform a service
from which a far greater degree of profit would accrue to tlie readers, than
from any other argumentative compositions whatsoever. Shall 1 slate what
is reaiiy the fact .' Unhappily we make deep researches into controversial
theology; II and, after haviiig been almost famished through our pressing
t -See Appendix A. i^ Ajip. B-
5 T.Jorocr ra.l's Ihpm, " Illj.jpsoitists, m.H5ter* of the eoUcciioiv!, dipestsor panr'.ecb."
( See tlie aJvieeof Hornbcck in haHnmmarjj ujllie Controversies respeciittg Popery, p;^;e 316.
PAKKERI THESES. 1G7
veritatis importunti fame cor.fecti, margaritam offendimus,
Exclamare libet, populus quod daniat Osyri
Invento
Nervosi siquidem sunt et aciiti Theologi, Camero iibi habet TI-
lenum adversarium, Twissius iibi Arminium, Corvinum, eun-
demque Tilenum confodit; at! at! postquam puhnone" in ver-
borum cortice extigitaveris, vix tandem raedullam sensus potis
eris eruere, anhelus lector. Inde est adeo laudabile institutum
reverendi viri Thoraae Parkeri, authoris Thesiutn de Traduciione
peccatoiis ad vitam, qui eadem premit vestigia, nee tajdio lector-
em enecat. Neminem suppilavit, sugillavit neminem. Non
habent scriptores, qaem incusent stellionatus, nee alii verbera
violentfE linguae patiuntur. Ai-minii et Socini nomina reliquit
intacta; non ita causam, et argumenta. Sentiunt se mori tacito
vulneve, qui in argumentis aut conversionis aut satisfactionis
periculose et infoeliciter disputarunt.
Hie is estj si nescis, lector, cujus pater Robertas Parker, o
"M-xtLXfirvis tarn erudite et copiose scripsit de Sigiio Criicis, Des-
ceiisu Christi ad Inferos, et Ecclesiaslica PoUle'ia, in causa religi-
onis patriae exul, qui una cum Amesio, notissimum virum I.
Robinsonum,tt ad sobriam in disciplina mentem revocavit. Dig-
it Vide eundem Hombeckium in Brownismo, p. 625.
TRANSLATION.
hiinsjer for the truth, if we find a pearl, " we may be permitted to exclaim,
as the people of Egypt do, when they find Osiris," 'IVel:<ive made a discoven/ !
When Ca:mf,ron -f has Tilenus for his adversary, and when Tuisse at one
bh)w desjiatohes Arminius, Corvinus and Tiler.u;, both of them are nervous
and acute Divines. But, alas, when the panting reader has penetrated
through the rind of their word; and reached the kernel, after all his trouble
he will scarcely be able to find any nutriment for his understanding.
This is the reason of the very laud;ible design of that reverend person,
Thomas Parker, J the author of the Theses oh the frnduction or flrairing-
of nutn, as a suiner, to Life. He treads in the footsteps of Cameron and
Twisse, but he does not tr}' the patience of hi= reader or produce weari-
ness. From no man has he purloineil, and he has not cast a reproach
upon any person. There are no writers who can accuse him of knavish
practices ; nor do others endure from him those stripes which a violent
tongue can inflict. He leaves the name of Armimus and of SociNus § un-
touched ; but he encounters their cause and their arguments. Those per-
sons who have in a dangerous or inauspicious manner engaged in disputes
concerning the arguments of Conversion or Sanctificatiun, feel themselves
dying through the secret wound which they here receive.
Reader, if thou be yet unacquainted with the ))arentage of this young
man, know, that his father was Robert Parker of blessed memory, || who
has written with great learning and copiousness on the Sign of the Cross,
the Descent of Christ info Hell, and on Ecclesiastical Polity'; and who,
while an exile from his native laud on account of religion, united with
William Ames in recovering that celebrated person, J. Rohinson, \ to a
sober judgment concerning church-discipiiue.f f Our author, therefore,
f App Cand D- % App. E.
§ App. F. II App. G. II App. H.
tt Sse Hombeck on Bro'xnism or Indepcwkncy, page 6'Jo.
168
AN. NOT AT A IN
nus est adeo hie nostcr author tam istoc patre, quam hac prole.
Id unice agit vir doctissimns, ut gratia; Divinic suus constet
honos sartus-tectus ; ut gratia prasveniens, excitans, pulsans,
efficax et actuosa habeatur, noii " segnis, et vokintatis nostra?
pedissequa," qualem adversarii comminiscuntur, qui " Gratiae"
verbo abusi sunt, (ut Augustinus jam diu notavit) ^T ad frangeu-
dam invidiam.
Si cui minus arridet, quod a styli evangelici simplicitate abhor-
rere videatur ; et (/-o^u,o>.vkcix quajdam tenriinorum Philosophi-
corum interpolasse, sciat velim, lectorem dcsiderari gravem, et
in scholis exercitatuni, cui si sit ingenium tlieologicum,
nihil nocebit stylus metaphysicus ; nee omnino desunt, quod
dixit in re leniori Antonius, (lib. y. sect. 3.) etiam in phrasi tsu^x-
Prodiere ssepius hae ea?dem Theses, cum aliis ejusdem com-
mati.s Amesii Tractatulis compactfe, a doctis indoctisque pro Am-
esianis habitae, et citatas ; sed quod dolendum maxime, mancae
semper, et imperfecta?, vnoZo'huj.xia. nonnunquam addita, loca
Scnpturje foedi>sime distorta, et transversa tuentia : quiiidecim
integras theses nescio cujus sacrilegse man us depeculabantur.
Paucihasc observarunt, miratique non superesse, qui plagiarium
51 Villi quem admodum potuerit (Pelagius) etiam gratiam nominari sub ambigua generalitate,
quid sentirct, abscontlens, gratijp tamen vocahulo, frangens invidiam, offensionemque decli-
nans. — AUG. de Pecc. Orig. contra Pelag. et Caled- cap- 37.
TRANSLATION.
is a worthy son of sucli a father, and is himself the worthy father of tliis
productiou. The o!)ly object whicli this very learned inchvidital has in view,
is, to preserve inviolate the just honour of tivine Grace, — that frere/itinii-,
e.vcU/ng, jiropeUing-, efficoclnus, and actuating Grace may not be accounted
idle or inojierative and tlieohseqiiious attendant of the }iuman ivill, according
to the misrepresentation* of our adversaries, who, as St. Aug'ustme lung ago
observed, abuse the term " Grace" to wipe away reproach, f
If any one be di-^pleased, that " our author seems to dislike the simplicity
of the style of the gospel," and that " he has interspersed certam J tig/; f/ir I
/igtnents of philosophical terms," 1 wish such an objector to know, that,
to understand this work, a deep and serious reader is required, one who is
well-versed iu scholastic lore, and who possesses a theological genius : 'I'o
a person thus qualified a metaphysical style will do no harm. Yet there are
ii')t wanting those additions which Antoninus has desciiiicd, (lib. ix, sect. 3,)
under tlie phrase of " precepts that produce an intiuence on the heart."
These Theses ha^e been frequently published, and bound up with other
tracts by Ames of the same description: They have likewise been cited
and esteemed, by the learned and the unlearned, as the productions of
A.Mi-s. But it is much to be lamented, that they have always been printed
in a mutilated and imperfect form, sometimes augmented with adulterated
passages, and the quotations from scripture most scandalously distorted and
made to convey a different signification. I know not whose sacrilegious
hands they are which have plundered this disputation of fifteen entire]
Iheses. + Some few people have observed these defects and redundancies,
t " I perceived in what way it w.ns also possible for grace to be mentioned under nn ambiguous
generality, and what .sentiments i^cla^'tius secretly held under the word ' Grace' to break the
force of public aversion, and not to give oflence." (.\UG. dciPecat. Origin, contra Pelag. et
Cielcit., cap. 37.)
t App. 1.
PAUKEUI THESES. ] G9
et stelHonem insequeretur, et in jus vocaret. Tu igitnr, ingenue
lector, asqui bonique consulas, quod ego, qui in sacro sum satel-
litio ultimae sortis, in extremis Angliae oris ab omnibus paene
bonis Uteris exul,
Ai^-fxts yap of^E Tp/To/, 01 Js rirx^Tot^
GvSs ovu/amxToi, ovr ev Ao^Wj ovt' tv occiVf/,u.
Hanc qualemcumque opellam dabam, tribus quatuorve exempla-
ribus MSS. et impressis fideliter collatis, ut authorem tibi, au-
thorique suum nomen et Tiieses vindicarem.
H. S.
TRANSLATION.
and have been amazed that there is no one left to prosecute the rascally
plagiarist, and call him to an account for his base conduct.
Do thou therefore, ingenuous reader, put a just and favourable interpre-
tation upon this my labour. I am one of the sacred band [of preachers]
and of the lowest condition, residing in the extreme confines of England, and
doomed to almost an entire exclusion from polite literature : " For we
have neither three, fc'ur, nor twelve [literary friends] , either according to
conception or computation." Under these circumstances I have made an
eflFort, trifling though it may appear, to restore the real author to thee, and
to claim in his behalf his own name and his Theses, which I have faithfully
collated with three or four manuscript and printed copies.
H. S.
M
170 A%'NOTATA IN
LECTORI.
Ocyus te in pedes conjice, lector (pi\'x>.r,Sr,s, iii mavis in
haruvu Thesiuin Editoris substrates encomiorum flosculis casses
incidere ; vel perplexis earundem Authoris plagulis irreliri.
Neque tarnen ab islo metuendiim esset, Scholarum inaniis, ver-
borumqiie c.-ptum humanum fugientium involiuris sensannentis
intricante, nisi viam ad pcriculum ///e, incautus, opinor, Pra'falor
sic stravisset. Vir sane, quicunque is est, cordatus, quern nee
hoc nomine tam incusandum censuerira, quod ab Ecclesiae
etiamnum Anglicanas doctriiia, formnlisque (ex praejudiciis im-
bibitis) abhorrere videatur, quam jure merilo laudibus effer-
endum, quod placidum se, et modesti ingenii virum, indiciis
niinime obscuris, nee non bonarum literarum bene compotem
preestiterit.
Laudet sane, ut sibi gratum faciat, Cameronem Scoto- Gal-
ium, et Twissium Anglo-Britannum ; Arniiuium autem tt Cor-
TRANSLATION,
BISHOP WOMACirS REMARKS
ON THE PllECEDING
ADDRESS TO THE READER.
SPKFnii.Y betake thyself to thy feet, my reader, if thou be a lover of truth ;
unless thou wouhlst prefer to fail into the toils which the EnrroR of these
Theses has bestrewed with encomiastic flowerets, or to be entang-led between
the intricate and confused meshes of that net v\hich has been .spread by the
Author. Yet, because the laiter has involved the ^ conceptions of his
unfledo-ed mind in the trifiiug: inanities of the Schools, and in words that
scorn fo be comprehended by the human intellect, there would be no cause
of fear on his account, had not this Prefacer, to whom I cannot ascribe the
Erair.e of caution, thus paved the way to danger. But whoever he may be,
e is undoubtedly a person of some discretion, whom I do not consider to be
blamtd so much on account of his present apparent aversion to the doctrine
and formularies of the Church of Eng;land, ftbrou°h prejudices which he
has imbibed,) as he is entitled to ju.st praise for shewing himself to be meek
and placid, and, h'l tohens fliat cannot he mistaken, a man of modest
genius, and possessed of « nood and C(tiHj>elent share of polite learninj^.-f-
Let him eulocjize Caimekon the Scott isli Frenchman, that he may render
himself agreeable to him, and 'i'wisSF, the Englishman; let him trample
upon Armimus and Corvinus the Dutchmen, and uponTiLENUS the French-
roan, X the three men whom TwissE conquered ; and, on the olher hand,
\ Ajip. K. % App. L.
TAl^Kr.RI THESES. 17]
vinum Batavos, Tiletium etiam Galium, a Twissio scilicet con-
fossos proculcet. Rursus Robertum Parkerum, Amesium, Rob-
insonum, ad coeliim laudibus vehat : nee tamen effecerit, ut
Thomas hie tantopere prEedicatus Parkerus, sanctissimum Vnici
nostri Salvatoris Benedicti evangelium, decretorum Dei de salute
et interitu humano fundum iion subruerit, aut ipsi justitias soli
tenebras non oifuderit. Quasi vero, O boni, absque vobis esset
defensoiibus et hyperaspistis, ne ipse quidem Deus Socinum
Arminiumque (par impar paulo invidiosius Praefatori conjunc-
tum, at toto coelo disseparanduin) non esset reftllendo.
Nos ad Evangelium ipsius Dei Patris, Christique Domini ex
ejussinu prodeuntis, et Sancti utriusque Spiritus inibi clarissime
loquentis provocamus.
Loquere jam, mi Parkere, verum sicut Dei Christique oracula.
En praesto adsumus ut Divinis Eloquiis fasces proni submittamus.
Nostrum neutri credatur : uni Deo fidei obedientiam praestare
didieimus. Age ergo : arrectis enim auribus documenta coeles-
tia libenter expectamus.
TRANSLATION.
let him laud to the very heavens Robert Parker, Ames and Robinson;
yet, after all, he will not prevent this Thomris, so highly praised for bearin"
the surname of Parker, friin subverting the most holyguspe) of our blessed
and only Saviour, which is the foundation of God's decrees concerning the
salvation and destruction of mankind, — nor will he prevent him from" ob-
truding his misty darkness before the rays of " the Sun of Righteousness."
All this, good men, seems as if there would be a great scarcity of defenders
and partisans, were we deprived of your aid; and that God himself would
ijeed some person to refute SociNus and ArsiiNius, — two names between
which there is the greatest disparity, and though our Prefacer has rather
too invidiously joined them together, yet they must be separated from each
other as far as the earth is distant from the heavens.
We appeal to the gospel of God the Father, of Christ our Lord who
proceedeih from his bosom, and of the Holy Spirit both of the Father and
the Son who speaks most clearly in those sacred pages.
Now commence your speech, my Parker; yet l^e careful to " speak as
the oracles of God" and of Christ. Behold we are waiting here, prepared
to lower onr fasces in token of veneration for I)i%ine Eloquence. Let
credence be given to neither of us : For we have learned to yield the obedi-
ence of faith to God alone. Proceed, therefore; for we are waiting with
open ears, willingly to listen to these heavenly documents.
M 2
172 AiNNOTATA IN
THESES
DE
TRADUCTIONE PECCATOllIS AD VITAM.
THESIS 1.
Deus cum sit Ens absolute Primum^ (Exod. Hi, 14i,)
propterea Primum est ac Summum Bontim : et quia Primuni
Ens, prohide omnia ah ipso sunt : quia vero Summum
Bojium, Summus est Finis ad quem tendunt. Si enim
aliquid esset, quod non esset ah ipso, plura prima essent, et
proinde non esset absolute Primum : et si Summum Bonum,
Summus Finis est, quia bonum Jinis est ; et si Summus
Fims,omnia ad ipsum tendimt, alioqui non esset absolute Sum-
mus. Hinc Deus, « oi^x" >'*' ''° reXos, (Apoc. xxH, 13,^
TRANSLATION.
THESES
ON THE
TRADUCTION OR DRAWING OF MAN,
AS A SINNER, TO LIFE.
THESIS I.
" Since God is absolutely the First Beins:, [Exod. iii, 14,) he is therefore
the First and the Chief Good ; and because he is the First Being, therefore all
thiuirs are from him ; but because he is the Chief Good, he is\he Chief End
to wliich ail things tend. For if there could be any thing that was not from
him, there would then be many First Things [or Beings], and therefore he
would not be absolutely the First: And if he be the Chief Good, he is also
the Chief End, because the Good is the End ; and if he he the Chief End,
then all things tend to him, otherwise he would not be absolutely the Chief.
On this accouutGod is called " the Beginning and the End," (Rev. xxii, 13,)
PAnKP:Ri Tiii:sr.s. 173
omnium entium nd selpsum Mutor est. I rrat'mnalium qui-
dcvi, quia sensinnn conclusa Umitibus, mediate duntaxat:
rationalium vero selectee mtdtiiiidinis ad Ji'iiendum ipso.
Cum enim proxime per intellcctum et voluntatem ad Deum
accedant, in-oximum eorum honain erit nnio cum eo quod
Summum est, seu Jruitio Dei : qua Divince amicitia et Ja~
voris est adeptio.
ANXOTATIONES.
Ad Thesin pi-imara paucula haec videntur adnotanda. 1. Vo-
cem " omnia," lin. 2, ad eiilia creuta restringendam (uti Parkerum
voluisse fit vero simiielin. 8,)ne autpeccatiim ens esse negetur,aut
de numero esse creatnrarum, & sub voce "omnia" comprehendi
debere affirmetur. Quod quorsum tendat, judicare obvium est,
2. Eadem linea et sequentibus intelh'gendus videtur, quasi entia
irrationalia (mediate licet) ab ipso Deo ad ipso fruendum move-
rentur: Dilute nimis. S. Cave ne hie Dei ipsius (naturalem an
supernaturalem) quoad se, cum Dei de nobis fine libere intento
de nostri ipsius fruitione confundas. Versailles nam sunt hae lo«
cutiones.
THESIS II.
Irdentio finis Jwjus, p7-o modo independentis ac supremee
voluntatis ex consilio agentis suo, absoluta est. (Rom. xi, 84 ;
TRANSLATION.
the Mover of all beiu^s to himself. He is only mediately [by second causes}
the Mover of irrational beings, because they are shut up within the limits of
the senses ; but he is the Mover of a select multitude of rational beings to
the enjoyment of himself. For as they approach the most nearly to God by
their understanding and will, their nearest good will be union with him who
is the Chief Good, or the fruition of God, which is the obtaining of the Di-
vine friendship and favour."
ANNOTATIONS.
It appears necessary to note the following few things, respecting this First
Thesis. (1.) The word "fill," in the 2nd line, must be restricted to
created beings, (as it is very probable, from line 8, that Parker wished it so
to be,) that sin may not be denied to be either n behiif, or of the number of
creatures, and that it may be affirmed " it ought to be comprehended under
the word all." E^■ery man w'ill easily judge of the intention of such a
jjiirase. — (2.) In the lOth and following lines, the meaning of our author
appears to be, that even irratinnal beings may, although mediatelj/, be
moved by God to the enjoyment of himself: Such an expression is too
vague. — (;}.) In the concluding lines, beware lest you confound God's own
en'joifment of himself, (whether natural or su])ernatural,) with the end of
(rod concerning us, which end he freely intended respecting our enjoyment
of him : For these modes of speech are convertible.
THESIS n.
" The intention of this end is ausolutk, according to the mode of an
independent and supreme will acling irom its own counsel. (Rom. xi, 34 j
M 8
174 ANNOTATA IN
Isai. ii'l, VS.) Nee cnim ayxinos potest is esse, qui a
conditionc detcrm'matin- extrinsecd : cui 2>^(f-^eribitiir oidinis
ratio ah co quod ordinatur ab ipso ; qui discit ah homine
agendi modum ac Jinem, adeoque reg'dur ah ipso id mcnsu-
7'ante actum suum. Quin contra avxmos homo injinittts
et inordinatus Joret, quippe disponeret seipsum ad Jinem
priusquam disponatur a Deo.
ANNOTATJONES.
1. Intentionem " finis hujus," hoc est Sui ipsius duriuscule di-
citur, nee tamen sano sensu acceptum, pro '■' perfectionum divi-
narum manifestatione/' admodum aversor ; sed male nuetuo ne
fallacia sit insidiarum integumentum.
2. Ut maxima Consilio Dei (ex citatis Scripturae commatis) sua
ab-omni-creato independentia astruatur, non stquitur tamen vol-
untati Divinae ad extra, omnimodam independentiara, & finis
hujus, hoc est sui ipsius absolutam quoad omnium, speciatim,
pei-fectionum suarum, omni tempore, manifestationem, ascriben-
dam esse. Non quod negetur, sed quod ex istis locis sequi non
constet. Quid ! quod ex ipsa Dei voluntate alisoluta, & consilio
sit, ut finis adeptio non sit absoluta, nisi m.edia includantur ?
3. " Absolutam" esse istam finis hujus intentionem sano sensu
admittiinus, & libenter ; nee tamen absonum videri debet si vol-
untas Divina " dependere" interdum dicatur a coiiditione aliqua
TRANSLATION.
Isai. xl, 13.) For he cannot be '* without cause" who is determined by an
extrinsic condition, to whom that which is ordained by himself prescribes
the terms of order, who learns from man the mode unci end of acting, and
■who is therefore regulated by him as the rule of his acting. But, on the
contrary, were man " without cause," he would be infinite and destitute
of order, because be would dispose himself to the end before he was disposed
[or appointed] to it by God."
JVNOTJTIONS.
1. " The intention of this end," that is, " of himself," is rather a harsh
expressi^in ; yet 1 am not. much averse to its being received in a sound sense,
for " the manifestation of the Divine Perfections." But I am sadly afraid,
that a fallacy lurks under this insidious disguise.
2. In order to establish God's independence of every creatare principally
from the Divine Counsel, according to the passages of scripture whicn are
quoted, — it does not follow as a ccinstquence, that every kind of iiulepeud-
eiicy, and the absolute independency of this end, (that is, of himself,J espe-
cially with regard to the manifestation of alibis pcrl'ecticns at all times, must
be ascribed to the l)i\ \iie W ill ad td( in, [in its motion upon something beyond
itself.] It is not intended by these remarks to deny the assertion, but only
to shew, that the proposed inference does not evidently follow from those pas-
sages. What is that inference.' it is through God's absolute will and
counsel, that the obtaining of the end should not be absolute unless the means
be included.
3. We willingly admit that the intention of this end is absolute in a sound
sense. Vet it ought not to appear an absurdity, if the Divine Will were some-
times said "to depend on some condition, which Gcd appoints and princi-
rAKKlil'.I THESIS. 175
(quam ipse [^Deusj & statuit, & principaliter efficit) non quidem
(lependentia cans alitatis utpnte ocmxitios seel dependentiu qua-
dam relationis, uti Palrcm a Jilio dcpendere, ut sit Pater, nemo
samis, opinor, ne^averit. Nee obstat quod sequitur. Ipse nam
Deus determinavit se hoc sic facturum, & homines ad finem
(prout novit justitiam, raisericordiam & sapientiam suam decere)
dispositurum.
THESIS III.
Hinc multo minus ex prfevisa jidc ; Jiac enim medium est
ad fruitioncm Dei qui Jinis est : idcirco non anfecedit inten-
tionemjinis ut conditio.
ANNOTATIONES.
1. Aliud est " Prsevisa fides," & " ex ea" : aliud " Prgescientia
fidei," & " secundum earn." (1 Pet. i, 2.) Fides nam est '' act-
us officii nostri :" Praescientia "actus perfectionis Divine."
" Ex" causam, " Secundum" oi'dinem notat. " Ex jjrcescitd
fide, tanquam cavisa, dependere Dei intentionem finis seu praemii
nostri," nefjamus; " fieri secundum proescienliam," cum sanctu
scriptura affirmamus.
2. Finis hie, scilicet ad Deum unio friiitioque, (cum perfecti-
onum divinarum, viz. misericordia? glorificatricis pariter et glo-
riosae, reliquarumque manifestatione plenissima conjunctus) in-
TRANSLATION.
pally effects," — not by a dependence of causaUti', because it is " without
cause," but by a certain dependence of relation : Thus, I am of opinion, no
rational person will deny, that a i'aflier depends on Ins Son in order tj liis being;
a Fattier. Nor does the inference [at the close of the Thesis] injure this |)o-
sition : For God has determined, that he will in this manner perform this act,
and that he will dispose man to [the accomplishment of] the same end,
according to the knowleug-e which he possesses respecting what is most suita-
ble to his own Justice, Mercy and Wisdom.
THESIS III.
" Hence, much less is it from faitli foreseen ; for this is aMEANStotlie
enjoyment of God, who is the End : Therefore the end, as a condition, does
liot precede the intention."
ANNOTATIONS.
1. "Faith foreseen" and ^'from faith foreseen," i^onethinj: "The
OREKNOWLEDGE
auother. (I Peter,
FOREKNOWLEDGE of faith," and " acciirding to that foreknowledoje," is
,i, 2 ) For Faith is an actuf our diiti; ; Puescience or Fore-
knowledge is an act of Divine Perfection. " Front faith foreseen" marks the
(l-iusE; ''■ According' to faith foresee. i" marks the okder. Wedejy, that
(iod's intention of t!ie end or of our reward depends upon faitfi. foreseen,
as upon thecause ; but we afrirm, with the sacred scriptures, that itis formed
ACCOROINC TO the Dii'lne Prescience or Forekniwledge.
2. Thii end, (union with God and the fruition of him) when joined with
the fullest manifestation of the Diviiic Peri'ections, — that is, of his mercy
which glorifies and is at the same time rendered glorious, and of his other
176 AN NOT ATA IX
telHgitur vel ut finis ex consilio voluntatis nude consuleratiis,
de quo hic non qutpritur ; vel quasi judicialiter, et politice, ut
praemium et merces ex beneplacito Dei miserentis, raero, libero,
absoluto, et independente, omnesque causas secundas antegredi-
ente manans, et certis legibus promissa; at ex Dei veracitate et
constantia, legum seu condition um harum observatoribus pras-
standa. Hoc modo recte, secundum s. scripturara, Voluntatis et
Consilii Divini declaratricem, affirmatur, Jidem etiam in Dei in-
tentione (pra'scilam, nondum praestitani) praemii et mercedis
adeplionem antecedere.
3. Notandum authorem sibi non satis constare in fine Dei in-
tentionis assignando, quern interdum scipsum respicere inlendeii'-
tem, interdum hominem inlentum indicat.
THESIS IV.
Via adjinem istnm exhlhita liominijint in statu primeevo,
quo virihus instruebatur idoneis, quihus Deo, si voluisset^
potuit J'rid. Verum quia finltus, ideo mutabiUs, et quia
mutabilis, seducente diaholo desc\vit a statu illo : zmde summi
boni interrtipta est adeptio. lis tamen quos ad finem istum
destinarat, ex mlsericordia reconciliari voluit Deus ; ita
tamen ut simul jiistitia maneret illasa : quare turn pro
qffensa satisfacere oportuit prius, quam in conditionem
TRANSLATION.
perfections, — this end, when thus conjoined, is understood, (1.) either as the
End nakedly considered through the counsel of his will, about which end there
is no question in this place; Or, somewhat in aj'udicial and pnlitical sense,
as a reward and recompence emanating from the mere, free, absolute and in-
dependent good-pleasure of a merciful God, which is antecedent to all second
causes: This reward is promised by certain laws; but, through the veracity
and constancy of God, it will be conferred on those [only] who observe these
laws or conditions. In this manner according to the Sacred Scripture, which
is the declaration of the Divine Will and Counsel, it is rightly affirmed,
that, " even in God's intention, /aith precedes the obtaining of the
recompence and reward ;" for it is foreseen, though not then performed.
3. It is worthy of remark, that the author is uot sufficiently consistent with
himself in assigning the end of God's intention ; for he sy metimes intimates,
that the end has respect to himself as the person intending, and, at other
times, that it has respect toman as the object intended.
THESIS IV.
"Thewavto this end was shewn to man in his primeval condition, by
which he was furnished with such suitable strength or power as rendered him
capable of enjoying God, if such had lieen bis own choice. But since man
was a finite being, be was also mutable; and on account of tliis mutability,
when he was seduced by the devil, he declined from that state: And thus
arose an interrujition in his obtaining the Chief Good. But it was the will of
God to be reconciled through mercy to those whom he had destined to this
end ; yet in such a manner as not to suffer his justice to sustain any injury.
AVherefore it was then necessary to render satisfaction for theoft'cuce, before
man could be restored to a condition of righteousness. But since this satis-
PAIIKERI THESES. 177
justHia restaurari. Quia vero hoc a nobis, quippe " md-
larum virium,'''' (Rom. v, 6,) cffici non potuit: aut per
ctlium effici oportuit, aut de reconciliatione nostra actum.
Hoc autem quia perjicere non debuit alius 7iisi Jiomo, nee
sufficere potuit nisi Deus : Mnc Christus SsavSjiUTroy
mediator designatus ; qui redemptioncm a peccatis virtute
satlsfactionis, et restaurationcm virtute justitice procuians,
reconciliationerii impetravit iis qnibus voluit Deus.
ANNOTATIONES.
1. Cavendum est, ne prima Theseos hujus verba temere de-
glutiamus. Viam nam ad finem istum, Dei fniitionem (omni
iTiodo consideratum, scilicet ut fruitio etiam Christi Mediatoris
existentis, et Judicis, Remuneratorisque futuri, exmisericordia,
justitia temperata, includatur) non fuisse, homini in statu pri-
maevo exhibitam, nee in isto statu, viribus ad Deo, hoc modo
consiclerato, fruendum hominem instructum fuisse, fidenter
asserimus. Quod est Authoris nostri JJpuncv ^ev^os.
9.. Ut facile largiar (quod tamen vix quivis capit) " hominem
primaevum ideo mutabilem quia iinitura {qnaxnv'is Jiiiitum et mu-
tabilem fuisse procul sit omni dubio) summique boni adeptionem
ex ista sua volunlaria defectione, seducente diabolo, interruptam
fuisse ;" non sic tamen, ut Christus, Mediator Judexque noster,
sub ista Surami Boni consideratione veniat : ne (ut caetera infi-
TRANSLATION.
faction could not be eflfected by us, because " we were without strength,"
(Rom. V, 6.) it must either have been effected by another, or there was an end
of our reconciliation. But because no one except a man ought to effect this,
and because none but God could be sufficient for this, Christ, who was both
God and man, was appointed Mediator. After this Metliator had procured
redemption from sins by virtue of his satisfaction, and restoration liy virtue
of his righteousness, he obtained reconciliation for those on whom it was the
will of God to bestow it."
JINNQTJTIONS.
We must beware not to receive the first words of this Thesis with too much
rashness. We confidently assert, that " the way to this end was not exhi-
bited to man in his primeval state," — that is, the wav was not shewn to the
enjoyment of God, considered in every respect so as to include the enjoyment
of Christ who then existed as Mediator, and who was afterwards to be the
Judge and the Rewarder, through the Divine Mercj' and Justice which wtre
attempered together. We also assert, " in that state man was not furnished
with strength or power to enjoy Ged considered in the manner which we have
just described." — This is the first of our author's falsehoods.
2. I am ready to grant, what scarcely any one will comprehend, that " the
first man was therefore a mutable being 6ec«?M<? a finite one." ('hough it is
placed beyond all doubt, that he was hoxhjinite and mutable,) and that "his
obtaining of the Chief Good was interrupted through this his own voluntary
defection, and the seduction of the devil." Yet this concession must be made
so as not to let Christ our Mediator and Judge come into the consideration of
this Chief Good; lest (omitting the mention of other infinite inconveniences,}
178 ANNOTATA IN
nlta incommoda taceani) Christus noster in Adamo primtevo,
integro censitus, in ipso nobiscum laberetur, peccatoque Origi-
nali se alligaret, aut a Deo Patre ejusdem reus censeretur, unde
satisfactio (quam eura divina? justitiae praestitisse, nemo praeter-
quam qui absolutas Dei intentiones esse omnes crediderit, ne-
gare, nisi lajsis principiis, potest) salusque omnis nostra corruat
necesse est.
3. Si per " eos quos ad finem istum destinarat Deus," intelligi
vult " absoluta et precisa salvandi, seu ad summuni finem per-
ducendi, intentione destinatos," non video ut seipsum sibi in
eadem oratione rcconciliet. Mox nam subjungit, " iis ex miseri-
cordia reconciliari voluit Deus/' &c. t Sed cave, mi Parkere, ne
ejusmodi absoluta ad finem istum destinatio reconciliationi
dictse repugnet, et universam Ciiristi satisfactionis necessitatem,
vel etiam utilitatem funditus evertat et aboleat. Quos nam ad
finem istum destinarat (intellige ahuolute) Deus, iis certe jampri-
dem erat reeonciliatus, absque hoc, ut Christi interventu fieret
satisfactio, et inde manans reconciliatio. Non insto ne asperior
paulo videar.
Csetera de satisfactione, sana existimo, nisi quod qufedam in
fine sint obscura, et plirasis idtima " reconciliationem impe-
travit (^Christus) iis, quibus voluit Deus" animadvertenda. Quid
\ En Sublapsarium ! Vide qua; ad Thes. 10 de " suprapositia fundamentis" notavi.
TRANSLATION.
Christ our Lord, after being reckoned in Adam while he retained his primi-
tive state of innocency, should afterwards fall with us in hiai, and connect
himself with orit^inal sin, or should be accounted jjuilt}' of it by God the
Pather. 'J'he satisfaction which Christ rendered to Divine Justice, and all
our salvation, must in this case be necessarily involved in one common
destruction. — That Christ made such satisfaction, it is impossible for any one
to deny without a breach of his own principles, except he be a person who
believes all God's intentions to be absolute.
?>. If by the phrase " those whom he had destined to this end," our author
wishes us to understand " those who are destined by an absolute and precise
intention, to be saved or to be conducted to this Chief End," — I do not per-
crive in what manner he can reconcile himself to himself in the very same
sentence. For he immediately subjoins, " It was the will of God to be re-
conciled throujjh mercy to those," &c.-f- But, my Parker, stand on your
guard, Icstsuch an absolute destination should be contradictory to the recon-
ciliation which had been previously mentioned, and should entirely subvert
and destroy the universal necessity of Christ's satisfactipn, or even its utility.
For, undoubtedly God had long before been reconciled to those whom he had
absolutely "destined to this end," without any satisfaction being' made by the
intervention of Christ, or without any of that reconciliation which emanates
from it. — But 1 do not pursue these arguments, lest I should seem to manifest
too much severity.
4. I consider the rest of the expressions concerning the satisfaction of
dhrist to be sound, with the exception of some toward the close which are
involved in obscurity. — Thus, the last phrase rc(iuircs some animadversion :
Jt states, that " Christ obtained reconciliation for those on whom it was the
t Bi'holil here a Su'i-lapsarian ! I refsr the reader to my annotations oi! the tenth Thesis,
concerning " the foundations whicliare placed above."
PARKKRI THKSIS. 179
nam pro quibus voluit Deus ut impetraret? Pro lapsis ct per-
(litis omnibus? Non opinor dicturuni te cum s. scripturis.
Pi'o Reprobis ? Nequaquani. Pro Electis ergo ? Fieri non posse,
aut esse superfliium videri potest, si absolute et praecisead finem
summum a Deo prius destineniur, quam in Christum ponantur
credituri, imo quam Christus satisfecisse, aut in satisfactionis
pretiuni destinari dicatur.
THESIS V.
H'lnc quotqiiot reconcUiandi fuerant, propter Christi
merita recondUari oportuit : pj-ohide ut applicetur recon-
ciliation merita Christi applicanda prius. AppJicandi vero ,
homini cum sint qua intellectu ac voluntate pruEdito, prop-
terea ut ah ipso (^Scal., ex. 307, sect, xxvii, lin. 9.,) rcci-
pienda, appUcanda sunt. Hincjirdus Dei cum electis emer-
g'it, se rccipientibus Christum recojiciliatum iri. Conditio a
parte Dei, reconciliatio est, in qua iamcn debitor non nobis
est Deus, sed sibi, qui scipsum ncgare non potest. Ea etiam
Jinis ipse hominis est, non quidern quoad rem alius a fiui-
tione Dei ; relatione solum distinctus interi'uptionis praviee.
Conditio vero a parte nostra est Christi receptio : conditio
autem non ut ah homine dispensatore actus hujus, sed ut in
humine quid ad reconciliationem pruErequisitum.
TRANSLATION.
•will of God to bestow it." — For whom then was it the will of God to obtain this
reconciliation ? — Was \tfor nil those who had fallen and destroyed themselves?
1 do not think, that you will speak thus, with the holy scriptures. — Was it
for the Reprobate .'' By no means. — Was it then for the Elect .' It was impos-
sible for this to be done ; or it may seem to be superfluous, if God absolutely
and precisely destined the elect to the Chief End before they were ccusider-
ed as afterwards believing iu Christ, and even before Christ is said to have
rendered satisfaction, or to be destined for the price of satisfaction.
THESIS V.
" Hence, as many ashad to be reconciled, must have been reconciled on
acco\uit of the merits of Christ : Therefore the merits of Christ must be first
applied in order to the application of the rtrconciliation. But since they are
to be applied to man in reference to his being' endo.ved with an understand-
ing and will, they must therefore be applied as to he received by him. (Scalig.
Exer. 307. § 27. lin. 2.) Hence arises God's covenant with the Elect, who
betake themselves to Christ for the purpose of being reconciled. On God's
part the condition is, recoiiciUation ; yet in it God is not a debtor to us but to
himself, since he cannot deny himself : That [recouciiiaticn] alsoistheend
of man, not ditferiugas to substance from the enjoyment of God ; it is dis-
tinguished from it. Solely in relation to the previous interruption. — But on our
part the condition is, t/te reception of Christ; yet this is a condition not as
if FROM man ti;e dispenser of this act, but as being in man a certain pre-
requisite to reconciliation. "
180 ANNOTATA IN
ANNOTATIONES.
1. Nota ut hic sei'monem in re prorsus eadem licenter variet.
In Thesi quarta legimus " Deum reconciliari voluisse quibus-
dam ;" hic " homines reconciliandi et reconciliari" dicuntur,
idque " propter Chn'sti merita." Quid ergo ? An Christus non
meruit ut Deus hominibus reconciliaretur ? Non dixeris,
opinor. At tantundem hie dicitur. Certe Christus Deo, non
hominibus satisfecit. VerissivTium qnidem est, nos recte dici
Deo " esse reconciliandos," iit applicetur reconciliatio merito
Christi impetrata: ntinam autem apei-tius et liquidius nos docu-
isset, quo pacto " merita Christi prius applicanda" fuerint.
2. Ex meritorum Christi, ad horainem, qua intellectu et
vohnitate prseditum, applicatione, fa^dus Dei cum Electis
emergens, hoc esse dicitur, " se recipic.nlihis Christum reconcili-
alum iri," quod oracularem ambiguitatem, ex vocum sono, re-
ferre videtur. Sed prscstat sic intelligere, ac si clare affirmetur,
" Deum reconciliatum iri recipientibus Christum :" Quid autem
sit hoc, " Christum recipere," utinam explicasset. Sed quid si
iioluit, ne quid infirmum subter latens exponeretur : aut non
potuit, Thesibus, dicam, an hypothesibus salvis ?
3. Non moror sequentium amphibolias dictionmn, nee min.us
exactas loquendi formas vellico. Conditiones audio ; placet.
At " reconciliationem" ad Deum non esse rem aliam ab " ejus-
TRANSLATION.
JNNOTJTION^.
1. Observe with what licentiousness he varies his expressions, in this place,
on a matter that is entirely alike. In the Fourth Thesis, we read, "It was
the will of God to he reconciled" to certain individuals: while in this, men
are said "to be reconciled," and "the subjects of reconciliation," "on
account of the merits of (Christ." What is the inference ? Has not Christ
merited, that God may be reconciled to men ? I think, you would not ven-
ture to speak thus: Vet in this passage is expressed the same sentiment.
Christ has undoubtedly rendered satisfaction to God, and not to men. It is a
grand truth, that we are rightly said " to be reconciled to God, in order that
the reconciliation obtained by the merits of Christ may be applied." But I
wish our author had taught us in a clearer and more luminous manner, by
what means " the merits are first to be applied."
2. " From the application of the merits of Christ to man, considered as en-
dowed with an understanding; and vvili, arises God's covenant with the Fleet."
This is said to be " a betaking themselves to Christ to be reconciled ;" \\ hich
seems, from the soi'.nd of the words, to be the rehearsal of an o;acu!ar am-
biguity. But it is better to understand it as though it was openly athrmed,
that " God is ready to be reconciled to those wiio recei^'e Christ." 1 wish,
however, that he had ex])lained what he means by " receiving Christ." But
if he be unwilling to give this explanation, it is lest some concealed weakness
should lie exposed : Or, perhaps, he was not able to do tliis with safety to
his — " 'I'lieses" shall I call them, or " Hypotheses .'"
3. I will neither detain myself witli the equivocaficns of the subsequent
expressions, nor criticize those forms of sjjeaking which are not the most ac-
curate. I am delighted at hearing the word " conditions." »But I confess, I
cannot sulhciently comprehend how " recondliaticn to God is not a ditlereut
I'ARKF.Rl TUKSKS. 181
dem fruitione," sed idem hominis finis, nisi quod " relatione
interruptionis proeviae distinguatur," — fateor me non satis ca-
pere ; non quod 7}iinus intdligam, quam quod minus samtm esse
judicem. Sed transeat.
4. " Conditionem a parte nostra," scilicet " Christi rcccptionem,
ab homine non propriis natiine viribi/s prsstari, sed a Dei prae-
sertim gratia," damns: modo "hominis esse actum, a nobis,
mediante Dei evangelio, per Spiritus Sancti gratiam productum,"
non negetur.
6. Merainerit lector, ". conditionem banc," ab authore con-
cedi, " esse in homine quid ad reconciliationem prcerequisitum.
THESIS VI.
Applicatio utriusque conditionis Jit primo per deduc-
tionem earum ad acUim, ut sint : deinde per conservationem
in actii, id porro s'lnt. Deductio antem ad actum est recep-
tioni Christi prius, cum ex ea tanqiiam medio prairquisito
reconciliatio ineatur. Hcec vero vocatio did sold, qua
motus est a Deo, quo Christi reccptionem clectis ingenerat.
ANXOTATIOXES.
1. Advertat etiam, quod " ex ea, tanquam medio prserequi-
sito, reconciliatio ineatur," eodem hie fatente. An vero " base
VOCATIO dici soleat," in sacris iiteris, ambigo.
TRANSLATION.
matter from the enjo7/7)ient of God," or how •' it is the same end o{ man, dif-
fering from it in relation to the previous interruption :" Not so much because
I cannot understand some part of his meaning, as because 1 consider it to be
Vinsound. But, let that pass.
4. We grant, that the condition on our part, (" the reception of Christ,")
is not performed by man through the strength of his own nature, but that it is
specially performed by the grace of God . Provided that it be not denied to
be the act of man, produced by us through the medium of the gospel of God,
and bv the grace of the Holy Spirit.
5. The reader must recollect, it is the author's own concession, that •' this
condition is in man as a certain pre-requisite to reconciliation."
THESIS VI.
" The application of both these conditions is made, First, by the deduc-
tion of them to action, that they may be ; and, Secondli/, by [their] preser-
vation in action, that they may be [proceed] further. But deduction to
action is prior to the reception of Clirist, since from it, as from a mean
pre-required, reconciliation is commenced. But it is usual to call it Vo-
cation, that is, a motion from God, by which he produces the reception of
Christ in the Elect."
ANNOTATIONS.
1. Observe, that " from this deduction, as from a mean pre-required,
reconcliation is commenced," is the author's own confession in this passage.
But I have my doubts whether, in the sacred scriptures, " it is usual to call
it Vocation."
J 82 A \ NOT AT A IN
2. Reconciliatio hie dicitiir vocatiu, quas " motus est a Deo,
quo Cliristi receptionem electis ingenerat" Quidaiulio? "Re-
conciliatio generat receptionem, quce receptio est reconciliatione
prior, seu quid ei praercquisitum ?" Annon haec sunt valde
operosum nihil? Capiat qui potest. Fallor ? An hasc sibi
contradicunt? Certe Robertas Parkerus pater tuus fuit, non
idem tuus filius.
THESIS VII. I
Mot'io hominis est: idco movcns reguiritur, et mobile
quod movetur, et motus movcntis actus, et res motu facta :
De quihus or dine.
ANNOTATIONES.
" Motio hominis est," inquis. Cave dixeris. Quid ? An
hominera affirmas actus hujus dispensatorem, quod modo Thesi
Quinta negasti ? Rursus haereo, nisi " motio" pure pute passive
intelligatur. Pergo.
THESIS VIII.
Movcns est, qui intendit Jinem : principium et Jinis
Deus. Movens autem est, ut consilio agens ; proinde de-
cretOy quod pariter secundum proportlonem decreti circa
TRANSLATION.
2. Reconciliation is here said to be " vocation, that is a motion from God,
by whicli he produces tlie reception of Christ in the Elect." What do I
hear.' Does reconciliation produce reception, which reception is prior to
reconciliation and is " something that is a pre-requisite to it?" Are not
these very operose nullities ? Let hiui comprehend them who is capable.
Am I deceived .' Is each of these expressions contradictory to the other.'
Undoubtedly Robert Parker was your father, but your production is not
of the same lineage.
THESIS VII.
" Moving is the duty of man : A Mover therefore is required, as well as
something movable that may be moved, amotion as the act of moving, and
a thing produced by motion : Of each of which [we will treat] in its order.",
JNNOT^JTIOIVS.
"Motion," you say, " is the part of man." Beware of what you assert.
What', do vou affirm " man to be the dispenser of this act," which, in the
Fifth Thesis, you just now denied .' — I hesitate again, unless " moving"
be understood purely in a passive sense. But I proceed.
THESIS VIII.
" The Mover is he who intends the end , God is both the beginning and
the end. But a Mover is one who acts by counsel, and therefore by a
decree, which is absolute at the same time according to the proportion of the
I
PARKERl THESES, 183
^pnrm, absohdum est. Ncc cu'im finis absolute ab ipso in-
tcnti, ex falVihili conditione suspendi eventus potest.
ANNOT.iTlONES.
De " fine," qui ipse Deux dicitnr et est, litem non moveo.
Sed an " eodem modo Deus intendat se utfinem svuin, et homi-
nix Jincm, seu mcrcedem viagnam, consilio, proinde decreto,"
merito ambigo. Intendit quippe se Jinetn situm, opinor, natura ;
SE autem liominis Jincm, consilio. Nee satis assequar, nisi statu-
enduni sit " Dei decreta esse ipsiim Deum," et " posse seipsitm
non velle sicut dtcreta potuisset facere non volnisse; et Demn
seipsmn, sicut decreta, secundum voluntatis suje consilium
facere," arbitremiir.
Non tamen negaverim hominis finem Deum (si media ad eum
assequendum connotet,) a Deo horaini absolute intendi. Neque
hinc metuendum est, si Dei intentio finis liumani sic explicetur,
ne exfalUbili (Deus nam ftdli neqiiit,) conditione fnon dico vcccs-
sitaia) eventus suspendatur, quani conditionem srpra, Thesi
Quinta, statuisti esse " Christi receptionem." Hanc nam secun-
dum Evangelii vocem, dicentis Q.ui credit salvnbilnr, in decreto
hoc circa hominem includi affirm o. Adeo ut certo certius et in-
fallibiliter, finis hujusmodi eventus "ex faliibili conditione non
suspendatur."
THESIS IX.
Et sicut in comparatione adjinem, sic qua id quod dc-
TRANSLATION.
decree concerning the end. For the event of the end which has been abso-
lutely intended by him, cannot be suspended on a fallible condition."
ANNOTATIONS.
1 enter into no controversy respecting the end, which is stated to be God
himself, and is so in reality. Bat I entertain some just doubts, vvhetiier in
one and ths same manner God, by his counsel and therefore by his decree,
intends himself r/s his own end, and ris the end of man, or [his] "exceed-
ing great reward." Because, I think, he intends himself as his own end,
by [his] nature; hni as the end of man, by counsel. Nor can I properly
comprehend [his assertion], unless it be stated, \h^t the decrees of God are
Himself, and that it is possible /?»• him not to will Himself , as it might be
possible «c/ to will to make decrees ; and unless we suppose that God mahes
Himself, as he does his decrees, " according to the counsel of his own will."
Yet I have not denied, that God absolutely intends himself to man as man's
end, if he points out the means to obtain it. Nor is there any cause to fear,
when the intention of man's end is thus explained, lest " the e^'ent should
be suspended on a condition that is fallible," (for (iod is not fallible,) — I do
not say on one that is necessitated, — which condition you have stated in the
Fifth Thesis to be the reception of Christ. For I alfirm, that this condition
[" the reception of Christ"] is included in this decree concerning man,
according to the expression of the Gospel which sajs, He that believeth shall
be saved. It is therefore nivjst certain and infallible, that " the end of an
event of this description is not suspended on a fallible condition.
THESIS TX.
" And a in conijiarison to the end, so in reference to what is decreed
184 ANNOTATA IN
cernitur est effectus cntis j)7'imi ; a quo sicut omnium ent'utm
dependent essentia, virtuies, actiones, (Rom. xi, ?!)Q,) sic
pracipue supernaturalis honi. (Jac. i, 17.^ Hinc vocati-
onem independente consilio producens, turn per sapientiam
de forma deliberate turn per voluntatem intendit secundum
illamjhrmam ex suppositiotie jJoteiitiee. Forma ilia exemr-
plar est et mensura veritatis in re, id prout ipsa faerit, sic
rem Jure necesse sit dependeriter ah ea. Hinc ex conditione
in re non vult conversionem Deus, sed secundum deliheratio-
nem sapientia sua, voluntas intendit, et potentia excquitur
immutabiUs. Et quia secundum sapientiam et honitatem
vult et potest, proinde J'aturam piravidet virtualiter a volun-
tate pendentem.
ANNOTATIONES.
Sicut decretum circa finem, seu " decretum secundum pro-
portionem decreti circa finem," (stylo et phrasi horridis, hac-
tenus inauditis, et mortalium captum pene superantibus,) statim
dixerat, " sic" (quod hoc " sic" sibi vult?) " id quod decernitur"
(quid tibi est " id" istud ? An neque rnoiio, nee movens, nee
mobile, nee motus, nee res motu-fada ? Quanta hie confusio,
quantus tumultus !,) " sic id quod decernitur/' inquis, " est
effectus Entis Primi ; a quo dependere omnium essentias,
TRANSLATION.
"being the effect of tbe First Being, on whom (Rom. xi, 3fi,) the essences,
•virtues, and actions of all beings depend, and principally those of super-
natural good. (James i, 17.) Hence producing vocation by [his] indepen-
dent counsel, he deliberates concerning the form by his wisdom, ana he
intends [purposes] by his will according to that form on the supposition of
power : That form is the exemplar and measure of truth in the thing ; that
as it [the form] was, so the thing itself must of necessity be, dependently on
it. Hence from the condition in the thing God wills not conversion ; but
according to the deliberation of his own irisdom bis will intends, and his
immutable power executes [it] : And, because according to his wisdom and
goodness he employs his will and his power, therefore he foresees that it
[conversion] will afterwards occur, being virtually dependent on [his] will.
ANNOTJTIONS.
After having said, that " as the decree concerning the end," or " the
clecree aecordinj' to the proportion of the decree concerning the end," he
immediately adds, (in a style and phraseologj' that are most barbarous, that
have never "before been heard, and that nearly transeend the comprehension
of mortals,) " so in reference to that whichis decreed hein^ the effect of the
First Bcin^," &c. What meaning has this particle "so?" And what do
you do with the phrase, " that which is decreed ?" Is it neither something
moving, a Mover, something that is movable, motion, nor the thin^ pro-
duced ny motion .' [See page 182.] What confusion and tumult are nere!
You slate, that " what is decreed is an eftcct of ihe First Being ;" and I do
PAAKERI TllKfiES. 185
virtutes, actiones praecipue boni supernatural is," nullus dubito.
Quid ergo? " Hinc," inquis, " vocationem" {reconciliationem
supra + dixeras) " independente consilio producens," (in Jieri
intelligis dum producturus est, an in facto esse quandoproduxit?
ambigua nam est oratio,) " turn per sapientiam," inquis, " de
forma deliberat, tum per voluntalem intendit secundum illam
formam ex suppositione potentise." Quid audis, lector ? Evan-
gelium an schoiam ? Apostolos an Sorbonnam ? Tran seat hoc
omne. " Sapientia Divnia de reconciliationis forma deliberat,
Voluntas secundum formam illam intendit, Potentia exequitur:"
Concedo. Perge,
Forma, inquis, ilia exemplar est, et mensura veritatis in re,
ut prout ipsa fuerit, sic rem fore necesse sit dependenter ab
ea. Audio, sed cave me raox iJ-^Ta^aaei. eis awo yev(^^ te fallas
et incauto lectori scandalum objicias. Jam metaphysica Veritas
sen rei, quasi thematis incomplexi auditur, postea (ut mihi
etiam liceat griphos loqui) logicam axiomatis afFectionem, veri-
tatem thematis complexi, quasi formse dictae exemplaris exem-
platum, Veritas rei, esset veritatis axiomaticae exemplar,
deducere satages. Fi'ustra. Reconciliatio sen vocatio (quando
visum est sic confundere) sit sane res a forma ista dependens. t
t Thes. vi.
■f Hanc rem motufactam, vocationem seu reconciliationem non esse, sed receptionem Christi
prserequisitam. — Thes. 6.
TRANSLATION.
not doubt, that "on Him depend the essences, virtues, and actions of all
beings, and particularly those of supernatural good." What is the infer-
ence ? "Hence;" you say, "producing vocation by his independent
counsel," &c. But, in the Sixth Thesis, you had called this vocation " re-
conciliation." Aud when you mention the term "producing," do you
understand it as in a course of making , while he is about to produce it, or
as being actualli/ done, when he has produced it ? — for that phrase is ambi-
guous. You proceed, " Producing vocation by his independent counsel, he
deliberates concerning the form by his wisdom, and he purposes by his will
according to that form on the supposition of power." Reader, what
expressions are these which you hear .'' Is it the language of tlie Oospel or
of the Scliools, of the Apostles or of the Doctors of the Sorbonue .' But
suffer all this to pass. — " Divine Wisdom deliberates concerning the form
of reconciliation, the Divine Will purposes according to that form, and it is
executed by the Divine Power " This 1 readily grant, proceed therefore.
You say, " That form is the exemplai and measure of truth in the thing ;
that as it [the form] was, so the thing itself must of necessity be dependently
on it." I hear all this ; but take care lest you soon " migrate into another
region," deceive yourself, and place a stumbling-block in the way of the
incauiious reader, 'i'he metaphysical truth, or the truth of the thing, as of
a simple proposition, is already heard : If I also may be permitted to speak
in enigmas, you will now endeavour to deduce the logical affection of the
axiom, the truth of the complex proposition, — as though " the truth of the
thing" (which is a copy from " the form" called " the exemplar or pat-
tern,") were the pattern of the axiomatic truth. But vain will be your
attempt. Let reconciliation or vocation be " the thing dependent on this
form," since it is your pleasure thus to confoimi) the two terms, -f- But no
f Vet this thing produced by motion, is stated, in the Sixth Thesis, to be neither I'oca/iu/i
jsua rccuiiiiliaiion, but " the pre-required reception of Christ."
N
186 AN NOT ATA IN
Non quaeritur verum de modo et ordine, r[uem satius est erudite
ignorare, quam in abscondita Dei ^ap^l te ingerere. Hinc, iiiquis :
Utide, inqiiam ? " Ex conditione i" re non vult conversionem
Deus ;" (reconciliation vocatio, conversio, Christi reccptio, idem
tibi sunt ; verum quo Doctore praeeunte ?) Ex ? Absit. Quid
si secundum? Non affirmo: Sine conditione non vult. Quid
si asseram ? Certe bona tua cum venia fecero, utpote qui " re-
ceptionem Christi esse quid reconciliationi prserequisitum," modo
bis Svfnt>!ir,6-/ji,^ affirmaveras. Sed de his, post opportuniorem di-
cendi locum inveniam.
Quomodo igitur vult Deus conversionem ? " Secundum de-
liberationem sapientias suie, voluntas," inquis, " intendit, et
potentia exequitur immutabilis." Recte, si dictio " immutabilis"
pro 71071 mutanda postquam eve?dum sortita est, vel actu svperavei'it
humanam resistentiam, intelligatur. Quid balbutis ? Eloquere :
Potentiam inteiligis " irresistibilem ;" et " hanc Deum exerere,"
clare fatebor, " in rebus, actibusque ab ipso solo, nuUo medi-
ante, productis." Sed an conversio, &c., sint hujusmodi, suo
loco.
2. An satis has voces " secundum sapientiam et veritatem
vult et potest" ad exactam dicendi rationem et obrussam exegerit,
lector judicet. " Proinde futuram," pergis, " pi-aevidet et vir-
tualiter a voluntate pendentem." Futuram scilicet rem. Quam ?
" Conversionem, Christi receptionem, praevidet futuram." Recte,
TRANSLATION.
enquiry is instituted into the mode and order, of which it is much better
for you to observe a learned ignorance, than to obtrude yourself into the
hidden depths of the Deity. " Hence," you say ; and I ask, " Whence?"
" Hence trom the condition in the thing, God wills not conversion." Kecon-
ciUation, vocation, conversion, and the reception of Christ, are all one and
the same thing to you ; but what Divine is your precursor in this mode of
speaking? Do you say, " from the condition ?" Let not such an expres-
sion escape! What, if you were to say, "according to the condition?"
1 do not affirm : " God wills it not ivithout a condition." What if 1 should
make such an assertion ! With your good leave, 1 certainly will do it, be-
cause you are the man who has twice affirmed, that " the reception of
Christ is a certain pre-requisite ." (Thesis 5 and 6.) But I shall find a more
suitable opportunity to treat on these topics.
In what manner then does God will conversion ? You reply, " According
to the deliberation of his own wisdom his will intends, and his immutable
power executes it." This is correct, if the epithet " immutable" be under-
stood to mean " something that cannot be changed after it has appointed
the event, or has actually overcome human resistance." Why do you
stammer or hesitate ? Speak out plainly : By this expression you under-
stand irresistible power. Such a power, 1 will frankly confess, God exerts in
things and actions produced by himself alone, without any means : But
we will enquire, in ihe proper place, whether conversion, reconciliation, &c.,
be actions of this description.
2. The reader must judge, whether this phrase, "According to his wis-
dom and goodness he employs his will and his power," will bear examination
by the method and test of exact speaking. — You proceed to say, " There-
fore he foresees that it will afterwards occur," and that " it is virtually
dependent on the will." What is this which will occur ? " Conversion,
the reception of Christ:" You state very correctly, " He foresees that it
I
PARKERI THKSES. 187
sed vereor an sensu tuo. "A voluntate pendentem" (Dei, in-
telligis, opinor,) recte, " praecipue," sed quid sibi vult '* virtu-
aliter ?" Nugae !
Hactenus fundamenta operose, in metaphysicae nescio cujus
arena, et scholarum quisquiliis jacta, mole quantum vis exigua
ruunt sua. Qui possunt ergo quae superstruuntur omnia non
labi, non concidere? Tantum abest ut "his fundamentis
positis error concidat," nisi qui istis inaedificatur.
THESIS X.
Ex supra-positis liiscefondamentis concidit error in gj-adu
triplici. — Primus. Decretum Velleitatis, quo determina-
tionem ad conversionis actum, ad quern necessitate Iwminem
non posse crediiur, desiderare solum Jingitiir Deus. — Secun-
dus. Desid€rat(Z illius defer minationis pr.evisio per scientiam
mediam, qua depende7itis ah homine. — Tertius. Ex pravisd
determinatione, conditionati concursus intentio concomi-
tanter in effectum.
Et Primo : Velleitas ilia decretum non est : hoc enim im~
pcraiitis est ex suppositione pote7itite ; ilia vero purus volun-
tatis actus cum potent iee defcctu. Si emm quod possum voloy
effectum impei-o: si quod non possum, desidero ; assequi
TRANSLATION.
will occur ;" but, I fear, it is not true in your acceptation. When you say,
" It is dependent on the will," I suppose you mean " on the will of God."
This is ritcht, if you add the word " principally." But what meaning has
the word " virtually' " Mere trifling !
The foundations which have hitherto been laid with such great labour in
the sand of l-kuow-not what kind of Metaphysics, and in the rubbish of the
Schools, now give way and fall down under their own weight, however
light they are or trifling. How is it possible, therefore, for all the super-
structure erected on these foundations to avoid falling down together and
being completely subverted ? So far is fke/all of erro?- from being a conse-
quence of the laying of these foundations, that no error is overthrown
except that which is built upon titem.
THESIS X.
" From these foundations supra-posited [placed above] , error falls down
together in three degrees. First. The Decree of Velleity, by which God is
only supposed to desire a. determination to the act of conversion, to which
he is believed not to be able to necessitate man. — Secondly. The foresight
or prescience of that desired determination by means of Middle science, f
with regard to that determination being dependent upon man. — Thirdlv.
Through the foreseen determination, the intention of a conditional concur-
rence accompanying the efi^ect.
" And, J4r*^,That Velleiti/ is not a decree : For the latter is the part of one
•who commands, on a supposition of power; but the former [velleity] is a
pure act of the will, with a defect of power. For if I will that which I am
able [to obtain], I command the efi'ect : But if I will any thing which I am
t App. M.
N 2
188 AN. NOT AT A IN
eHtm non possum quod volo. Proinde etiam md'ignum Deo :
Nam Omnipotknti poieniiie dcfechcm adfingit, et assequendi
voti inccrtam sjyem F.elicis>simo. Quid emmjelicitas uUud,
nisi boni expetiti certa fruitio ? Qind vera omnipotentia,
7iisi jwtentia omnium in omnibus ? Denique, objecti etiam
ratione impossihile. Primmn enlm poientiam transfert in
homlnem, qui creatura est et ^u^ikoc.
ANNOTATIONES.
*' Ex supra-positis," inquis, "hisce fundamentis concidit
error in gradu tripHci." Quid video — " Fundainenta snpra-
posita?" Certe humi sternatur aedificiurn necesse est, mox t'un-
damenta concidunt. Cave ne Jesus Christus inter " supra-
posita fundamenta" subvertatur.t
Sed ad rem : Neque nam in vocabulis moramur. " Ex sitpra-
dicfis," vis dicere, "fundamentis error triplex concidit : De
vjelleitate, prjevisione per scientiam mediara, ex praevisa deter-
minatione conditionati concarsus intentio concomitanter in
effectum." Laconice satis ! Sed quid, si nemo mortalium hos
errores, aut eorura aliquem erraverit sic enunciatum ? Vellei-
tatem agnoscet non-nemo avepoivoiraews Deo recte ascribi posse ;
t 1 Cor. iii, 11. Vide Amiot. ad Thes. 4.
TRANSLATION.
not able [to gain], I desire it, — for I cannot obtain that which I have willed.
Tberefore it [Velleity] is unworthy of God; because it betokens a defect in
that power which is Omnipotent, and an uncertain hope in One that is
Most Happy of obtaining his wishes. For what is felicity, except the
assured fruitio7i of the good desired ? And wliai is Omnipotence, but ^Ae
frtwer of all in all ? — Lustli/. It is also impossible with regard to its object,
or it [or He] transfers the first [or primary] power to man, who is a crea-
ture and sensual."
ANNOTATIONS.
You say, '* From these foundations which have been placed above, error
falls down in a threefold degree." What is this which I see ? " Found-
ations placed above!" The edifice must undoubtedly dispread the ground,
as soon as the foundations full down together. Beware lest Jesus Christ be
subverted among " those foundations which have been placed above." f
But, not to be detained by mere verbiage, we proceed to the matter.
Instead of " foundations placed above" and " an error in three degrees,"
you wish to say, " From the foundations above-named, a three-fold error
♦* falls down : (1.) 'J'hat concerning Velleity ; (2.) that concerning foresight,
" by means of middle knowledge ; and {'.\.) that concerning the intention,
'• through the foreseen determination, of a conditional concurrence accom-
" panyinc it into an elfect." All this is said Laconically enough. But of
what use is it, if no mortal man ever yet fell into such errors, or into any
one of them as it is here described ! Speaking according to the feelings and
affections of men, anyone will acknowledge 'that Velleiiy may be correctly
attributed to God : Yet he who will not attempt to deny, that God can ne-
1 i Cor. iii, 2. See Uw Annotations to tlic fourth Thesis.
PAUKEUl Tfii.srs. 189
qui tamen " eum ad conversionis actum recessitare potuisse"
(absque esset decreto suo in contrarium) inficias non iverit;
" veile autem Deura, ordine decretorum stante," aegre conces-
serit. SciENTiAM mediam ex permultis sacras scripturEe periodis
astruent noniiiilli, qui lamen "determinationem" (nota bene) qua
ab homine (solo, aut principcditer " dependentem") rotunde
negaverint. Denique vix, aut ne vix quenquam reperias, qui
erroreni tertium, prout hie expressum, intelligat, nedum teneat.
" Conditionatum quendam coiicursum quidevn concern itanter in
effectum" recte explicatum, viz. ut " post Dei gratiam pulsan-
tem, prasvenientem, operantem, cum co-operante/' si quis
asserat errare eum ostendendum erat, non prjEstruendum, ex
fundamentis (quid dico lahiUbus ?) corrutis et collapsis.
Quid si " decretum velleitas non sit?" Non est ergo (ut
hominum more et ad captum mortalium loquamur) velleitas?
Est quidem voluntatis actus, non autem (uti affirmas) " in Deo
cum potentiae defectu." Voluntas Divina a me supponitur po-
tentiam Omnipotentis quandam habere comitem, et executricem
quoties et quatenus voluntati ejusdem libet earn ex consilio suo
exercere, Non autem semper per pofejilicnn Omnipotentle
ubique voluntatem suam exequitur Deus : Prassertim ubi decre-
tum est (ut formulis tuis utar) " iraperantis" (scilicet obedi-
entiam) aut " praerequisitum quid" (agnosce phrases tuas !)
homini, sub praemii et poenae spe metuque. Pergis. " Si enim,"
inquis, *' quod possum volo, effectum impero : Si quod non pos-
TRANSLATION.
cessitafe to the act of conversmi, (unless it be contrary to his own decree,)
will scarcely be induced to grant, that God can will [such necessity] as lon|r
as the order of his decrees remains unchanged. Some persons will establish
middle knowledge from many passages of scripture, who will yet roundly
deny tlie detenu hiation with respect to its being " solely or principally de-
pendent on man." Indeed, you can scarcely find any one who will be able
to understand the third error as it is here expressed ; much less can you
discover a solitary individual who holds such an error. If any one asserts,
that " a certain conditional concurrence, ivhich is accompanied into cm effect,
is rightly explained when it is stated to operate, after the propelling and
preventing grace of God, with him who is a co-worker," — it must be shewn,
that such a person is iu an error, before any further erections be placed on
foundations — shall 1 call them "liable to give way," or " already fallen
dowu and collapsed together .'"
If '' I'elleili/ he not a decree," what is the consequence.' That we may
speak after the manner of men and in accommodation to the capacities of
mortals, is it therefore any less T'elleity ? It is truly " an act of the will ;"
but it is not, as you assert, " an act of the will in God ivith a defect of
poirer." The Divine Will is supposed by me to have a certain power of an
Omnipotent Being accompanying it, and executing [or acting] as often and
as far as it pleases this Divine \\ ill to exercise it [the power] according to
its own counsel. But Gud does not always and in every place execute his
will by « power of Oinni/wtence ; especially in those instances in which, to
employ your own expressions, " the decree is of one who commands" obedi-
ence, or as " some pre-requisite to man," [you will recollect your own
phraseology,) under a hojie of reward and a fear of punishuieut. — You then
proceed : — '' For if I will that which I am able [to obtain], 1 command the
effect : But if I will any thing which I am not able [to gain], I desire it ;
N 3
190 ANNOTATA IN
sum, desidero ; assequi enim non possum quod volo." Quid
mihi et tihi, bone vir, quid velis aut possis? De Deo loquimur,
qui quod vult facit, et quod velle potest, facere vel effectum dare
potest. Quod vult facit, quatenus et quousque facere vult.
Quid autera si non semper velit, qucusque tu eum velle facere
opinaris ? Noli Deum ayrelscrtov et Omnipotentem tuo mo-
dulo metiri. Et tu tamen, nunquamne experiris voluntatem
tuam potentiae tuae non imperare ut ad extremuni virium ubi-
que et semper agat ?
Si a te causa solitaria res in arbitrio tuo penitus sita agenda
fuerit, effectum dabis : Secus opinor, eveniet, si cum causis
sociis, aut instrumentalibus (quae ab officio cessare, vel te desti-
tuere possint, praesertim si hoc ex tuo ipsius instituto sit ut
possint) imperatum sit perducendum in actum. Sed quid tibi
vult " effectum impero ?" Ambigua locutio, et Anglicismum
sapiens, si etiam intelligatur ut significet (uti hie videtur) " finem
seu effectum intentum assequor." Praeterea, " si volo," inquis,
" quod non possum, desidero:" Rursus ambigua dictio. " De-
sidero," si careo significet, recte : si cupio, male : Quippe doles,
desperas, irasceris ; sic homines solent, quando quod non possvnit
volunt. At "indignum est Deo," et "proinde:" Qu&re proi/ule f
An quia, quod tu vis et non potes, " desideras .''" At Deu3
quodcunque vult, quatenus vult, potest, et facit. At " indigsi
TRANSLATION.
i
for 1 cannot obtain that which I have willed." Good man ! what have you
and I to do with what t/nu will to be done or what j/oii are capable of doin^ ?
We are speaking about God, who does whatever he wills ; and who is able
to do, and to give effect to, whatever he is capable of willing. He does
whatever he wills, so far and so long as it is his pleasure to do it. What
harm is there, if he does not always will to act so far or so long, as i/ott
think it is his pleasure to do ? Allow not yourself to measure God, thft
Independent and Omnipotent Being, by your own small and slender propor-
tions.— And yet, on reflection, do you never experience, that your own will
does not command your power to act in every case and on all occasions
according to the extreme stretch of its capabilities .'
If a thing, placed entirely in your own will and power, is to be performed
by yourself as a solitary cause, r/ou will produce the effect : But this wilt
not be the case, I think, if it be commanded to be brought into performance
by associated or instrumental causes, that can cease from fulfilling their duty
or can abandon you, — especially if their being capable of cessation or aban-
dnnment be in accordance with your design. But what do you intend by the
words, " I command the effect ?" It is an ambiguous expression that
savours of an Anglicism, — even if it be understood to signify, what it seems
to do in this place, " I obtain the end or effect intended." — You next say :
" if I will that which I am not able [to gainj, 1 desire it." This is another
ambiguous expression. If desidero signify " to want" or " to be without
any tiling," your phrase is correct. But if it be intended to convey the
meaning of " I long for it," or " I covet it," the phrase is improper;
because, in such circumstances, you indulge in grief, despair, and angjer,
as men usually do when they will what they are notable [to obtain]. — Yoa
then say : " It is therefore unworthy of God." But why is this Mord "there-
fore" used .' Is it because ?/o?« desire that which you will, and which you
are not able [to obtain] .> But God is able to do and actually performs what-
ever he wills, and as far as he wills. But, 1 ask, '* Why is it unworthy (tf
PARKERI THESES. 191
numestDeo:" Quare?, inquam. " Quia Omnipotenti poten-
tige," inquis, "defectum adfingit." Minime, inquam, nee
Omnipotentis pofe/itice cujuscunque modi, nedum omnipotenti
potentiae cui resisti nequit. Si quern defectum adfingeret, hie
esset voluntati adfingendus non imperanti, minime autem poteti'
tice, voluntatis (ut ita dicam) imperata semper facienti, sed secun-
dum voluntatis intentionem et irapprium,et eorundem mensuram.
At " adfingit etiara," inquis, " assequendi voti incertam spera
F^LicissiMo." Noli timere, bone vir, salva res est. Falli aut
incertus esse nequit Deus : Hoc certo certius scio, etiarasi nee
tu, qui metaphysica tota imbutus es, modum explicare potis
fueris. " Nescire velle quae Magister Optimus docere non vult,
erudita est inscitia." Quod de Fcelicitale et Omnipoie7itia philo-
sopharis, prsetereo, ne actum agam.
" Denique," inquis, " objecti latione est impossibile." Quid
est hoc impossibile'? Quid objecti raiione? Scilicet, opinor, vis,
" velleitalem (more humano loquor) quandam esse in Deo, impos-
sibile esse." Quare .'', inquam. " Primam," inquis, " poten-
tiam transfert in hominem, qui creatura est et ^vxikos," Quis
" transfert primam," &c. .'' Deus } Quid primam S^c. iransfert ?
Hie de velleitate error, opinor. Minime autem inquam ego :
sed "hominem," non negabit, " quoad sensum gratiae pulsantis
et praevenientis esse omnino passivum, quamvis in consensu"
(dicam et assensu interdum ?) " esse plerumque, a gratia actum,
TRANSLATION.
God ?" You reply, " Because it imputes a defect to that Power which is
Omnipotent." It ascribes no such deficiency to any species of Omnipotent
Power, much less to an Omnipotent Power that cannot be resisted. If it
betokened any defect at all, that defect would be imputable to a TF'illwhich
did not issue its commands; and on no account to a Power which olwai/s
performs (if I may so term it,) the comjnands promulgated by the will, but
which executes them according to the intention and mandate of the will, and
according to the measure of the commands themselves. — You also declare,
that " it attributes, to One who is Most Happy, an uncertain hope of
obtaining his wishes." Good man! never fear; that matter is in perfect
safety : For God can neither be deceived nor be uncertain. Of this truth I
am persuaded with the assurance of complete certainty, — although you, who
are entirely imbued with Metaphysical lore, may not be capable of ex-
plaining the manner. " An unwillingness to become acquainted with those
matters which the Best Master is unwilling to teach, is [a good trait in]
learned and skilful ignorance." That I may not appear to discuss those
points upon which I have already treated, I pass by all that you are pleased
to philosophize about Felicity and Omnipotence.
You tell us, " Lnstli/, It is impossible wiili respect to its object." What
is intended by " impossible," and what by " relation to its object?" 1
think you wish to state, that " it is impossible for such a thing as t'elleiti/
to be in God," — speaking after the manner of men. Again I put the
question, "Why?" You reply, "For it [or He] transfers the first [or
primary] power to man, who is a creature and sensual." Is it God that is
the transferrer? And what is this prima,-}/ jjoiver which he transfers? 1
think this must be erroneous — to talk oi' primary power when treating
about I'elleity. But 1 say, this transferring to man is not true, and he will
not deny, that man is altogether passive with regard to his sense or per-
ceptiou of propelling and preventing grace ; although, when acted upon by
192 AN NOT AT A IS
ACTivuM." Sed primavi potcntiam omnes, certe Christian!, in
Deum transferunt, eique acceptam ferunt Facessant, qui
aliter sentiunt.
THESIS XI.
2. Prohide nee ohservatur determhiatio ilia scienti.e
MEDi.E. H'mc enim idea rei prins in creatura esset, quam
in Deo : cognitionis etiam Divina principium a re Jinitd
procederet : ipsumque adeo Summuni Bonum, Omnipotejis,
Infinitum^ Pjirus Actus^ dependenter a voluntatis creutae
consilio et prov'identia moveret. Quinetiam impossibile
idem : Quippe sc'ihile est ante scieniiam, sicut to ov ante to iiBfi.
Priest autem, dum preecedit ipsius e»va<, «(r»a, vTrap^tc. At
nihil est nee existit, quod a Dei voluntate non est nee existit.
Si prascit igitur priiisquam velit, pi'cescit nihil. At si aliquid
esset in homine, quod sine prceeunte voluntate prcesciy-et,
quale est in Jieri, prasciretur a causa dependens. Causa
vero si non pj-iedeteiminetur a Deo, mere contingens est.
Hinc incerta vicissim esset Divina cognitlo. Quare pra-
scieniia non esset, quee effecti est non contingentis sed neces-
sariijudicium.
TRANSLATION.
grace, he is generally active in giving his consent — shall I also call it his
assent sometimes ? But all true Christians transfer the yrimury power to
God, and declare that it is received by him. Let those persons be dismissed
who entertain ditTerent sentiments.
THESIS XI.
" Secondly. That determination therefore of middle knowledge is not
observed. For, from hence the idea of a thing would be in the creature
before it was in God; the commencement of the Divine Knowledge would
also proceed from a thing that is finite ; and thus the Chief Good itself,
which is an Oiiunpotent, Infinite, and Pure Act, would move in dependence
upon the counsel and foresight of a created will. Besides, it is impossible;
because tliat winch is capable of being kiiou'n must be in existence before
the hnow ledge of it, — as entity itself must have precedence of its circum-
stances. But its being, essence, or existence, wnile it has the precedence,
enjoys also the pre-eminence. But nothing is or exists, which has not its
being or existence from the will of God. If therefore he foreknows bel'ore he
wills, he foreknows nothing. But if there was any thing in man, which
he [God] could foreknow without the aid of his will preceding, (such as any
thing that is in a course of being made,) it would be foreknown as dependent
on a cause. But if the cause be not predetermined by God, it is merely
contingent : Hence, of course, the Divine Knowledge would be uncertain.
"Wherefore, it would not be foreknowledge, which is the judgment of an
effect is not contingent but necessary."
FARKKKI THESES. 193
JNXOTATIONES.
Qimmvis milii nulla necessitas incumbat Sctentiam Media m
astruencH, qiiasdara tamen non obsciira hujusmodi scientiae
rerum, ex siippositione circumstaiitia? hujiis aut illius eventu-
rarum vel secus, vestigia in Facris literi? apparent. Ut exemplar
mittam de Davide in Keilah notissimum, (Sam. xxiii, 12,) de
Chorazin etiam et Bethsaida ; (Matt, xi, 21 ; Luke x, 13 ;) con-
sule, inter alia ejusdem nunieri, dicta Salvatoris nostri ad sacer-
dotes et scribas sciscitantes, Num tu cs ille Christus? Die tiohix :
dicentis, " Si vobis dixero, nequaquam credetis." Et versa
sequente, " Quod si etiam interrofjavero, nequaquam respon-
debitis mihi, neque absolvetis." (I^uke xxii, 67, 68.) En tibi
tres eventus non eventuros ex suppositione etiam ipsius Christi
Domini nostri ! Ctetera niitto. Frustra ergo a te quseritur,
vel jjotiussupponitur, quid prius sit aut posterius ; frustra etiam,
(quod non capis) " impossibile" affirmas. Nee rationes a te pro-
ductae aliud quid probant, quam quod plurimis sacrce scripturas
affirmationibus sole clarioribus oculos obnubis, ut refrageris.
Nee minus ideo prcBscientia Dei, eaque certa de efFectis natura
TRANSLATION.
ANNOTJTIONS.
Althoug-h no necessity is imposed upon nie of establishing; AFiddle Know-
ledge, yet in the sacred scriptures certain not obscure vestiges are apparent
of this iN.ind of Knowledge, — uf thiug-s that will happen thus or otheiwise, on
the supposition of the occurrence of this or that circumstance. Omitting the
the well-known example of David in Keilah, (1 Sam. xxiii, 12,) f and of
Chorazin and Bethsaida, (Matt, xi, 21 ; Lukex, \?>,] consult, among other
sayings of the same description, the answer of our Saviour to the Chief
Priests and Scribes who had asked, " Art thou the Christ ? Tell us." And
he said unto them, " If I tell you, ye will not believe." In the subsequent
verse he adds, " If I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go."
(Luke xxii, 67, 68.) You have here three events specified, which yet will
not occur even on the supposition of Christ our Lord himself. The rest of
j'our remarks I pass l)y. In vain therefore is the question, or rather the
supposition, which you raise about what \s prior ot \\\\dit\% posterior ; and
useless is your affirmation respecting " the impossibility [of middle know-
ledge]", which you do not comprehend. Neither do the reasons produced
by you tend to prove any thing more than this, — that you shut your eyes
against several of the affirmations in the Holy Scriptures, which are clearer
tiian the sun, for the purpose of contradicting them. The foreknowledge of
God would be no less certain respecting etfects which are in their own
nature contingent, although it may appear uncertain to you who measure
t This case is very remsykable : David had ordered Abiathar the priest to bring the ephod,
and enquired of the Lord, "Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into the hands of .Saul ?
Will Saul come dovra, as thy servant hath heard ? O Lord God of Israel, I beseech thee,
tell thy servant." .*.nd the Lord said, " He will comedo-vn.'"— Then said David, " Will the
m2n of Keilah deliver me and my men into the h.-ind of Saul?" And the Lord said, "They
will deliver thee up." — Tiioii David and his men, which were about six hundred, arose and
departed out of Keilah, and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul, that
David was esciped from Keilah ; and he forbore to go forth.
Respectmg Chorazin and Bethsaida, it is said : If the mighty woiks whie'i were done in you
had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented loug ajo in sackcloth and
shes— EDITOR.
194 ANNOTATA IX
sua conHngentihns esset, quamvis tibi Scientiam Divinam ex
tua finita et fallaci omnium mortaliura metienti ita videatur.
Quid nos scire ex suppositione possimus, vix ipsi cognoscimus :
quid autem scire possit Deus, vix, ac ne vix ; nisi quod Om-
NisciuM EUM ESSE, infallibiliter scire possumus, ac debemus.
THESIS XII.
Denique. Corruit s'lmul ex conditione 'preeinsa concursus
intentlo, quippe qua; turn independenti oiaturee Dei repngnat^
turn vocatlonis decretum non est, ut pustea declarabimics.
ANNOTATIONES.
Quia te postea declaraturum, ais, paucula ista, quae de errore
tertio dicenda habuisti, hie istorum examine supersedebimus,
te illic praestolaturi.
At at talia cogitanti mihi jam subolet, dum sequentia per-
functorie lustro, qnamobrem " hte Tlieses totse, scilicet gemmcce,
et hoc solo nomine redarguendae," (si prajfatori credimus,)
Latine etiamnum prostent, necdum verimculum calleant: Nemo,
opinorj apte et ad mortalium captum, Anglico redderet, aut red-
ditas intelligeret, Lectorem baud facile invenissent, quae jam
a nonnemine, nescio quo, eruditionis laudem captante, immane
quantum !, allaudantur. Quid ais, Clarissime Prsefator, " Istasne
TRANSLATION.
the DivtNE Knowledge by your own, wbicli is finite, — or by that of mortals,
which is fallacious. We ourselves scarcely understand what it is possible for
vs to know on supposition. But to measure the extent of the possibility' of
God's hio%vledge, is beyond our power : The only thing concerning it which
we may and ought infallibly to know, is, that he is Omniscient I
THESIS XII.
** hastly. The intention o^ a concurrence from a foreseen condition is at
the same time destroyed, both because it is repugnant to the independent
nature of God, and because it is not the decree of vocation, as we shall
hereafter declare."
ANNOTATIONS.
Because you say, that " you will hereafter declare the few things which
you had to say about this third error," we will now cease from our examin-
ation of them, being willing to wait till you have them ready.
But while 1 slightly cast my eyes over those which follow, and was re-
flecting upon such topics, I begun to suspect the reason why these Theses
are still sold in Latin, and why they have not yet been published in our
native language; alihough, if we may credit the editor, " the only fault
with which they can be charged, is, that they are entirdy studded uith
gems J" The reason of their yet remaining untranslated, is this, — no man
could, in my opinion, render "them into English so as to be giasped by the
comprehension of mortals, or could himself understand them when trans-
lated. A single reader would wiih diflicuity be found engaged in the perusal
of a production, that has been thus immoderately extolled by some one whom
nobody knows, and who plumes himself greatly on the praise to which he
considers himself entitled for the extent of his erudition. What, most
famous Prefacer, do you say, "These Theses have been frequently pub-
PAKKEKI THESP.S. 195
eaedem Theses cum Amesianis tractatulis, idque saepius com-
pingebanlur?" Quam nollem credere virum istum tarn gravem,
tot, tantaqiie, tamdiu (a patria exiilem an prqfugiim) perpessum,
ob solam sacrarum literariim (uti pras se tulit) confessionem et
defensionetn, has metaphysicas, aerias, a Sancti Spiritus stylo
penitus abhorrentes, Theses cum suis ipsius operibus qiiicqiiam
commercii habere permissuriim. Verum sic usu venit, ut hujus-
raodi scripta se in Celebris alicujus Doctoris clientelam recipiant,
enjus ut splendore cohonestentur, est votorum summa.
Me quod attinet, potui hoc trihorium non sic perdere ; nee
libet cum juvenilibus his an anilibus larvis luctari, non tam quod
difficiles esse nugas duxerim, quam quod inutiles et viris gravi-
bus indignas. Praetereo, quod supervacaneum prorsus fuerit in
superstriictis "gemmis" diutius immorari, quarum "funda-
menta supra-posita" corruisse jam vidimus. Hoc interim sancte
spondeo, me totum in veritatis iideique obedientiam (Deo bene
juvante) libentissime transiturum ; eumque me esse profiteer,
qui, ex his Thesibus aut alicunde, veritatem secundum pietatem
docenti, cumprimis herbam porrigam.
Restat, ut apud Deum Optiaium Maximum supplicibus votis
contendam, ut ue porro gliscat inter Christiani nominis profes-
sores, de vocabulorum minutiis, qualis hodieque regiiat con-
TRANSLATION.
lished, and bound up with other tracts hy A:mes of the same kind ?'* How
unwilling am I to believe, that a mau of so much gravity [as Ames], who,
either as an exile or a runagate from his native country, has long endured
such a number and such a weight of troubles, solely (as he pretends) on
account of his confession and defence of the sacred writings, — how can I
believe, that such a man would allow thc'ie metaphysical and light Theses,
which are utterly abhorrent to the style of the Holy Spirit, to have any con-
nection with his productions '. But this is now a common practice, — to place
writingsOf this description under the patrouage of some celebrated Doctor;
and vVli'eh his name reflects splendour upon theui, [the writers have attained]
to the summit of their wishes.
With reference to myself, it was in my own power not to have lost these
three hours [in composing annotation;] : For there is no pleasure in con-
tending w ith these phantomsf — shall I call them the productions of a hoy or
of an old wnmun ? I find such an occupation unpleasant, not because I
consider trifles to possess any diflBculty, but because they are useless and
unworthy of serious men's attention. ' I pass them by, because it would be
quite superfluous to remain auy longer engaged in [c;>nieniplatingj '| the
gems" which are built up, when we have already seen " the foundations
supra-posited^' (Ihess-x,; fallen down [and bleuded in one common ruinj.
In the mean tiniCj I enter into this sacred engagement, that 1 will most
cheerfully, by God's gracious assistance, devote myself entirely to the
obedience of tbe truth and faith ; and I profess myself to be among the fore-
most of those who yield the pre-eminence to the man that teaches us, out
of these Theses or from any other source, ' the trutii which is according to
godliness.'
It now remains for me humbly and earnestly t;) beseech Almighty God,
that the contests which in our days prevail concerning minute expressions,
may spread uo further among professors of the name of Christ. Keep
t App. N.
I
19G AXNOTATA IN PARKEHI TllKSES.
tentio. Tacete, O Parkere, Twissi, caeterique Metaphysico-verbi-
potentes Logodaedali, ut aufliantur Jksus noster in Eeterniim
benedictus, et a Sancto Spiritu acti Prophetae, Evangelistse,
et Apostoli. Ille ex ^etkuni Patris simi al) iiitima inibi
secretorum intuitione'prodiit. Hi ab Eo, quicquid apud Patrem
viderat et audiverat didicerunt; cumqvie ecclesia, qua sermone
qua scripto, communicarunt, " integrum Dei de nobis consilium
secundum beneplacitum ;" (Act. xx, 27; Eph. i^ C) ;) oinne
voUmtatis suae circa salutem humanam mysterium, etiam "se-
cundum propositum." Hoc de uno S. Paulo, qui utrobiqne ad
Ephesios verba facit, in sacris literis affirmatur. Quid attinet
reliquos Spiritus Sancti amanuenses commemorare ?
Denique rationum momento artificialium, et testimonia hu-
mana, si hie adsint, non respuo ; si alisint, non desidero. De-
cidi autem quae de hominum salute et interitu lites incidunt, ex
Sanctis praesertim Literis, nominatim Evangelio, et posse et
debere, hoc est quod contendo. Vale, mi Parkere, et vivere
malimus quam dispiitare ; aut saltem sacris scripturis magis
quam futilibus cerebri nostri argutiis rixisque mulieribus, amice
colloquamur.
Raptim.
SOLI DEO GLORIA.
TRANSLATION.
silence, Parker, Twisse, and the rest of the tribe of potent metaphysical
verbalists and expert fabricators of learned phraseology ! Let our Jesus be
heard, who is blessed for evermore ; and let the Prophets, Evangelists, and
Apostles be heard, who vvere actuated and influenced by the Holy Spirit.
Christ proceeded from the bosom of the Eternal Father, from the intimate
inspection, in that [favoured] place, of his secrets. His Prophets, Evangelists,
and Apostles learnt from him whatever He had seen and heard while with
the Father ; and have, both liy their discourses and writings, communicated
to tlie church ' the wJiole counsel of God' concerning us ' accorr/hiff to his
gond pleasure ;' (Acts xx, 27 ; Ephes. i, 9 ;) ' all the mystery of his will'
respecting human salvation, even "■ according to his own purjiGse.' This is
affirmed in the sacred writings concerning St. Paul alone, who, in both the
passages which we have quoted, addresses himself to the E|)hesians. To
what purpose is it to recount the rest of the Holy Sisirit's amanuenses ?
Lastly. If the powerful motives of arti/icial reasons., and if htfnian testi-
monies, be here presented, I do not refuse them ; if they are absent, I do
not desire them. But for this one thing I contend, — that these controversies,
which arise about tiie salvation of men and their destruction, boih mat/ and
ought CO be decided by the sacred writings, and particularly by the
Gospels.
Farewell, my Parker, and let it be our choice to live [well], rather than
dis])!ite ; Or at least lei us hold friendly colloquies together out of the Holy
Scriptures, rather than indulge in foolish and subtle devices or in feminine
squabbles.
Written in much haste.
To God alone be all the glory !
END OF BISHOP \VOM.\CK'S ANNOTATIONS.
APPENDIX.
A. — Page 166.
The history of these Theses is very curious. To understand
it aright, the reader must previously be introduced to the liero,
John Makowski, []^or Maccovius,^ of dubious celebrity,
Maccovius was born in 1588, at Lobzenick in Poland. His
studies were neglected in early life ; but after he had seriously
applied himself to them, he soon repaired that defect, by intense
assiduity and the natural acuteness of his genius. He made him-
self acquainted with the Latin language, and passed through a
course of Philosophy, at Dantzic. Under the instructions of
the famous Keckerman, his progress in academic lore was con-
siderable : Among his fellow students, he became particularly
distinguished for his skill in the management of extemporaneous
arguments, or regular scholastic disputaiions. On his return
from Dantzic to his father's house, he was appointed tutor to
some young gentlemen, of the name of Sieninski. With them
he travelled into several parts of Europe ; and, at every oppor-
tunity, cultivated his talent for popular argumentation. At
Prague, he attacked the Jesuits in a public disputation. At
Lublin, he frequently entei'ed the lists against the Socinians.
While he was pursuing his studies at Heidelberg, he went to
Spire to dispute with the Jesuits, instead of Bartholomew Cop-
penius, to whom they had transmitted a scholastic challenge,
but who could not obtain leave from the Elector Palatine to
make his appearance on that occasion. Beside the Universities
of Prague and Heidelberg, he visited those of Marpurg, Leip-
sic, Wirtemburgh, and Jena, At length he arrived at Franeker
in Friezland, and, upon the 8th of March, l6l4, he had the
degree of Doctor of Divinity conferred upon him. His pcailiar
talents were highly appreciated in that University ; which was
then famous, if not infamous, throughout Europe, for the wran-
gling disposition, the dictatorial conduct, and the doctrinal
vagaries of its Professors. To such men the endowments of
Makowski's mind, and the volubility of his tongue, were at first
considered great acquisitions. The Curators of the University
therefore resolved to retain him in their service ; and accord-
196 APPENDIX A.
ingly presented him with the honourable appointment of Pro-
fessor Exlraordinary of Divinily, on the 1st of April, l6l5. In
the following year he was constituted Professor in Ordinary;
and fulfilled the duties of that office nearly thirty years — till his
death in June 1644. A Funeral Oration was pronounced on
him by his colleague Cocceius ; who relates it, as a trait of
goodness in Maccovius, that he was not one of those dogs which
are afraid of barking during the troubles of the Church, but that
he fought valiantly for the true failh. He adds, " As this kind
of warfare, on account of human infirmity, usually produces
suspicions, enmities, and discords, it is not wonderful if this
iveakness of Uie flesh caused much trouble to Maccovius. It is
peculiar to people of warm dispositions, that, while engaged in
defence of the good cause, they seem occasionally to throw
themselves into transports of passion. It fares with them as
with good dogs, that, while guarding their master's house, bark
at all strangers, not excepting the best friends of the family.
The defenders of the truth are commanded by the prophet
Isaiah (Ivi, 10,) to bark well; but while, in this manner, they
attack the enemy, and have all their thoughts engrossed with
fighting, they are frequently too unguarded in their sallies, and
sometimes vent their spleen and animosity on the innocent." —
Nicholas Arnold, a Polish Divine, who Avas naturalized in Friez-
land, and who afterwards succeeded Cocceius in the Professor's
Chair at Franeker, published several of his countryman's pro-
ductions. Among the rest of his curious compilations, is a work
entitled, " up'jiTov VeuSos^ sive oslensionem Primi Falsi Armiiiian-
orum." It is in allusion to this title, that Bishop Womack says,
in his Annotations on the Fourth Thesis, (page 177,) " This is
the First of our author's Falsehoods." — Indeed, Maccovius
himself published very few works, most probably for a very
good and sufficient reason — because lie was conscious of being a
grand plagiarist. Saldenus, who was one of his real admirers,
gives the following relation concerning him : ' Among our Di-
* vines, that (otherwise) most acute man, John Maccovius,
* cannot be entirely acquitted of this charge. For if you have
* no objections to examine his Exercitations, which he
' opposed some years ago to the hypotheses of the Remonstrants,
* your own eyes will teach you, that a very large portion of
' them are compiled from the famous Peter du Moulin's Anato-
' my of Arminianism, — not only with respect to the matter, but
' likewise with respect to the very words in which they are
* composed, and which have been translated for this purpose
' out of Dutch into Latin. I have often wondered at this
' practice in a Divine who in another respect was entitled to
* the greatest honour and celebrity for his extemporaneous
* acumen.' {De Libris, p. 156.) — Saldenus has, in this last sen-
tence, given a reason why he should not have evinced the least
Al'PCNDIX A. 199
wonder at Makowski's plagiarism : This Professor's excellence
lay almost exclusively in his ready enunciation, and in the
ability with which viva i)oce he could form a syllogism or enforce
an argument. How dextrous soever he might shew himself to
be in the Schools, his productions, when perused in the closet,
do not display any of the grand characteristics of an origi lal
genius or of an accurate and deep reasoner.
The popularity which he gained at Franeker by his ready
wit, and by the violent epithets which he bestowed on all adver-
saries, especially on the Arminians, gave vast umbrage to that
morose and bitter old Calvinist, his superficial colleague Sibran-
Dus LuBBERTUS. Makowski had been made Professor of
Divinity only four years prior to the meeting of the Synod of
Dort ; and as the Predestinarian Controversy was about that
period conducted on both sides with much spirit and ability,
some of the Calvinistic Professors, who had been accustomed to
utter the wildest and most deseci-ating opinions that ever
escaped from human lips, were compelled to observe greater
reserve and caution, lest their adversaries should expose the
irreverence or blasphemy of all such expressions. But Macco-
vius, who appears to have possessed, none of the subtilty of
Eiibbfertus, continued to speak and to act in the same fearless
and unguarded manner as he had always done ; and the Arjjii-
nians, as might have been expected, quoted several of his
expressions in proof of the demoralizing tendency of Calvin's
doctrines.
This served as an opportunity to Sibrandus, for venting his
private spleen against his colleague, while he discharged a pub-
lic duty. The whole Calvinistic brotherhood throughout France,
Germany, and the Low Countries, had received warning letters
to be guarded in the delivery of their opinions ; and, as Macco-
vius had disregarded this caution, the Presbyterian Class of
Franeker prepared a charge against him before the States of
Friezland, who, apparently desirous to preserve the purity of
the Calvinistic Doctrine in their University, finally empowered
the Lay Commissioners at the Synod of Dort to bring the case
of the accused Professor, for adjudication, before that reverend
tribunal. No doubt was entertained by the best-informed
members of the Synod of Dort, that Sibrandus was the real
mover in this action against his colleague; but when he was
charged with it, and publicly invited to come forward as the
chief accuser, with consummate art he refused to undertake
that odious service, and declared that he had acted ministerially
and not personally, when, as President of the Class of Franeker,
he had heard the charge against Maccovius, and, in accordance
with the votes of the Class, had as their accredited organ pro-
nounced the judgment which they decreed : That is, he wished
to make it apparent, that he had been an impartial chairman.
I
200 APPENDIX A.
The whole of tlie proceedings ajrainst Maccovius, as related
by that eminent Scotch Calvinist Walter Balcanqual, are given
in the Notes to the Works of Arminius. (Vol. I, p, 506, &c.)
An)ong other matters, he states, that " a letter was read in
the Synod, from the Professors of Divinity at Heidelberg, to
the States of Friezland, in which that learned and reverend
body exhorted their Lordships ' not to suffer such frivolous,
' melapht/sical, obscure, and false propositions to be disputed in
* their colleges, as had lately been done in the University of
' Franeker, under the direction of Maccovius, in the Theses on
* the Traduction (^or draivirig) of man, as a sinner, to Life.' "
These were the very Theses which, in the preceding pages, are
the object of Bishop Womack's animadversions : And the charac-
ter which the Heidelberg Divines here attribute to them, will
not be found to be inappropriate or overcharged. The same
day, the different members of the Synod gave their votes con-
cerning the mode of proceeding to be adopted in the case of
Maccovius. Balcanqual says: "When Sibrandus had to de-
liver his opinion, he inveighed with great immodesty against
Festus, upbraiding him with the height of his ingratitude to
him. He also recited a new catalogue of the opinions of Mac-
covius, which were of the same class with the former. Festus,
having obtained the President's permission to speak, answered
Sibrandus in a modest manner, and stated, that those Theses
had not been composed by Macfovius, but by a certain very
learned yotmg man of the name of Parker, who was removed
far above the slightest suspicion of heterodoxy. He also said,
though Sibrandus might now refuse to sustain the part of a
public accuser, yet he had received information, from some
persons in every respect entitled to credit, that Sibrandus had
pillaged, from those Theses and from some other of his lectures,
all the errors which had been objected against Maccovius. —
When Sibrandus heard all this, he was agitated with a most
violent passion, and t7vice i7ivoked \^Deum vindicem,^ the vengea7ice
of God upon his soul, if there was any truth in those statements!
So that the President was compelled frequently to remind him
of the sacred modesty and reverence which were due to the
Synod." — In Bernard, Birch, and Lockman's edition of Bayle's
Historical and Critical Dictionary, the last clause is thus trans-
lated : " This put Sibrandus all into a fume, and lie swore once
and again, that it was not true." Now, though the Latin ex-
pressions admit of being thus construed, yet it can scarcely be
imagined, that a grave Professor of Divinity, and one of the
greatest sticklers for Calvinism, would utter profane oaths and
disgrace hinself before the whole brotherhood. I am aware,
that Balcanqual has represented him as a most passionate man ;
^nd, after describing one of " his fits of madness," he adds, " I
blame him and Gomarus no more for these ecstasies, than I do
APPENDIX A. 201
a stone for ffoi'ncr downvvai'd, since it is both their natural con-
stitution." This excuse, though very charitable, is rather too
extensive, and might be quoted in palliation of the most gross
offences and criminal conduct. How passionate soever men
may naturally be, if the grace of God be suffered to exert its
proper transforming influence upon them, it Avill
Lay the roujh paths of peevish nature even.
And opeu in their hearts a little heaven.
Balcanqual proceeds : " On the 27th of April, progress was
made in requiring the votes and opinions of the members on
the cause of Maccovius. Many persons wondered how he could
possibly be accused of heresy on account of those Theses ; es-
pecially since one of the members for South Holland declared,
tliat they had fonncrh/ been seen by Mr. Ames, and had obtained
his approbation : and that he was, even now, prepared to defend
them." Because such a sound Calvinist as Mr. Ames could
swallow and digest the blasphemies of Maccovius, the majority
of the members ultimately agreed to receive the whole on the
credit of his taste and digestive powers, and suffered the heretical
Maccovius to escape with scarcely the semblance of a repri-
mand.
Before this notice of Maccovius be dismissed, the reader may
derive some faint knowledge of the glaring errors of which he
was guilty, from the following favourable statement by Balcan-
qual, himself a member of the Synod of Dort : " On the 30th
of April, was read the Report of the Synodical Committee on
the case of Maccovius, the sum of which was, ' that Maccovius
' could not be considered guilty of any thing like Heathenism,
* Judaism, Pelagianism, Socinianism, or any other kind of
* heresy ; and that he had been unjustly accused; but that his
* offence consisted in employing certain ambiguous and obscure
* scholastic phrases, in endeavouring to introduce into the
' Dutch Lniversities the scholastic mode of teaching, and in
' selecting those questions for disputation which were accounted
* the Pests of the Dutch Churches ; that he ought therefore to
' be admonished, no longer to employ the expressions of Bellar-
' mine and Suarez, but to speak in the language of the Holy
* Ghost ; that these things ought to be considered as faults in
* him — his assertion that the sufficiency and the efficacy of the
* death of Christ is a foolish distinction, — his denying that the
* human race considered as fallen was not the object of predes-
* tination, — and his maintaining, that God has both willed and
' decreed sins, that God has by no means willed the salvation of all
* men, and that there are two elections ; and that, according to
' their judgment, the slight quarrel between him and Sibrandus
* ought to be terminated, and no person ought hereafter to pre-
* fer i'-gaiust him any more such accusations.' "
O
202 APPENDIX B.
This therefore "is the history of Parker's Theses, which, it
will be observed, are of infamous celebrity, since they were
accounted, even by the high Calvinists of the Synod of Dort,
extremely reprehensible and fraught with dangerous errors.
Of all the members, Festus Hommius was the most consummate
politician ; and it was one of his artful contrivances to screen
his Supralapsarian friend Maccovius from a more severe cen-
sui'e, by attributing the composition of these Theses " to a very
learned young man of the name of Parker." To every one
conversant with the literary history of that period, it is well-
known, that even in the best-regulated Universities the students
in Divinity were accustomed to compose propositions, for pub-
lic disputation in the Schools : This was a good exercise for
those among them who were possessed of the requisite quali-
fications ; but prior to such Theses being announced for dispu-
tation, they were revised and amended by the particular Pro-
fessor under whom the youthful metaphysicians severally
studied, but who was not always the Moderator jiro tempore in
the Divinity Schools. The Theses under discussion must be
regarded as the joint production of the youthful Parker and
his profound instructor Makowski ; the latter of whom was not
only consulted respecting the composition, but was the Mode-
rator under whom they were disputed. Between these two
worthies, therefore, the consequent disgrace of them must be
divided. — How artful soever this contrivance of Hommius
might be, it would be viewed by the learned members of the
Synod as a subterfuge that was exceedingly disreputable.
B— Page 166.
This is a very good hint. If such a principle of compression
and abridgment were applied, by a man of competent attain-
ments, to some of the ancient polemical treatises in our own
language, the religious public would have good reason to bless
the abbreviator's memory. It ought, however, to be a stipu-
lation, either expressed or implied, that no Calvinist should
attempt to abridge the works of an Arminian, and vice versa.
C— Page 167.
John Cameron, or C^mero, was born at Glasgow in Scot-
land, in 1579. When little more than twenty years of age, he
read lectures on the Greek language in the University of his
native city. Feeling an inclination to travel, in J60O he went
to Bourdeaux, when the Protestant ministers of that city were
so captivated with the behaviour and accomplishments of the
young man, as to appoint him Master of a College, which they
AI'PKNDIX C. 203
had founded at Bergerac, for instruction in the Latin and Greek
languages. From that situation he was removed, at the instance
of the Duke of Bouillon, to Sedan, and made Professor of Phi-
losophy. At the end of two years he resigned his Professorship,
went to Paris, and soon aftervvards, in l604, he returned to
Bourdeaux. The Church of that city gave a stronger proof of
their attachment to Cameron, (in a manner that was very com-
mon at that period and worthy to be more generally adopted in
modern times,) by offering to defray his expenses for four years
while he completed his studies in Divinity at any of the contigu-
ous Universities. He accepted of these proposals, which wei-e
accompanied with the usual condition, that he should at the end
of four years serve the Church of Bourdeaux hi the capacity of
Pastor. The first year he spent in preparatory studies at Paris,
in the house of Calignon Chancellor of Navarre, to whose sons
he became tutor, and accompanied them to the University of
Geneva, in which he devoted two years to theological pursuits.
His fourth year was passed in the University of Heidelberg. In
l60S, he was recalled by the Church of Bourdeaux, and chosen
to supply the vacancy occasioned by the removal of M. Renaud,
one of their Pastors. In this new sphere he acquitted himself
during ten years with singular reputation ; and was in high
esteem among all ranks, till in l6l7 he incurred the censure of
the parliament of Bourdeaux, who had condemned to death two
captains convicted of piracy. — Cameron had been permitted to
visit the unhappy culprits in prison, and to administer the con-
solations of religion to them at the place of execution. They
evinced great courage as well as resignation when broken alive
on the wheel; and Cameron thought it right to record their
penitence by an account of the befitting manner in which they
met their doom. He accordingly published a pamphlet, en-
titled, " Constancy, Faith, and Resolution at the moment of
death, displayed by Captain Blanquet and Gaillard ;" but
instead of making his publication a vehicle of religious instruc-
tion and moral warning to survivors, he contrived to introduce
indirect reflections on the constituted authorities of his adopted
country. The two condemned captains were of the Protestant
religion, and had addressed a petition to the Parliament, praying
that their cause might be heard before the Chamhre Mipartie, — a
court of justice in which one half of the Judges consisted of
Roman Catholics, and the other half of Protestants. Thi'i was
one of the important privileges which were granted by the
Edict of Nantz to the Protestant community ; but the Parlia-
ment of Bourdeaux determined that this privilege could not be
claimed by the pirates. On this alleged infringement of Pro-
testant rights, Cameron animadverted in his pamphlet ; in conse-
quence of which a decree was passed by the Parliament,adjudging
the libel to be burnt bv the common executioner. The same
204 APPENDIX C.
decree interdicted Cameron *' from writing or publishing in
future any such letters as were calculated to raise a sedition, to
misrepresent the decrees of Parliament, to exasperate the King's
subjects against the sovereign Courts of Judicature, and to
render his officers despicable, — under the penalty of being
punished in an exemplary manner and prosecuted as a disturber
of the public peace." But by his prudent conduct he outlived
the odium which he had incurred by this publication.
In consequence of his great talents he was elected Professor
of Divinity by the University of Saumur, in the place of Goma-
rus, who, after the death of Arminius, had refused to remain at
Leyden as an associate to the newly-elected Professor Vorstius.
Cameron began the exercise of his functions in l6l8, and
remained at his post in the University till it was dispersed in
]621 by Ihe Civil, or rather the Iteligious Wars with which
France was soon afterwards distracted.
It was during his abode at Saumur that he had the argu-
mentative encounter with the celebrated Daniel Tilenus to which
our Prefacer alludes. Tilenus had been previously deprived of
his Professorship at Sedan by the Duke of Bouillon, on account
of some differences which had arisen. The Duke had married the
sister of the Prince of Orange, and, with the obsequiousness
which was then displayed in all directions by every branch
of that family, the Canons of the Synod of Dort, at the
instigation of Peter du Moulin, were soon afterwards im-
posed by the French Synod of Alez, as the only regular test of
orthodoxy for the Protestant ministers and Professors in France.
Tilenus retired to Paris; and v/hile he resided in that city, an
appointment was made for a Conference between him and
Cameron. It was accordingly held at LTsle, the country-seat
of M. Groslot, near Orleans ; it commenced on the 24tlj and was
concluded on the 28th of April, J()20, having continued five,
days. The disputation was oral ; and an account of it was
taken, at the time, by Lewis Capellus and De la Milletiere, (or
Mileterius,) both of whom were Cameron's disciples. Indeed,
it does not appear, that Tilenus had any one present to do
justice to his arguments ; and we know, that such accounts,
iniless approved and signed by each of the parties at the close
of the dispute, are generally amended and embellished by the
party that afterwards publishes the statement and claims the
victory for itself. This was the case with regard to the meeting
between Cameron and Tilenus; an account of which was pub-
lished at Leyden in l621, and is entitled, Arnica CoUatio de
Gratia; el VoliDitatis Hiimnna; concursu c^r. " An amicable Confer-
ence between those two famous men, Daniel Tilenus and John
Cameron, concerning the Concurrence of Grace with the
Human Will in the Vocation [^of Men to Salvation^, and on
certain other topics connected with that .subject." It is inserted
among the works of Cameron ; and when a man tells his own
APPENDIX C. 205
tale, or when (as in this Instane) his warm partizans do it for
him, we must not be surprised to hear such a sound Calvinist
as the Editor of Parker's Theses exclaim, as in page I67, " When
Cameron has Tilenus for his adversary, he is a nervous and
acute Divine."
After the dispersion of the University of Saumur, he retired
with his family into England, and settled in London, where he
obtained leave id give lectures on Divinity at his own house.
He was soon afterwards appointed, by royal authority. Pro-
fessor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow, His prede-
cessor, Robert Boyd of Trochrig, was a mighty favourite with the
Puritans ; and though Camero had, in early life, assented to the
lax and pernicious sentiments respecting civil government
maintained at that period by nearly all the Calvinists throughout
Europe, yet, being a man of good sense and of a peaceable
disposition, he had at length been induced to entertain such
sentiments on that subject as were more in accordance with the
scriptures of truth. His affair with the Parliament of Bour-
deaux, and the obstinate and turbulent conduct of the men
among whom he had been doomed to dwell,produced a most salu-
tary revolution in his political opinions ; and, like numy other
men of strong minds in that age, he refused so far to pamper the
base passions of the multitude as to dignify every effervescence
of popular feeling, or seditious tumult, with the elevating title
of Patriotism. On this account, therefore, Camero was in
A'ery low repute with his factious countrymen, who were in-
fected with as vile a spirit of insubordination as any of their
brethren on the Continent: He soon quitted Scotland and
returned to France, caiTying with him the reputation of enjoy-
ing the friendship of King James, who certainly was an excellent
judge of literary merit, though he had not always the means of
being its most liberal rewarder. In aUusion to this trait in the
King's character, one of Cameron's adversaries says, in a work
which he published, in l6.')7, against the Ceremonies of the
Church of England, " He departed with an empty purse from
his friend the King, who was otherwise a profuse monarch."
On his arrival in France, he repaired to Saumur again, and
delivered private lectures on Divinity, because the Court of
France had forbidden any to be taught in public. When he
had remained a year at Saumur, he was chosen Professor of
Divinity at Montauban, and entered on the duties of his voca-
tion at the close of 1624. The next year he lost his life in
consequence of his strenuous opposition to the democratic and
litigious opinions of the French Calvinists, whose restless spirits
were at that time excited by the emissaries of the Duke de
Rohan, to engage again in an armed confederacy. The follow-
ing account of this tragical event was given by Peter du
Moulin, whose principles and conduct were not equally pacific :
o3
20G APPENDIX C.
" When Camero inveighed in that city afrainst those who were
opposed l^to him in political principles,^ and endeavoured to
stem the ton-ent of popular fury by chiding or admonishing
those persons whotn he encountered, the populace contracted
such a hatred against him that at length one of the citizens,
who was a passionate man, attacked him in a horrid manner
both with his fists and with cudgels, and almost killed him.
Removing the covering, he offered his naked breast to the man
who was beating him, and said. Wretch, strike here ! After
having been thus mal-treated, he retired from Montauban to
the contiguous town of Moissac, to recruit his shattered frame.
In a short time he returned to Montauban, where, in the course
of a few days afterwards, he died through grief of mind, and
peacefully fell asleep in the Lord." {Jud. de Amyraldi Lib.,
p. 229.) In Andrew Rivet's Works, {torn. 3, p. 898,) the cir-
cumstance of baring his breast is thus related : " To one of
those persons who had uttered threats against Cameron he in-
stantly exposed his naked breast, as soon as he had unclasped
the vestment which covered it, and cried out. Wretch, strike
here! He had scarcely spoken these words before the villain
threw him on the ground with great violence, and would have
killed him, had not a female run up to Cameron and leaned
over him while he lay upon the ground ; by thus covering his
body with hers, she protected him from blows." But this im-
proved version of the fatal catastrophe must be received with
much caution : It was written a long time afterwards, as a sort
of popular palliation of that horrid tragedy, and an answer to
the just animadversions of Grotius. In it Rivet evidently
wishes to tax Cameron with great imprudence in braving dan-
ger, by opening his waistcoat to the villain who had employed
threats against him. Indeed, in both productions, a feeling of
malevolence towards the memory of Cameron is displayed.
Peter du Moulin had incurred the censure of the French Court
for liis violent proceedings and seditious conduct : By him,
therefore, the example of Cameron, in opposing the bad princi-
ples and infuriate behaviour of the misguided populace, would
not be viewed with complacency, or represented with adequate
justice.
The death of a Calvinistic pastor, who was half murdered while
in the act of warning the populace against the crime of rebellion,
was a circumstance of such an uncommon complexion among
the Divines of that school, as to be the subject of general as-
tonishment in the civilized and religious world. The very lax
interpretation which the early pastors of the Genevan school
gave to the doctrine of civil obedience, as contained in the 13th
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, is matter of history ; and
many of them have not hesitated to bestow upon those who
refuse thus to explain away some of the express commands of
scripture, the opprobrious epithets of " the patrons of the Divine
I
APPENDIX C. 207
Right of Kings and the slaves of Passive Obedience." The quib-
bles which are necessary to the very foundation of Calvinism,
contributed their aid to soften down the scriptural obligations
of subjects to their rulers ; and the most ignorant mechanic or
husbandman in a Calvinistic congregation soon comprehended
the doctrine of conditional obedience, — the only trace of con-
DiTioNALiTY which is to be found throughout their fatal system.
Most apposite therefore was this address of the venerable
Hooker to the men of that school : " For whereas the name of
Divine Authority is used to countenance these things which
are not the commandments of God, but your own erroneous
collections, on Him ye must father whatsoever ye shall after-
wards be led either to do in withstanding the adversaries
of your cause, or to think in maintenance of your doings.
And what this may be, God doth know. In such kinds of
error, the mind once imagining itself to seek the execution of
God's will, laboureth forthwith to remove both things and per-
sons, which any way hinder it from taking place ; and in such
cases, if any strange or new thing seem requisite to be done, a
strange and new opinion, concerning the lawfulness thereof, is
withal received and broached under countenance of Divine
Authority."
Grotius thus alludes to the death of Cameron in his Wishes
for the Peace of the Church : " I said, in my annotations at the
close of the First Book On the Laws of War and Peace, that the
Canons which prohibited the Clergy from the use of arms have
been observed with greater strictness in the East than in the
West. That remark was undoubtedly true, both as applied to
those and to other Canons"; because dispensations are unknown
in the East, except in some few and trifling affairs. This busy
intermeddling with other men's matters has already produced
disastrous consequences to several persons ; and if we enquire
into the cause of those wars by which Europe has now for a
long time been desolated, we shall find this flame to have been
principally excited by those whose duty it was to be the heralds
of peace. I can require no testimony of greater validity than
that which is fresh in the recollection of Kings, Nobles, and
People, when I affirm, that many of the civil wars in France
have been excited by those who style themselves * ministers of
the gospel.' No stronger proofs can be required than those
furnished by several letters from the Duke of Bouillon and of
Philip Mornay Lord du Plessis Marli, in which both of them
complain of this circumstance : In addition to which, might be
quoted the Commentaries on the last of those wars, which were
composed by the Duke de Rohan. Yet [^frora such ministers of
the gospel^ I except Cameron, who always entertained other
sentiments, and on that account endured much hard usage. If
in this respect there were others who resembled him, they also
have my warm applauses. There were some pastors who kept
208 APPKN'DIX C.
themselves quiet, becaue they were in those situations in which
it was impossible for ihem to make any attempts. The faults
of the adverse party do not operate, in their behalf, as an
excuse. We have in these days beheld a prodigious circum-
stance,— we have seen troops enlisted and regiments embodied,
arms and warlike engines assembled together, under the name
of the Reformed Churches. Had this power its origin in
lieaven or on earth ?"
Grotius then adverts to the doctrines contained in the Com-
mentary of old David Parseus of Heidelberg on St. Paul's
Epistle to the Romans. The transaction to which Grotius
alludes was the following: "On the 14th of April, l622, being
Palm Sunday, it happened that a certain clergyman [^Mr.
Knight, of Pembroke College^ preaching at Oxford upon these
words. Let every soul he subject to the higher powers, among
other positions advanced the following, ' that in case the King
* should misbehave himself, inferior magistrates had a right to in-
' form him better, and to correct or amend him.' For the
explanation of this doctrine, he made use of the words of the
Emperor Trajan, which he spoke to the captain of the guards,
* Take this sword, and if 1 reign well, draw it for me ; if
* otherwise, draw it against me.' Hereupon this preacher was
summoned by Dr. Pierce, one of the Canons of Christ Church
and at that time Vice-Chancellor, to appear at his Court. He
was then ordered to deliver a copy of his sermon, which he did.
The King having heard of this matter, sent for him up to Lon-
don, where he was strictly examined about his sermon, and
asked how he came to preach it ? He laid all the blame upon
certain modern Divines of the foreign Churches, especially on
Parfsus, Professor of Divinity at Heidelberg, who, in his Ex-
positions on the Epistle to the Romans, had advanced the same
Theses and quoted likewise that passage of Trajan. Upon this
confession the king forgave the minister his fault, he being a
young Divine who might easily be misled by such a famous
writer. But his Majesty ordered the said book of Paraeus to be
publicly burnt, not only in both the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, but also at London on a Sunday at St. Paul's
Cross:"* This royal mandate was duly executed. To remove
every seditious imputation from their body, the University of
Oxford, in a full Convocation on the 25th of June, l622, con-
demned four of the most obnoxious propositions of Parasus, and
added to each of them a scholastic censure.
* A loyal old English writer, in reference to this public burning of the
books of Parfeus, calls it •' an accident much complained of by the Puritan
fiarty for a long time after, who looked upon it as the funeral pile of their
lopes and projects ; till by degrees they got fresh courage, carrying ou
their designs more secretly, by consequence more dangerously, than before
they did. 'I'he icrriljle effects whereof we have seen and felt in our late Civil
VVars aud present confusions."
APPENDIX C.
Grotius quotes this decree of the University which conta^
the positions condemned, and then subjoins: " If these exce
tions of Paraeus, that is, if so many subversions of St. Paul's
rule be admitted, I declare that no empire will be in safety any
longer than while those who hold such principles are destitute
of power. But because it is not sufficient to know the evil
unless at the same time its sources be made known, I will dis-
close those sources as far as I have been permitted to penetrate
into their mysteries. These then are their sentiments : ' In
* every country there is a certain covenant between God, the
* King, and the People; and it is formed on this condition, that,
* if the King forsakes God, it is also lawful for the people to
* forsake the King.' Those who have forsaken God, they con-
sider to be. First, ' Those who acknowledge the supremacy of
* the Pope in the Church; for they have by that means fallen
' from the power which they delivered to the beast' — Secondly,
' Those who attempt any reconciliation with that Church which
'adheres to the Church of Rome; that is, with the synagogue
' of Satan,' as they are pleased to express themselves. — Lastly,
' Those who retain any portion of their [^ancient^ rites, not
' only such as are retained in England, but in other kingdoms
'still further northward; for all those rites are Popish and
* therefore idolatrous.'
" 2. Another of their sentiments is this : ' In the Revelations
* (xviii, 6,) it is written, Reward Babylon double according to
' her works. But this Babylon is that Church which is con-
' nected with the Roman See. In this passage every believer
* receives a Divine command, to demolish altars and the images
* of saints, and to remove all this worship together with the
* worshippers ; for unless this be done, Babylon can neither be
' destroyed nor receive double according to her works. And
* cursed be they who do this work of the Lord negligently !
* f Jer. xlviii, 10.)'
" 3. Another of their opinions is that which, they say,
is to be found in the prophecy of Daniel, (vii, 18, 22,) ' All
' Kings and rulers whatsoever are bound to serve the saints of
' the Most High; that is, the saints of the Reforyned [[or Calvin-
* istic^ communion. — This prediction is so evidently written,
* that those persons must be blind who cannot see it.'
" 4. To these sentiments some of them add, 'All things belong
* of right to the elect, all the rest are robbers.' Who these elect
are, is a point which with them admits of no controversy, by
placing themselves in the elect number ; ' because Christ died
* for them in particular ; and of this circumstance they are well
' assured, because they believe it, or because by faith they appre-
' he?id this benejit I' This is sad trifling; but it is such as con-
duces to serious evils."
210 APPENDIX C.
The reader who is conversant with the writings of the vene-
rable Hooker, will perceive a great co-incidence between this
statement by Grotius, and that given in the Preface to the
" Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity." It must also again be observed,
that the term Reformed is assumed by the Calvinists on the
Continent, in the same manner as the epithet Evangelical is
claimed by their brethren in England.
Rivet, Professor of Divinity at Leyden, wrote an answer to
these statements ; and Grotius thought it necessary, for the de-
fence of truth, to expose the quibbling of his adversary, which
he did in his Discussion of Rivet's Apology, from which the
following is a very instructive extract containing another allu-
sion to the case of Cameron : " It is the duty of the man who
is studious of the peace of Christians, to destroy those dogmas
which disturb the peace of society. A man must become a good
citizen, before he is a good Christian, Subversive of civil peace
is the dogma of those who call themselves the Reformed,
which declares it to be ' lawful for subjects to rise in arms
' against their Kings or rulers ;' which that most noble man,
Philip Mornai Lord du Plessis Marli, inserted in his last will as
a sentiment agreeable to piety. From this source arose the insur-
rection at Amboise, when the Reformed Renaudiere convened
some persons like himself to a private conclave, and delivered
to them the power over the States of the realm. From the same
source arose Beza's seditious and warlike orations. * This also
* The phrase in the text is, Hinc Bezce condones fro classico ; which was an
allusion well understood at that period. It will be illustrated by the subjoined
quotation from the History of Thuanus, (lib. 53,) who, in giving an account
of the letter of the Protestant Charpentier concerning the causes which con-
duced to the bloody French tragedy of St. Barthplomeiv's Day, says : " Char-
pentier declares, ' that there were two parties amongst the Protestants, — the
'one consisting of peaceable persons, who acted with sincerity and from a
* religious principle, and who followed the maxims of the religion which they
* professed, — the other consisting of persons who acted from a spirit of faction,
* and vvho were seditious men and enemies to the public peace and tranquillity;
* that each of those parties had at its head particular pastors ; and that the
* moderate leaders were obnoxious to the more violent, and especially to Beza,'
whom he calls the trumpet of Seba, and against whom he utters in his book
the most bitter exclamations. — Charpentier not only excuses the massacre,
but likewise proves, at great length and in a very artful manner, ' that it was
'just and necessary, in order to subdue an impious faction, whose sole design
' was to subvert the royal authority, to withdraw the chief cities of the realm
* from the allegiance which was due to their sovereign, and to disturb the pub-
* lie tranquillity ; — a faction that seemed to have been formed for the ruin of
* the Protestant religion itself, by some seditious individuals vvho were the ene-
' niies of their country.' "
Seba, in the phrase The trumpet of Seba, is an anagram ujion the name of
Bf.za, and refers to the following passage of Scripture : " And there hap-
pened to be there a man of Belial, whose name was Sheba, the son of Bilcri,
a Benjamite : And he bleir a trumpet, and said, ' We have no part in David,
'neither have we inheritance in tne son of Jesse. Every man to his tents,
* O Israel !' — So every man of Israel went up from after David, and followed
APl'KNDIX C. 211
gave origin to the impudence of the Convention of Rochelle,
■which declared that all the Papists in the Kingdom, and even
those among the Reformed who adhered to the authority of the
King, were to be removed from all public honours and offices ;
it likewise appointed to the government of the provinces through-
out the kingdom whatever persons it thought proper. Theoplii-
lus Milletiere,* a nobleman who is exceedingly well-inclined.
Sheba," &c. (2 Sam. xx, i.) This allusion to the political meddlinj^ of the
early divines of the Genevan School, but particularly to those of them who
adopted \\ie platform as well as the doctrine of Calvin, was peculiarly appro-
priate, and became a standing; proverb in all countries in which such injudi-
cious pastors endeavoured to excite seditious movements, for the purpose of
introducing what they called The Lord's Discipline. With what degree of
justice this charge was preferred against them, the reader may easily learn,
by the various apologetical or palliative writings published by the offending
parties themselves, were there no other equally valid documents in existence.
* The memory of Tlienpldle Bracliet Sieur de la Jirdletiere has been greatly
traduced by the French Calvinists. He was the intimate friend of Cameron,
after whose death he published some of the enlarged religious views of the
man whom he admired, in the book which Du Moulin wrote against Amy-
raut, he speaks thus of Milletiere : " After Cameron's removal from things
terrestrial, an affair happened which brought a grievous stain upon that
great man's reputation. For a short time after his decease, IVIilletiere, his
Achates and sole companion, who always paid the most devoted attention to
what he spoke, produced those monsters which he had conceived under Ca-
meron's tuition. For he published a book against Du Moulin, who expected
nothing of that description, in which he defends merits aud jiistijication by
works, and speaks in such a manner about tlie Sacrameiit of the Eucharist as
betokens a person far too much inclined towards transubstantiation. He also
makes honourable mention of the Church of Rome, and declares she has pre-
served all the capital articles of the christian faith pure and untainted, al-
though in some things she may have wandered from the right path. All these
novelties he professes to have received from that incomparable man, Mr.
Cameron ;" &c.
But it must be recollected, that these are the exaggerated statements of a
violent adversary, who hated him for his approaches towards Armiuianisni,
which had formerly been an object of his greatest aversion. In quality of
elder of the Reformed Church of Paris, Milletiere was deputed as the repre-
sentative of that church at the seditious assembly at RocheHcjto which he was
appointed secretary, and wrote an answer to Tilenus, who had reprehended
the conduct of the Calvinists on that occasion. He was afterwards seized at
the Court of France as one of the most outrageous partizans of the Duke de
Rohan ; after having been put to the rack and suffered a long imprisonment,
he was at length liberated. Like his friend Cameron, he became more
moderate in his politics and more charitable in his religious principles ; and,
placing Camei-ovism as the basis of his scheme, he tried by it to effect a uuioa
fcetween the Protestants and the Papists. This attempt only tended to increase
the hostility of the French Calvinists against him. Several of his writings
were condemned by the National Synod of Alencon in 1637 ; and " a letter
was addressed to him by this assembly, informing him, that, unless he gave
a satisfactory declaration of his penitence to the Consistory of Paris within
six months, he would not be accounted a member of the Reformed Church.
After several warnings, which proved of no service to him, the Synods declared
him to be no longer a member of the churches, and not one of them would
admit him into its communion : So that he became a Catholic of necessity,
that he might be of some religion." He was rejected from the bosom of tlie
Reformed Church in lfi45, during the session of the National Synod of Cha-
renton. It is related of him, that, when he began to attend the service of the
Romish Church, he heard a sermon preached by a Popish Bishop, who, iu
212 APPENDIX C.
towards those -who call themselves ' the Reformed,' testifies that
Peter du Moulin was the author of such counsels. But, because
the King pardoned the criminality of those very wicked attempts,
let not M. Rivet suppose, that on this account historical and
other writers are deprived of all the right of recording such
transactions, even when their sole purpose is — to teach people
to avoid Divines of this description.
" With regard to the decrees of the Pope, it is the opinion of
both the [^FrenchJ King and Parliament, that they are not
bound by those of them which are repugnant to the Holy
Scriptures as interpreted by the common consent of the Ancient
Fathers, or if they be contrary to those constitutions of Coun-
cils or of the Fathers which have been received in France. The
man who inspects the Acts of the French Parliament, will
perceive several decrees of this kind to have been rejected both
now and formerly, by the Parliaments at the advice of Bishops
and Divines, when such rejection was required by circum-
stances. No reason therefore exists for any one to veil his
encouragement of party-disputes under a pretended dread of
the Pope's omnipotency. * Grotius has not made mention even
of local constitutions without some design : For when many
speak of them as of burdens oppressive beyond measure to the
conscience, it was necessary to shew the estimation in which
real Catholics hold such constitutions, and the nature of the
obligation arising from them, which is by no means intolerable.
" The Pastors of the Church, whatever may be the title
which they bear, act contrary to the Canons, in the opinion of
Grotius, when they are in warlike actions : This opinion he
recorded long ago in writing, at the close of his First Book On
the Laws of IVar and Peace. He also thinks, that it is the duty
of ministers, not to excite the flame of new wars between
Christian princes, — a practice which too many of them pursue,
drawing a parallel between Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, adjudged the
superiority to the Virgin : This gave Milletiere such a shock, that he declared,
with his usual frankness, rather than be frequently compelled to hear sermons
of that kind he would return to the bosom of the Protestant Church. — In fa-
vour of his plan of pacification and re-union between the two churches, he
continued for some years to write books, which are commended by many of
the moderate members of both communions. Some further account of him
■will be found iu the subsequent extracts from the letters of Grotius.
* But what good effects did all these checks produce on " the omnipotence
of the Pope," when the realm was governed by an imbecile Monarch, whose
prime minister was a Cardinal ? The horrid massacre of the Protestants of
France on St. Bartholomew's day, and the cruel as well as impolitic Revo-
cation of the Edict of Nantz, are, of themselves, sufficient answers to this
question.
No considerate Protestant can approve of all the palliations which
Grotius offers in behalf of Popery. On this point he was evidently misled
by his great learning, by which he traced some of the originally innocent
observances of the Romish Church up to the purest ages of Christian Anti-
quity. At that period, too, he saw the Catholic Religion assume a milder aspect,
and supported by such moderate reformers of it as Thuanus, Cassander, &c.
APFEXDIX 0. 213
to the great injury of nations; but, on the contrary, to extin-
guish those which have ah*eady arisen : This topic likewise he
has briefly noticed in the Second Book of the work just men-
tioned, chap. 23. — If M. Rivet entertains a different opinion, he
gives a demonstration that he either is or has been in the num-
ber of those pastors who excite wars ; if his opinion is not
different, then why does he carp at expressions uttered with a
pious intent.'* Though M. Rivet is sufficiently audacious when
fortune favours him, yet we could not have conceived that he
would venture to deny those facts which have transpired in the
view of all men, and the recollection of which is still vivid in
the minds both of Governors and People. — * Who are the indi-
viduals that compelled sixteen thousand men to perish by famine
at Rochelle, rather than experience the clemency of their King ?'
They were ministers who called themselves Reformed. — ' Who
are they that inflamed all Languedoc and the contiguous pro-
vinces with addresses and libels ?' They were the same
ministers. — ' Who are they that brought down the hatred of
the populace upon Cameron, because he was not equal to them
in madness and extravagance, and thus caused him to be treated
in such a cruel manner as produced disease and death V They
were men who call themselves Ministers of the word of God.
The chariot steeds have heard too many of the smacks of these
l^exciting^ whips.
" But the dogmas of Parseus are injurious to M. Rivet for
this reason — because he attempts to defend them by interposing
the person of Parseus junior;* those dogmas will likewise
injure the reputation of that society into which he has been
adopted, since he denies that the extracts were made in every
instance with fidelity. But the colour with which the younger
Parfeus paints his father's writings, is evidently false and
adulterated. He says, ' his father was there treating about
' those potentates who were admitted [X.o the exercise of sove-
' reign power^ under conditions.' But the elder Paraeus was
not discussing the laws of Germany. Yet even that country
contains many princes who denied that they were admitted j^to
the sovereignty^ under limitations : But the knowledge of this
matter is not the occupation of a Divine, but of lawyers. Pa-
raeus did not engage in the interpretation of Paul the Professor
of Law, but of Paul the Apostle, Avho ti'eats about all the higher
* Hhilip Parous was alive, and Principal of the Colleg:e of Hanau in
1646, when Rivet wrote a most viruient reply to these animadversions,
interspersed with the most gross slanders concerning the life and death
of Grotius. Like a dutiful son, he tried various methods to vindicate
the memory of his pious father. In doing this, particularly with respect
to his father's Exjjosition on the Roinavs, he vindicated the positions
of the old gentleman, according to M. Aruaud's statement, " in the same man-
ner as the Jesuits defend themselves when accused of corrupting Christian
Murals, — h/ s/iewing that they are neitlwr the Jirst nor the only persons wii/t
have inculcated any jjarticular doctrine."
214 APPENDIX C.
powers. The elder Paratus, in his explanations, by various
methods overturns the expressions of the apostle ; and he allows
to Christian subjects, even to those in private stations, the very
things of which the apostle deprives such subjects. This has
been demonstrated correctly and with the greatest fidelity by
the University of Oxford, and by King James himself, who
declares, that he ' was always hated by the Puritans for no
' other reason than that of his being a King.' *
" But granting that Grotius during former days may, in some
instances, have exceeded the bounds of moderation,^ — either
through the inexperience of youth, the influence of his great
attachment to the station in which he was born and educated,
or through his adherence to other writers of great reputation, —
and granting also, that he may have spoken some things in too
general a manner, which ought on the contrary to have been
uttered with restrictions, or that he has employed exam-
ples which have not been at perfect agreement with each
other; yet, after all these concessions, Grotius may now surely
be permitted to amend and grow better, after he has by a more
extensive coui'se of reading and continued meditation become
older, and attained to a state of life that is uninfluenced by
party-interests. He undoubtedly always disapproved of the
violence used in breaking images and altars, of warlike assem-
blies, and. of those armed forces that were raised among the
Dutch prior to any decree of the States, and merely by private
enterprize. Yet these were the deeds which are called ' the com-
mencement of this reformation,' — a kind of commencement with
which neither Christ, his apostles, nor the Christians of the best
ages were acquainted. Such actions as these accord most com-
pletely with the writings not only of Philip Mornai Lord of
Plessis Marli, Hottoman, and Buchanan, but also with those of
Peter Verrailius surnamed the Martyr, (on the third chapter of
the Book of Judsfes,) Csesman, Althusius, Lambert Danaeus in
the passages quoted by Arnisaeus, and of as many more of this
description, whose writings have never been contradicted by
any of that tribe. From the words and deeds of these men we
imderstand what is the signification of that part of the Confes-
sion, belonging to those who style themselves the Reformed,
which says, ' Tribute and obedience are due to kings, p/-o-
' vided God's stipreme milhority re7nains safe and secure' For by
this phrase God's supreme autliorittj, they understand ' the liber-
ty of their own religion,' — but such a liberty as, when they are
the prevailing party, they do not grant to others.
* " And for this cause, there never rose faction in the time of my minority,
nor trouble sen-syne, ijut they that were upon that factious part, were ever
careful to persuade and allure these unruly spirits amonfj the ministry, to
spouse that quarrel as their own : Wherethrough I was oft-times caluin-
niated it) their pojjular sermons, not for any evil or vice in me, but because 1
was a Kivic which they thought the highest evil." — BasiUkon Doron, lib. 2.
' APPKXDIX C. 215
" M. Rivet dare not declare which of those fountains of evils
that Grotius has here indicated, he will acknowledge for his
own, and which of them he will disavow. The reason of his
hesitation undoubtedly is, lest he should either desert such
great defenders of his own cause, or lest he should expose his
colleagues [the Professors^ in France to great and deserved
hatred by openly explaining the meaning of their expressions.
On this account therefore he throws dust into the eyes of his
readers, to prevent them from seeing through the whole matter.
He is desirous, indeed, to defend the saying of M. du Moulin :*
But the client exclaims against his advocate. He who does not
worship God is not a Just man, because the worship of God is
a great part of justice [|or righteousness]] : But such a person is
the Just possessor of those things which he holds by that title
which the laws approve. To discuss the righteousness of pos-
session, is one thing ; and the righteousness of the person, is
another. Yet Du Moulin must not be accounted the inventor
of this contrivance, which confounds two things [[that are
different^ ; for the same sentiment was one of those which were
condemned in Wicliffe, and with great propriety. Because if
the Elect have now a right to those things which the Repro-
bates possess, it follows, that they may claim such things for
themselves."
But though much and deservedly blamed for the open man-
ner in which he evinced the Genevan antipathy to the regal
authority. Parous seems actually to have considered that he
was imparting greater stability to a proviso in Calvin's Insti-
tutes by propounding it in a more scholastic form, and de-
ducing some of its legitimate consequences. Calvin had intro-
duced it, with that consummate art which he evinced on some
* This expression occurs in that furious publication i\\c Jjiatome of Ar-
mbiianlsm, which was: published by Peter du Mouliu in 1()19 ; and which was
ably answered by Corvinus in 1621. Prior, however, to the appearance of this
Reply, the banished Remonstrants addressed a letter to Moulin, of which
the subjoined paragraph is an extract :
" There are some persons who also place a black mark of disapprobation
upon the following axiom which you have derived from the school of Machi-
avel : ' He who is destitute of faith in Christ, is not a child of God ; and,
•consequently, he cannot be the heir and just possessor of earthJii benefits,
* whatever may be the civil virtues with which he is adorned.' If this be not
plotting' ag'ainst the sceptres 0/ Kings, we cannot certainly perceive in what
that crime consists. Are you theu beginning to accommodate the Reformed
[Calvinistic] Theology to seditions, rebellions and demands upon Kings .' What
insanity is this of yours ! — that Princes who do not believe in Christ, are 7iot
the rightful lords of their own kingdoms and dominions .' By what law is this
just title of possession invalidated ? Relying on the strength of this axiom,
you presumptuously claim for yourself and the princes of your religion the
kingdom of France : For the answers to the Heidelberg Catechism teach,
' that the Roman Catholics (of whom the King of France is one,} do in reality
* deny Christ.' He that hath ears to hear, let him hear ."'
To this seditious sophism Grotius, in the text, returns an appropriate
answer.
216 APPENDIX C.
other occasions, into the doctrine which he delivers concerning
the duty of subjects to their Princes and Rulers, thus : " For if
the vengeance of the Lord is the correction of unrestrained
domination, we must not on this account instantly suppose that
such vengeance is committed to us, who have received no other
command than to obey afid suffer. I am {jn this chapter^
always speaking about men in private stations. In former days
there were popular magistrates, who, as EpJiori, were placed in
opposition to the Spartan Kings ; as Tribuues of the People,
were opposed to the Roman Consuls; or, as Demarcki, to the
Athenian Senate : And the same kind of power perhaps is
exercised, in the present state of society, throughout different
kingdoms, by the three Estates of each realm when they hold
their grand assemblies. If there be now any such popular
magistrates appointed to I'estrain the licentiousness of Kings, I
am far from forbidding them, in accordance with their duty,
to obstruct l^or oppose^ the ferocious liberty of Kings : So that
if they should connive at Kings when conducting themselves
tyrannically, and when they insultingly lord it over the humbled
people, I would declare that their dissimulation []or connivance^
is not devoid of nefarious perfidy, since they thus deceitfully
betray the liberty of the people, of which they knew themselves
to have been appointed the protectors by God's ordination." —
Among other improvements on Calvin's doctrine, Paraeus ascribes
to these subordinate magistrates " a power to defend them-
selves, the Commonwealth, and the Church, even by arms,
against the superior magistrate." Buchanan carried this doc-
trine still further, by asserting, " that the whole body of the
people have as much authority over the persons of their kings
as they have over every one of their own number;" and he
thinks it " unreasonable and absurd, that kings are not made
amenable to the ordinary judges of their several kingdoms, as
often as any of their subjects may accuse them of murder, adul-
tery, neglect in government," &c. In proof of this reforming
position, Buchanan then quotes twelve instances of Scottish
Kings, that had either been condemned to perpetual imprison-
ment, or had by voluntary death or exile escaped the punish-
ment due to their crimes. — Cambden tells us, that John Knox,
the Calvinistic Reformer of Scotland, delivered this as a political
axiom, " It is the duty of the nobles to take away idolatry by
their own authority, and to reduce Kings by force within the
prescribed bounds of the laws."* To every unprejudiced reader,
* In a letter addressed by Grotius, in I608, to the Rev. Sampson Johnson,
he says : " Those neig;hbours of yours [the Scotch] are actuated by the
spirit of the flock to which they belong : And unless some method be dis-
covered for dissolvius; the unlawful coufederacy, I entertain apprehensions
of a great wound being inflicted, I will not uow'say upon tlie KnscorAL, but
itjjon </re Regal .A.l ihoritv. 1 cannot express the solicitude which this affair
APPENDIX C. 217
the turbulent character of Knox will not appear to much
advantage, after all the ingenious palliations of Dr. Mc'Crie,
who, like a devoted friend, is at once his biographer and
apologist.
Dr. Thomas Pierce, vv'ho was, during the Inter-regnum, one of
the most intrepid champions for the genuine doctrines and dis-
cipline of the Church of England in those her days of mourning
and depression, speaks thus, in his Divine Pldlanthropy De~
fended, which Avas published a few years prior to the Restora-
tion : " What shall we think of the Aerian or Presbyterian
' flaunt,' which denieth a suprcmacji to all civil power, in all cases
and over all persons as well ecclesiastical as civil, and for this
very reason were never known to be quiet any longer than they
were flittered or kept in awe ? The power to excommnnicalc the
supreme civil Magistrate was never arrogated by any, except the
Pope and the Presbyterian, in direct opposition to the Thirty
Nine Articles of the Church of England, and to the Protestant
fives me, on account of the g^reat affection which I feel for your nation,
'hat [seJilious] trumpet of Knox and Buchanan possesses uncommon in-
fluence in exasperating and inflaming ignorant and inexperienced men,
especially when they have before their eye's examples of successful revo-
lutions."
This is the language of a kind friend and of a true prophet. But, though
thus laudalily anxious forour national prosperiiy and tor the duemaintenant e
of the regal authority, he v, asa decided enemy to all harsh and imprudent
measures, as will appear hy the subjoined extract from one of his letters at
that period to the Swedish Ambassador at the Hague : "These conmiotions
in Scotland occur most unhappily at a very bad juncture. I wish both
parties may possess sufficient prudence and motleration of mind to discover
some remedj' for such a dangerous evil. Of this I am well assured, that if
any thing be extorted by force from the King in Scotland, the infectious
example will extend to England, since there arc in that kingdom not a few
individuals to whom the present stale of affair* is exceedingly displeasing."
In a letter addressed to the same personage, about a month afterwards,
he gives the following just and statesman-like views of our national con-
cerns at that crisis ; wiiich, let it be observed, are the more valuable because
they are the views of an impartial person who was competent to form a cor-
rect opinion concerning their causes and issue, long before the civil wars
commenced. To a historian of those events, such brief notices are worth a
thousand pages of those combined reasonings and statements, which have
since been written by prejudiced j)artizans : " The affairs of Scotland fill
me with anxiety. I think, if that nation had received the English Liturgy
and the ceremonies which are agreeable to antiquit}', as it had already
received Bishops, it vvoukt not have committed any oflence, and such a con-
formity in public rites might likewise have been of service in cementing
together the two nations who are under the rule of the same sovereign.
But now, when they have evinced an aversion of mind, which probably
does not arise so much from things themselves as from mere suspicions,
the deliberation is altered, and becomes truly diRieult through the commo-
tions of the people and the diminution of the royal authorily : I humiilj'
beseech God that the plan adopted may be such as will be salutary to the
Monarch and to both nations. 'I he University of Aberdeen, in Scotland,
has condemned these commotions as illegal and disgraceful to Christians.
But 1 entertain serious doubts, whether such [an Academic decree] can
possibly assuage or pacif}- people that are thus higlily excited and inflamed."
— Many other equally pertinent extracts might be here adduced : Hut these
will shew Grotius to have i)eeii a good man and an able poliliciaii.
P
218 API'KNDIX C.
Heirarchy by whom they were composed, and who never were
known to beard Iheir Sovereigns, — a thing as natural to the Scot-
tish Presbytery as eating and drinking to other men. And what
affinity (or identity rather) there is betwixt the Scottish and
English followers of Aerius, their League and Covenant hath
made apparent." — The venerable Hooker has shewn, in his
Preface to the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the progress which
the English Calvinists made in this kind of learning; and,
among other "methods of winning the people's affections unto
a general liking of the cause" of the Genevan Discipline, he
adduces the three following : " First. In the hearing of the
multitude the faults especially of higher callings are ripped up
with marvellous exceeding severity and sharpness of reproof^
&c. — The next thing hereunto, is to impute all faults and cor-
ruptions, wherewith the world aboundeth, unto the kind of
ecclesiastical government established, &c. — Having gotten thus
much sway in the hearts of men, a Third step is to propose
their own form of church-government as the only sovereign
remedy of all evils, and to adorn it with all the glorious titles
that may be," &c. — Most justly therefore might Dr. Heylin
say : " As for points of practice, should we look that way,
what a confusion should we find in most parts of Europe, oc-
casioned by no other ground than the entertainment of these
principles, and the scattering of these positions among the people !
— And, to say truth, such is the genius of the sect, that though
they may admit an Equal, (as parity is the thing most aimed
at by them both in Church and State,) yet they will hardly be
persuaded to submit themselves to a Superior, to no superiors
more unwillingly than to Kings and Princes ; whose persons
they disgrace, whose power they ruinate, whose calling they
endeavour to decry and blemish by all means imaginable. The
designation of all those who bear public office in the Church,
the calling of Councils or assemblies, the presidency in those
Councils, ordaining public fasts and appointing festivals, (which
anciently belonged unto Christian Princes as the chief branches
of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction which is vested in them,) are
utterly denied to Kings and Princes in their Boohs of Discipline.
— As for their power in temporal or civil causes, by that time
Knox's Peers and Buchanan's Judges, Parseus's Inferior Magis-
trates and Calvin's Popular Ojficers, have performed their parts,
(in keeping them within the compass of the laws, arraigning
them for their offences if they should transgress, opposing them
by force of arms if any thing be done unto the prejudice of the
Church or State, and, finally, in regulating their authority after
the manner of the Spartan Ephori and the Roman Tribunes,)
all that is left [^of the regal authority^ v^ill be by much too
little for a lioi d'lvitot, or for a King of Clouts, as we English
phrase it."
APPENDIX C.
219
But leaving the Genevan Fathers, from whose writings
might be quoted passages still more olgectionable than these,
we proceed to observe some of the doctrinal peculiarities of
Caineron, which caused him to be greatly maligned by the
violent Predestinarians. Like his great cotemporary, Piscator,
he rejected the doctrine of Christ's imputed righteousness ; and
was, on this account, objected against by the Synod of Poitou,
when in l6lS he "accepted the Divinity Professorship at Sau-
mur. But, two years at\erwards, this objection was declared to
be untenable, by th^ National Synod held at Alez. He, and
many other good men^ had viewed with grief the obloquy and
persecution to Avhich the pious Arrainius had voluntarily ex-
posed himself by asserting the scriptural doctrine of the concur~
rcncc of the human will ivith the grace of God, &c. ; and they
endeavoured, by lopping off some of the rotten and unfruitful
branches of Calvinism, to accommodate doctrinal matters so as to
preserve themselves free from ecclesiastical censures, while
they imparted to the rigid Predestinarian scheme a greater
show of probability, and exhibited it in a form less liable to
exception. Among the doctrines thus discarded was what is
often called " the imputation of the active righteousness of Christ :"
For they perceived, that, by admitting such a tenet and allowing
it to be carried onward to its legitimate consequences, they
opened the flood-gates to every species of imrighteousness.
When men were taught to consider their righteousness as being
only imputed, they soon inferred that no attempts were neces-
sary on their part for the attainment of actual holiness : So that,
except in the idea itself, (which, when unaccompanied by holy
endeavours, has a tendency to puif up rather than to humble,)
those persons who gave it entertainment had no personal experi-
ence of that transforming power of Divine Gi-ace which the
Scriptures describe. In their erroneous account, Christ had
repented for them, had believed for them, and had been clothed
with the Spirit of holi less for them, (or rather, instead of them,')
what need therefore had they to take any thought about repent-
ance, faith, and holiness? Several churches had become
infected with this iynputation-mania ; and the Calvinistic pastors
had not, among their treasures of things new and old, aiiy
doctrine which they could employ in counteraction : For, in
other parts of their heterogeneous system, they had represented
all the striving and endeavours of man, though undertaken and
prosecuted at the express command of God himself in his blessed
word, to be nothing better than legality. Cameron, therefore,
Piscator, and a few other celebrated Divines of that age, fully
aware of the sad and desecrating effects of such a doctrine,
totally discarded it from their systems, and taught their hearers
to estimate their standing in religion by their actual progress in
holiness, and in humilitj- — its inseparaljle attendant.
V 2
220 APPENDIX C.
But Cameron, who was a man of vast comprehension, eX"
ceeded Piscator in his endeavours to render Calvinism popular,
if not invulnerable. It was not because he did not understand
Arminianism, but hecatisc he wished to avoid the fate of Arrninius,
that he and his famous disciples in France chose to misinterpret
some of tlie tenets of the Leyden Professor, in order to prepare
a way for their own inventions. Cameron was the founder of
that theological system which in England is generally known
under the name of " Baxterianism :" He bori'owed the. doctrine of
General Redemption and the Universal Offer of Grace from Ar-
rninius, but it will be subsequently seen that these points v/ere
completely neutralized by the other appendages of his amended
scheme of Calvinism.* Baxter says, in the Preface to hli Saiiiis'
Rest : " The middle way v/hich Camero, L. Crocius, Martinius,
Amyraldus, Davenaiit, with all the Divines of Britain and
Bremen in the Synod of Dort go, — I think, is nearest the truth
of any that I know who have written on those points of Re-
demption and Universal Grace." In this manner Baxter quotes
Cameron perpetually, as the inventor of this reputed " middle
way."
Amyraut, or Amyraldus, of whom some mention is made in
a preceding page, (l6,) was in France the great patron of this
more specious mode of Calvinism. He had studied Divinity
under Cameron at Saumur, and had imbibed from his great
master tlie principles of his religious and political creed. On
the latter subject it is a pleasure to quote the following para-
graph from Bayle : " In the Apology which Amyraut pub-
lished in iG-iJ in behalf of the Protestants, he excuses, as well
as he can, the civil wars of France : But he declares at the same
time, that he by no means intends to justify the taking up of
arms against one's lawful sovereign upon any pretence wiiat-
ever; and that he always looked upon it as more agreeable to
the nature of the gospel and the practice of the primitive
church, to use no other arms than patience, tears, and prayers.
* And whenever I reflect,' says he, * on the history of our an-
* This epithet seems to be contradictory to the following remark by Dr.
Mosheim . " The more I examine this recoiiciiirg' system [of the French
Universaiist^i], the mi. re lam persuaded, that ii is no Uiore than Armi-
nianism or I'liLAGiANisM arlliiUy dressed up, and ingeniously covered with
a half-transparent veil of specious but ambiguous expressions ; and this
iudnment is contirmed by the language that is used in treating this subject
Dy the modern followers of Amyraut, who express their sentiments with more
courage, plainness, and perspicuity, than the spirit ol' the times permitted
their master to do."
But both these statements are reconcilable ; for the Doctor's observation
applies only to those Universalists who were the successors of Amyraut,
ana who had been gradually liberated from the trammels imposed upon
them by the Dort Synodists and tlieir intemperate French Partizans.
Moshcim's description is also contirmatory of the results, which Pro-
fessor Poelenburgh has ably detailed, page 226.
ATPr.xDix c. 221
* cestors, I cannot avoid being grieved that they have not
* crowned so many other noble virtues, which they have pro-
* posed for our example, with the imitation of the primitive
* Christians in the invincible patience with which they bore
* the persecutions of the Emperors,' " These were the political
principles of all the Universalists or Cameronists of France ;
and they were under no small obligation to Grotius for his
Wishes Jor the Peace of the Chiirch, and others of his apologetical
pieces, which taught them a more excellent way than that which
their turbulent predecessors had trodden. After the Revo-
cation of the Edict of Nantz, they carried these and their
enlarged religious principles into Holland, much to the regret
of the rigid Dutch Calvinists, who openly complained, that the
French Refugees had imported into that country a refined
species of Arminianism.
But, on examinstion, the scheme of Cameron will not be
easily mistaken for Arminianism. After Grotius had been
appointed the Queen of Sweden's Ambassador to the Court of
France, he informs his brother, that several of the French Pro-
testant ministers had waited on him and given him a pressing
invitation to join their communion in Paris. Among the rest,
he states, M. Rivet's brother had called upon him, and then
adds : " Amyraut, a Pastor and Professor at Saumur, has also
written in a most honourjible manner concerning me to Mar-
baud, and has subjoined a hope that I will produce some degree
of moderation in these controversies. He has written on those
questions which have been discussed in Holland. He says,
that ' the design of God in the creation of man, was, to bless
* man by the knowledge of himself; that Christ died . simply
' for all men ; and that it is the will of God that all men be
' savec17 but under the condition of faith.' — Yet this doctrine is
weakened in no small degree by his asserting, * that faith itself is
* bestowed through a decree which has in it no condition, and no
' respect to any thing that either is in man or from him ; and that,
* when this faith has been once imparted, it cannot be over-
* thrown.' — He adopts the sentiment of Cameron, as do also
many Others, ' that the actions of the will in determining de-
' Eendj by an inevitable necessity, upon a. mode of the under-
* standing ;' from which flows this consequence, acknowledged
by himself, ' that the first man did not possess powers sufficient
* to repel the suggestions of the devil.' With this likewise agrees
this other consequence, which he does not express, ' that even
' the fall of the devil was inevitable.' It is difficult to con-
ceive, how the men who hold such sentiments can explain the
sins against conscience, and particularly that which is called
the sin against the Holj/ Ghost."
In another letter to his brother, Grotius communicates the
following most interesting information : " I had with me to-
222 AI'I'KN'DIX C.
day (Aug. 2, \()35,) three of the most learned of the Reformed
Pastors, — Foucheur of Montepelier, and Mestrezat [^Mctresa-
tus^ and Daille of this church {jit Paris^. They intreated me
to join their communion; and said, 'that the resohitions of the
* Synods of Alez and Charenton had been altered by new
* decrees, and that communion had been offered to the Luther-
* ans. They hoped we accounted theirs to be a Christian Con-
' fession ; they entertained this opinion about that of the
' Remonstrants. They recollected this expression of mine in
' answer to Sibrandus — If St. Chrijsoslom or Melancthon ivcre to
' come to them [Jhe Calvhmt.s^, I ivonder whether they would
' deny them the right of communion. They had read my book on
' the Truth of the Christian Iielis:ion, and my lafst counsels for
* concord, both of which excited their high approval.' — la
reply, I commended these sentiments as being most consonant
to the designs which I had always cherished, and said, that I
had never concealed the wonderful pleasure which I derived
from the opinions of Melancthon. In reference to the peace of
the churches, I knew that it ought not to be disturbed by
violent modes of acting, and that the conferences between
learned men ought to be unfettered. — They said, ' that they
' were labouring for the reception of the Dutch Remonstrants
' into communion with them, and had written to Rivet : Since
' they had themselves been rendered more prudent by time,
' they hoped the Dutch [^Calvinists^ would do something in
' their favour, after they had maturely considered their reasons.'
— When this conversation had passed between us, I added,
that I was prepared, by those external symbols which had been
instituted for this purpose, to testify the communion of spirit
which I had always held with them ; and that I had at no
period determined to abstain from communion. If I should go
into a country, in which the Lutherans might be desirous to
admit me to communion with them after knowing my senti-
ments on the Lord's Supper, I would act there in the same
manner. — Of this mode of procedure they also approved. — I
thank God, that the counsels of moderation have been so far of
service, as to cause gentle breezes to blow from that quarter
from which in former days the most furious blasts proceeded.
I have no doubt, that not a few of these men entertain similar
sentiments to ours on this subject. You will be able to speak
about this affair with those of the Remonstrants who contain
themselves within the bounds of modesty and of wishes for a fair
and honourable concord ; communicate it likewise to Uiten-
bogardt ; that both he and they may may understand, that
what I do is done for the most equitable reasons, — these reasons
indeed are of such a description as, were I not to comply
with them, would cause the crime to recoil upon me from those
persons [|the Dutch Calvinists^ by whom we luul been unjustly
APPKXDIX C. 22;J
condemned.^ — The [^French]] Pastors requested me to publish
my notes on the New Testament."
No person in modern times can form a just idea of the viru-
lence with which Amyraut was attacked, by the rigid chiefs
of Calvinism, when he began to propound and explain the
doctrines of his deceased preceptor. Those who did not ap-
prove of his hypothesis were alarmed at it as a novelty, pai'ticu-
larly when they saw Peter du Moulin enter into a contest with
him, for teaching doctrines contrary to the Synod of Dort and
favouring Arminianism.* Not content with defaming Amyraut
* The intelligent reader will require no assurance from nie respecting this
fact, — that the history of these contests is, in the perusal, exceedingly irksome
to a benevolent mind. Yet irksome as such an employment is, one cannot
fail of being occasionally amused on instituting a few comparisons between
the combatants. — The Remonstrants had stated their sentiments at theSyuod
of Dort, and they are recorded in a former part of this pamphlet : D,u Moulin
the quondam pacificator, to whom an allusion is made in page 15i3, com-
posed a refutation, which he entitled " The Anatome of Arminianism," and
in which he bestowed the most opprobrious epithets on his unoB'ending vic-
tims. This was the reward which the Armiuians obtained for asserting the
Universal Good-tvill of God to man. — Amyraut and his Cameronists arose, and
taught the same doctrine in appearance^— hni with such a cunning salvo in
favour of Calvinism, as, when properly understood, leaves that rigid system iu
the state in which it was from its commencement. They too decried Armi-
nianism ; and, as a proof of their predestinarian orthodoxy distorted its doc-
trines. Du Moulin became again a combatant, and, because his co-pastors
would not express their Calvinism in the very terms which he employed he
became far more furious against them than against the Armiuians. — Du
Moujlin, however, ought not to have been thus severe against his brethren ;
for lie had, in his Anatome of Arminianism, been guilty of rejorming " the
received doctrine." He thought that Calvinism would be rendered more
attractive when divested of the obnoxious branch of Absolute Reprobation —
the idea of which separation, Calvin himself had before very justly ridiculed.
On this topic Du Moulin had used strong expressions : " How abhorrent, "says
he, " is this from the benignity and the justice of God, to give an infinite evil to a
creature on whom he had bestowed 2l finite good, — and to create man for the
sole purpose of destroying him, that he may acquire glory to himself by such
destruction!" For this offence he was dreadfully mal-treated by our cele-
brated countryman Dr. Twisse, who, in his Vindication of the Grace, Power _
and' Providence of God, reprehends in a most caustic style Du Moulin's
sctieme, and declares most solemnly, that, by it, " he imported into the
*' Reform-id Churches pure and unsophisticated Arminianism." Heavier
charges than these are urged against him in eight chapters ; beside wliich he
receives occasional flagellation in common with others, whom the old Doctor
attacks for the yearning of their natural aflections. — Doctor Twisse himself
has been blamed for some concessions which he made to innovators in cer-
tatfi parts of his high Calvinistic production. Ent this accusation has been
preferred by men who have not carefully perused the doctor's huge volume.
For, read in whatever part we may, if we think he has made an important
concession, he will not leave us lon^ in doubt, but with a happy inconsistency
will resume in another shape what ne had previously granted.
Here then are four kinds of professing Christians : Those who appear in
the eyes of the other three the basest and most ignoble, receive in this instance
the mildest species of correction. The petulance and visible irascibility
gradually ascend through Amyraut and Du Moulin, till, like a chaplet of
ill-scented flowers, they find a station, and rest on the brow of the renowned
Dr. Twisse, encircling his learned temples. Palmani qui meruit ferat !
How weak and ignorant is human reason when it begins to frame for itself
as these quarrelsome Calvinists did, a system of Predestination which finds
no countenance in scripture, and concerning which they couid not agree
among themselves.
224 API'EKDIX r.
and Mi'letiere, in his book entitled Dc Mosis Ajwjraldi Libra
Judichuu Da Moulin inveighed against the character of their
deceased preceptor with all the acrimony of an unregenerate
spirit, a th )ugh Cameron had once been his intimate friend.
The following are a few specimens of his objectionable per-
foi'manee: "Cameron was never tired of talking: He was an
i icessant chatterer that would have wearied even Bollanus to
death. For if he had found a man that would give him undi-
vided attention, he would prosecute his discourse from an early
hour in the morning till late at night without the least inter-
mission. When I was at Paris, he frequently visited me, and
was always accompanied by Milletiere his admirer. Sitting
down by my side, he generally comm.enced a harangue of
infinite length, while I listened to him in the deepest silence, —
for he could not endure any one to interrupt him. When on
one occasion I had ventured to speak a few words, wrinkling
his brow he exclaimed with indignation. Do not give me such
iiikri'uption : Allow me to speak ! Yet he talked about nothing
except his own words or deeds, — Vk'hat conversations he had
held at different times with this or that merchant, counsellor,
or divine, — how he composed a copy of verses iarpromplu after
having left one of them, and sent it to him immediately, —
then would he repeat those verses from memory, to the great
weariness of his auditors." What criminality can be attached
to all these circumstances, and to fifty others still more minute,
which Du Moulin relates ? Nothing is more natural than for
a learned man, after being secluded from society for weeks
tosrether, to disclose his mental stores to the first person with
whom he meets, and whom he considers to be possessed of
sufficient sense to appreciate the value of such a communication.
The want of modesty is but in appearance, and the egotism is
only temporary ; yet these healthful overflowings of genius are
intellectual treats, which no man of letters would willingly
forego. — But Du Moulin had more serious charges to produce :
" Cameron was a man of a restless disposition ; and was always
revolving in his mind and talking about some novelty. Among
his friends, of whom I v/as one, he did not conceal, that there
were many things in our \jthe Calvinistic'2 religion which he wished
to see changed. — He made a similar confession in a letter to
Lewis Cappel, in which he says : / have met with many things
which I have no wish to disclose, and which the state of the times
does not allow me to commit to paper." He then gives an extract
from a letter, which a London Calvinist sent to a French Di-
vine at Nerac, and in vifhich, having related that he had seen
Cameron pass through the Metropolis, he subjoins, *' He is a
man of profound melancholy, and one that would be capable of
defending a heresy." This was the grievance of which Du
Moulin had the greatest reason to complain : He thought that
APPENDIX C. 225
no man, after himself, ought to innovate on Calvinism, in
order to accommodate it to the common sense of mankind, or
to the increasing knowledge and liberality of the age. Cameron
had been prematurely removed to a better world, without in-
structing mankind in all the amenities of his system ; but his
disciples Amyraut and Milletiere had, in different ways, di-
vulged them ; and they had been embraced by many warm
Calvinists as the best and most plausible antidote to Arminianism,
"which taught men to consider God as a Being of infinite ve-
racity,— an attribute of Divinity that seems to have been
overlooked by many of the Cameronists.
To shew that all the colours which he had displayed were
intended only for a lure to the unwary, Amyraut published a
work entitled A Specimen of the Doctrine of Calvin, in which he
proved that Calvin himself maintained Universal Grace !
Atthe National Synod of Alen^on, in l637, he was attacked
by Du Moulin and the unruly men of that party ; but Amyraut
explained his doctrine and defended himself with so much
ability, that he was honourably acquitted, and silence was
imposed on both sides with regard to the further discussion of
these questions. At a subsequent Synod, a complaint was
preferred against him for not having observed this silence ; but
he complained, on the contrary, that it had not been observed
by his opponents. The orders for silence were re-iterated ;
yet Amyraut was allowed to answer some foreigners that had
written against his system. At the National Synod of Charen-
ton, in 1645, he was employed by that assembly to reclaim
Milletiei'e from his errors. For several days they conferred
together, but could not come to an amicable conclusion. Amy-
raut was a man of great eloquence and discretion ; and the
loyally which he inherited f.om Cameron was of the greatest
benefit at that period to the French Protestants. The Court of
Fi'ance found Amyraut to be a person of integrity upon whose
allegiance some reliance might be placed; and he was accord-
ingly treated with much distinction both by Cardinal Richelieu
and Cardinal Mazarine, and others of the illustrious among his
countrymen who were of the Romish Communion. He fought
his theological battles with great spirit and success. Caraeronism,
as interpreted by Amyraut, soon obtained the conquest over all
its opposers in France and the neighbouring States.* Indeed,
the sect of the Universalists, or Cameronists, prevailed to a far
greater extent among the Calvinists on the continent, than did
* " For the sentiments of Amyraut were not only received in all the Univer-
sities of the Hugoiiots in France, and adopted by Divines of the hiifhest note
in that nation, but also spread theiii^ehes as far as (ieueva, and were
afterwards disseminated by the French Protestants, who tied from the rage
of persecution, through all the Reformed Churches of Europe. And they
now are so sjenerally received, that few have the courage to oppose or decry
them." — MbsUEiiM.
226 APPENDIX C.
the kindred sect of Baxterians in England. It is to this pleasing
state of theological affciirs to which Poeleliburgh alluded in l659,
when he said : "In this age, after that unbridled passion for
contending has subsided which usually transports into opposition
even the most excellent men, by degrees the great mass [[of
professing Christians^ acquiesce in this opinion of ours on Pre*
destination, or in one equally moderate." — Bayle refers to the
same peaceful aera, when, on recording the wish of several
members of the Synod of Alen^on to depose Amyraut, he adds :
" If these men had lived 30 or 40 years longer, I do not com-
prehend how they could have shewn their faces : For the doc-
trine, which, in their opinion, deserved the most thundering
anathemas, was at length embraced by the greatest men that
served the Reformed Churches of France, — M. Mestrezat, Blon-
del, Daille, Claude, &c. The Particularists were forced to
acknowledge as their brethren, and as faithful Ministers of Jesus
Christ, those who had maintained the doctrine of Universal
Grace. The ministers, who took shelter in Holland and signed
a Formulary at the Synod of Rotterdam, in 16"86, were not
compelled to make any declaration that seemed to strike at the
system of Amyraut."
On the progress and defect* of Cameronism, several inter-
esting notices occur in the letters of Grotius. On the 29th of
Dec. 16'J6, he writes thus to his brother: " It is now a year
and upwards since Milletiere, who was formerly the great
champion of the Rochelle party and the opponent of Tilenus,
published a book in the French language which relates to the
union of the Roman Catholics with the Refoi'med : But what his
design may be, I cannot tell. Some persons say, ' that being
* a man who possesses much self-complacency, of which he
^ gives many tokens, he is desirous of obtaining glory by a
* great undertaking.' Others say, ' that, being in a state of
* poverty, he is supported by the kindness of the Cardinal
' [[Richelieu], for whom he exerts himself, and to whom he
* dedicates his labours.' But those who have a more intimate
knowledge of the man, give a milder interpretation to his de-
sign, and say, * that, his spirit having been humbled by adver-
' sity, he had turned away his mind from factious and warlike
* counsels to peaceful desires.' Salmasius is one of his friends,
and has no bad opinion of the man. It is now some months
since he published a book in Latin, in which he explains those
things which he had formerly declared with some degree of
obscurity, and yet not without some reservations, especially in
that part in which he treats about the Ecclesiastical Supremacy
and the Eucharist. Various have been the judgments formed
by those Avho yield implicit obedience to the Roman Pontiff, by
those who are stern followers of Calvin, and by some of the
most moderate in each of the two parties. Du Moulin has
APPENDIX C. 227
entertained the copy of the book which was sent to him, with
a severe answer that has been long expected, as both he and
Rivet acted towards the former production. Milletiere has written
a tolerably smart reply to Du Moulin, because it is in the
French language, of which he has a better knowledge, and has
said some things that are not inapplicable to Du Moulin. In
his Latin book, among other things on which he treats, at great
length and with much plainness, is Cameron's opinion concern-
ing Predestination and Grace: Of that opinion he so far
approves as to amend it ; and says, it is agreeable to that will
of God concerning the salvation of all men which Camei'on
acknowledges, — that there might he sorriething in those mho are
converted, which it was possible for them to avoid. Yet he does
not wish to appear as an approver of the Arminians ; for he
says, that ' Camero was the only man who awed them into
'silence: After the chief man of that tribe had been subdued,
' (he means Tilenus,) no person durst rise up and shew him-
* self except one individual under a feigned name, who is un-
* derstood to be Episcopius.' — Daille has opposed Milletiere's
last production in an answer composed in purer Latin than that
of his adversary, and which is not deficient in tartness and
acrimony. I am surprised at his extolling the decrees of the
Synod of Dort : Yet, with wonderful evasions and inconsisten-
cies, he wishes to make those decrees coincide with God's will
to save all men.
" This is, I think, a proper occasion for the men who are
learned in those parts to consider, if they cannot elicit some
portion of light from this society of men who are sufficiently
hardy. I undertook to transmit to Episcopius, some time ago,
what Amyraut and Testard had written on this topic, both of
whom are Cameron's disciples ; and I was of opinion, that he
ought now to print, with a few alterations, those arguments
which he formerly v/rote while Cameron was living, in defence
of his pamphlet, which had been published anonymously, and
which after Cameron's death he had suppressed, that he might
not seem to contend with a shadow. Such a publication is
required, principally for the purpose of exposing the fallacy of
that smooth varnish, about the immutability of the will except so
far as it is determined hij the understanding, by which God is
undoubtedly constituted the inevitable cause of all offences, and
even of the first : Some persons will probably then be enabled
clearly to see through this argument, Avhich is a matter not so ob-
scure in itself, as through the fault of those who enter into its
discussion. Milletiere has waited upon the English ambassador
extraordinary. He has not seen me, because I think he is afraid
of the old offence, which I had obliterated from my recollection :
For I am now daily intent upon this object — to dismiss all pri-
vate thoughts from my mind and to devote my whole attention
228 ArpKNDix c.
to the public. By the pvhlic, I mean, * the general good of the
Christian world.' — It seems necessary to demonstrate, that the
serious ivUl of God concerninrr the salvation of all men, awAthe
pains of death which Christ endured for all men, are inconsistent
Avith his absolute ?inll of not alJhrding to the greater part (f them
such means as are indispensabltj necessary to their salvation. On
this subject, the distinction which is adopted of the will of
precept, and the will of complacenci/, is a vain one. It will be
likewise needful to answer those arj^uments by which Cameron
wished to establish the dependence of the will in ever?/ respect upon
the understanding, and to vindicate the arguments adduced to
the contrary. — I perceive Milletiere's assertions about the liberty
of man in the work of conversion, differ very little from those of
many Protestants in Germany : A foolish species of evasion,
that A MORAL IMPOSSIBILITY, although it be attracted from
another quarter, affords no kind of excuse ! May not this
impossibility be a physical one, particularly in infants? — It will
be requisite to shew, that Daille and his associates are the men
who deceive their readers by words which express one thing
but signify another, and who ascribe to God a similar course
of conduct."
In March, l637, Grotius addressed the following letter to
his brother: " Within these few days, I have seen a book by
Du Moulin which is not yet published, and in which he se-
verely censures the opinions of Testard and Amyraut. His
discussion of this subject is worthy of perusal. I do not blame
him, v/hen he says, ' Arminius possessed a more vigorous
* judgment than Cameron and his followers : Arminius therefore
* uttered such truths as agreed perfectly with each other, and
* as were consistent v/ith the principles which he had once laid
' down ; while Cameron and his followers utter doctrines that
* are mutually conflicting. For the man who believes that
* God seriously desires the salvation of every man, ought likewise
* to pcknoAvledge that God bestows gifts by which man may con-
* quer the impossibility of converting himself: He declares that it
* is of no consequence whether this impossibility be called natural
' or moral, while the force remains the same.' — He frequently
employs very bitter expressions against those brethren of his :
For, he asserts, ' there are several of their positions which he
' could not read without horror ; that, through them, the
* foundations of true piety are overthrown, and the Christian
' Religion turned into smoke ; that not a grain of reason can
' be found in some of their expressions; and that they attribute
* to God injustice, cruelty, and misanthropy.'
" The principal reason of this great wrath, on the part of Du
Moulin, is because he perceives their doctrines disannul a great
part of the Canons of the Synod of Dort; of which he, although
absent, was one of the chief fabricators and the sole cause why
APPICNDIX C. 221>
that Synod []and its conclusions^ were approved in France
without examination. He denies, that ' any of God's decrees
' are conditional ; he is on this account desirous, that both the
' promises and the precepts should be without decrees of per-
* forming or of affording strength. He accuses these men, and
* not without good reason, for denying that Adam was endued
' with power or strength, by the aid of which it was possible
* for him to avoid temptation ; and he shews, to some purpose,
* that the impossibility, which they call moral, is in reality,
' according to their own positions, a natural impossibility. , Uni-
* versa.1 Grace, as expounded by Arminius, is of some utility ;
' but, when explained by tiiem, it is totally useless.' — These
are extracts which I have made in the course of reading the
book, and of which I accounted it necessary to certify you :
Mercier is now transcribing the vrork, that he may forward
a copy to Episcopius. Du Moulin wrote it after he had
been prohibited, by the Rectors of the University of Sedan,
from writing any thing on that subject. He consented to be
silent in future ; and he now declares, that he has not composed
this book with the design of publishing it, but in order to ren-
der the adjudication of this matter more easy in the National
Synod which is expected. Testard complains, that, since Da
Moulin began to write against him. Rivet has also abandoned
the sentiment which he formerly entertained — that Ihis diversitif
of opinions miglit be ioleratecl. Yet the Senators of the Reformed
Religion assure me, that they will endeavour to have nothing
fixed, but to allow a liberty of thinking, and to repress among
the people this licentiousness of disputing."
In a subsequent letter, written on the 30th of April, he says:
" A Rector of the University of Sedan called upon me yesterday,
who occasionally officiates as a minister, when a supply is
required. He states it as his opinion, that all those among the
Reformed who are eminent for acuteness, will come over to the
sentiments of Arminius; but that the followers of Cameron will
perceive themselves compelled to take refuge there, if they wish
to speak agreeably to their own positions, and not to destroy
what they have themselves erected."
On the 8th of July, he writes thus : " No messenger offers
himself, or I would send you Milletiere's new book, in which
he boldly replies to Daille, and openly defends the opinion
concerning Justification which is maintained by the Remon-
strants, and indeed by all the Ancients. Milletiere frequently
comes to me, and talks in a moderate and polite manner about
various controversies. How greatly changed from the Hector
which he once was!"
On the IStb of July, Grotius again writes: " In the Synod
of Alen9on, Testard and Amyraut were heard, but only before
230 APPENDIX C.
a committee, lest the larger assembly should be divided into
parties. Both of them explained tlieir sentiments, and purged
themselves from the stain of Arminianism : They were then
slightly admonished, not to utter before the people certain un-
necessary questions. Thus was the matter passed over, with-
out 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 Alencon, such was the intemperate
fury of certain of Du Moulin'spartizans, 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 com-
posed 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 erro?; because he had not perceived ihe dreadful conse-
' quc7icef! 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
* manner, 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 acquit-
ting 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 Uni-
versities, Schools, Churches, and principal persons in the
United Provinces, concerning Amyraut and Testard : But
several of the answers vihich he received, were more temperate
than he wished. For they say, he does not perfectly under-
* Rivet was Du Moulia's brother-in-law ; and, according to the laudable
rules of affinity, these two relations seemed to have covenanted ton^ether to
hold similar opinions, and to unite their polemic forces, which were emi-
nently diversified and brawling, against all opposcrs. This explanatioH
accounts for the rancour which Rivet exhibited towards Grotius, against
whose character he invented all kinds of ialsehoods 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 grate-
fully 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 16.i5 to Dr. Haniniond, be says,
" For the Socinian opinion, 1 know he [Grotius] was free; and it was
</te ;«fl//'c^ oy/^/i'p^ to bring him in ((uestion, as he did many otliers, out of
pride and siipercilium, unfitting such a professor."
APPENDIX 0. 231
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.j he says: '' Since I last
wrote to you, I have seen the Acts of the Synod of Alen^on,
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 occu-
pation 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 Bax-
ter, who, on this point, was one of the warmest of Cameron's disci-
ples : " Testard and Amyraut do nothing more than varnish over
had doctrines with foil- tvords ; and they tahe away Avith the one \
hand whatever they have been compelled by the light of the scrip- /
tures to deliver with the other." — Some of them were undoubtedly J
npright 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 betolei'ated 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 sincerittj, 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 reconcilinif 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 ])lace Pajon in the class of those who exjdained 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 somew/tat towards the Anninian systein ; and
this propensity was not uncominnn among the French Protestants. But few
Doctors of this time wrote with more learning, zeal, and judgment against
Popery, than Claude Pajon."
232 APPENDIX C.
see tlieir system founded, and wlien they bad 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 Armi-
nius, was considered a test in every respect adequate to the
establishment of a man's character for Calvinian orthodoxy ;
and the Cantieronists were not at all backward in expressing
their abhorrence of every subsequent movement which beto-
kened a closer approximation to the doctrin is of General Re-
demption. They commenced an attack upon Arminianism ; but
their polemical attempts in that direction were viewed by all
parties as a kind of convenient ruse chi guerre, which served to
ward olTfrom 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 lfi'2l, opposed the imposition
of the Canons of Dort on the French Clergjy, as a rule of faith, and found
many of his hrethren in the ministry ready to give support to his opposition.
He succeeded I'jpiscopius in the Divinity Professorship at Amslerdam, 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
Gotnarush?n\ been printed off under my superintendence, a friend presciited
me very opportunely with Four Theological Disse^-tations by Moses Amiiriiiit,
Professor of Divinity ul Sdumur. The Second of them is entitled, The
Right and Jurisdictio7i which God possesses over his Creatures, and is op-
posed 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,
J discovered, throughout the production several foul errors. But that which
most displeased nie, was, the violent munner in which the man is borne
along by his passions, being seized with an excessive propensity for contra-
diction, and even to cavil at those things which are truths the most mani-
fest. 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 j'ears ago, was the original cause of this dispute. For in that
publication he contends, that Christ suffered deatii e()ually 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 um-
brage to Peter du Moulin, Professor of 'llieology in the University of Sedan,
that he undertook the task of examining Amyraut's Treatise in a separate
pamphlet. Having shortly afterwards obtained a copy of Dn Moulin's
Examination, 1 publicly, yet anonymously, delivered vny Senfitnents on
the dogmas in controversy between them ; and in that small work 1
shewed myself addicted to neither of the parties, hut fr«-ely gave my
suffrage first to the one and then to the other. But this I did in such a man-
ner, 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 Mou-
lin was wishful to leave nothing undiscussed in the book of his adversary,
■while indulging this disposition he not only car[)ed at those expressions
which ajjproached in the slightest degree to the doctrines of the Remon-
stiants, but likewise at those which were at the greatest possible distance
froiTithem, and which were quite of an opposite character. Among other
instances of this kind, the following occurs in the Fourth Chapter of
APPKN'DIX C. 233
strants ; and though the hopes of all lovers of consistency were
frustnited 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 followmg liberal re-
marks 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
Amyraut's Treatise : " If immediately after the creation of man, God had
' pliitiged hira into the bottomless infernal abyss, without having regard
either to his jjood or to his evil actions, l)ut only for the purpose of dis
, it was maa's duty to acquiesce
n such severity without au\' unwillingness ; because he is the creature of
' playing his supreme right over his creatures, it was maa's duty to acquiesce
' his Creator according to an absolute and indefinite right.' — To this reason-
ing Du Moulin replies : * The absolute right of the Creator does not extend
' itself to unjust things, nor can He employ it in hating 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 man 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 state-
ments, and adds : " I afterwards retorted Du Moulin's [generalj argu-
ments upon himself, and the other jiatrons of Absolute Reprobation, but
principally upon those who are styled Supra-lapsarknix ; 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, for
' afiCSst without any regartf to what deserves really to be called sin,) has
' destined and created by far the greatest portion uf mankind for eternal
' torments." What they without any obscurity thus ascribe to God, is said
by-Armyraut ti> be only possible for God to do; but he plainlj' denies that God
ever in" reality acts in any such manner.
" This is asnmniary of what 1 then wrote on this topic ; and throughout
the whole discussion 1 conducted myself vvith the greatest possible mode-
ration 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 crnnjiosition, 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 thau
equitable that, if he was unwilling to return me the thanks which I had
deserved, (which would only have been the act of an 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 xMoulin when he refuted them .' Is Amyraiitso angry," self-complai-
sant, and haughty, as not to be able to endure faithful ailmonitious .•' Or,
rather, did he not suppose, that, 17/ treatinif me with contiimely, he miiiht
be able to purge himself from the suspicion o/ Akminianism, which ho has
incurred among the men with whom he associates ?"
Q
234 APPENDIX C.
truth — Christ died for all men ? What doctrine is more fre-
quently propounded in the sacred writings ? Yet this truth,
plain as it appears, is frittered away by these brethren under
the veil of a h-ivolous distinction. * But it is a happy circum-
stance, that many eminent men have lately arisen in France,
who, havinor imbibed better sentiments, openly profess it to be
the will of God that all men he saved, and assert that Christ shed
his blood Jar all men without a single exception. On this subject
you ai*e accustomed to dissent from me in our familiar conversa-
tions togethei", when you contend, ' that from this discussion
' [^between the foUowei-s 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 tite Jixed number of those who are abso-
' luteli/ predestinated, the irresistibility of grace, the damnation of
' those who die in infancy, Sfc.' This fact 1 confess and lament.
Yet they seem to assert this last dogma with some degree of
hesitancy ; and they do not inaintain it on the principle of their
belief of its truth, so m uch 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 circum-
stance of their very accurate exposition, according to our senti-
ments, of all those passages of sciipture 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 scrip-
ture, A MUTUAL TOLERATtON MUST BE EXERCISED. Nay, if I
* The distiticliou to which Poeleuburgh here alludes, seems to be that
mentioned with two (fibers, in theprecetiiiiu;exauii!iation of Tileiius, page 44 :
" The word All is to be understood, not i'or all of every kind, but for some feiv
onbi of every sort and nut'ion."
f This clause contains a reason for the retention of one-half of the absurd
contradictions of Calvinism and Baxleriauisra. The followers of these two
discordant predestinarian schemes propound some of their dogmas, noton the
pr'n\c\p\e oi a belief in t/ieir truth, as sejiarate projiositii.ns, but on that of
tliuir necessiti/ ns su/iports to otiier dogmas, vldch, ivit/wut them, could not
he maiiita'uied. There is abundance of materiais, in the private corre-
epondciice of such men, to prove this fact beyond all controversy.
I
may be allowed to jirognosticate concerning futurity, I would
say, * After our adversaries have been taught a sufficient length
' of time to bear in their communion these learned Frenchmen,
* Christ the Prince of Peace will cause them at length to exhibit
' a similar equanimity of disposition toward us who ask for
* peace with importunity.' "
Some of the most glaring inconsistencies of Cameron or Bax-
ter's system have been pointed out in the preceding extracts
from Grotius. In opposition to Amyraut's improved edition of
Cameronism, Stephen de Courcelles composed a treatise entitled,
Vindicicc de Jure Dei in Crealvras, to which Bishop V/omack
adjudges this equitable commendation, (page 14,) " It is of
small price and of great profit." After premising, that Cour-
celles" opinions on some points were neither soorthodoxnor evan-
gelical as those of Arminius, I subjoin the following quotation
from the 13th Chapter of his work, as an able exposure of
several of the fallacies employed by the French Universalists,
which have been repeated by their friends the Baxterians in
England :
'•' But I hear Amyraut replying thus : ' The inconveniences
* with which you charge the tv/o preceding systems on the ob~
'J eat (>f Reprobation, |^those of the Supra and Sub-lapsarians,]]
* do not attach to me. For 1 teach, that God seriously wills
' the salvation of all men ; that Christ has endured the cursed
* death of the cross for all men equally ; that to all men to
' whom the gospel is proclaimed, a possibility is granted of
* believing in Christ, if they will ; and that none, except the
* finally impenitent and unbelieving, are rejected from salvation.'
— These docti-ines, I confess, have an imposing appearance ;
and when I peruse them in Amyraut's book, I can scarcely
refrain from exclaiming, 17iou art not far from the kingdom of
God. My sole wish is, that he would constantly persist in
them, and not overturn them by doctrines of a contrary ten-
dency : This, it appears to me, he does when he asserts, * that
'Adam sinned nccessarilij ; and that from his offence such a
* great corruption has pervaded all men, that although, if they
* will, they n^.ay believe on Christ when preached to them, yet
' to fifill such an act is impossible to any one except he be im-
* pel led btj the unco?iqnerable force of the Hoh/ Spirit, which God
' communicates to a certain small number of elect persons' By such
a mode of teaching, that which seems to be bestowed by one
hand is instantly withdrawn by the other."
Courceljes having combatted with great ability Am3'^raut's
doctri^ie of the necessity of Ada^n's sin, proceeds thus : " Since
therefore, by asserting tlic necessity ofthcfrst sin, Amyraut has
so shamefully stumbled at the very entrance, it was impossible
for the other doctrines to be immaculate, which he raised as a
superstructure on this bad foundation. Of this faulty descrip-
y2
236 A-PPKNDIX C.
tion is that which he holds in common with the rest of the Re-
formed,— ' Such great corruption has flowed from this first sin
* upon the whole of the human race, that we are all born the
' slaves of sin, with propensities to evil and with an inaptitude
* to every good thing ; and without special grace, which is bes-
* towed on a few only that are absoliiteli/ elected, it is as utter an
* impossibility for us to free ourselves from this state of bondage,
* as for an Ethiopian to change his skin, or a Leopard its
* spots.' — If this dogma be once admitted, the benefits of Re-
demption are converted into a cruel tragedy, although the Holy
Scriptures testify that in those benefits God has unfolded all
the treasures of his grace and mercy. Tell me, wliat kind of
grace or mercy is this — to cast the whole of the human race
into an unavoidable necessity of sinning and of perishing, that
he may liberate a few only from such thraldom ?
" But Amyraut teaches, ' that Christ died for all men equally,
' and that the remedy which he has procured is as extensive as
' the disease, according to that expression of St. Paul, God hath
' concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.'
(Rom. xi, 32.)— If this were really the case, the absurdity of
his opinion would be somewhat diminished, and he would frame
a God not altogether merciful, but one less cruel, because those
■whom he had wounded he would afterwards heal, and those
whom he had precipitated into a pit he would draw out again :
But this supposition is far from the truth." He then shews the
incompatibility of this doctrine with the rest of Amyraut's
theory, and says: " But I ask. Has not Christ paid a most
complete and full satisfaction to God his Father for all that was
due to Divine Justice on the part of infants newly born?
They owe nothing except with respect to the sin and guilt
which they contracted from Adam : For they have not yet
committed any actual transgression. Since payment has been
made []on their part through Christ^, they must be restored to
the same state in which Adam stood prior to his fall : But they
are not thus restored, according to Amyraut. God therefore
acts towards them with cruel injustice ; for, by such a procedure
as this, he has not mercy upon all those whom he has concluded in
unbelief" — After some other reasoning on this subject, Cour-
celles continues his refutation in the following manner:
" Besides, since faith is necessary in order to make us pai'-
takers of the benefits which are procured by the death of Christ,
and since no one can obtain it by his natural powers, (for it is
imparted through a special gift, from which God by an absolute
decree has excluded the greatest portion of mankind,) of what
avail is it that Christ has died for those to whom faith is denied?
Does not the affair revert to the same point, as if he had never
entertained an intention of redeeming them ? — ' But,' says Amy-
raut, ' all men may believe in Christ if they will : For he is
* proposed to them in the gospel ; and they are endued with an
APrKNuix c. 237
* nnderstanding and a will, which are the organs of belief It
* remains therefore solely with themselves whether they will
* believe or not.' — If this be not a mere trifling with words,
what is ? As though that man who has not the ability even to
tvill any thing, may do it if Jie will! And if [[according to
Amyraut]3 ^^ ^^ impossible for him to will any thing, it is like-
wise out of his power to nill it ; much less is it possible for him
by an effort of unwillingness to implicate himself in some griev-
ous crime, as they do who refuse to believe the gospel.' * For
* he only has the power of nilling who also enjoys the power of
' willing,' as it is stated in Digest, de Reg. Juris. — leg. 3. If
therefore the reprobates have not the ability of willing to believe
in Christ, neither have they the ability of being unnilling ; and
on account of such unwillingness, [[which according to Amy-
raut is inevitable,]] they commit no offence. Their being en-
dowed with an understanding and a will, is not of the least
consequence : For since those faculties have been corrupted by
the hereditary sin which they contract from Adam, and since
they are not adapted to form that faith which is required from
thejin, it cannot be imputed to them as a crime that they do
not believe, ' But they excel greatly in other matters which
' relate to the present life.' Of what avail is this, if they [[the
understanding and will]] be deficient and completely fetteretl
in this the chief concern, in which they are most needed .-* For
this circumstance was not unknown to God when he willed,
that Christ should offer himself to death for them ; nor was it
unkhown to Christ when he yielded obedience to the will of his
Father. In vain therefore did both of them display such trans-
cendent benevolence towards these miserable creatures, if it
was not their pleasure to heal this original malady and to
restore their understandings and wills to that integrity which
was lost in Adam. — ' But, [[Amyraut rejoins,]] it proceeds en-
* tirely from their own malignity, that, after God has mercifully
' bestowed on them these natural endowments, they do not em-
' ploy them in believing on Christ.' Let this be conceded : Yet
thejBialignity here described has been implanted in them by
nature ; and it is more impracticable for them to lay it aside,
than to divest themselves of their sex or to carry a huge moun-
tain upon their shoulders.
" Amyraut proceeds to say : ' But this impotency is of two
* kinds, — the one physical, the other ethical. The former occurs,
* when any one is destitute of the members or faculties, which
' are requisite for the performance of any thing ; but the latter
* []a moral impotency []] consists of some depraved habit, which
* creates within a man an inability to obey the Divine Will or
' Pleasure.' And he allows, * that an impotency of the former
^ description is excusable; and that a man cannot justly be
■* required to fly in the air like the birds, or to live in the water
Q 3
2^S ArrKXDix c.
* like fishes.' But he says, * the 'atter species of impotency,
* wliieh has maligiiiiy united with it, is completely inexcusable.'
But it is absurd, as well as repugnant to the usage of correct
speaking, to call tl>at a moral impotency which cleaves to every
man from liis mother's womb, and which cannot be removed by
any one, except by (xod alone, the Autlior of nature. For
although that malignity is opposed to natural innocence, yet it
is no less jj//j/.v/ai/ than the blindness or the deafness which some
pei'sons derive from their birth. ' But,' you will reply, ' it
* consists of morals, and every thing of this description is cor-
' rectly called etliical.' By no means ; for that alone is ethicd
or moral which proceeds from a voluntary usage or habit. This
malignity, by which we are rendered incapable of willing to
believe in Christ when he is announced to us, is said to be im-
])lanted in us from the biith in the same manner as cruelty and
rapacity are implanted in wolves: It is therefore evidently
physical. But it is in the power of no man to eradicate innate
vices : For the poet has properly asserted,
Dame nature once expell'd, you soon will learn
No barriers can prevent her quick return.
Yet those things which are ethical and contracted by habit, "
may be set aside by a contrary habit. Nor do they take away all
capability of doing what is opposed to them ; they only render
such an adverse course extremely difficult and incommodious-
Wherefore God can with justice require, from those who have
corrupted themselves by vicious indulgences, that they desist
from such evil courses ; and tliat, unless they do desist, he will
punish them with severity. But imagine God to have created
them corrupted individuals, and to have left them in that
state, — so that, according to the common expression, it is as
impossible for them to amend themselves as to raise the dead,
■ — He would be acting unjustly, were he to issue a similar re-
quisition, \jvilhout furnisliing the adequate jmivcrs, according to
Amyraut's theory,"] and were he, in case of their disobedience,
eternally to punish them in the torments of hell.
" From these premises it follows, in the last place, that
God does not seriously desire the conversion or salvation of
many of those for whom he provides the preaching of the gos-
pel, and that he adopts a hypocritical conduct towards them,
since [^according to Amyraut^ it is not his pleasure to remove
from them that innate disability under whicii they labour of
believing in Christ. For he must be accounted not to have
willed the end, who has 7iot milled the means without which the
end can on no account be obtained. I am aware, that Amyraiit
litters this exception: ' God n>ills the conversion of certain men,
* only in such a manner as to approve of it; but he wills the
APPKXDIX c. 239
' salvation of others, so as likewise to effect it. Towards the former
* class of men, he acts as a Legislator ; but his conduct towards the
* latter, is that of a Father.' But this objection is devoid even of
common speciousness. For it is the province of a tijrant, and not
of an equitable legislator, to command impossibilities, and, in
consequence of disobedience, to subject the offending parties to
a cruel punishment. Much more tyrannical still must it be, if
he is himself the cause why those things which he commands
are impossible to be performed ; as if he should ordt-r a man to
run after he had broken his legs, or should command another
man to read whose eyes he had plucked out. Yet this is exact-
ly the doctrine which Amyraut's opinion inculcates : that is,
* God, under the penaltj'^ of eternal damnation, enjoins the per-
*formance of good works on those men whom, on account of the
' sin of their first parents, he has created in such a state of cor-
* ruption that it is impossible for them to do any otherwise than
' commit iniquiti/.' Nor is it of any importance, that they are
ssiid to have merited such punislimcnt ; for although they might
have been most deserving of it, that could not in equity be
required from them which he had under a penalty rendered
impossible to be done. — ' Nevertheless," says Amyraut, * God
' would be pleased with their conversion, if they would con-
' vert themselves at the external hearing of the Gospel : For
* this would be a matter that would be wonderfully agreeable to
* him !' Is this the expression of one who seriously wills con-
version, or is it not rather that of one who mocks and trifles
with the misery of another.? For since the external preaching
of the word is insufficient for this purpose, and since God knows
for a certainty that without the aid of his determining grace no
person can either will or effect this [^conversion]], the perform-
ance of it cannot be pleasing to the Divine Mind so long as He
does not bestow such grace : In the same manner as it cannot
be pleasing to him, that a dead person to whom he has not re-
stored life should rise out of the tomb. For he who alone has in
his own hand all those means which are necessary to the per-
formance of any thing, and denies them to another, cannot pos-
sibly (except with deep dissimulation) command that other
person to perform it : Under such circumstances, the more
earnest and frequent the exhortations, promises, and threats
which he employs, the more completely does he betray his own
hypocrisy, malice, or folly. Suppose me now to be on an
island with some servants, and that only one ship is there,
which is solely in my own pov.'er : Suppose me then to com-
mand all those servants to sail over the sea from the island to the
distant continent, and to grant the use of that single ship to ojcn;
of them only, but absolutely to deny to all the rest any such ac-
commodation : In this case, who will be so foolish as to sup-
pose it to be my serious will or intei^ition, that those persons
240 APPKNDIX C.
to whom I deny the use of the ship, should sail over to the
continent ? Were I, in addition to all this, to employ magnifi-
cent promises and atrocious threatenings, should I not be called
a dissembling a?i(l vtijnst inav, who was mocking those unhappy
servants whom I hated, and was seizing an opportunity of
treating them with cruelty ? But this is precisely the kind of
conduct which Amy raut ascribes to God: From which it is
evident how egfegioush/ he extols the Divine Mercy in procuring
the salvation of the whole human race ; and in what manner he
teaches us, that God acts towards us witlioiit tlie least dissivm-
lation and in perfect sincerity !!"
As the preceding elucidations of the political and religious
creed of the early French Protestants have been derived princi-
pally from such sources as have not been pointed out by the
learned Mosheim, I here quote from him the following Propo-
sitions, in which he has briefly and judiciously summed up the
peculiar doctrines of the Universalists :
" That God desires the happiness of all men, and that no mor-
tal is excluded by am/ divine decree, from the benefits that are
procured by the death, sufferings, and Gospel of Christ.
" That, however, none can be made a partaker of the bless-
ings of the gospel, and of eternal salvation, unless he believe in
Jesus Christ.
" That such, indeed, is the immense and universal goodness
of the Supreme Being, that he refuses to none the power of
believing ; though he does not grant unto all his assistance and
succour, that they may wisely improve this power to the at-
tainment of everlasting salvation,
" And that, in consequence of this, multitudes perish through
their own fault, and not from any want of goodness in God."
I am also much pleased with the candour and moderation
which breathe in the following observations on this topic, and
which are the more remarkable as proceeding from Dr. Mac-
laine, a Presbyterian Calvinist : " This mitigated view of the
doctrine of Predestination has bnly one defect ; but it is a capital
one. It represents God as desiring a thing (that is, salvation and
happiness) for all, which, in order to its attainment, requires
a degree of his assistance and succour, which he refuseth to
MANY. This rendered grace and redemption universal only
in words, but partial in reality ; and therefore did not at all
mend the matter. The Supralapsarians were consistent with
themselves ; but their doctrine was harsh and terrible, and
was founded on the most unworthy notions of the Supreme
Being. And, on the other hand, the system of Amyraut was
full of inconsistencies : Nay, even the Sublapsarian doctrine
has its difficulties, and rather palliates than removes the horrors
of Supralapsarianism.
APPENDIX D. 241
" What then is to be done ? From what quarter shall the
candid and well-disposed Christian receive that solid satisfac-
tion and wise direction, which neither of these systems is
adapted to administer ? These he will receive by turning
his dazzled and feeble eye from the secret decrees of God,
which were neither designed to be rules of action, nor sources
of comfort, to mortals here below ; and by fixing his view
upon the mercy of God, as it is manifested through Christ,
the pure laws and sublime promises of his Gospel, and the
respectable equity of his present government and his future
tribunal."
But Dr. Maclaine was not aware, that in the last paragraph
he has given a good description of Arminianism, or he would not
thus have committed himself. His decided partiality for the
Dutch Calvinists is apparent throughout his annotations on
Mosheim's Histoi-y ; for, in whatever part any mention is made
of the persecuted Remonstrants, he shews that he has little
acquaintance with their principles or their conduct, except such
as he collected from the statements of their enemies. But when
he delivers his own opinion about the bigoted conduct of the
Calvinistic opposers of Am5'^raut, he was less guarded in his
expressions; and, after informing his readers, that neither
Supra nor Sublapsarianism, nor even " the system of Amyraut
full of inconsistencies," has furnished them with " worthy
notions of the Supreme Being," he advises them " to turn their
dazzled and feeble eyes from the secret decrees of God, and to fix
them upon the mercy of God, as it is manifested through Christ
pn] his Gospel," &c. Now this is exactly the course which
Arminius wished every man to pursue ; and the sole crime with
which his adversaries could justly charge him, after all their sub-
terfuges, was this,— his paramomit desire for all men to leave
under the Divine raianagement " the secret tkings which belong
unto the Lord our God alone," and to engage them in the study
of " those truths which are revealed, and which belong unto us
and to our children for ever." (Deut. xxix, 29.)
D.— Page 167.
William Twisse, D. D. was born at Spenham Land, near
Newbury, in Berkshire, in 1575. He received a good classical
education at Winchester School; and, after passing through his
eai'ly academic degrees at Oxford, with considerable reputation,
was chosen Fellow of New College, in that University. His
great learning, and popular talents as a preacher, gained him
high applause.
He remained at the University till he was chosen, by King
James L to attend the Princess Elizabeth, as her Chaplain, to
242 APPKNDIX D.
the Court of the Electoi' Palatine, to whom she was given in
marriage, in l6l3, and who was the nephew of Maurice, Prince
of Orange, and of the Duke of Bouillon, the latter of whom, on
account of the Calvinistic connections of his family, expelled
from the Divinity Professorship, at Sedan, the celebrated
Daniel Tilenus after his conversion to Arminianism. While
the Doctor was in attendance at the Court of Heidelberg, he
witnessed one of the most extraordinary and baneful effects of
the Synod of Dort which can be imagined-
King James, as an important branch of the family, sent a
deputation of respectable British Divines to that Synod, for the
double and undisguised purpose of condemning the Remon-
strants, (but especially Vorstius, whom his Majesty had long
before exposed to the world as an arch-heretic,) and of assisting
the Prince of Orange in his design of usurping the liberties of
the United Provinces, and assuming the supreme authority.
The Elector Palatine sent his Heidelberg Divines for the same
family purposes ; and the Duke of Bouillon employed all his
influence with the chief pastors among the French Reformed,
one of whom, though not permitted to appear at Dort, sent a
violent, but very superficial, letter to the Synod, in which he
assured them, that he condemned Arminius and his followers,
though he had never heard them, and knew little about their
writings. But it was a part of King James's infelicity, that his
deepest designs, though displaying considerable ingenuity in
their formation, frequently miscarried, or only partially suc-
ceeded. Thus the Remonstrants and Vorstius were con-
demned (unheard) at the Synod ; but Prince Maurice was not
crowned Ki7ig of the Netherlands. The failure of this part of
the Prince of Orange's scheme was a circumstance about which
our great historian, Camden, expressed his great satisfaction :
but though that was ultimately its fate, yet, at the period to
which we allude, (when Dr. Twisse resided at the Court of
Heidelberg,) its success was, to all human appearance, inevit-
able and certain.
For his part in these services, Frederick the Fifth, the Elector
Palatine, very naturally considered himself entitled, in return,
to some effectual assistance from his relations. Soon after the
conclusion of the Synod of Dort, the crown of Bohemia was
offered, by the Protestants of that kingdom, to this young
Prince, in consequence of some dissension between them and
their fellow-subjects, the Roman Catholics. His competitor for
the kingdom was Ferdinand, Arch-Duke of Austria, who was
soon afterwards elected Emperor of Germany. Brandt informs
us, (book 52,) " This matter Qthe offer of the crown]] seemed
to have been long concerted ; for it is said, that the Advocate
Olden Barnevelt opposed it when he was in the ministry, and
that he had been heard to presage, with great concern, its,
Al'l'ENDlX D. 243
dismal issue. The Electoi* Palatine had likewise been earnestly
dissuaded from accepting the crown of Bohemia, and fore-
warned of the unpleasant consequences, by the Electors of
Mentz, Triers, Cologne, and Saxony, the Duke of Bavaria, and
the Landgrave of Hesse, at Catsnellebogen. Among those
who promoted this design, are reckoned Prince Maurice and
the Duke of Bouillon, and particularly his own consort, the
Electress, [[daughter of the British Monarch,] who is stated to
have employed the following expressions to him : ' Had you
* the courage to become suitor to the daughter of a King, and
* have you not now the heart to accept of a crown ?' Con-
cerning Prince Maurice it is related, that, hearing of a certain
nobleman, at Heidelberg, having propounded this question.
Ought the Elector Palafine to be advised to accept of the crown
of Bohemia ? he rejoined, ' I would have asked that gentleman,
' Is there any green cloth to be purchased at Heidelberg ?' And
when some one enquired, for what purpose he would have
ashed that question, the Prince replied, * To make caps for the
' heads of those men who asked such foolish questions !' The
Elector, having resolved to improve such a favourable oppor-
tunity, accepted the crown which was offered to him by the
Bohemians, and proceeded to Prague, the capital of that king-
dom, where he and the Electress were crowned with great
pomp and ceremony. But his father-in-law, .Tames, King of
Great Britain, an enemy to all wars, was decidedly opposed to
his acceptance of the crown, and said, ' It was a rash and too
* precipitate a resolution, proceeding from bad counsel.' He
ordered, that his son-in-law should not be styled King in the
public prayers, but only the Elector Palatine." But the
British Monarch's refusal of assistance to his son-in-law may be
traced to another more potent cause than his love of peace,^-^
to his absurd tampering with the Court of Spain, of which
proud house Ferdinand the Second, poor Frederick's rival, was
a powerful branch.
King Frederick, immediately after his coronation, published
a manifesto, in which he stated the reasons which had induced
him to accept of the proffered kingdom. Many persons, how-
ever, were surprised to find in it the following sentiments con-
cerning religion, especially when they proceeded from a man
who, through his agents at the Synod of Dort, had scarcely a
year before professed sentiments the most co-ercive, and whose
immediate predecessors had expelled the Lutherans from the
Palatinate : " Now, in these latter times, and among so many
" different opinions in matters of faith and religion, it has been
*' effectually discovered, that, according to the contents of the
" Holy Scriptures, and agreeably to those established prin-
" ciples of doctrines, which are of the greatest antiquity, men
" will not be led, driven, or forced, with respect to conscience ;
244 APPENDIX l>.
" and that, whenever such force or co-ercion has been
" attempted, though in the most private manner, it has always
" produced pernicious consequences, and occasioned great revo-
" lutions in the most considerable kingdoms and provinces,"
Abraham Schultetus, as one of the Palatine deputies at Dort,
the preceding year, had, been most violent in his conduct
against the Arminians ; but, in the capacity of Chaplain to the
new King, he then directed his talents to a more grateful occu-
pation to serve his royal master. In the treatise entitled Curri-
culum Vitce, or " A Relation of the course of his Life," Schul-
tetus says, " King Frederick, having promised liberty of con-
" science to all the people of his kingdom, strictly observed
" that promise as long as he was possessed of the crown ; and
** he did not retain any church for the exercise of his own re-
" ligion, except that of the Castle at Prague, which he purged
*' from Popish idols." — Brandt says, " This purgation was
made at the pressing instance of the said Schultetus, who, in
a sermon, which he preached for that purpose, in the chapel
belonging to the Court, said, that such images, which he called
idols, 'ought neither to be made nor worshipped, nor the
worship of them tolerated.' He afterwards published his
sermon, which gave grievous offence, not only to those Bohe-
mians that were Papists, but even to the Lutherans themselves,
who allowed the use of images. The Divines of Wurtembergh,
Tubingen, and Leipsic, and those of Mentz and Ingolstadt,
wrote in defence of images ; but Schultetus was vindicated by
one Theophilus Mosanus. Some persons have thought, that
this abolition of images ought not to have been thus attempted
at the commencement of King Frederick's reign ; but that they
should first have been rooted out of the people's hearts, and
then cast out of their churches. It was likewise believed, that
this unseasonable zeal gave a check to the King's affairs, and
alienated the minds of many." On the 15th of April, 162O, the
confederacy was renewed between the kingdoms of Hungary
and Bohemia; on which occasion, Schultetus, before King
Frederick and the Deputies of the two kingdoms, main-
tained in his sermon, ' that fraternal love and unity might be
' established between the Lutherans and the Calvinists, not-
* withstanding their disagreeing on a few points ; and tliat he
' was well assured, from the word of God, that the sanctity of
' mutual prayers, and the sincerity of brotherly love, found
* more favour in the sight of God than all the contentions about
* the ubiquity and the carnal manducation of Christ's body.'
This would have appeared very tolerant and catholic, had it
been uttered fourteen months before, at the Synod of Dort ; but
as it now seemed to be spoken only to serve a political purpose,
it did not captivate the Lutherans. Indeed, the grand instance
of Calvinistic intolerance at that Synod was long remembered
APPENDIX D. 245
by the Lutherans, who refused, for many years, to hold com-
munion with them, thou^fh, at several subsequent periods, soli-
cited, in various parts of Europe, to enter into fraternal con-
cord. See the preceding important extract, from Mosheim's
small treatise, page 152 — 1.55. — On mentioning the sermon of
Schultetus, Brandt adds, " But these fair words could not so
far work upon the Lutherans as to remove all jealousies and
suspicions from their minds ; for, M'hen they considered what
had befallen the Remonstrants in Holland, they expected the
same fate, as soon as the Calvinists should be once fixed in the
saddle. These and similar considerations caused several of the
Lutheran Princes to stand neuter between the contending
parties, and even induced others of them to embrace the party
of the Emperor, the Pope, the King of Spain, the Duke of
Bavaria, and the other Potentates of the Romish Church, and
to oppose the new Monarch. He could not, therefore, with-
stand the force that overwhelmed him on every side, while he
was supported only by the assistance of this state, [^Bohemia,^
and the few Princes who had espoused his cause. One part
of the Palatinate was taken from him tliis summer, (l620,) by
the Spanish General Spinola ; and the Bohemian army was de-
feated by the Duke of Bavaria, upon the White Hill near
Prague, and was totally dispersed on the 8th of November, the
very Sunday on which it was usual to expound that gospel in
which we find the expression of ' Render- unto Caesar the things
that are Ccesar's.' That defeat was followed by the flight of
King Frederick and his Queen, and by the loss of the capital
and all the kingdom. When the report of this misfortune
reached Holland, for some weeks no credit was given to it by
the Contra- Remonstrants. And I remember to have frequently
heard, in my youthful days, that when Peter Plancius (^of
Amsterdam^ was preaching in the tabernacle, on the Keysers-
gracht where the Western Church now stands, he cried pub-
licly in the pulpit. The report of the taking of Prague is one of
those lies which the Papists, Arminians, and other enemies of the
church, have circulated! and that a certain waterman laid his
barge as a wager, tliat Prague could not be surrendered , for he had
heard Plancius say so from the pulpit. Such an assertion the man
considered a good demonstration of the truth ; but he found
himself mistaken."
At this period of the Lady Elizabeth's misfortunes, the pre-
vious excellent instructions of Dr. Twisse are represented to
have been very beneficial to her, and to have enabled her to
endure the greatest adversity with undaunted courage. The
good Doctor, during this excursion, became acquainted with
such men as Schultetus, Pelargus, Ames, &c., from whom he
imbibed all their accumulated malevolence against Arminianism,
!246 APPENDIX D.
which, soon after his return to England he concocted with his
own, and embodied in his famous publications.
But leaving the Doctor at present, we proceed to notice a
few remarkable circumstances attendant on the Elector's ac-
ceptance of the crown of Bohemia, which imparted an uncom-
monly enthusiastical aspect to Calvinism, and which had great
influence upon the affan-s of this country in the time of the Civil
Wars and the Commonwealth.
Though the personal sufferings of King Frederick and his
Queen could not descend much lower than to the point to
which they Avere at first reduced — the loss of Bohemia and of
their hereditary dominions, the acceptance of an asylum at
the Hague, and a dependance upon the English Court during
many subsequent 3'ears for pecuniary aid in regaining their
former possessions, from which unfortunately they were doomed
to be perpetual exiles, — yet those Protestants who had identi-
fied themselves in their fate by the warm interest with which
they espoused their cause, were doomed to be great sufferers,
in consequence of the change of affairs in favour of Ferdinand
the Second, Emperor of Germany. Many thousand persons in
Bohemia and the Palatinate were compelled by the Popish con-
queror to forbear the exercise of their religion and become
Papists, or to be banished from their native country. This
persecuting scourge, within a few months, extended itself to
other Provinces of Germany, and especially to those which bad
deputed their Divines to Dort to condemn the innocent Re-
monstrants. The latter must have been very unobservant
spectators indeed, had they not perceived in several of these
occurrences that just retribution of Divine Providence which is
frequently inflicted, even in this life, on offending communi-
ties and associations. We accordingly find Professor Barlaeus
thus expressing himself, in that very elegant and spirited ad-
dress to the States General, entitled Fides ImbelUs, or " Unre-
sisting Faith," which he published in August, I62O: 'Mahomet
* the Turkish Emperor is said to have derived from the Christi-
* ans a knowledge of the modes in which persecutions were
'conducted: And the cruelty which the Roman Catholics
' exercised not long since against the Reformed, has been
' returned by the latter in various places against tlie Catholics.
' The Calvinistic ministers have been lately expelled from the
* country of the Gi-isons; from whence they had, only a few
'years before, expelled the Papists: And the same body of
* men are now destitute of Churches themselves in Aix la
' Chapelle, although it is not long since they were filled with
' envy at the Jesuits possessing their own Churches in that
' city. In Bohemia and its confederate States, the Catholic
'places of worship have been seized; but now, such is the
ArrENDix D. 247
* change which God efFects in human affairs, they are forcibly
' wrested from their recent possessors, and agpin restored to
' their former occupants: At the first seizure the Jesuits were
* compelled to become exiles ; and now, at the second seizure,
* the Calvinislic Divines are banished from the same country.
' Most wonderful are the judgments of God, who by the secret
* movements of his Providence thus checks and represses the
* too lofty aspirings and insolent ambition of those who assume
' to themselves the title of the Reformed Churches ; and this he
' does, lest they should cease to be Chrisliuns, while they
' covet for themselves the sceptres of princes, and endeavour
' by the basest arts to extend the boundaries of their confined
* dominions. Those foreign Divines who were present at the
* Synod of Dort, and who contributed their share of advice and
' labour towards the oppression of the Remonstrants, had
' themselves scarcely returned to their several habitations be-
' fore they were overtaken by Divine Justice, which is the
' avenger of insolence and pride — The Divines of the Palatinate
' are banished from their country, and, among the rest, that
' leader of the Synodical band, that slave in the ecclesiastical
' farce, Abraham Schultetus. The Divines from the Correspon-
' dence of Wetteraw are afflicted ; those of Hesse are in mourn-
' ing ; the Swiss Divines tremble; and the Divine of Charenton
' [^Peter du Moulin]], who in his recent Anatomy poured forth
' the torrents of his rage against the banished Remonstrants, is
* himself compelled to consult the safety of his own life in flight.
' God forbid, that the public enemies of our country, should
* hereafter repay in equal measure, to the Contra-Remonstrants,
* the same injurious treatment which the Remonstrants have
* experienced from those domestic foes, and which they con-
' tinue daily to experience ! It is a proverb among the follow-
' ers of Pythagoras, He who endures the same degree of pain as
' he had previously itiflictcd on another, is treated with equitable
' retribution. With this agrees the oracular sentence of Christ,
* With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
' (Matt, vii, 2.) — Seeing it is a righteous thing with God, to re~
' coinpense tribulation to them that trouble you, and rest to
'you who are troubled. (2 Thess. i, (i.)'
In a French letter, which the imprisoned Remonstrant minis-
ter Charles de Nielles addressed, in 1627, to Uitenbogardt, he
pursues the same train of reflections: ' I likewise understand by
' report, that those Calvinists who had deputed their Divines
' to the Synod of Dort, have been themselves banished out of
' the Correspondences of Nassau and of Wetteraw. They have
' all been compelled to become exiles, as have also those of
' Hesse, with the exception of such of them as are' Milling to
* abjure Calvinism and to embrace Popery or Lutheranism. I
' deplore the calamity in which a great number of upright men
248
APPENDIX D.
* are involved ; but the truth is, tliese people, after having en-
' joyed for many years the peaceable exercise of their religion
* under the protection of the Augsburgh Confession, * con-
' ducted themselves so outrageously against us at the Synod of
' Dort, as to have afforded to the Lutherans just cause for
* dreading their higher advancement in Germany. They came to
* Dort for the purpose of lending their aid to persecute us ; and
' they condemned, in our persons at that Synod, the Augs-
' burgh Confession, which they had promised under the sanc-
' tity of an oath to maintain : And these very persons are now
' expelled from their native country, as we have been. — I am
' afraid, that those of Bremen and Embden [[who likewise had
* deputies at Dort]] will have reason to be apprehensive that
* this calamity will extend itself as far as to them, if the Em-
* peror can possibly accomplish his designs. But it is likewise
' my belief, that in the end the Emperor will attempt to banish
* the Lutherans as well as the rest ; this he has already done in
' Austria and Bohemia. The Jesuits will incite him, not to
* allow the exercise of any other religion than that of Popery,
* as the Calvinists do in every country in which the Sovereigns
' will follow the advice of their ecclesiastics ; this we may behold
' in England,t Scotland, and in all other States in which the
' Magistrates have manifested a willingness to believe that they
* ought not to suffer any religion except Calvinism. — In this
* manner do they [[the Papists and Calvinists]] endeavour to
* expel each other, and contend which of them may be per-
' mitted to have dominion over consciences.' — These prognosti-
cations concerning the Lutherans were soon afterwards verified :
For in the Marquisate of Brandenburgh, where the Lutherans
had formerly been turned out of their churches by the Calvin-
ists, the latter were expelled and the former re-instated in their
previous possessions. But it was not long before the Emperor
Ferdinand II, elated with his victories and instigated by the
Pope and Jesviits, turned his arms against the Lutherans. His
successes against them were very great, till the celebrated King
of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, whohad married the daughter^
of the Elector of Brandenburgh, undertook the cause of the Lu-
therans, marched an army into the heart of Germany, and
finally humbled the proud house of Austria.
* See the similarity which subsisted between theConfessiou of the Luther-
ans and that of the Remonstrants on the Five Pohitu, as expressed by Mos-
heim, himself a Lutheran, in the precedingpages 152 — 154.
f In allusion to the encouragement given to Calvinism under Archbishop
Abbot.
X The name of this Princess was Eleanora. She was the mother of the
famous Christina, afterwards Queen of Sweden, in whose service Grotius
was subsequently retained as Ambassador.
APFENniX D. 249
As this interference of Gustavus Adolphus was a circum-
stance which subsequently became of the greatest importance
to the House of Brandenburgli, and as the successes which at-
tended that monarch's spirited incursion into Germany laid the
foundations of the Prussian Monarchy, it may be useful, in
tracing the artful ramifications of Calvinism, to quote, for the
reader's better information, the following paragraphs from one
of the most intelligent historians of that period :
" Of greater consequence were the agitations about Cleve and
Gulick, occasioned by a difference between the Marquess of
Brandenburgli, and the Duke of Newburgh, about the partage
of the Patrimony and estates of the Duke of Cleve: for John
William, the last Duke of Cleve, deceasing without issue, in
the year l6]0, left his estates between the childi-en of his sis-
ters ; of which the eldest, called Maria Leonora, was married
to Albert of Brandenburgh, Duke of Prussia; whose daughter
Ann being married to John Sigismund, the elector of Branden-
burgh, was mother of George William, the young Marquess
of Brandenburgh, who in her right pretended to the whole
estate. The like pretence was made by Wolfgangus Guilielmus,
Duke of Newburgh, descended from the electoral family of the
Princes Palatine, whose mother Magdalen was the second sister
of the said John William. The first of these pretenders was wholly
of a Lutheran stock ; and the other as inclinable to the sect of
Calvin ; though afterwards, for the better carrying on of their
affairs, they forsook their parties.
"For so it happened, that the Duke of Newburgh finding him-
self too weak for the house of Brandenburgh, put himself
under the protection of the Catholic King; who having concluded
a Truce of twelve years with the States United, wanted em-
ployment for his Army ; and, that he might engage that King
with the greater confidence, he reconciles himself to the Church
of Rome, and marries the Lady Magdalen, daughter to the
Duke of Bavaria, the most potent of the German Princes of
that Religion ; which also he established in his own dominions
on the death of his father. This puts the young Marquess to
new counsels ; who thereupon calls in the forces of the States
United ; the war continuing upon this occasion betwixt them
and Spain, though the scene was shifted. And that they might
more cordially espouse his quarrel, he took to Wife the sister of
Frederick the fifth, Prince elector Palatine, and niece of Wil-
liam of Nassau, Prince of Orange, by his youngest daughter;
and consequently, cousin-German, once removed to Count Mau-
rice of Nassau, Commander-General of the forces of the States
United, both by sea and land. This kept the balance even be-
tween them ; the one possessing the estates of Cleve and Mark ;
and the other, the greatest part of Berge and Gulick. But so
R
250 APPENDIX D.
it was, that the old Marquess of Brandenburgh having settled
his abode in the Dukedom of Prussia, and left the manaj;,ement
of the Marquissate to the Prince his son, left him -withal unto
the plots and practices of a subtile lady : who being throughly-
instructed in all points of Calvinism, and having gotten a great
empire in her husband's affections, prevailed so far upon him in
the first year of their marriage. Anno l6l4, that he renounced
his own Religion, and declared for her's; which he more cheer-
fully embraced, in hope to arm all the Calvinians both of the
higher and the lower Germany, in defence of his cause, as his
competitor of Newburgh had armed the Catholicks to preserve
his interest.
" Being thus resolved, he publisheth an edict in the month of
Februar}', Anno l6l5; published in his father's name, but only
in his own authority and sole command, under pretence of
pacifying some distempers about Religion ; but tending, in good
earnest, to the plain suppression of the Lutheran forms : For,
having spent a tedious and impertinent preamble touching the
animosities fomented in the Protestant Churches, between the
Lutherans, and those of the Calvinian party, he first requires
that all unnecessary disputes be laid aside, that so all grounds of
strife and disaffection might be also buried. Which said, he next
commands all Ministers within the Marquissate, to preach the
word purely and sincerely, according to the writings of the holy
Prophets and Apostles, the four creeds commonly received
(amongst which the Te Deinn is to go for one), and the Confes-
sion of Augsburgh, of the last correction ; and that, omitting all
new glosses and interpretations of idle and ambitious men, af-
fecting a primacy in the Church and a power in the State, they
aim at nothing in their preachings, but the glory of God, and
the salvation of mankind. Pie commands also, that they should
abstain from all calumniating of those Churches which either
were not subject to their jurisdiction, or were not lawfully con-
victed of the crime of heresy ; which he resolved not to con-
nive at for the time to come, but to proceed unto the punish-
ment of all those who wilfully should refuse to conform them-
selves to his will and pleasure.
" On which I have insisted the more at large, to show the
difference between the Lutheran and Genevian churches ; and
the great correspondence of the first, with the church of Eng-
land. But this Calvinian pill did not work so kindly, as not to
stir more humours than it could remove.* For the Lutherans
being in possession, would not deliver up their churches, or de-
sert those usages to which they had been trained up, and in
* Under the Prussian Monarchy the remembrance of this Calviiiistic at-
tempt at despotic sway, has been cherished down to the present limes ; within
the last five years, it has been the ^vill of the reigning Monarch, which is
aljsolute within his own dominions, that both denominations should partake
together of the sacred memorials of our Saviour's passion, and should each
present to the other the right hand of fellowship.
APPEXDIX D. 251
which they were principled, according to the rules of their first
reformation. And hereupon some rupture was like to grow be-
twixt the young Marquess and his subjects, if by the interven-
tion of some honest patriots it had not been closed up in this
manner, or to this effect : that the Lutheran forms only should be
used in all the churches of the Marqiiissate, for the confentation of
the people ; and, that the Marquess should have the exercise of his
new reUgiou, for himself, his lady, and those of his opinion, in
their private chapels."
The connection which existed between this change in Brand-
enburgh, and the assumption of the regal dignity by the Elec-
tor Palatine, Avill be seen by the succeeding extracts from the
same able historian. Speaking of the Elector's marriage with
the daughter of King James, he says, " Had he adventured no
further on the confidence of that power and greatness which
accrued to him by contracting an alliance with so great a Mo-
narch, it had been happy for himself and the peace of Christen-
dom. But being tempted by Scultetus, and some other of the
divines about him, not to neglect the opportunity of advancing
the gospel, and making himself the principal patron of it, he
fell on some designs destructive to himself and his.* Who, though
• One of our English Poets has well observed.
In other men we faults can spy
And bl;ime the mote that dims tfieir eye,
F^eh little speck and bkniish find.
To our own stronger errors blind.
This seems to have been Richard Baxter's state of mind when he wrote the
following; animadversions on poor Schultetus ; the whole paragraph indeed is
itiObt important, considering the party from whom the reflections proceed,
some of which are exceedingly judicious :
" I am farther thp.n ever I was from expecting great matters of unity,
splendor, or prosperity to the church on earth, or that saints should dream of
a kingdom of this world, or flatter themselves with the hopes of a golden
age, or reigning over the ungodly, till there be a netv heaven and a neiv earth
wherem dwelleth righteousness. And on the contrary ; I am more apprehen-
sive that sufferings must be the church's most ordinary lot, and Christians
indeed must be self-denying crossbearers, even where tbere none hnt formal
nnminfti christians to be the cross-makers : and though ordinarih' God would
have vicissitudes of summer and winter, day and night, that the church may
grow extensively in the summer of prosperity, and intensively and radicated-
ly in the winter of adversity ; yet usually their night is longer than their day,
and that day itself hath its storms and tempests. For the prognostics are
evident in their causes : The church will be still imperfect and sinful, and
will have those diseases which need this bitter remedy. The tenour of the
gospel-predictions, precepts, promises, and threatenings, are fitted to a peo-
ple in a suffering state ; and the graces of God in a believer are mostly
suited to a state of suffering. Christians must imitate Christ, and suffer with
him before they reign with him ; and his kingdom was not of this world.
The observation of God's dealing hitherto with the church in every age con-
firmeth me : and his befooling them that have dreamed of glorious times. It
was such dreams that transported the Muuster Anabaptists, and the fol-
lowers of David George in the Low Countries, and Campanella and the Illu-
■7«i««i'/ among the Papists, and our English Anabaptists, and o</ier_/an«<^/c5
here both in the armv, and the city and country. When they think the gol-
R 2
252 AprtNDix D.
he were a Prince of a phlegmatick nature, and of small activi-
ty ; yet being prest by the continual solicitation of some eager
spirits, he drew all the provinces and Princes which profest the
Calvinian doctrines, to enter into a strict league or union
amongst themselves, under pretence of looking to the peace and
happiness of the true religion. It much advantaged the design,
that the Calvinians in all parts of Germany had begun to stir,
as men resolved to keep the saddle, or to lose the horse."
Describing the progress of the war in Bohemia, he adds: "But
their new governours (or directors, as they called them) being
generally worsted in the war, and fearing to be called to a strict
account for these multiplied injuries, resolve upon the choice
of some potent Prince, to take that unfortunate crown upon
him. And who more like to carry it with success and honour,
than Frederick the fifth, Prince Elector Palatine, the head of
the Calvinian party. Son-in-law to the King of England, de-
scended from a davighter of the Prince of Orange, and by his
wife allied to the King of Denmark, the Dukes of Holstein
and Brunswick, three great Lutheran Princes. These were the
motives on their part to invite him to it; and they prevailed as
much with him to accept the offer, to which he was pushed for-
ward by the secret instigation of the States United, whose truce
with Spain was now upon the point of expiration ; and they
thought fit, in point of state-craft, that he should exercise his ar-
viy further off, than in their Dominions. Upon which motives
and temptations, he first sends forth his letters to the estates of
den ag;e is come, they shew their dreams in their extravagant actions ; and,
as our tifth-monarchy men, they are presently upon some unquiet rebellious
attempt to set up Christ in his king^dom, whether he will or not. 1 remem-
ber how Abraham Scultetus in Curriculo Vitce svce confesseth the common
vanity of himself and other Protestants in Germany, who seeing the princes
in Ena:land, France, Bohemia, and many other countries, to be all at once
both great and wise, and friends to reformation, did presently expect the gol-
den age : but within one year either death, or ruins of war, or back-slid-
ings, had exposed all their expectations to scorn, and laid them lower than
before." — Narrative of his Life and Times.
No one would suppose that the old man who wrote this had been in early
life as great a stickler as any of his brethren for the seditious schemes of tlie
levellers inChurch and State, or thai he had attended the Parliamentary /bred*
as Chaplain to a regiment. I could produce (juotations from the earliest even
of his practical works, which would prove his hopes to have been extremely
sanguine about the appearance of " a golden age. — Expressions of the disap-
pointment which he felt at the failure expectations are equally numerous in
nis writings. Nor was it quite fair for a chciplnin hi the gTand 7-eiiellion to
brand " the Fifth-Monarchy men" as the only persons " who were present-
ly upon some unquiet rebellious attempt to set up Christ in his kingdom !"
Baxter had discovered, in the practice of the Triers and Ejectors, and of
other select assemblies of gospel ministers under the Protectorate, as many
erounds of dissatisfaction and complaint as in the practice of those who
had previously held the supremacy in affairs ecclesiastical. The inference
■which he deduces, is exceedingly instructive : "lam much more sensible
of the evil of schism," says he, "'* and of the separating humour, and of ga-
thering parties, and making several sects in the Church, than I was here-
tofore. For theeffects have shewedus more of the mischiefs."
APPENDIX D. 253
Bohemia, in which he signified his acceptance of the honour
conferred upon him, and then acquaints King James with the
proposition, whose counsel he desired therein for his better
direction. But King James was not pleased at the precipitancy
of this rash adventure, and thought himself unhandsomely
handled, in having his advice asked upon the post-fact, when
all his counsels to the contrary must have come too late. Be-
sides, he had a strong party of Calvinists in his own dominions,
who were not to be trusted with a power of disposing of king-
doms, for fear they might be brought to practise that against
himself which he had countenanced in others. He knew no
Prince could reign in safety, or be established on his throne
with peace and honour, if once religion should be made a cloak
to disguise rebellions.
"Upon these grounds of christian prudence, he did not only
disallow the action in his own particular, but gave command
that none of his subjects should from thenceforth own his son-
in-law for the King of Bohemia, or pray for him in the liturgy,
or before their sermons, by any other title than the Prince Elec-
tor. At which the English Calvinists were extreamly vexed,
who had already fancied to themselves upon this occasion the
raising of ajiflh Monarchy in these parts of Christendom, even to
the dethroning of the Pope, the setting up of Calvin in St. Pe-
ter's chair, and carrying on the war to the walls of Constanti-
nople. No man more zealous in the cause, than Arch-bishop
Abbot, who pressed to have the news received with bells and
bonfires, the King to be engaged in a war for the defence of
such a righteous and religious cause, and the jewels of the
crown to be pawned in pursuance of it, as appears plainly by
his letters to Sir Robert Naunton, principal secretary of estate.
Which letters bearing date on the 12th of December, Anno
161 9j are to be found at large in the printed Cabala, p. J 69, &c.
and thither I refer the reader for his satisfaction. But neither
the persuasions of so great a prelate, nor the solicitations of
the Princess and her public ministers, nor the troublesome in-
terposings of the House of Commons in a following parliament,
were able to remove that King from his first resolution. By
which, though he incurred the high displeasure of the English
Puritans, and those of the Calvinian party in other places ; yet
he acquired the reputation of a just and religious Prince
with most men besides, and those not only of the Romish, but
the Lutheran churches. And it is hard to say which of the two
Qhe Papists or the Lutherans]] were most offended with the
Prince Elector, for his accepting of that crown ; which of them
had more ground to fear the ruin of their cause and party, if
he had prevailed ; and which of them were more impertinently
provoked to make head against him, after he had declared his
acceptance of it.
254 AiTicxnix l>.
" For when he was to beinaugurated in the church of Prague
he neither would be crowned in the usual l^rnij nor by the
handsof the Arch-bishop, to whom the performing of that ce-
remony did of right belong ; but after such a farm and manner
as wa-s digested by Scultetus, his domestic chaplain, who chiefly
governed his affairs in all sacred matters. Nor would Scultetus
undertake the ceremony of the coronation, though very ambi-
tious of that honour, till he had cleared the church of all carved
images, and defaced all the painted also. In both respects a-
like offensive to the Romish clergy, who found themselves dis-
priviledged, their churches sacrilegiously invaded, and further
ruin threatened by these innovations.
" A massy crucifix had been erected on the bridge of Prague,
which had stood there for many hundred years before ;
neither affronted by the Lutherans, nor defaced by the Jews,
though more averse from images than all people else : Scultetus
takes offence at the sight thereof, as if the brazen serpent were
set up and worshipped ; persuades the King to cause it present-
ly to be demolished, or else he never would be reckoned for an
Hezekiah ; in which he found conformity to his humour also,
and thereby did as much offend all sober Lutherans, (who re-
tain images in their churches, and other places,) as he had done
the Romish clergy by his former follies. This gave some new
increase to those former jealousies which had been given them
by that Prince: First, by endeavouring to suppress the Lutheran
forms in the churches of Brandenburgh, by the arts and prac-
tices of his sister. [ She was married to the Marquis of Branden-
burgh: see page 249. | And Secondly, by condemning their doc-
trine at the Synod of Dort, (in which his ministers were more
active than the rest of the foreigners) though in the persons of
those men whom they called Arminians. But that which gave
them greatest cause of offence and fear, was his determination
in a cause depending between two sisters, at his first coming to
tlie crown ; of which, the youngest had been married to a Cal-
vinian, the eldest to a Lutheran lord. The place in difference
was the castle and seignoury of Gutscin, of which the eldest sis-
ter had took possession, as the seat of her ancestors. But the
King passing sentence for the younger sister, and sending cer-
tain judges and other officers, to put the place into her actual
possession, they were all blown vip with gun-powder by the
Lutheran lady, not able to concoct the indignity offered, nor to
submit unto judgment which appeared so partial."
It may be necessary to introduce the account of the Calvin-
istic prophecies by the following quotation from Brandt's His-
tory, in which, after relating the conduct of Peter Du Moulin
and other violent Calvinists in imposing the Canons of Dort
upon the French Churches, he says : " Some of the Remon-
APPENDIX D. 305
strants were of opinion, that there was some mystery of Slate
concealed under these proceedings at Alez in relation to the
Canons of Dort, and that the secret spring of all these motions
Was in Holland ; that some of the Contra-Remonstrants had
been the first to commence this matter, by instituting a corre-
spondence between the Reformed of Geneva and those of
France, not without having privately concerted it with Du
Moulin and others ; and that by thrusting the Canons of Dort
down the throats of the French Clergy, and by compelling
them to swear to their observance, they endeavoured to commu-
nicate additional strength to their party, as had been already
done in Holland, and at the same time to favour the designs of
the Elector Palatine or new king of Bohemia. For it seemed as
though some project of a confederacy was forming among those
of the Reformed religion j^the Calvinists^, not only to subdue
the little hand-full of the Remonstrant party, but even some of
the members of that great body, the Romish Church ; from
which confederac)', the author of the Bohemian Trumpet, whom
we shall hereafter mention, imagined great consequences would
ensue. Thus did they aim at a kind of Reformed Monarchy;
and, as they viewed all objects with a magnifying glass, the
smallest Ji'iger Avhich promoted the work, appeared to be
apotve)Jul arm: — So easily do men deceive themselves with vain
hopes !"
The Prophetical Book, to which allusion is made in the
preceding paragraph, is thus described by the same historian :
" The Contra-Remonstrants also published several pieces this
same year, [^1620,1*^** The Bohcmiati Trumpet, printed at Am-
sterdam, by leave of the Burgo-masters. The author, who
styles himself Ireno;us Philaletiiius, was in reality Ewout Telingh,
the Treasurer of Zealand, brother to William Teelingh minister
of Middelburgh, and a great zealot for his own party. He ex-
pressed himself to this effect : ' That it seemed as if the Lord
' had certainly invited many Kings and Princes thither [[into
* Bohemia^ to make a great sacrifice ; and that he did not enter-
* tain any doubt that God would take vengeance of the great
' violation of the public faith, of which both the one and the
' other beast Qhe Emperor and the Pope^ had been guilty
* towards John Huss and Jerome of Prague, with regard to the
' safe-conduct for their appearance at the Council of Constance.
' He represented the war in Bohemia, as a war which could not
'fail of success, because it was waged against the Pope, whom
* he calls Antichrist and the man of sin. He added, that God
* had unexpectedly bestowed upon the Elector Palatine such a
' noble kingdom as that of Bohemia, and had brought it home
* to him, as it were, whilst he slept, by a people who had a right
' to dispose of it ; and therefore that it must not be doubled,
< that the Lord, who had entrusted him with the keys of that
256 . APPEND JX D.
' kingdom, would likewise establish liim upon that throne which
* he had himself prepared for him, and would fix him as a sure
* nail, upon which all the Reformed [^Calvinistic*] churches
* might in future depend.' " — This luminous prophecy was deli-
vered while the Elector's affairs were in a state of prosperity ;
but the following narrative refers to a subsequent period when
the ejected royal family of Bohemia were exiles in the United
Provinces :
" And yet after they were fully assured of the King's misfor-
tune, and saw that he and the Queen were forced to seek an asy-
lum at the Hague, some of the greatest bigots among the Contra-
Remonstrants still cherished the hopes which they had conceived
of him — such a strong persuasion had they of his success, which,
they believed, would be the certain precursor of the downfall
of Popery. Some people thought, that almost all the Protestant
kings, princes and states of Christendom, would have armed
themselves in order to verify their idle dreams. Nay, even after
a longer series of that prince's losses, and nearly two years after
Heidelberg and the principal part of the towns in the Lower
Palatinate had been besieged and taken, either by the Bavarians
or by the Imperial and Spanish forces, William Stephanus, a
Doctor in Divinity and one of the ministers of Karapen, publish-
ed a treatise under the following title : The Trumpet of the
Holy War, revealed hy St. John against the Great Jtifichrist, the
Pope of Rome: The deep and till-this-day concealed Prophecies of
this Apostle are now clearly earplained according to the true Meaning
of them, from the Twelfth to the Twentieth C/mpter of his Book of
the Revelations. — Almost all the prophecies contained in those
chapters, were applied to the expelled monarch. In the 20th
verse of the Fourteenth Chapter, St. John says, he saw in a vision
that the blood proceeding from the wine-press of God's wrath
came even to the bridles of the horses, for the space of a thousand
and six hundred furlongs : The Doctor explained it thus : * Fre-
' deric, the king of Bohemia, shall at the command of God
* fight a great battle. He was the man who had the sharp
* sickle in his hand and who was commanded to reap : He shall
* defeat the enemies ; and the sixteen hundred furlongs denote
* the way between Heidelberg and Prague.' — Upon the 20th and
21st verses of the Nineteenth Chapter, the doctor made the fol-
lowing comment : * The Emperor Ferdinand and the king of
* Spain shall be taken prisoners, brought before the Supreme
* Court of their judge Frederic, and condemned to suffer the
* most extreme punishments, that is, cast alive into the lake of
'fire burning with brimstone, that is, to a perpetual torment or
' else to a shameful death. As for the rest of the princes and
* potentates of the earth, they shall likewise be punished accord-
' ing to the directions of King Frederic, and deprived of all
* their lands and titles, for having assisted the Emperor and the
APPENDIX D. 257
' King of Spain. Upon which it shall come to pass, that all the
'fowls of the air shall be satiated with their fiesh, that is, all the
' faithful Achates and confederates of King Frederic, having re-
* ceived the conquered countries as a reward for their labours,
* shall sit down, every one well contented with his portion, and
* shall possess it with gladness.' Such were the predictions of
this doctor, who adhered to them with great pertinacity. Bau-
dart Qhe great Calvinistic Historian "] owns, that he had fre-
quently heard him declare, ' I am very certain all will be
* accomplished ; and I have neither said nor written any thing
' but what appeared to me to be plainly deducible from the text
* of the Apostle.' "
This prophesying humour, it is seen, was indulged by men
occupying stations of respectability. David Herlicius, Professor
of Natural Philosophy in Lubec, who died in I606, was ano-
ther of the prophetic race, who, like our English Lilly, promised
great conquests to those who gave him good fees. De Witte,
in his Account of Celebrated Physicians, says : " People of dif-
ferent nations frequently resorted to him : and, on account of
his numerous experiments and the celebrity of his name, the
Germans and foreigners asked his judgment about their horo-
scopes. But above all others, he extolled the liberality of the
Bohemians and the Poles." The reader will not require a formal
statement of the reasons why the Bohemians asked his advice,
since many of them were then exiles through the cruelty of the
proud conqueror of their native land. — On the 15th of October,
l66'5, James Thomasius, the Lutheran Professor of Divinity at
Leipsic, delivered an oration, on occasion of a solemn thanks-
giving to God for the peace then concluded between the Empe-
ror of Germany and the Ottomai Porte. The sanguine believers
in the speedy commencement of the Millennium were much cha-
grined with that peace, because they had foretold that the reign
of the Crescent was near its decline. On these prognosticators
and D. Herlicius, Thomasius makes the following just reflec-
tions : ' Furnished with such arms as these, those persons sallied
* forth who have been desirous of late that we should believe
* speedily to behold the destruction of the Ottoman Empire.
* "This has been done, I think, through great profanation of the
* holy scriptures, which they associate with predictions of a na-
* ture entirely different, and compel them to become interpreters
* to the dreams framed in their own imaginations. — But perhaps
* nothing affords a more powei'ful stimulus to this species of cu-
' riosity, than a persuasion of I-know-not-wliat kind of golden
* age which will continue a thousand years, and during which,
* after God has overthrown his enemies in all directions, the be-
' loved flock shall live in a state of the greatest ease and delight.
' We are all captivated by the desire to exist in a land abounding
' with these blessings. If therefore any report promise to us
258 APPENDIX D.
* such a state of society, we imbibe the very sound of it with
' the greatest earnestness, and vigilantly look out for all those
* particular junctures which seem to favour these feelings.' He
then informs his audience, that during the 17th century there
never was any considerable war against the enemies of the true
church without some predictions being delivered respecting the
complete discomfiture either of the Pope or the Turks, or of both.
* Some persons,' he adds, ' ascribed the achievement of this
* great [^future^ conquest in the former German war to Frede-
* luc the Elector Palatine, while others claimed this laurel for
* Gustavus Adolphus King of Sweden, and others for Charles
* Gustavus when nine years ago he was carrying on his devast-
' ations in Poland. — D. Herlicius, who was probably in some
* other predictions a more felicitous astrologer than in this, wrote
* a pamphlet full of such predictions as these, and published it
* some time about the close of the last century. In it I behold
* Daniel, the Revelations, the saying of Elias, the prognostica-
'tionsof John Hiltenus, of Anthony Torquatus of Ferrara, and
* of the Turks themselves, the courses of the stars, and the con-
' junctions of the planets: All these he has enlisted and formed
' into one army, by which, iii the minds of men, the Turks may
* be despatched in the last battle.'
But the prophecies of Christopher Kotter, a native of Sprot-
tau in Silesia, are the most remarkable specimens of the art.
He received his first angelic communications in I619, and conti-
nued to divulge his rhapsodies for several succeeding years. He
introduced the Elector Palatine, the King of Bohemia, into his
visions : This afforded him a pretext for waiting upon his majes-
ty at Breslau in 1620, to acquaint him with his yet higher eleva-
tion and success. He also visited some of the minor German
courts; for in those days of rapid changes, he contrived to pro-
phesy smooth things to those who had full purses. But as he
was exceedingly patriotic, his presages generally promised
increasing felicity to the affairs of the Fleeter Palatine, and
accumulated misfortunes to the Emperor Ferdinand. In the
benighted regions of Moravia, Hungary, Silesia and Bohemia,
our prophet's predictions became very popular ; and were circu-
lated, viva voce, and in manuscript, for political purposes. He
was at length seized by the Emperor's Attorney General in
Silesia; and after having been long immured in a prison, he was
exposed on the pillory with this inscription over his head : This
is that false prophet, who predicted events which have never hap-
pened ! This enthusiast then retired into Lusatia, and died
there in 1 647.
The fame of Kotter's prophecies was greatly enhanced when
they fell into the hands of that ingenious man and elegant scho-
lar, the Rev. John Amos Comenius, the author of that very
AITKNDIX D. 259
useful book, Janua Linguarum Restaurata, which was soon
translated into twelve languages. He was pastor of the Protes-
tant Church in the city of Fulneck in Moravia ; and, after the
great success of the Imperial arras against King Frederic in those
regions, he and all other Protestant ministers were compelled
to retire from Bohemia and Moravia. In his route to Poland,
in 1625, he heard of Kotter, visited him at Sprottau, and took him
into Poland. Comenius translated into the Bohemian language
one of this enthusiast's revelations, which foretold the speedy-
overthrow of Antichrist, and of which the manuscript copies
were soon multiplied, for the consolation of the Refugees, since
they promised-unnumbered triumphs 'to King Frederic. On his
return from Poland, Comenius left Kotter in Silesia, and pro-
ceeded to Berlin, where he found, even among the refugees of
Bohemia and Moravia various judgments had been formed about
the new prophet: For while some considered him a true prophet,
and especially when the post brought intelligence that the king
of Denmark was raising an array ; others declared Kotter to be
a knave, who, having consumed all his substance, had in despair
devoted himself to the vocation of a lying prophet. — This dif-
ference in judgment gave Comenius some uneasiness: But the
assurances of the famous Christopher Pelargus,* who had recently
left the communion of the Lutherans and become a Calvinist,
and who was then Superintendant General of the Churches of
Brandenburgh, revived his drooping spirits : For, having ex-
amined Kotter at Berlin by order of the Elector, he declared to
Comenius, that he ought neither to indulge in any doubts res-
pecting the truth of the man's extraordinary mission, nor to re-
pent of having translated his Revelations into the Bohemian lan-
guage. In the History which Comenius gave of these Revela-
tions, he says, that Pelargus afterwards addressed him in the
following language : " * You behold this collection of books,' — for
that very eminent man was famous throughout all Germany for
possessing a well furnished library, into which he had intro-
duced me when I desired a moi'e private conference with him, —
' You behold this library of mine; 1 have consulted the works of
' all the authors composing it, both ancient and modern, for the
' purpose of knowing what opinion we ought to form concern-
* ing this question — Are any new revelations, divine or angelical,
' to be admitted offer the time of Christ and his apostles, and after
' the sealing of the Canon of the New Testainent ? But not one
' of them could resolve my scruples. I therefore betook my-
• For some account of this man, consult the notes to the Works of Jrmi-
nius, vol. I, p. 419, 450 ; in which is inserted an interesting letter from his
colleague Bergius. — Pelargus was one of those who veered about from Lu-
theranism to Calvinism, when the young Marquis of Brandenburgh, at
the instigation of his wife, (page 250.J changed his party : This divine had,
unfortunately for bis reputation, previously published several books an favour
of the peculiarities of Lutheranism.
260 APPENDIX D.
' self to prayer, and most ardently beseeched God not to suffer
' his church to he deceived: This was the practice "which I adopt-
* ed, rising frequently from my bed in the night and prostrating
* myself upon my face. But at length, after all my musings
* and divine suggestions, I have nothing more than this to say
' on the subject — The Lord God of the holy prophets hath sent
' his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must short-
* ly he done !' , which are the very expressions that the angel
employed in the 22nd Chap, of the Revelations." — This is as
dangerous an instance of tempting God, as that recorded con-
cerning the bigotted Festus Hommius,* who asked the Divine
Being to shew Jiim whethe?' Ar?ninianism or Calvinism was the
tridh, and who, after a single prayer to this effect, received what
he interpreted into a supernatural intimation to persevere stead-
fastly in those opinions which were generally received, that is, in
those of Calvin ! !
Comenius says, at that period, in 1626, the dowager Electress
Juliana, the mother of King Frederic, informed a Moravian
nobleman of high distinction, who as well as herself was then a
refugee in Berlin, that she had received a letter from the king
her son, enquiring whether it was possible to obtain a manu-
script copy of the prophecies of the Silesian. The nobleman
procured one ; but not being able to present it himself on ac-
count of indisposition, he commissioned Comenius, who was
still at Berlin, to perform that service for him. Instead of de-
livering it into the hands of the old Electress, Comenius pro-
ceeded without delay to KingFi-ederic at the Hague, from whom
he obtained an audience, and delivered a luminous speech, of
which the following is an extract: * Since all the prognostica-
* tions of Kotter have been committed to writing, and since in
' them your Majesty and your royal offspring are introduced as
* the principal personages of this Divine Comedy, it seemed an
* absurdity to those persons who have till now preserved these
* prophecies in their own hands — to withhold them from the
' knowledge of your majesty. They are not, however, deliver-
* ed to your Majesty with the design of imposing upon you a
' necessity of absolutely helieving them, but for these two pur-
* poses: First. — That they may be preserved in your majes-
* ty's possession as in sacred archives, to be produced at some
' future period as a testimony ; in that case, after these predic-
* tions have been completely and openly fulfilled, it will not be
* in the power of any man to suspect, or calumniously to report,
' that they had been formed stihsequently to the occurrence of the
' events predicted. Secondly. — That an opportunity may be
' thus afforded to you of observing, whether it is not probable
* that Divine Providence may dispose of such concerns as these,
' and mature them into events. For if we do not refuse to lis-
* The Works of Armiiiius, vol. 1, p. 405.
APl'KNDIX D. 261
' ten to political disquisitions, astrological predictions, or simi-
* lar conjectures of men of prudence, and to learn what their
' sentiments are respecting any impending change in public
* affairs, why should we reject these prophecies which are derived
* from a higher origin ? The persons therefore, in whose
* custody they were, have taken the liberty to transcribe from
* the authentic manuscript an exact copy which they now pre-
' sent by me to your majesty with their most humble and res-
' pectful services' — Being the bearer of such golden promises as
these, Comenius was graciously received by the Ex-King Fre-
deric, and dismissed with a handsome present.
Comenius was invited by the English Parliament, in 1641, to
assist in the reformation of the public schools of this kingdom ;
but, on his arrival in London, he found his patrons too much
occupied with the ebullition of the political troubles which had
then begun to display themselves. The knowledge, however,
which he then gained of our domestic affairs, was of service to
him in his subsequent prophetic enterprizes. In l657, he pub-
lished at Amsterdam, where he then resided under the pa-
tronage of the opulent house of De Geer, a large collection of
prophecies entitled, L.ux in Tenebris, " Light in Darkness."
This book contained Kotter's prophecies, those of Christina
Poniatovia, a female enthusiast, and those of Nicholas Drabi-
cius, a minister and prophet in Moravia : It promised miracles to
those heroes who should engage in the extirpation of the House
of Austria and the Pope. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden,
Cromwell in England, and Ragotski of Transylvania, were
among the number of the mighty warriors, to whom Comenius,
in this and subsequent extravagant publications, promised the
high honour of achieving splendid triumphs for the establish-
ment of Calvinism, which should become the universal religion,
and be made a praise in the earth.
I was gratified to find from Comenius's own account, that a
few of the Bohemian ministers disapproved of the pi-omulgation
of Kotter's early Revelations. " Two of these ministers, with
some of the elders of their church, requested that the manu-
script might be suppressed, whether it was the Jiction of some
ingenious man, or the production of a fanatic. It was dangerous
for two reasons: First. — It was injurious to the consciences
of men, if they suffered themselves to be seduced by it from
the sure word of God, to uncertain figments of this description.
Secondly. — It exposed the Reformed to the loss of their
liberties or their lives, if such predictions should fall into the
hands of their adversaries." — The Professor Nicholas Arnold, to
whom we have already alluded, page 198, v^^rote an able reply
to the second production of Comenius, and shewed the extreme
262 APPENDIX n.
jeopardy in which he had most reprehensibly placed all the
Reformed in Bohemia, Silesia, Poland, &c. — The famous Mare-
siusof Groningen also answered Comenius in l657, and described
him as " not deficient in genius, but a fanatic, a visionary, and
an enthusiast in folio, who pretended, that the prophecies of
Drabicius would furnish labour for all the princes in Europe.
He addressed letters to the Pope, the emperor, to kings and
cardinals, recommending this work to them as the rule and
standard by which they ought to regulate their proceedings."
Maresius also declared, that " Comenius and other millenary
fanatics had no other object in view than to excite people to
rebellion, and that he had omitted no endeavours to persuade
Cromwell to foment disturbances in Bohemia. He had long
before concluded, that since the event did not answer to the
predictions of Felgenhaverus, they had not a Divine origin.
But now, with regard to those of his three seers, he defends
them from all attacks, although they have been completely fal-
sified by the event ; and he has the audacity to compare them,
in a manner the most impious, profane, and sacrilegious, with
the prophecies of the Old Testament." It is also pleasing to
learn, that Comenius, after all his elaborate defences of these
false prophets, was finally sensible of the vanity of his labours,
and of the unnecessary trouble which he had given himself
since he had been forced to leave his native country. This
appears from a treatise, which he published at Amsterdam in
1668, entitled " The One Thing Needful," and in which he
confesses the futility of all his prophetic toils, and states his
determination to devote all his future thoughts to his personal
salvation.
But, before we close this article on the Calvinistic Prophets,
an extract from the celebrated M. Jurieu's book, entitled The
Accomplishment of the Prophecies, and published in J 686, may
be of some service, in showing the contemptible nature of those
enthusiastical compositions, and the temporary political pur-
poses to which they had been previously applied by many
learned and sober Calvinists, in various parts of Europe. In the
preface, M. Jurieu said, ' I found in the prophecies of Kotter,
* Christina, and Drabicius, which were published by Comenius,
* something great and surprizing. Kotter, the first of these
* three prophets, is grand and lofty. The images of his visions
* are likewise noble and majestic ; in this respect, they are not
' exceeded by those of the ancient prophets. All of them are
' wonderfully well-concerted and indited ; they are all uniform
* and consistent. I cannot imagine how it was possible for a
' mere mechanic to form such exalted conceptions without
' Divine Assistance. — The two years of Christina's prophecy
' are, in my o])inion, a series of as great miracles as have hap-
AITENDIX r>. 203
* pened since the time of the apostles. Nay, I have not met
' with any thing, in the lives of the greatest prophets, more
' miraculous than what has befallen this young woman. —
' Drabicius also has his loftinesses; but then he is much more
'_ difficult and obscure. — These three prophets agree in fore-
' telling the fall of the Anti-christian empire, as an event which
' must soon occur : But, on the other hand, one's heart is rather
' averse to them, for they contain many circumstances that give
' offence.' — The last clause is a piece of French badinage, for
the author shows his approbation of these romantic writers by
the use to which he afterv/ards applies their predictions. In
one part he says, ' There are some people who believe, that
* the hopes which I hold out of a restoration in a few years,
* may be of great prejudice. It is certain that prophecies,
' whether true or fictitious, have frequently inspired those for
* whom they were formed with the resolution of undertaking
' such enterprizes as had been assigned to them.' In another
passage he says, * With respect to the remark which many
' people have made, that I speak too conjidenthj about things,
' which, perhaps, I ought to have proposed only as weighty con-
' jectures, — the world will probably one day be informed of the
' chief motive which prompted me to deliver my sentiments in
' such a decided manner, and with so much confidence on the
' explanation of the prophecies.' — M. Jurieu's improper motives, in
resuscitating this exploded nonsense, have been ably exposed by
M. Pelisson in his Reflections on the Disputes concerning Religion,
and by M. Brueys, in his History of the Fanaticism of these
times. The latter says, ' Jurieu knew perfectly well, that he was
' not a prophet ; but he was desirous of imposing on the people,
' that he might excite them to take up arms and raise a civil
* war in the heart of this country, in order to favour the de-
' signs of our enemies. So full of this detestable project was he
' when he wrote his Book on the Prophecies, that he could not
' avoid discovering it to a reader of the least penetration. — This
' minister promised the Calvinists,tliat Popery should haveaspee-
' dy downfal, and predicted the approaching deliverance of their
' church. He promised these things as if from God, by inlorm-
* ing the people that they were contained in the oracles of the
' Revelations.'
M. Bayle, who on many occasions acts the part of M. Jurieu's
apologist, and who on some points in the present instance has not
deserted hira, thus delivers his opinion : " What I have said of
Comenius, I apply to a famous divine of Rotterdam, [^Jurieu, ]
who has explained the scripture prophecies under an extremely
bold pretence of being inspired. I do not assume authority to
judge his heart, and I will allow it to be supposed that he did
not act against his conscience. But no one ought to be offended
264 APPENDIX D.
when I declare, that he has been suspected of harbouring no
other design than that of exciting people to take up arms and to
embroil all Europe. The ground of their suspicion is this — his
not evincing any signs of confusion after the event had falsified
the prophecy in a manner that was beyond all dispute. Ano-
ther ground of their surmise is this — that, in imitation of Com-
enius, he has attempted to re-unite the Lutherans and Calvi-
nists, in hopes, it is said, of increasing the number of troops to
attack Antichrist."
Concerning Comenius also, the latter author has observed ;
" These persons fortel the things which they desire to see at-
tempted, and then they set all their machinery to work in
order to engage all those in their enterprize whom they consi-
der suitable partizans. It is very probable, that the great ap-
plication which Comenius employed in trying to unite all the
Protestants in one body, proceeded from a desire which he en-
tertained of forming a powerful party, that might fulfil the pro-
phecies with temporal weapons. Another circumstance did Co-
menius an injury : He was a man of parts and learning; on
other matters he argued very ably, and on these like a man of
genius and nothing in his person gave him the appearance of
an enthusiast. This caused the world to infer, that he did not
believe the things which he uttered. There may be, and some-
times there is, imposture in ecstatic grimaces : But those who
boast of being inspired, without evincing by the countenance
or expressions that their brain is disordered, and without doing
any act that is unnatural, ought to be infinitely more suspected of
fraud, than those who from time to time fall into strong convul-
sions as the Sybils did in a greater or less degree. I am willing
to have it tliought, that Comenius did not harbour any sinister
design. But what shall we answer to those who censure him
for having published Kotter's prophecies, even when the event
had demonstrated their falsity ? I will own, that this appears
to me quite inexcusable." But, omitting all mention of Come-
nius with his two prophets and prophetess, what excuse can be
framed for such men as the Treasurer Teelingh, Dr. William
Stephanus, and Professor Herlicius, each of whom assumed the
prophetic character; and for Dr. Pelargus and M. Jurieu, the
grave and reverend apologists of such enthusiasts } We only
know, that the greatest part of them were violent Calvinists, who,
notwithstanding the adverse stream of providential occurrences
and in the absence of all facts in their favoui*, chose to argue
propitiously concerning the ultimate and speedy establishment
of that Calvinian universal Monarchy about which all that san-
guine party had dreamed ; and, to keep alive these high expec-
tations in others, they or their hirelings prophesied smooth and
delightful things to the people.
APPENDIX 1>. 265
Bat after all these auspicious predictions, which had their
origin in the partially successful experiment of the Synod of
Dort, and after all their strenuous endeavours to cause those
predictions to ripen into facts, the Calvinists of the United
Provinces saw Prince Maurice advanced no higher in the scale
of sovereign princes, their darling King Frederic neither became
Emperor of Germany nor regained Bohemia and the Palati-
nate, Du Moulin and the Rochelle Calvinists did not succeed
in their seditious attempts against the King of France,* and
* The daring- conduct of these men has been already described by Grotius.
in the preceding Appendix C. But as a succinct account of it is necessary
to complete the view of the enterprizes in which the Calvinists were en-
couraged to engage liy ilieir success at the Synod of Dort, 1 here furnish that
account in the language of Dr. Heylin, a writer, who, from his situation, was
well acquainted with the events of that age : —
" Such was the miserable end of the war of Bohemia, raised chiefly by the
pride and pragmaticalness of Calvin's followers, out of a hope to propagate
their doctrines, and advance their discipline in all parts of the empire. Nor
sped the Hugonots much better in the realm of France; where, by the
countenance and connivance of King Henry the 4th who would not see it,
and during the minority of Lewis the 13th who could not help it, they pos-
sessed themselves of some whole countries, and near two hundred strong
towjs and fortified places. Proud of which strength, they took upon them
as a commonwealth, in the midst of a kingdom; summoned assemblies for
the managing of their own affairs, when and as often as they pleased ; gave
audience to the ministers of foreign churches; and impowered agents of their
own to negotiate with them. At the same meetings they consulted about
religion, made new laws for government, displaced some of their old officers,
and elected new ones ; the King's consent being never asked to the altera-
tions. These carriages gave the King such just offence, that be denied them
leave to send Commissioners to the Synod of Don, to which they had been
earnestly invited by the States of the Netherlands. For being so trouble-
some and imperious when they acted only by the strength of their provincial
or national meetings, what danger might not be suspected from a general
confluence, in which the heads of all the faction might be laid together.*
But then, to sweeten them a little after this refusal, he gave them leave to
hold an assembly at Charenton, four miles from Paris, there to debate those
points, and to agree those differences which, in that Synod, had been agi-
tated by the rest of their party ; which liberty they made such use of in tlie
said assembly, that they approved all the determinations which were made
at Dort, commanded them to be subscribed, and bound themselves and
their successors in the ministry by a solemn oath, not only steadfastly and
constantly to adhere unto them, but to persist in maintenance thereof to the
last gasp of their breath. — But the Hugonots were not to be told, that all the \
Calvinian Princes and estates of the empire had put themselves into a posture
of war; some for defence of the Palatinate, and others in pursuance of the
war of Bohemia, of which they gave themselves more hopes than they had
just cause for. In which conjuncture, some hot spirits then assembled at
Rochelle, blinded with pride, or hurried on by the fa taliti/ ot those decrees
which they maintained to be resolved upon by God before all eternity, reject
all offers tending to a pacification, and wilfully run on to their own de-
struction.— Next, let us look upon the King, who, being brought to a neces-
sity of taking arms, first made his way unto it by his declaration of the
second of April, published in favour of all those of'that religion who would
contain themselves in their due obedience. In pursuance whereof, he caused
five persons to be executed in the city of Tours, who had tumultuously dis-
turbed the Hugonots, whom they found busied at the burial of one of their
dead. He also signified to the King of Great Britain, the Princes of the
S
266 APPKXDIX D.
many more imaginary Calvinistic triumphs terminated in the
hopelessness of despondency. Y^et, after the lapse of a few years,
a great door of liope was opened to the party in England : They
seizetl upon the opportunity of the quarrel between King
Charles I and his Parliament, introduced Calvinism as the only
religion to be tolerated in these realms, and overturned the mon-
archical government of the country. I know it is usual for
vv^riters on this subject to expose the clashing designs and in-
terests of the different parties, who, either as principals or acces-
saries, were concerned in that religious and political revolution.
But let them be called Presbyterians, Independents, or Episcopal
Puritans, they were all animated by the same paramount desire
of crushing Arminianism :* and the genius of Presbyterianism
and Independency will be allowed by all moderate men to point
towards a Republican form of government in the State as well as
empire, and the States of the Netherlands, that he had not undertook this
war to suppress the religion, but to chastise the insolencies of rebellious
subjects. And what he signified in words, he made good by his deeds ; for
when the war was at the hottest, all those of that religion in the city of Paris
lived as securely as before, and had their accustomed meetings at Charenton,
as in times of peace."
After alluding to the very imprudent act of King Charles I., in assisting
the French Calvinists in 1626 and 1628, Dr. Heylin thui proceeds :—
" Which being observed by those of Rochelle, who were then besieged to
landward by the King in person, and even reduced unto the last extremity
by plagues and famine; they presently set open their gates, and, without
making any conditions for their preservation, submitted absolutely to that
mercy which they had scorned so often in their prosperous fortunes. The
King, thus master of the town, dismantleth all their fortifications, leaves it
quite open both to sea and land, commands them to renounce the name of
Rochebe, and to take unto the town the name of Mary Ville, or Boure de
St. Mary." ^ ^
* Strong and irrefragable proofs oi this assertion will be found in many
of the subsequent parts of this Appendix. Indeed, it was a subject about
which, in a short time, the English and Scotch Calvinists used no kind of
disguise, as will appear by the following quotation from one of the letters
of Grotius to his brother, dated March .30th, 1641 :— '« It is supposed that
[the Earl of Strafford] who has been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, will clear
himself from all charges. Far greater hatred is displayed by the populace
against the Archbishop [Laud], as was very apparent when he was com-
mitted prisoner to the Tower : For a seditious tumult was raised against
him, as though he was not then sufficiently unfortunate. Yet, on that un-
happy occasion, he quoted these lines of Juvenal, and applied them with the
greatest propriety to the outrageous mob : at quid turha /re-
mit ? sequitur fortunam, ut semper, et odit damnatos, ike— Sat. x.
" Good I what think the people .'" — They !
They follow fortune, as of old ; and hate.
With their whole souls, the victim of the state.
. . , , ^ ^ GiFFORD.
A short Apology by the Scotch has been published here, in which they de-
clare, that they have not taken up arms against the King or the English
nation, but against the ArcIibisJiap and the rest of ihe Arminian* ! You
perceive what uncommon hatred is manifested against the truth, that is,
agamst sentiments that are moderate, and can, in their origin. Jay claim to
antiquity." ■'
In niy early theological studies, it was frequently a subject of wonder to
me, that Arminianism should be called Popenj by some of its early op-
ponents : I"or this reproachful epithet I could never discover a cause. One
APPKXDIX D.
267
in t]ie Church. Besides those who reflect on the peculiar con-
dition of the great European fomily at that juncture, will per-
ceive that the Dutch Republic, which had then so lately ren-
dered the most important services to Rigid Predestmation, was
the only country in which the Calvinists were in a flourishmg
condition : This was a circumstance which was not forgotten
in the harangues and publications of the various Puritanic emi-
grants who had found an asylum in the United Provinces, and
who flocked to England in large companies as soon as they
learnt the probability of a commotion being raised m their fa-
vour. These men imported into this country all the visionary
enthusiasm, to which, after the Synod of Dort, they had been
accustomed in the Low Countries. _ i • • •
A hundred instances might be produced of their Calvinistic
extravagancies ; a few may here suffice : " The bishops had
been about this time voted out of the house of parliament, and
some upon that occasion sent to the Tower, which made many
covenanters rejoice, and most of them to believe Mr. Brightraan
(who probably was a well-meaning man) to be inspired when
he writ his Comment on the Apocalypse ; a short abridgment of
which was now printed, cried up and down the streets and cal-
led Mr. Brightman's Revelation of the Bevelation, and both
bought up and believed by all the covenanters. And though
he was grossly mistaken in other things, yet, because he had
there made the churches of Geneva and Scotland, (which had
no bishops) to be Philadelphia in the Apocalypse, that angel
that God loved; and the power of prelacy to be Antichrist, the
good and sufficient reason, applicable to the case of the English Arminians,
is given by Grotius in a preceding page, 209 ; for unless the Calvinists had
coustautly infused into the minds of the common people a persuasion, that
" Episcopacy and Jyminianism were nothing better than specious modifi-
catmis of Popery," they could not have inspired them with a belief, that
" the prophecies in the Revelations, relative to the subversion of the Auti-
christian kingdom, are as applicable to Arminianism as to Popery."
Yet I discovered, that, whenever it suited their convenience, these virulent
Calvinistic accusers could congratulate themselves on the congruity which
several of their own doctrines held with those of the Papists. John Goodwin
said, in 1658, to one of his adversaries : " For doth he not know, that, as the
" market of reproach and disgrace now ruleth in this angle of the world, call
" a man an Arminian, and vou have called him constructively, yea emi-
'« nently. Thief, Traitor, Murderer, Heretic, False Prophet, and whatso-
" ever else souudeth infamy or reflection upon men ?— Dr. John Owen ac-
<' knowledgeth, and doth little less than triumph, that his doctrine ofPerse-
" verance is owned and asserted by the two great Popish Doctors, Bellar-
" MINE and SUAREZ. May not 1 then, or any other man, upon as reasonable
" an account, stigmatize such a doctrine with the imominious character
" of Popish or Jesuitical, as the said Doctor, or any oiher partisan, cast the
" reproach of ^rwim<art upon the tenets argued for bv me m these contro-
" versies ? Yea, the truth is, that such a doctrine of Perseverance as the
" said Doctor abetteth, would make a more connatural and suitable member
«' in the crazy body of Popish Divinity, than in the body of the doctrine
" maintained bv Protestants."
s 2
2C8 APPENDIX D.
evil angel which the House of Commons had now so spued up,
as never to recover their dignity : therefore did those covenan-
ters rejoice, approve, and applaud Mr. Brightman, for discover-
ing and foretelling the bishops' downfall ; so that they both
railed at them, and at the same time rejoiced to buy good
penny-worths of all their land, which their friends of the House
of Commons did afford both to themselves and them, as a re-
ward for their zeal and diligent assistance to pull them down."
(Isaac Walton's Life of Bishop Sanderson. )
The next personage introduced does not appear as a pros-
pective but rather as an encouraging retrospective prophet. " Dr.
Owen also," says the judicious biographer of John Goodwin,
"in a strain of genuine fanaticism, which would have disgraced
the most despicable of Cromwell's preaching officers, compared
the outrageous proceedings of the Regicides to the valorous
achievements of the Man after God's own heart, in subduing the
enemies of his country, and in preparing the way for the nati-
onal glory and prosperity by which the reign of Solomon was
distinguished. Speaking of Ireton, the Doctor says, ' He was
* an eminent instrument in the hand of God, in as tremendous
' alterations, as such a spot of this world hath at any time re-
* ceived, since Daniel saw in general them all As Daniel's
' visions were all terminated in the kingdom of Christ, so all his
' (^Ireton's^ actions had the sameaimand intendment. This was that
* which gave life and sweetness to all the most dismal and black
* engagements that at any time he was called out unto. It was all
' the vengeance cf the Lord and his temple ! A Davidical prepara-
* tion of his paths in blood, that he might for ever reign in righte-
' ousness and peace.' Isaac Walton says, in his Life of the vene-
rable Hooker, about some malecontents at an earlier period : Yet
these very men, in their secret conventicles, did covenant and
swear to each other to be assiduous and faithful in using their
best endeavours to set up the presbyterian doctrine and disci-
pline ; and both in such a manner as they themselves had not
yet agreed on, but up that government must. To which end,
there were many that wandered up and down, and were active
in sowing discontents and sedition by venomous and secret mur-
mui'ings, and a dispersion of scurrilous pamphlets and libels
against the church and state, but especially against the Bi-
shops ; by which means, together with venomous and indiscreet
sermons, the common people became so fanatick, as to believe
the Bishops to be Antichrist, and the only obstructers of God's
discipline ; and at last some of them were given over to so
bloody a zeal, and such other desperate delusions, as to find
out a text in the Revelation of St. John, that Antichrist was to
be overcome by the sword."
The same spirit was alive and in mighty operation during the
Civil WarS: Grotius has alluded to it in a preceding page. (209)
ArrKNDiJ^ D. 269
On the l6th of February, 1641, in a letter to his brother, Gro-
tiu3 writes thus concerning the imprisonment of Archbishop
Laud ; — " I pray God in behalf of the Archbishop, that he may
obtain more favourable judges than we [ the Dutch Arminians,^
did formerly. It is beyond the range of human prudence to
foresee every thing that may afterwards occur. Yet God mani-
fests a regard towards us ; and he solaces with a better hope
those who are treated injuriously." In a letter addressed to his
brother, a week afterwaids, he repeats the same pious wishes,
and adds : — " I think the Archbishop's purpose has been such,
as ought to cause him not to be afraid of having God for the
Judge of his intentions. But, if in any age, undoubtedly in this
all things are managed by factions. Those persons sport too much
with Divine subjects, who suppose that they discover, in the
name of the Archbishop, the number which is expressed in the
Revelations : After the same manner, Feuardent * has declared
that the same number expresses Martin Lauter. — Respecting
the Synod of Dort, I think those persons are of the third order
who attempt that which you describe : But, as far as I have been
able to understand the affair by comparing the judgment of ma-
ny persons together, I am inclined to believe, that neither the
major part of the Bishops nor the Nobility will approve of that
scheme,t but that all things will be brought back to the same
form as that which was established in the days of Elizabeth.
It was this Queen who stifled in their very origin the Lambeth
Articles, which were a kind of prelude to the Synod of Dort."—
To shew that some of those passages in the New Testament
which were then interpreted, for party-purposes, to apply to the
Papal tyranny, had been otherwise applied by many great and
good men, Grotius wrote his Commeyitatio de Antichristo ; in which
he offers a conjecture, that Ulpius, the cognomen of the Empe-
ror Trajan, as it answered in Greek numerals to 6C6, was the
person there signified. He refers to Eusebius for proof, that this
Emperor in the tenth year of his reign revived the persecutions
against the Christians ; and quotes Augustine's City of God,
Sulpitius Severus, and Orosius, as authorities for calling Trajan's
cruel measures the Third Persecution of the Christians. He adds,
" both Irenteus and Arethas consider it a matter placed beyond
* Feuardent was a Franciscan Friar, and one of the most virulent adver-
saries that ever wrote against the early Protestants. Daill6 says, that " he
was highly deserving of his name," — Feuardent signifying in French a brislt
or blazing fire. Like all other dabblers in prophetic matters, he was not
very scrupulous about the alteratioa of a few letters in Luther's name, in
order to adapt it to the sacred number.
f This is an allusion to tlie Committee of Accommodation appointed by the
Long Parliament at the close of 1640, some account of which will he given in
the subsequent pages. The persons whom Grotius calls of the tldrd order ,
were, 1 suppose, the Sub-committee of Divines, who were empowered to pre-
pare matters of debate for the other Committee, which consisted of ten earls,
ten bishops, and ten barons.
S 3
270
APrEXDTX n.
all controversy, that a Roman Emperor was designated by this
number." This pamphlet was answered in 1640, by Samuel
Marets, Professor of Divinity at Boisleduc in Brabant, who vin-
dicated in a passionate style the common interpretation of those
passages of scripture. Contrary to his usual practice, Grotius
did not make any mention of the name of Marets in the Appen-
dix to his tract De Aniichristo, which he published early in
16'41 ; but, sportii :g with the French ntiode of pronouncing this
man's name, which is exactly the same as that o( marais, "a
swamp," Grotius styled his malevolent adversary Borborita,
" dirty fellow," in allusion to the Greek word Vto^&o^os, and its
French derivative bourbe, " mud" or " slime." The reader may
judge how well this term suited Marets, by perusing the first sen-
tence of his Preface, which originally commenced in the follow-
ing manner, till the Amsterdam printer refused to prostitute his
types by giving publicity, in the very first sentence, to what he
regarded as an untruth: " A small work on Antichrist has lately
" been pi-inted, the author of which is he who was the editor of
** the book of those two Socinians, Crellius and Volkelius."
Marets is the person who had the famous dispute with Voetius,
whether the Synod of Dort decided in favour of the Supra-
lapsarians or the Sub-lapsarians. He was a man of good sense, yet
rather deficient in classical learning, as may be seen by his mis-
taking Borborita for a word of Latin extraction : Grotius says in
one of his private letters, " that, when he heard of the course of
life which Marets had pursued in France, he perceived that this
Greek appellative was not misapplied." In his two works against
Grotius, he was assisted by the rest of the Calvinian brotlierhood
■ — a practice very usual with the French pastors of that age.
But, though professedly a reply to Marets, and to an author who
had written against him under the fictitious name of Fronto,
this Appendix, it will be seen by the following extract of a letter
to his brother, was designed by Grotius to operate as a check to
the English and Scotch Ptiritanic Levellers, who, according to the
prophetic annunciation of their own seers, had begun to hail the
arrival of the days when they could reward Babylon double ac-
cording to her works, in the persons of the English Arminians.
This letter is dated January 5, l64i : "I am now afraid lest,
through the tardiness of the printer, a longer delay should be
disagreeable to those who with the greatest justice expect a sight
of my answer to Marets and Fronto. Since this answer was due
from me, the very necessity of the argument led me to shew that
many things are placed among the marks ofAiitickrist, which can
plead antiquity in their favour. But this very circumstance
smooths the way to concord, if at any period Kings and Bishops
be wishful to indulge serious considerations about it. In com-
pleting this work, it was necessary incidentally to demonstrate,
that the party which thus severely chastises other people, is not
APPENDIX D. 271
itself without fault : Vet I have shewn this with such modera-
tion, as not even to subjoin the names of those whom I intend
to point out by this description. But though that turbulent spi-
* The Calvinists thouffht that much moderation was displajed in every part
of the Appendix, except at its conclusiou, a quotation from which is here
subjoined : —
" 1 do not deny, that the sayings which are recorded in the Revelations,
although they may have been truly fulfilled, are of great service to our own
times, — not only by creating witliin us a more confirmed belief of God's
providence and foreknowledge, after we have beheld the predictions and the
ei'e«<^s which exactly corresponded with them, — but likewise by teaching us
to beware of those persons who contract a portion of that spirit which is
censured in the Revelations : For, mankind are accustomed frequently to
relapse into offences, thai are either the very same, or nearly equal. It is
my hearty desire, that all the Roman [CatHolics], who are placed on the
chief watch-towers of their church, may derive this kind of instruction ; and
that Borborita [Marets] and his associates may be benefitted by similar re-
flections. I will not accuse them of idolatry who much too frequently evince
their abhorrence even of rites that are excellent and have been long re-
ceived ; and yet, if the name be deduced from things to their resemblances,
there is something allied to idolati-y in addicting themselves to the opinions
of new masters in such a manner, as neither to venture on an accurate ex-
amination of such opinions themselves, nor permit them to be examined by
others. But undoubtedly, many of this party [the Calvinists] cannot clear
themselves from the criminal charge of attacking the rights of kings, and
of seeking the horns of the bull rather than those of the lamb, — whether we
have regard to the [seditious] dogmas of Junius Brutus and many others, or
to the factions, seditions, conspiracies, and the private assumption of arms,
under the surreptitious name of the Chiisiiau Religion. The kings of
France and Great Britain, as well as other kings and legitimate authorities,
have declared, that such foul deeds seem to have derived their origin from
those dogmas, or to have received from them the greatest encouragement.
But bow is it possible for them to repel the charge of cruelty agaitist those
who differ /rom them, when they are of opmion, that the laws of Moses con-
cerning punishments [against idolaters, &c.] ought to be adopted by
Christian" princes, while, at the same time, they themselves reckon in the
number of idolaters all the Pope's adherents .' It is unnecessary to state
the fatal consequences that would ensue from such a doctrine, if they were
possessed of strength equal to their inclination. Besides, how can the very
offences objected against others be removed from themselves by the disciples
of Beza and Calvin, both of whom have written hooks on punishing heretics
with the sword / Beza's book was translated even into the Dutch language
by [two] ministers, [Bogerman and Geldorp,] and recommended to the
magistrates : Look also at the comment of this same Beza on Titus iii, 10,
in relation to this subject. But when Servetus, prior to his coming to
Geneva, had desired to obtain Calvin's opinion about his writings, Calvin
was the person who wrote to Farel,{and his own hand-writing is yet extant at
Paris,] that, if his authority was of any avail, he would prevent Servetus
from returning alive. He adhered to his promise : For, having auborned
his own baker as the accuser, (of which fact he makes great boasts in his
printed correspondence,) by the authority which he possessed he easily
caused Servetus to be burned alive, — a very dangerous example, according to
tke judgment of the famous Father Paul, [author of the History of the
Council of Trent ,1 and one which might readily be quoted as a precedent
against its authors, and recoil upon themselves.
" But it is objected, ' Servetus held sentiments about the Trinity that were
* not correct in every particular.' This is very possible; because a mistake
is easily committed in matters that so greatly transcend the grasp of the
human understanding. — ' Is not he, who was the cause of Servetus being
'burnt, the real burner' And have all men been satisfied with those
* opinions on the Trinity which were held by this burner of Servetus /' — By
BO means -. Many of the doctors of the Sorbonne impute heretical opinions
272 APPENDIX D.
rit will excite j^reat commotions not in Scotland only, but like-
wise in England ; yet, if I do not deceive myself, I think I ought
not any longer to delay my answer, lest I be considered as hav-
to Calvin ; and nearly all the Lutherans accuse him of Arianism. He must
therefore have been burnt himself, if he had fallen into the hands of judges
on whose minds the authority of the Doctors of the Sorbonne or of the
Lutherans had as much influence as Calvin's had on those of Geneva.
" That we may not imagine Calvin to have been unmerciful on the subject
of the Trinity only, he himself relates, in a letter addressed to Farel in 15;5(i,
* that a certain Anabaptist had been seized, at his instigation,' (this is his
own expression,) and he adds the reason, ' For he liad promulged the
execrable axiom, — that the Old Testament unts abolished.' He then subjoins
another reason by saying, I ' declared that [ brought a capital accusation
* against him for stealing ; and I ottered [to lose] my head if he denied the
' charge.' What can he the sum of this grievous crime ? Calvin explains it:
* it was made evident that he had sold for two shilling s and sixpence four
* leaves which had only cost him four-pence. Therefore,' such is the
phraseology of the letter, ' when this Anabaptist had sufficiently displayed
' his obstinacy, he was driven into banishment.' Weil, what besides ?
Calvin adds, ' Two days afterwards he was caught in the city, and received
* a public whipping.'
•' Melancthon had heard only of the former part of this transaction,
about the imprisonment of the Anabaptist. But he had a right understand-
ing of the case when he wrote about the same time to the very excellent
Camerarius, and said : ♦ Behold the fury of the times ! The Genevan con-
* tests about Stoical Necessity are so high, as to inclose in a prison a cer-
* tain person who differs from Zeno.' — I believe you know, Borborita, who
this Zeno is : But, on this point, Melancthon thus explains himself, in his
Reply to the Bavarian Articles: ' For I openly reject and detest the Stoical
' and Manichean furies, which affirm that all things happen necessarily , both
* good actions and those which are evil. On these subjects I omit all further
' discussions, for they are reproachful towards God and pernicious to good
' morals.' 1 repeat the same admonition to those who may peruse these and
others of my productions ; and I pray God, that all dogmas which are
reproachful to him a7id injurious to good manners may be extirpated, and
that a way may thus be opened for an equitable peace," &c.
In tliis extract, the reader will find a second mention of the book en-
titled J^indiciw contra Tyrannos, sive de Principis in Populum, Populique in
Principeni legitima Potestate, Ab Stephano Junio Bruto ; which fur-
nished the Calvinists of that age with many of the dangerous political prin-
ciples on which they acted. It was printed by Guarin, at Basle, in IS/i);
and being translated into French, in 1581, it served as a kind of political
text-book to the Calvinists, in their various insurrections in that kingdom,
till Rochelle was reduced and taken, and Cameronism succeeded to the
Elace of Calvinism. On the 28th of February, 1643, Grotius informed his
rotherof the real author of that seditious publication : " I think I formerly
told you, that Philip Mornay, Lord du Plessis Marli, was the author of
Junius Brutns, and that the editor of it was Louis Villiers, Loiselerius. I
repeat this, because Marets says, that this Brutus is an unknown writer,
when the author's name is a circumstance well known to multitudes : And
the same Du Plessis, in his last will and testament, exhorted his sons-in-
law and his friends to rise in arms, if the edicts [in favour of the Reformed]
■were not observed." Another reference to the will of Du Plessis is made in
a preceding page (210) , by Grotius. In a subsequent letter, dated March 21,
he says : " The account which I gave you about Mornay Du Plessis, I re-
ceived from those who lived with liim : And his last will plainly agrees with
themaxims contained in that book." It is not improbable, that M. DaillS,
the celebrated Gameronist, was his informant : For he was the Pastor of
the Reformed Church at Paris, had been on terms of intimacy with Grotius,
(page 222,} and had resided several years in Mornay's family as tutor to his
cnildren ; he was also present when that nobleman died. — Bayle, whose
excusable partiality for the French Calvinists is no secret, has written a
jM'ricNDix D. 273
ing nothing to oppose. Besides, I do not despair that some of
the Puritans, after obtaining a sight of my production, may
make a nearer approach to sanity, if they be not entirely cured.
Dissertatiou on this seditious production, in which he leaves it doubtful
whether Beza or Philip Mornay was the real author, — thousjh in one part he
endeavours to convince his readers, from certain documents, that it was
written by Hubert Laug'uet, of Franche Comte, a great politician and the
Duke of Saxony's ajent in France. One of Bayle's Commentators has
written a lon^ and able Critique to shew, that the proofs adduced for Du
Plessis being- the author are incontrovertible, and that it is very probable
Lauguet was the editor and the writer of the Preface. Rivet, who was him-
self a Frenchman, does not, in his answer to the DL<:cussion of Grotius, deny
this circumstance, but offers an apoloi^y for Du Plessis, on account of his
age and the persecutions to which the French Protestants were then
exposed.
Grotius has also brieP.y stated the ease of Servetus. As this is a topic on
which many Calvinists betray their indiscretion, I subjoin a few extracts
from the answers of Grotius to Rivet. One of the late biographers of
Melaucthou has, in his Preface, given his readers the following information :
" No one surely can mistake the purpose of this volume so much as to sup-
pose, that the author pledges himself to believe the creed, or to vindicate all
the opiuions of its illustrious subject." Those persons who " suppose that
the author," who is a Calvinist Minister, " pledged himself to believe the
creed" of the moderate Melancthon, will indeed have " mistaken the pur-
pose of his volume ;" for, in one part of it, the prominent purpose seems to
be, the partial exculpation of Calvin's foul deed against Servetus, by ad-
ducing the authority of Melancthon in its favour. By not " believing Me-
lancthon's creed," the author may have had regard to the more mature
sentiments of that great man ; but a Calvinist would find no great difficulty
in adopting the early creed of Melaucthou, by which he and Luther gave
the reins to those enthusiasts, the German Anabaptists. Melancthon soon
perceived his error, discarded the iaXaX Ao^\.nne.s oi Unconditional Ulection
and Reprobation, begun sedulously to teach all men to prove their faith by
their works, frequently blessed God for having instructed him in this more
excellent ivai/, aud continued throughout life a greater assertor of the powers
of the human will than Arminius or any of his evangelical followers. It is this
amended " creed" which Melancthon's biographer does not " pledge himself
to believe ;" but though it was not strictly in his line of duty to " believe"
it, it was his paramount duty, as an honest man and a faithful narrator of
facts, to state this change, which was mo^t honourable to the character of his
author. This gentleman, and other modern Calvinistic dabblers in that
odious affair, will derive some instruction from the following interesting
quotation: " Among the Dutch, those who were condemned at the Sxnod
of Dort, and afterwards banished out of the country, had previously delivered
to their rulers a statement of their sentiments, which are the same as those
of Melancthon, and which always had in those parts many defenders. They
were not the first to make a secession, but their adversaries. — The authority
of the Bishop of Rome would not have appeared so formidable to [Bishop] Hall,
as on that account to cast away all hopes of reconciliation, had he known
how easily the remedies may be procured, both in France and Spain, to
prevent the Popes from invading the rights either of kings or bishops ; and
especially if he had considered, that the king of Great Britain exercises no
jurisdiction over ecclesiastical affairs and persons, that is not likewise exer-
cised by the king of the Two Sicilies. — But, to return to the business of Dort,
it was the principal objection which the Lutherans urged against the plan
of John Durseus, who, when attempting with the best intentions to establish
concord among all Protestants, received this reply from the divines of Stras-
burgh and Sweden, tliat they [the Lutiierans^ were as mucli coJidemned at
that Synod as the Jrminians. — In former days, when any quotations from
Calvin, Beza, and other writers, were pressed as objections against those
who account themselves better reforined than other people, they were accus-
tomed to answer, ' These are but the private opinions of teachers :' But all
374 AI'l'ENDIX D.
I have also the same reasons to expect a similar result from the
more moderate Papists, especially when the most learned men
of their party have already expressed their approbation of my
the men of that party [the Calvinists] are now bound down by the public
voice of their own Synod. They have no means of escape : For there is not
a man among; them that is not bound to defend those ' horrible decrees,' as
Calvin himself calls them ; nor can any one believe, that the fraternal hind-
MCM expressed by Calvin's disciples, is employed with any other design, than
to serve for ingratiating themselves by some means or other. When they
have [in any country] become sufficiently powerful, they will banish other
people, as they acted in Holland against those individuals of whom we have al-
ready spoken : They have likewise twice ejected Luther's disciples out of
the territory of the Elector Palatine. — Let men of prudence now judge,
whether I uttered a useless wish when 1 said, ' that men of such a dis-
' position, who openly avow that the Israel of God must dwell alone, ought
* to be kept under restraint by kings and magistrates, lest they should make
* those attempts against others which may probably recoil on themselves.'
But the causes which I produced, why those dogmas ouglit not to be approved
which were formed at Dort, and then re-formed in the mountains of Ce-
vennes, [at the French National Synod of Alez,] were not produced solely
from my own judgment about them, but from the judgment of all who
dissent from them, — such as the Roman Catholics, the Greek Church, and
the Protestants who adhere to the Augsburgh Confession. God forbid, that
I should give my assent to Calvin and Beza, for burning or punishing with
death those who err about the Trinity : For an error is easily committed iu
that very difficult doctrine ; but the punishment of the man who thus errs,
should be suvh instruction as may cause him to acknowledge his herety. For
if the magistrates, according to the law of Moses, which Calvin and Beza
adduce, ought to kill those wlw do not accurately distinguish the Divitie
Persons [in the Trinity], which is the only thing objected by Melancthon
against Servetus, — what hinders the same magistrates from killing those also
V'ho confound the [^u»o] natures of Christ, the error which Calvin's disciples
charge upon the followers of Luther .'^ &c.
" Rivet says, on the first article, that he and his associates are led hy the
public authority of the Spirit in his oum word, which is common to all
Christians. Just such an assertion has been made by Menno and Socinus,
by Bruno and many others. The reader will perceive the perplexities in
which the minds of men are involved when they hear resounding on every
side. This is the pure and sincei'e word of God, according to the meaning of
the Holy Spii'it ! They know not whither to betake themselves, except
that the greatest part of them remain in the lot assigned to them by their
birth or education, or stand still in the place to which they have been con-
veyed by their hopes of honour and advantage, while their associates like-
wise express aloud their unanimous and high approval. If any one can
extricate mankind out of this labyrinth, will he not perform an acceptable
service? The learned Girmans, who published the remarks of the Patriarch
Gennadius on the Trinity, which may be considered those of the Greek
Church, had discovered no discrepancy between them and the contents of
the Nicene Creed. I am not certam, that on this subject other people cannot
see as far as Frenchmen, though the latter possess a more subtle genius.
But let them beware lest they fall into the same snare as Calvin did, who
brought upon himself the most grievous accusations by his refined subtleties.
It is not every man that can readily declare what things they are which diflfer
in reality, in relation, or in modality ; or that can speedily discern whether
it is more correct to say, The Father begat, or The Father is always pro-
creating; whether Keckerman spoke with propriety when he said. Persons are
not entities; whether Calvin spoke with perfect correctness when he asserted,
that persons are properties ; and why it was displeasing to the same indi-
vidual to hear the Son called God of God. When 1 peruse such expressions
as these, and revolve them in my mind, 1 applaud that saying of Irenaeus:
* If therefore any person ask us. In what manner is the Son produced by the
'Father?, we answer. No one knows this production, generation, naming,
APFKNDIX D. 275
labours as displaying sufficient liberality and moderation. But
it is my desire to render myself serviceable to all men, as well
as to the English and the Scotch, not to those of our own times
* unfolding or disclosing, or by what name soever he may choose to call
' the Son's generation that cannot be declared.' (Isai. liii, 8.)
" The books of Servetus were through the assiduity of Calvin burnt, not
only at Ueneva, but likewise at other places : I confess, that during tlie whole
of my life I have never yet seen more than one copy of his book in Latin ; ia
which I certainly did not discover those allegations which were urged against
him by Calvin. Michael Servetus was, by Calvin's management, burnt
alive at Geneva, in the year 1553 ; Melauclhon received from Calvin whatever
he afterwards wrote about Servetus. Before that period G2colampadius seems
to have been acquainted with him in Switzerland ; but he considered him a
proper subject for rejection and exposure, though not to be murdered. Cal-
vin, however, could declare : ' I freely confess and avow, that I provided the
'accuser myself.' He adds: ' The" magistrates are not only permitted to
' inflict punishment on the corrupters of the heavenly doctrine, but they
' have the Divine command thus to act, how unwilling soever ignorant per-
' sons may be to grant them such a liberty.' And, in his letter to Farel, con-
cerning the same Servetus, he says : ' I hope he will at least receive a capital
* punishment.' — But the courteous and humane treatment which Calvin usu-
ally bestowed on those who differed from him, is evident in his writings. He
calls Castellio akttave&uA Satan, because he opposed that Piedestination
which Calvin inculcated ; Koornhert, both a knave and a dog ; and the au-
thor of ' The Duty of a Pious Man in the Midst of this Religious Dissension,'
(who was Cassander, but whom Calviu thought to be Baldwin,) is called
a fello^v of an iron front, devoid of piety, profane, impudent, an impostor,
without natural aff'ection,and devoted to petulance. When Baldwin had
written an answer to this production, Calvin called him a man of no charac-
ter, an obscene dog, a disreputable falsifier, a fellow that cunningly plots
wicked devices, and that enters into a cotispiracy with wicked knaves, a cynic,
a buffoon, a perfidious and infatuated wretch, of beastly madness and devoted
to Satan. He called Cassander self-complaisant and Tnorose, a sorcerei-,
ghost, serpent, plague, and hcmgman ! I will again declare the truth, how
displeasing soever it may prove to Rivet : These circumstances so vexed Bii-
cer as to compel that mild man to address him in the following words, which
are by far too true : ' You form your judgment according to the love or the
' hatred which you have conceived ; but your love or hatred is formed ac-
* cording to the pleasure of your passions.' Nay, on account of his atrocious
sayings, Bucer bestowed on him the name of Fratricide. In a letter to
Bucer, Calvin calls this passion for evil-speaking by the softened epithet of
'impatience;' and says, 'that he maintained a great conflict with it, and
' that he had obtained some advantages over it, but they were not such as ;
' completely to tame the monster.' If any one will read what Calvin wrote
after that period, he will find that the advantages said to have been obtained
were all on the wrong side; so mightily was he pleased with that passage,
J do that which I would not .' (Rom. vii, 16.) Thus likewise does Beza con-
fess, that for the space of fifteen years, during which he had instructed
others in the way of righteousness, he was himself neither rendered sober,
liberal, nor addicted to speaking the truth, and that he still remained fast
in the miry clay. — 1 do not adduce these things as though it were at all
pleasing to me to maintain a contest with the dead ; the reason why I state
them is, because 1 perceive it generally happens, that every one imitates the
manners of himwJwm he chooses for his master. You may commonly see the
followers of Melancthou and John Arndt, men of good and kind dispositions;
and, on the contrary, tbe disciples of Calvin are full of asperity, and mani-
fest such a disposition as they imagine God entertains towards the greatest
portion of mankind. Of what immense consequence therefore is it to be ju-
dicious in the choice of the teacher whom you employ ! I advise all those who
have leisure, to read both Cassander's'and Baldwin's answer to Calvin :
For they are of great service in exhibiting the man's real disposition."
276 APPENDIX D.
alone, but I bestow the chief part of my attention on posterity ;
and if I should refuse to avail myself of those opportunities
which are constantly occurring, a proper season for declaring the
Such were the expressions of Grotius in his fVishes for the Peace of the
Church, irom which we have already (page 208) given some iiiiercsting ex-
tracts. In his Discussio7i of Rivet's Jpology, he introduces some judicious
re narks on the railing to which the Calvinists had accustomed themselves.
He adduces the instance of the Commonitory of Vinceutius Lirinensis, a
new edition of which and of St. Augustine on the Christian Doctnne, had
then been recently published in Germany by the famous Lutheran Diviue,
George (,'alixtus, for which pacific deed lie obtained a plentiful share of
abuse from the doctors of the Genevan School, who were always remarkable
for their aversion to antiquitj'. On this subject Grotius says: " Those per-
sons in France, who were desirous of making such an assertion, have late-
ly said, that Vincentius, the author of f/ie Commonitory, viz.s a Semi-Pelagian;
but they have produced no proof except from theirown judgment. For they
account all those who do not agree with Calvin, as Pelagians ; or, when
inclined to a more lenient course, they call them ' Semi-Pelagians.' If
Rivet be not terrified with the epithet Sesqui-Manicheism, no reason what-
ever exists for real Catholics being afraid of the term Semi- Pelagianism.
The Manichees declared, that evil actions proceeded from necessity. For
they were deniers of the freedom of the human will, like some other persons
in this age. But since they durst not deny that God is good, they preferred
to deduce that necessity of evil actions from some other origin than from the
Deity. Yet men have been found, who proceeded far beyond this point;
and, while they agreed with the Manichees respecting that inevitable neces-
sity, they had the audacity to ascribe the cause of it to no other source than
to our gracious God : These are the men, who, for the best reason in the
world, are called Sesqui-Manichees. It would be difficult for me to say,
whether or not Rivet be one of their number: Fortheyare accustomed to
varnish over their sentiments in a marvellous manner, whentheysee them
liable to incur odium from good men. And they manage all this with such
consummate art, as never openly to condemn or to acknowledge the objec-
tions made against them. i
"Baldwin has quoted, from Beza's answer to Castellio, the expressions
■which Beza uses when he says, that for the space of fifteen years he was
neither rendered sober, liberal, nor addicted to speaking the truth, but that
he still remained in the miry clay. Such a confession ought not to be con-
sidered disgraceful to those persons who suppose, that St. Paul, even after he
had become an Apostle, was brought into captivity to the law of sin, by
means of the law in his members ; and that he was ' carnal and sold under
sin ;' (Rom. vii, 14, 23.) and who declare, ' that certain sins have dominion
* over the regenerate, and that the most holy persons on earth daily sin
* against their own consciences.' Holy men do not utter against themselves
such calumnies as these phrases import; St. Paul declares himself tobe
' the chief of sinners ;' but this expression refers to the period before his con-
version when he was a persecutor of the Church. But, after receiving ' the
knowledge of salvation,' St. Paul and those who resemble him, do not say,
* that they live without sin ;' neither do they say, ' that they are held captive
by theirsins,' which, as we have before declared, are destroyed at a single
blow. St. Augustine is himself a witness that such sins as sacrilege, murder,
adultery, false testimony, theft, rapine, pride, envy, avarice, and even anger,
itself though long cherished, and drunkenness after frequent indulgence, —
are all destroyed. How many of Rivet's associates, who style themselves
the elect, have been detected in the commission of wicked actions and flagi-
tious crimes 1 He will say, ' These evil deeds are also found among other
* denominations.' He will speak the truth : But, among those others, there
are likewise causes which nourish vicious conduct. Cardinal Gropper also
spoke truly, when he said, in the Institution of Catechumens, ' It cannot he
* denied, for facts proclaim this truth, that by the neglect of penitence all
* ecclesiastical discipline, which is the sole foundation of religion, is at once
'forgotten and grown into disuse; and that, in its stead, the foulest and
APPENDIX D. 277
truth would never arrive. Then, since the term of life is uncer-
tain, I act in this production and in others, so as to leave nothing
to the diligence of my heirs, of whose neglect I am daily a wit-
* most scandalous offences have in a body inundated the Church, and are
* the causes of the disturbances that ag^itate the present times.' But among
the fofiowers of Beza, no cause is more powerful than the opinion, that a
man who is regenerate maj' fall into such sins and yet not fall from grace on
that account, that his salvation is sure and certain, and that he ought to
indulge in no doubts concerning it. Is it any thing wonderful, if these
people are precipitately hurried into crimes, when the flesh allures them,
and they are restrained by no fear ? The man who admonishes others about
these matters, does not hate men, but loves God and the salvation of man-
kind.
" The Edicts which have been published in France in favour of those who
call themselves the Reformed, Grotius does not wish to see either rescinded
or curtailed, but to be most scrupulously observed ; and of this fact he has
numerous and great witnesses.
" With regard to Servetus, those who have perused him will not, I think,
be persuaded that he agreed in sentiment with Paul Samosatenus. But it is
true, as Melancthon states, that Servetus does not sufficiently explain his
thoughts of those things which he discusses. He had undoubtedly become
involved in error : But he did not go to Geneva for the purpose of instilling
bis own notions into the minds of the people ; nor did he remain in that
city in order to collect together a new denomination. He had come with the
express intention of consulting Calvin : But, long before his arrival, Calvin
had predestinated him by a horrible decree to a death of infamy. In proof
of this maybe cited Calvin's letter to Farel, in which he declares, that if his
authority possessed any validity, he would take care that he should not depart
alive. It is sufficient to have stated these things: And nothing need be
added, except this, that magistrates are with the greatest propriety warned
by Grotius to be on their guard against tlie men who defend these maxims.
For it is only necessary to look, and instantly to discover how they destroy
christian love and gentleness, and all the bonds of human society. Princes
who hold erroneous opinions, do not account themselves heretics ; neither
do those subjects who differ from their rulers, number themselves among the
favourers of heresy. Now if Princes should believe that they ought to kill
heretics, and if subjects should foster the opinion, that they ought to resist
by arms the operation of those edicts which take away the free exercise of
their religion, what shall we have but civil wars in all directions, without any
hope of intermission .' Because foreigners, under the influence of the same
maxims, will unite themselves either to these Princes or to their subjects,
as their own sentiments may accord with the one party or the other, and will
thus prevent those whose cause they espouse from being subdued by their ad-
versaries. Grotius is easily persuaded, that Rivet's associates in France do
not approve of the Genevan dogma of * punishing heretics with the sword.'
For they know how dangerous such a proposition is to themselves ; not be-
cause they account themselves to be heretics, no more than Servetus
thought himself one; but because they are conscious, that they are viewed
as heretics by their sovereign, nay as blasphemers, on that point especially
iu which they make God to be the author of sin.
" Grotius has no wish to exasperate kings and all orders of men against
Rivet and his party ; but he admonishes them to beware of dogmas that not
only disturb the peace of the church, but likewise the peace of society. If
they will receive this admonition and act accordingly, they will raise them-
selves to a greater height in the estimation of kings and men of all ranks,
than that to which they have ever yet attained. This is no trifling point of
safety, which Grotius is desirous to procure for them. The busmess of
peaceJsJhe concern of Christ himself. The light is the Holy Scriptures,
understood according to their ancient meaning and interpretation : Prejudices
and passions diffuse darkness over the mind. Grotius is not among the
number of those who, through covetousness and with feigned words, make
merchandize of the souls of men ; (2 Pet. ii, .3.) and it is njt his endeavour
278 APPRNDIX D.
ness." This was courageous discourse and a noble attempt for a
man that had nearly attained to sixty years of age ; but he had
to complain, that his endeavours to reconcile the great body of
Protestants together, and then to effect a union between them and
the Papists, was not supported by many of his friends, as, in his
opinion, it ought to have been at that juncture. He says, " If
Erasmus and Cassander had waited until there had been no sedi-
tious movements of tlie people, they might have imposed on them-
hy this labour to obtain either advantag'e or honour. Neither is he so im-
prudent as not to have foreseen the odium wiiich would be excited by this
pacific attempt. He wishes to see all dishonest gains removed from the
church ; and he will never repent of having intreated God and admonished
men, for the conipletiou of this purpose. The dogs that lie in the manger,
[in allusion to ^Ksop's fable,] are not only unwilling to enjoy peace them-
selves, even that inequitable kind of peace which was established by the
decrees of the Synod of Dort, but they likewise divert from peaceful obser-
vances other people that do not belong to their party. In the mean time,
they view themselves with such complacency, as to lay claim to the pecu-
liar title of ' the sheep and the spouse of Christ ;' they place the fact beyond
all controversy, that they are God's people and heritage ; and on these
foundations, as though they were well laid, they erect grand superstruc-
tures, for trophies to themselves as the conquerors of all other people. Such
a degree of confidence do these carnal weapons impart, with which they see
themselves on every side defended ! Their spirits swell, like the sails of a
ship that have long been filled with prosperous breezes. When they obtain
access to the ears of men in power, they close them against all men besides ;
they are not content with having imposed silence on other people, but add
reproaches and insults, while they scornfully sing, TVoe betide the van-
quished / They are without a single rival, and will remain so; for their
conduct is such, as to cause them to indulge in self-love unto desperation,
while none, except their own dear selves, can manifest towards them any
tokens of affection."
This description of the Calvinists of 1643, was drawn by the hand of one
of the greatest men, and certainly the most accomplished and universal
scholar, of that learned age ; and the opinions avowed, in the two treaties
from which it is quoted, are supported throughout by stubborn facts. This
description is the more interesting on-account of the author's wishes, ex-
pressed fully in the text, (page 272,) to render these pamphlets, which were
among the very last of his literary labours, a sedative to the turbulent spirits
of the Calvinists in this country. He enjoyed better opportunities of know-
ing the concerns of every religious denomination than any other man in
Europe ; his information is therefore the more valuable. On every occasion
he displays a strong desire to benefit Englishmen, hy infusing a better dis-
position into the Puritans. In the last pamphlet which he wrote, he says :
" Many persons both at Paris and throughout France, in Poland and Ger-
many, and not a few in England, w ho are mild men and lovers of peace,
know, that the labours of Grotius for the peace of the church have not been
dipleasing to several equitable and competent judges. For what man, who
is not infected with the same poison, will require one to please the Brownists
[Independents], who are indulging their frantic humours to the extent
which we now behold, and others that resemble them, if any such there be,
with whom Rivet will enjoy more complete concord than with the English
Bishops !" This great and good man died four years prior to the beheading
of King Charles the First, and was mercifully taken away from a sight of the
evils which were then impending, and which would have wounded his bene-
volent spirit. Only a few months prior to his decease, he made the following
remark in a letter to his brother : " The events which have transpired in
England are just such as I predicted, — the number of sects has increased to
immensity. The English has always been esteemed by men of learning as
Tiir; RKsr LrrtuGv."
ArPF.xDix n. 279
selves an eternal silence. Those vipers always hiss, especially
when they are invigorated by the gales which blow from the
Lake of Geneva. Bearing these things with patience, I am un-
willing to defer the completion of those labours which I consider
it a part of my duty as a Christian to undertake. Life itself is
not in our own hands : * Our toils will be profitable either to
* It must not be supposed that Grotius, at this juncture, began to enter-
tain,/b»- the first time, the godlike design of uniting the difl'ereut denomi-
nations of professing Christians into one body. In the first edition of his
treatise on the Truth of the Christian Religion, published several years
before his pamphlet on Antichrist, he closes the eleventh chapter of his
sixth book, by an eloquent and pious exhortation to Christian unity and con-
cord, and ])roves that the soldiers of Christ ought to employ arms of a dif-
ferent description to those of the Mahoraedans. How well that evangelical
counsel had been approved by those who were then most celebrated for their
moderation, learning, and piety, may be seen in the subjoined quotation
from one of his letters to his brother, in 1641 -. —
" I am much pleased that your business allows you leisure to go to
Amsterdam; for your presence will, I hope, cause those additions which
must be made to the Annotations on the Gospels, to be correctly published.
If, while I live, they do not produce the effect which I desire, and to which
(if I maybe permitted so to express myself) I consider myself to have been des-
tined from my mother's womb, yet it will prove of the utmost consequence
to have planted trees that may be serviceable to a future generation. — A few
days ago, a very learned Englishman called upon me : He has lived a long
time in Turkey, and has translated my book on the Truth of the Christian
Relision into Arabic ; and he will endeavour, if it be possible, to have his
translation of it printed in England. He thinks no book can be more useful,
either for the instruction of the Christians in that part of the world, or for
the conversion of the Turks who reside in Turkey, I'ersia, Tartary, Barbary,
or the East Indies. This very pious man earnestly intreated me to persist in
the purpose which I had expressed at the end of that treatise, and not to
suffer my?elf to be deterred, by any factions and calumnies whatever, from
offering to the acceptance of al! Christians the cup of concord. Nothing
creates a greater aversion to Christianity amon^ ' those wlio are without,'
than a sight of the numerous denominations divided among themselves. I
returned such answers as the occasion suggested. Beside the Christians in
Turkey, there are, in all parts of the world, many others, I do not doubt,
who are under similar oppressive influence. I have fully determined, as
much as in my power, to shew both the causes of these clivisions and the
remedies. But 1 beseech you not to imagine, that it concerns ray reputation
to render satisfaction to the Calvinists, (nearly all of whom are seditious
persons,) in preference to other denominations that are not less, but perhaps
are much more. Christian. God has bestowed on me this [Swedisn] em-
bassy, that I maybe able to speak frtely; and should I even resign this
oOice, I would use the same freedom of Speech in some other situation. I
entreat you therefore, my dear brother, neither to be yourself alarmed, nor
to suppose that I shall by any means be alarmed, if my enemies call me
no member of the Church, a Papist, a Socinian, or whatever name they
please. The French Bishops and a majority of Divines oppose superstitions,
and openly profess a desire of restoring that union of the Church which we
owe to Christ. Shall I shew myself a loiterer, or inactive in such a good
work as this, when God has imparted to me those gifts for which I shall
never be able to lender him sufficient praise and thankfulness? May I
banish from my mind all such fear and indolence !"
No one can withhold the tribute of admiration from the noble frankness
displayed in this acknowledgment of the talents which God had commu-
nicated. I have always viewed such an avowal, on proper occasions, to be
equally distant from the effrontery of braggardism, and from the obtruding
meekness of a specious humility, which often seeks, by a voluntary self-
degradatiou, to obtain unmerited applause.
280 APTEXniX D.
our coteraporaries or to our successors." — In a most interesting
letter, dated Feb. 2, 1641, he thus addresses his brother: " Those
objections undoubtedly which the Lutherans make against the
Calvinists, as stated in the letter of Vossius, are not empty ex-
pressions ; they have in them much truth and reality. I also con-
sider his remark very just, that if the Swedish and Danish
The person whom Grotius here styles " a very learned Englishman," was
no other than the celebrated oriental scholar, lir. Edward Pocock, the able
co-adjutor of Bishop Walton in that greut national undertaking, the London
PoLVGLOTT Bible. He had been five years Chaplain to the English Factory
at Aleppo ; and he and the learned Greaves were, soon after his return to
this country, appointed to travel in the East. They spent nearly four years
at Constantinople, studying the Eastern languages, and purchasing, by
Archbishop Laud's order, all the valuable manuscripts which they could dis-
cover. Both these eminent men, as well as several of the most pious and
LEARNED INDIVIDUALS that any nation ever produced in one age, were vexed
and disturbed by those semi-barbarians, the Parliamentari/ Visitors and
the Triers and Ejectors, who, with the great majority of the Calvinian party,
were decided enemies to learning. Bishop Womack has presented us with
an excellent specimen of their Puritanic cant on this subject, in the speech
oi Mr. Fataliti/, page 70, in which he says, " The man hath a competent
measure of your ordinary unsanctified learning," &c.
The reader will be gratified by a perusal of the following quotation from
Twells's Life of Dr. Pocock, which contains a circumstance that is highly
honourable" both to our author and to Grotius. After stating, that, early in
1641, Dr. Pocock, in his route to England, called at Paris, and visited
Gabriel Sionita, the famous Maronite, and Hugh Grotius, his biographer
proceeds to say : " To the latter he could not but be very acceptable, as on
several accounts, so particularly on that of the relation he stood in to a
person for whom Grotius had all imaginable esteem and reverence, the
Archbishop of Canterbury. And doubtless, the troubles which had lately
begun to fall on that great Prelate, and the black cloud which now hung
over the Church of England in general, were the subject of no small part of
their conversation. — But there were other things, about which he was willing
to discourse with this great man. Mr. Pocock, while he continued in the
East, had often lamented the infatuation under which so great a part of the
world lay, being enslaved to the foolish opinions of that grand impostor
Mahomet. He had observed, in many who professed his religion, much
justice and candour and love, and otlier excellent qualities, which seemed
to prepare them for the kingdom of God; and therefore he could not but
persuade himself, that, were the doctrines of the Gospel but duly proposed
to them, not a few might open their eyes to discern the truth of it. Some-
thing therefore he resolved to do towards so desirable an end, as he should
meet with convenient leisure ; and he could not think of any thing more
likely to prove useful in this respect, than the translating into Arabic, the
general language of the East, an admirable Discourse that had been pub-
lished in Latin, some years before, concerning the Truth of Christiiinity .
With this design he now acquainted (Jrotius, the author of that treatise ;
who received the proposal with nmch satisfaction, and gave him a great deal
of encouragement to pursue it. — And Mr. Pocock's aim in this matter being
only the glory of God and the good of souls, he made no scruple at all to
mention to that learned man some things towards the end of his book,
which he could not approve, viz. certain opinions, which, though they are
commonly in Europe charged on the followers of Mahomet, have yet no
foundation in any of their authentic writings, and are such as they them-
selves are ready on all occasions to disclaim. With which freedom of
Mr. Pocock, Grotius was so far from being displeased, that he heartily
thanked him for it ; and gave him authority, in the version he intended, to
expunge and alter whatsoever he should think fit."
Dr. Pocock's esteemed Arabic translation of this treatise of Grotius was
published at Oxford in IGGO, immediately after the Restoration.
APPKXDIX D. '2Sl
Churches could unite with that Church which does not acknow-
ledge Luther for its founder, it would be possible for them to en-
ter into a union with the Church of England, on account of cer-
tain rites which are common both to it and them, aud because
the English are not equally ready to adopt that dark kind of
argumentation against other people. The misfortune of the
Archbishop excites my warmest sympathies: He is an excellent
man, very learned, and a passionate lover of the peace of the
Church. But we, who have ranged ourselves under the banners
of Christ, ought not to refuse the cross. God tries his own
people where, when, and as far as he phases : And it is our duty,
not to be terrified at the sight of temporary evils. On those
"who thus act in every respect, God will bestow strength and
power; and I pray God of his infinite goodness to communicate
them to the good Archbishop. If it be allowed to urge the
meanness of their extraction as an objection against pious
bishops, what will become of the Apostles, and what will be the
fate of Onesimus and others, who were servants before they were
constituted bishops ? So far am I from believing this Archbishop
to be a Papist : There is indeed throughout France scarcely a
single Archbishop or Bishop to whom that epithet justly belongs.
I consider my writings on the subject of Antichrist to be true,
and not merely true but of the greatest utility ! Since such is my
full conviction, and since God has placed me in this asylum for
the purpose of aiding in the promotion of his truth and peace,
do you suppose that I ought to be afraid of the virulent pens of
Marets, Du Moulin,* and of the rest of that party ? If I be fa-
* Grotius mijht have called Du Moulin's pen hi/pocritical, as well as viru-
lent, hi opposition to the interpretation which Grotiu*, in his treatise De
.^ntichristo, bad put upon several passages in the New Testament, Du
Moulin published a book, in 1640, entitled Vates, sen de Prcecognitionc
Futurorum, et bonis malisque Prophetis. — This is really a curious and enter-
taining- work: 1 perused it with some satisfaction many years ago; and
-have always been of opinion, that the interpretation whicn he and many
other Protestant writers give to these apostolical expressions, the man o/shi
and Antichrist, is more correct than that of Grotius. Du Moulin's book
contains an account of magicians, conjurors, astrologers, interpreters of
dreams, the sortes or lotteries of the ancients, physiognomy, oniens, pre-
sages, &c. It is to this curious admixture of subjects that Grotius pleasantly
alludes, in the following quotation from a letter to his brother in 1641,
which is interesting to philosophers, on account of the description which it
gives of an aerolite : " 1 have learnt to-day, from the published testimonies
of several persons who were eye-witnesses, that a stone weighing fifty-four
pounds fell from the clouds to the ground, on the 29th of November, 1637,
in the confines of Provence and Savoy, between the villages of Dauvise and
Peanne. The sound emitted by its faU was greater than the noise caused by
the firing of three hundred cannons at once, and during its descent the sky
was perfectly serene. An immense furrow was formed in the ground,
in which the stone was discovered. A sulphureous smell was perceptible to
a considerable distance around ; and the stones in contact with it, were con-
verted into lime, [or, in calcem versos, were calcined] . The shape of the stone
was completely out of proportion. I am engaged in consulting the na-
turalists respecting the origin of this unshapeu mass, and by what means it
remained suspended in the sky, and was moved about ; and I must consult
T
282 Ari'EXDix D.
voured with longer life, I will defend what I have written : And
when I die I shall find defenders, perhaps not those of the timid
class, but those who will act somewhat more boldly." The en-
such Divines as Drj Moulin, to know th^ portciitotis events o/ivJiich it is tJie
liCtrbhisier .'"
But ilie mystery of iniquity in such Calvinistic publications as this, was,
the olivious (lesijjn of associating in one class some of the innocent obser-
vances and scriptural doctrines that were common both to Popery and to the
Episcopal Cliurch of England, and of bringing them into public contempt.
But, as by the favour of the late King, (James I,) Du Moulin, though re-
siding in the confines of France, held preferment in the Metropolitan Church
of Canterbury, he did not consider it veri/ polite openly to impugn the
Church of England, or to write professedly against any of the sentiments of
Grotius. By either of these acts, he would have given just offence to Arch-
bishop Laud ; and by the latter deed especially, he would have again
art'routed the King of France, to whom he had rendered himself suspected
by his former seditious practices at Roehelle, &c. for which he was then
a'voluntary exile. To remove all apparent cause of obloquy, he expressed
himself on many points with all the cunning subtlety of his master Calvin.
Thus, in lib. 2, cap. vii, speaking of the rite of confirmaiion in the Church
of Rome, he quotes, among others, a saying of Thomas Aquinas, (Summae,
pt. iii, quaest. 72, art. !),) " T/iis sacratnent is perfective of baptism," and
immediately subjoins, " Thomas thus intimates, thai baptism is imperfect
Viithout the addition of co!!/fV)H«^iu?j. If we may give credit to the Bishops,
they communicate the Holy Spirit by this sacrament. The effect, therefore,
which they produce ought to be this — the children whom they confirm
would, by the imposition of hands, begin to speak in divers languages and
to perform miracles, if the Bishops have succeeded to the office and the pmver
of the Apostles. But the children, after confirmation, immediately depart
to their sports and pastimes; and are not by this rite rendered either wiser
or more learned. Besides, according to the confession of the Papists them-
selves, not a few ol the Bishops are dissolute in their lives, and licentious in
their conduct ; since therefore these Bishops are under the influence of an evil
spirit, a man will with great diiliculty induce himself to believe, that such
persons can bestow the Holy Spirit : For no one can communicate that of
which he is not himself possessed." — It is scarcely necessary to explain to
a!iy of ray readers the evident hearing of this passage. Confirmation is a
rite retained by the Church of England ; and, though we have very properly
expunged it from the number of the sacraments, yet our very retentivn of it
in a modified form was sufficient caijse of exasperation to such a malevolent
mind as that of Du Moulin, and he adopted this sly method of disclosing his
antipathies against it and the Apostolic succession of Bishops. — Several si-
milar instances might be quoted.
But, in his Dedication of the Book to the Dean and Chapter of the Metro-
politan Church of Canterbury , this design is manifested with still greater
cunning. Describhig his pious feelings on taking a review of the state
of diu'ereut countries, he says, " The lamentable condition of whole nations
presents itself to my view, whom Satan has oppressed with his yoke of iron,
and involved in the gross darkness of errors; among whom piety is ac-
counted a crime and truth a heresy, and who have to maintain a struggle,
not only against vices, but even against laws, — and, in the conflict between
the hostile parties, the church of God has scarcely power to breathe. Those
places are very rare in which Christ can find room enough to lay his head.
As often as I revolve these circumstances in my mind, 1 cannot sufficiently
describe the admiration which I feel at the happy lot of your Britain, 1 may
also add mine, which it has been the will of God to make a singular example
of his care and benevolence. For a long time has now elapsed since, in your
country, the idol [PoperyJ fell down before the ark of God, and was broken
in pieces, and since the Church of God commenced its halcyon days under
the auspices cf the best and most powerful monarchs." After enlarging a
little on this subject, he thus proceeds : " God has crowned this spiritual
emancipation with earthly blessings, having bestowed the additional gifts
of peace, riches, and splendour, while your adversaries have fruitlessly
APPENDIX D. 283
deavonrs of Grotius to check these British prophets, who under
a pretence of overturning the foundations of Popeiy wished to
subvert Arminianism and Episcopacy, procured for him the ill-
will and petulance of the French and Dutch Calvinists, whoem-
vonted their malevolence. I should be utterly unworthy of life, if I did not
bv assiduous prayers implore this favour from God, that you may enjoy these
blessings in perpetuity : For your prosperity is consolatory to us who are
oppressed with adversity. Though we are ourselves in the greatest difficul-
ties, yet we are peculiarly anxious for the safety of your church. And we
are not destitute of causes for indulging in this fearfuluess and anxiety : For
the Papists have beheld the inhabitants of your island at variance with each
other, and the sight has atforded them matter of rejoicing secretly in heart,
because they now promise themselves an immense increase of converts to
Popery, andthe healing of that wound which has been inflicted on the beast.
But the wisdom and zeal of your most excellent king will prevent this evil;
for, as a bee born in honey, his gracious majesty has imbibed the doctrine
of the Gospel almost with the milk of his royal mother, and testifies by daily
proofs his piety and virtue. This evil will proceed no further, if those whom
God has placed at the head of such a flourishing church, will use their en-
deavours to keep the truth of the Gospel untainted : For they are not
ignorant of Satan's devices, who frequently comes unawares upon the in-
cautious, and, sewing the skin of t lie fox upon that of tlie lloti, tries to
ensnare those by deceit whom he cannot destroy by violence : He breaks
and enervates through listlessness the pastors of the church, either by feeding
them with eager desires after earthly riches, or by sowing among them envy
and emulation, from which usually spring up dissensions in religion itself.
It is to me therefore a matter of congratulation to the church of Canterbury,
that it is favoured with pastors endowed with great learning and much faith ;
who have received a better education at the feet of Paul, than Paul himself
did at the feet of Gamaliel ; and concerning whom the same testimony may
be borne as that which David bore to Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, He is a
good man, and cometh with good tidings! (2 Sam. xviii, 27.) The apostle
requires these two things from a faithful servant of God, — that he be an
example of the believers, in ivord and in conversation. (1 Tim. iv, 12.) This
thought is refreshing to me, and induces me to account it an honourable dis-
tinction bestowed upon me — to be a member of your sacred order, and to gain
admission into your society."
All this, the reader will perceive, is very good and pious. But when he
reflects upon the condition of the Church and State in 1640, he will detect
Du Moulin's sophistry. He had amply shewn, in the days of Archbishop
Abbot, that by " the doctrine of the Gospel" he understood " the predes-
tinarian peculiarities of Calvinism." It is from the pious king that he ex-
pects the prevention of civil discord ; and the ungracious allusion to Arch-
bishop Laud is, that " the evil will proceed no further, if those whom God
" has placed at the head of such a Jlourishing church will ime their en-
" deavours to keep the truth of the Gospel untainted," — that is, if they
will suffer Calvinism to hold that pre-eminence to which it aspires, and
which it eiyoyed under the auspices of Dr. Abbot. An explanation of the
other sinister" allusions in this paragraph is unnecessary; for, within the
brief space of twelve months, Du Moulin explained himself with marvellous
clearness. In a letter which Grotius addressed to the learned Vossius, la
September, 1641, he makes the following mention of it: " I suppose you
will have seen a book published in England, and afterwards at Geneva,
under the title of Iri^nteus Philadelphus, concerning the commotions
which have arisen in England. This publication openly aims at the throat
of his Grace the Archbishop : May God impart consolation to him under
this cross ! The authors of it are the two Du Moulins, the father and son ;
the latter of whom has inserted in different parts of the narrative the English
relations [of these affairs]. The Ri-natus Ferdceus, to whom it is dedi-
cated, is [au anagram on] Andreas Rivetus. Behold what ferocity is here
displayed !"
T 2
284 AFPENUIX D.
ployed as their accredited organ Andrew Rivet, . professor of
Divinity at Leyden, who was brother-in-law to Peter du Moulin,
Rivet commenced his polemic career early in 16'42, soon after
Grotius had published his famous Fin ad Paccm Ecclesiasiicam,
which contained Cassander's scheme for the union of Protestants
and Papists, and which so far excited the splenetic indignation
of Richard Baxter, sixteen years afterwards, as to cause him to
publish his celebrated Philippic entitled, the Grotian Religion
discovered. Grotius wrote three able and dignifie(t replies ta
three of Rivet's pamphlets, the latter of whom was aided by the
whole Calvinian phalanx in Europe. * There are few literary
enterprizes, the execution of which would yield me greater plea-
sure than the translation of the productions of Rivet and Gro-
tius into English, printed in parallel columns : the systems of
Arminius and Calvin, with their evident effects and tendency,
would by that method be brought into fair competition, and the
British public would not be tardy in deciding their relative poli-
tical and religious merits. The titles of the three Grotian pam-
phlets are, Atiimadversions on the Animadversions of Bivet, Wishes
for the Peace of the Chinch, A Discussion on Rivet's Apology for
Schism. They were written after the Appendix to his pamphlet
The Son, to whom Grotius refers, was Louis Du Mouliu, who, notwith-
standing his own and his father's avowed antipathy to Arminianism, was
made Professor of History in the University of Oxford, and patronized by the
Court. Yet, in imitation of many other Calvinistic ingrates, as soon as the
Established Church was laid waste by barbarians, he shewed himself one of
the most scatidalous of her adversaries. Even after the Restoration, he had the
effrontery in one of his pamphlets to charge Bishop Stillingfleet and several
other eminent episcopal di\iues with a design to introduce Popery. If any
shade of doctrine failed to elevate itself as high as Supra-lapsarian Calvin-
ism, he regarded it (so far) as making approaches towards Popery. In the
same pamphlet he traduces his uncle Rivet, because, in one of the French
Synods, he had manifested a lesning towards Cameronism before he was
called to the Professorship at Leyden : But the elder Du Moulin, it is seen,
(page 229,) kept his good brother-in-law sound in the faith of Calvin. The
scurvy treatment which the father received from Dr. Twisse, for having
written against reprobation in his Anatomy, has also been stated, page
223. Yet the son could perceive no wrong in all that Dr. Twisse had written.
In reference to this subject an able author said, in lti80: "O how dear are
some opinions to him ! In which whosoever dissents from him, he will tear
them in pieces: But let those who agree with them say what they please of
his best friends, nay of his own father, they shall not fail to have his good
word. This raised his spleen, and put him into a new fit of raving at our di-
vines, who jump not with him in seme ojAnions which are falsely called Armi-
nianism. If they were but as rigid as he in some beloved dotirines, for which
be doted upon Dr. Twisse, we should not have heard a word of their inclina-
tion to Popery, but he would have found some excuse orother for all their
faults ; nay, would have been so kind as to magnily and praise them whom
be now abominates."
This last sentence is a good key to the feeling of those times : In nil the
grades of Genevan divinity, from that of Richard Baxter upward to that of
Dr. Owen, the several professors defended the arguments of Dr. Twisse ;
and, when hard pressed by the Arminians, quoted his Supra-lapsarianism
as overwhelming authority.
* See in page 213, the aid which the younger Paraus afforded iu vindication
of his father's sentiments.
APPKNDIX D. 585
vn Antichrist, while the established institutions of this country
were tottering, and ready to fall before the overwhelming force
of the reforming Goths and Vandals. To a Briton they are
particularly interesting, as all of them incidentally exhibit the
same generous design, — to bring the English and Scotch Calvinists
to a belter state of mind, and to give them more correct and scrip-
tural notions of civil and religious liberty .t
Any one that has attentively read the private letters of Grotius
at that period, may form a just estimate of the difficulty which
he had to encounter in procuring the publication of these three
works and of his Appendix de Anlichristo. The famous house of
De Bleau were his printers and publishers ; and the nearly-as-
famous house of Jansson printed the works of Rivet. Both of
f The animosity of Rivet against Grotius has been briefly stated, pa^
230. He was not content with virulently defaming the living, but gave
utterance to the vilest calumnies against bis .dead opponent. Courcelles
furnishes us with the following account of one of his falsehoods : " Andrew
Rivet has acted with a little more openness, when he spoke about that illus-
trious individual, Hugh Grotius. For he says, ' He seems to many persons
' to have expired in the act of breathing out menaces, while he lay entirely
* engrossed with passion, in the very gall of bitterness, and without exhi-
* biting the least sign of penitence,' &c. To this statement, nothing more
was necessary to be added, except that 7io hopes could be entertained of his
salvation; though, to soften such a harsh and unmerciful sentence as this
would be, he concludes thus : ' But 3et we do not judge another man's ser-
' vant, who to his own master hath stood and fallen.' But for what
purpose does he assume this semblance of moderation respecting the con-
sequence, when the whole difficulty lies in the antecedent ? On the contrary,
had 1 been certain, that either Grotius orBlondel had expired in any
grievous crime without repentance, I would not have been afraid to declare
concerning him, though with sorrow, He is damned ! For in that case 1
should not myself have passed sentence upon him ; but it would have been
the sentence of God in his own word, which is firmer than both heaven and
earth!" — These animadversious are quoted by Marets, without any dis-
approbation of Rivet's conduct. Bayle says, " It can be nothing but a
gross artifice, to say Such a man died without repenting of his enormous
crimes, and yet I ivill not pretend to pronounce what was his fate."
Whoever has read Coxe's Relation of the Death of Dr. Andrew Rivet,
and will compare it with the death of Grotius as related by Dr. John Quis-
torpius, Proiessor of Divinity at Rostock, who attended him in his last
moments, — and will at the same time consider, that the one died in the
bosom of his family and surrounded by his friends, the other had narrowly
escaped from shipwreck with his life, and was proceeding homewards by
laud, when sickness suddenly assailed him among strangers, — whoever will
read the two accounts, will be at no loss to decide which of these men made
the most pious and edifying confession. With evident complacency, Rivet
makes mention of his own labours in defence of the truth, that is, of CaJ-
viuisra, though he does not dissemble the contrition he felt on account of
having maltreated many of his opponents, but especially the French Came-
roiiists, towards whom he undoubtedly acted with very bad faith. The
letter of Quistorpius is familiar to general readers: It v^as published by
Dr. Hammond, in 1654. No one can read the commencement of it without
being affected : " Having mentioned the publican, who acknowledged him-
self to be a sinner, and beseeched God to be mercitul to him, Grotius an-
swered, / am that publican ! — I proceeded, and directed him to Christ
■without whom there can be no salvation ; lie replied. On Christ alone all my
hopes are placed ;" &c. — Bayle was no friend to Arrainianism, yet his re-
flections on this subject are'very just : "It would be ridiculous in any mau
T S
286 APPENDIX W.
these houses had their extensive establishments in the free city
of Amsterdam, which had a pecuh'ar jurisdiction of its own, and
was therefore the less liable to be under external dictation. Yet
such was the implacable spirit of the Calvin ists, and so minute
and extensive were their subtle arrangements, that, rather than
have their prophesying propensities resti'ained, they chose to ex-
pend all their artifice and prowess to suppress these productions
of Grotius. The friendly understanding Vv'hich then subsisted
between the two great printing-houses was also injurious to the
speedy execution of the noble designs of this aged peace-maker.
Of these circumstances he makes frequent complaints in the let-
ters to his brother, from which I here subjoin a few extracts :
to doubt of the sincerity of Quistorpius. He could not be prompted by in-
terest to tell a falsehood ; and it is well known, that the Lutheran ministers
felt as much dissatisfaction as the Calvinists, at the particular opinions of
Grotius. The testimony of the Professor of Rostock is therefore an au-
thentic proof : Let us consider it then as indisputably true, (1) That Grotius,
in his expiring^ moments was in the same frame of mind as the publican in
the gospel : {2) That he placed all his hopes in Jesus Christ alone : (3) That
his last thoughts were those contained in the prayers of dying persons, ac-
cording to the Ritual of the Lutherans. Now, in my opinion, no other
prayer can be found that includes more pious thoughts, and such as a true
Christian ought to entertain when he is preparing to appear before the
Divine Tribunal."
Rivet appears to have been a consummate sycophant, and desirous of cul-
tivating an acquaintance with persons in exalted stations. When Dr. Ste-
phen Goffe was at the Hague in 1636, he addressed the following lines to
Gerard Vossius : " 1 should be unwilling for you to anticipate the officious
Rivet. According to his owe manners, or the usages of his country, he is
accustomed to prostrate himself at the feet of all the nobility. No ambas-
sador is received at this court, of whatever [political] party or [religious]
profession he may be, but his house is instantly visited by Rivet in the pro-
digality of his obsequiousness. It is now a long time since our treasurer
received from him letters of congratulation ; yet he does not know whether
be is black or white [in his opini»asJ, unless perhaps he has by his writings
rendered himself more notorious than is agreeable."
Grotius has refuted, page 277, Rivet's milicious allegation, that he ivishedto
exasperate the French monarch against his Calvinistic subjects. In one of
his letters to his brother in 1643, he says : " I saw Mondeve, Rivet's son, at
the church of St. Dionysius [in Paris] . I told him, his father indulged very
unjust suspicions against me, by asserting that Iivished to injure the French
Calvinists; when I had, on the contrary, employed all the interest I pos-
sessed, to have additional liberty granted to them by a new edict. — From
this conversation, he spread a report that 1 am now a greater Hugonot than
I ever was."
Thirteen years before, Grotius had made the following remark to his bro-
ther: " Daillfe, one of the pastors of the Reformed Church of Charenton,
had several questions lately addressed to him in a letter, by a certain Roman
Catholic. Among the rest was this, TV hy did you condemn the Arminians?
Dail)& replied : ' It was Arminianism, rather than the Arminians, that we
* condemned ; for we have frequently made offers of peace and concord to
* the Lutherans, who hold the same sentiments as the Arminians.' — I have
my fears, Pest those who are in this country more powerful than they, should
some time or other say : ' ^Ve do not banish the Calvinists from France, but
* Calvinism. 1 pray God, that this catastrophe may not happen to them-
* selves in the same measure as they have meted to others." — Ihe reader does
not require to be reminded, that this event actually occurred in 1685, at the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantz.
APPENDIX D. 2S7
" With respect to my Appe?idix, you know what reproaches,
sneers and calumnies, I, who had done no man any injury,
received from two individuals, one of whom has published my
name, and the other is not ignorant of my person: I knew nothing
about Marets till the present time ; concerning Du Moulin, I
could declare many truths that would attach to him. But I
have abstained ; and have not exposed their ignorance, except
on those points about which they accused me of the same defect
without just reason. If I have displayed any asperity, it will
not be abated by a mitigation of the expressions v.'hich I employ :
Facts are the stings which wound them, by what expressions
soever they may be conveyed. But, unless I entirely deceive
myself, this asperity affects those persons alone kIio are lovers of
schism, and who in a refractory manner refrse all remedies ; in
order to accomplish these purposes, such men produce reasons
that are either very feeble, or exceedingly unjust. This asperity
also touches those who suspend all things on fate, so as to promise
iomanki}id a complete licence for sinning; and those who, under
the name of the Gospel, excite the arms of individuals against
kings or other legitimate authorities, and, when they have succeeded
in their enterprize, they forcibly oppress other men, — and thus
do exactly the same things as those of which they accuse the
Popes. Those who withdraw themselves from such persons, —
•which course will undoubtedly be adopted by great numbers, —
will have no complaints to make about my asperity. — There is
nothing in that work which can possibly injure the Dutch Re-
public ; but many things may be found in it, which relate to the
defence of the just authority of rulers, popular quiet, and civil
concord. Let not the publication be hindered ; it ought, I
think, rather to be hastened, as soon as it is begun. Should these
men hereafter exercise their Stentorian lungs in bawling against
it, as they assuredly will do, it will then be the duty of the De
Bleaus to declare, that they have perceived 710 reason why they
should refuse that profit which the Parisian publishers ivould other-
wise receive;* and that they have good ground for believing, that
no work would proceed from the Swedish ambassador, which could
* This would appear a good and sufficient reason to a Dutch trader of
that day for many acts of whien he could not altog-ether approve. lu that
strange book. Dr. Heylin's History of the Sabbath, it is staled, in reference
to the better regulations for enforcing a proper observance of the Lord's day,
■which were suggested by the British Divines at the Synod of Dort : "As for
the great towns [in Holland] , there is scarce any of them wherein there are
not fairs and markets, Kirk-masses, as they used to call them, upon the
Sunday ; and those as much frequented in the afternoon, as were the
churches in the forenoon : A thing from which they could not hold, not in
Dort itself, what time the Synod was assembled. Nor had it now been
called upon, as it is most likely, had not A:\iEsius and some other of the
Knglish mal-conteiits scattered abroad Bound's principles amongst the
Netherlands, which they had sown before in England: And certainly they
bad made as strong a faction there before this time, (their learned men be
ginning to bandy one against the other in the debates about the Sabbath,)
But that the livelihood of the States consisting most on trade and trathtk.
288 APvr.Nuix d.
jyoss'ibly injure that cause {^l/ie Protestant interest^ in which the
Swedes thcmsehrs were engaged. But it will be the duty of the
Amsterdam magistrates to defend a citizen in an equitable mat-
ter. Calvin ought not to be held up for an idol. It is most ini-
quitous, that, in a city which I hold in the highest estimation,
Jansson should be allowed to do that against Grotius which, to
omit all mention of other circumstances, the De Bleaus are not
permitted to do^br Grotius. If these reasons be not sufficient
for tlie De Bleaus, it will be my province in future to select
other publishers : This precaution I should have adopted with
respect to the present productions, had 1 supposed that the pub-
lication would be prejudicial to their interests. But their advan-
tage must not operate upon me so far, as to compel me on that
account to contend with my adversaries on unequal terms, or not
allow me to shew my enemies that they ai'e so blind as not to
perceive in the conduct of their own party those traits which
they censure in other people as marks of Antichrist." — " I have
lately been much grieved, that the De Bleaus, who formerly
■were remarkable for their quickness and despatch, should now
proceed at such a slow pace and afford abundance of leisure to
those men who neither wish well to us nor to the truth : I re-
quest that they be urged to make as rapid a progress as possible.
If such writings as these cannot be published at Amsterdam,
where Roman Catholic Missals and Breviaries are suffered to
make their appearance, on receiving notice of this circumstance
I would have made other arrangements concerning my affairs.
Let us consider what may yet be done: For I will not suppress
those works which are, in my own judgment, the most excellent
and useful of all I have produced." — " I hear, that, among the
correctors of De Bleau's press, is a certain person whose name
is Ayala, and who has been in the ministry. I am afraid of that
man, lest he create us some trouble, either by hindering the
publication or corrupting its contents. I earnestly beseech God
to grant, that no evil may happen to that Appendix, which, I
trust, will some time or other be of great service". — " All these
works of mine may afford much light to the real lovers of peace
_'with truth. But when I see in what a foul and corrupt state
they are published, and the small number of persons on whom
I can place any reliance, I can determine on nothing better than
to intreat God that he will be pleased to furnish roe both with
"wise counsels and with good assistance." — " In the list of errata
■which is reprinted, I discover as many new errors as in that which
■was formerly printed, particularly in the Hebrew, in which I am
certain Manasseh [[a Jewish Corrector]] has well performed the
cannot spare any day, Sunday no more than any other, from venting: their
comnjodities, and pi-ovidinjj others. So that, in general, the Lord's day is
no otherwise observed with them, (though somewhat better than it was
twelve years ago,) than a half-holiday is ^^ith us ; the morning, though not
all of that, into the church 3 the afternoon to their employments."
APi'KNnix D. 289
part assigned to him ; but the compositors in the office have
either misunderstood his marks, or have not followed them. If
De Bleau be desirous of publishing any thing excellent, it will
be necessary for him to have in his own house a learned correc-
tor of the press, — such as those retained by the houses of Ste-
phens, Froben, Raphelengius* and others." — " I am desirous to
know, whether my pamphlets. Wishes for Ihe Peace of the
Church, are now on sale and come into circulation : For the
publisher has never called upon me since the work was printed.
I am afraid he has been well bribed to suppress all the copies ; a
practice which I know to have been adopted against some
others." — And in an earlier letter than the three preceding, he
says : " If De Bleau had fulfilled his promises, our works would
have been published six months ago, and they might have
served to abate a portion of the heat which some of the English
Parliamentarians have imbibed. In order to their now becoming
serviceable in England, we must probably wait a long time ;
yet that period may perhaps arrive much sooner than expected.
For, repentance is the usual consequence of deeds of cruelty,
which, it is quite apparent, are done in opposition to the King's
wishes. The Earl of Strafford's letter to the king, and his ex-
pressions when about to suffer death, are strong presumptions
of great virtue.t For the Archbishop, I intreat God either to
mitigate the rage of his enemies, or, if it be the Divine Pleasure
to make use of his testimony, that He will strengthen him in
spirit against death and all contumely. — But, in France, these
productions of ours will be of immediate utility."
In the preceding extracts from Grotius, he has repeatedly
declared it to be his unbiassed belief, that the Pope is not Anti-
christ. In the subjoined quotation, from a letter addressed to
his brother in 1642, he says: " Those who wonder that / do
not account the Pope as that Antichrist, must know that I am at
once a lover of truth and a resident in France ; to maintain the
opposite opinion in this country, would be contrary to the King's
express commands." These commands of the French Monarch were
* The first introduction of Raphelengius into our profession was as an
erudite corrector of the press to the famous Christopher Plantiu, at Antwerp,
■whose daughter he married in 1565 • He had previously taught the Greek
language at Cambridge and other places. In 1585 he and his family re-
moved from Antwerp to fiCyden, where he had an extensive printing estab-
lishment, in which his father-in law had a share. Such was his profound
knowledge of the Eastern tongues, that he was called to the Hebrew Pro-
fessorship in the University of Leyden, then recently erected and endowed.
He died in 1597. — To those who wish to have an ample account of the
worthies here enumerated by Grotius, and to know the important services
which they have rendered to tke Kepublic of Letters, a perusal of the various
learned and entertaining typographical publications of the Rev. T. F. Dibdin
is recommended.
t " r2th of May, 1641, I beheld on Tower Hill the fatal stroke which
severed the wisest head in England from the shoulders of the Earl of Straf-
ford ; whose crime coming under the cognizance of no human law, a new
one was made, — not to be a precedent, but [to be] his destruction : To such
exorbitancy were things arrived '." (^Bkay's Memoirs of Evelyn.)
290 APrKNDTX D.
issued atthe Protestant Synod of Alen9on in 1 637, at the period when
Cameronism obtained such a decided victory over Calvinism.
The king had, some years previously, reduced Rochelle, and had
brought the milder race of Calvinists, mider the guidance of
Amyraut and other Cameronists, to live peaceably with their
Popish neighbours, and to acknowledge their obligations to
civil obedience. To perpetuate this better feeling among the
two religious denominations of his subjects, his majesty ordered
the Protestants to refrain, in their sermons and writings, from
calling the Pope Antichrist,* ^-c. Grotius makes the following
* Vet Marets, Rivet, and Du Moulin, it is seen (page ), could call the
Pope Antichrist , and apologjize for tlie seditious doctrines of their country-
men. But all of them were absentees from the French territories. Rivet
was Professor of Divinity at Leyden; and from that safe retreat he could
publish many remarks that would not have been permitted, had he re-
mained in France, where several branches of his family were settled. — See
page 215. The same observation applies to Marets, page 270.
Peter Du Moulin was at that period an exile at Sedan. Old Brandt gives the
following account of his disgrace . " About this time [1620] those of the
Reformed Religion in France undertook something against the Remon-
strants, which was attended with important results : A National Synod
holdcn as Alez in the Ceveimes furnished them with a convenient oppor-
tunity. The king of France had forbidden those of his subjects who were
of that denomination, to attend the Synod of Dort: This prohibition was
exceedingly mortifying to Peter Du Moulin, Minister of the Reformed
Chu4"ch at Paris, who, with several more, had been deputed by the French
Churches, and was preparing to go to that Assembly, in which, according
to the relation of some people, he flattered himself that he would gain much
applause. But what he had been forbidden to do with his tongue he after-
wards effected with bis pen, by communicating his opinion in writing to
that Synod, with his Anatomy of Arminianism." A proposal was made at
Alez, by Turretine, one of the Genevan Professors of Divinity, that, to
prevent the spread of the errors of the Arminians, the Canons of the Synod
of Dort should be adopted by the French Churches, and that each member
should swear to the doctrine adjudged and decided by the Dutch Assembly.
" Du Moulin, who was President «f the French Synod, employed all his
energies to ensure the passing of this motion, and thus to save his own
Anatomy from censure. For a certain minister, one of the most eminent
and learned in all France, had the courage to assert in this Synod, that
heretical opinions were maintained in that book, and offered to bring proofs
of his assertion. The proposed oath was then taken by all the members of
the Synod of Alez. — Du Moulin, it is said, had drawn up the form of this
oath at Paris before he went to Alez, and upbraided such of the members as
at first did not relish this oath, as though their aversion to it were a suffi-
cient proof of their hetorodoxy. There appeared afterwards many Reformed
ministers in France, who were opposed to this oath, and who caused it to be
laid aside. So that Du Moulin could not obtain his will at all points, even
in the Synod at which he presided ; in which, prior to its conclusion, his in-
direct management, and the artifices which he employed to obtain his pur-
poses, had excited such disgust, that he was gravely reprimanded, in the
name of the Synod, on that aecount. This censure against Du Moulin was
pronounced by Laurence Brunier, and occupied two hours in the delivery :
in it he was reproved, for having assumed to himself a Papal authority over
his brethren, and for many things of the same nature.
" But immediately after this, he encountered much greater troubles, by
incurring the displeasure of the King of France. Having returned from
Alez to Paris, he was soon informed of the danger which was impending,
and was advised by his friends instantly to betake himself to flight : Accord-
Al'lKNDIX D. ^ 291
mention of this circumstance, in a letter to his brother in 1637 :
"The king, by his Commissionei-, a person of the Reformed Keli-
gion who presided over the Synod, issued his edict to the R
ingly he remained only one night at Paris concealed in a friend's house, and
the next dav proceeded with all haste on his journey towards Sedan, where
be was received as Minister and Professor of Divinity. — He had, it is said,
drawn down the king's anger upon himself by his imprudence, and by
meddling with matters that did not belong to his office. It is reported of
him, that he had written a letter privately to the King of Great Britain, in
order to excite his Majesty to espouse the cause of the Reformed in France;
and that, after King James had read the letter, he threw it away with indig-
nation ; but one of his domestics, having found it, handed copies of it about,
till at length one of them was sent to a Privy Counsellor of France, by whose
means it came to the knowledge of the French King, and was the cause of
6is displeasure against J)u Mouliu." — Brandt then adds the reflection,
quoted page 255. In his letter he informed Kmg James, that " unless he
lent his powerful aid to his son- in- law, the King of Bohemia, the Calyiuists
in France could have no great notion of his affording them any effectual
assistance."
The following account of this transaction is given in Status Ecclesi(B
Gallicanes, published in 1676. The author states it as having beeu Du
Mouliu's intention, on his returu from Alez, " to go out of the way to see
Rochelle. A little before he took that journey, the Lord Herbert of Cher-
bury, then Ambassador of England in France, urged him to write to the
King his master, to exhort him to undertake vigoroush' the defence of his
son-in-law, the King of Bohemia. So the Doctor writ to the King, and de-
livered his letters to the Lord Ambassador's Secretary : Then immediately
he went to Alez, where he was chosen President of the Synod. — In the mean
•while, his letters to King James were delivered to the Council of State in
France, how or by whom the Doctor could never learn. Scarce was he in
Lan^uedoc, when it was concluded at Paris in the Council of State, that he
should be apprehended and committed prisoner, for exhorting a foreign
King to take arms for the defence of the Protestant Churches. And because
the Council was informed, that the Doctor would return by Rochelle, (a
Elace which then gave ereat jealousies to the Court,) they would not take
im before he had been there ; the informers against him intending to make
his going to Rochelle an article of his indictment. — The Synod at Alez being
ended. Doctor Du Moulin hearing how the Protestants would keep a pohtic
assembly at Rochelle against the King's will, judged chat it was an ill con-
juncture of time for him to go to Rochelle, and took the way of Lyons. In
that resolution he was guided by a good Providence ; for if he had gone to
Rochelle, he should have been apprehended not far from that town alter his
coming out of it. At Lyons he received a letter from Monsieur Drelincourt,
Minister of Paris, which gave him notice of his danger. This warning made
him baulk the highway ; yet he went to Paris, au'd entering the city in the
night, went directly to'the Lord Herbert, who bade him to fly in haste for
his life, which was in danger by the interception of his letters to the King
bis master ; which he did, and the next night travelled toward Sedan, a
place then acknowledging the old Duke of Bouillon (a Protestant Prince)
for Sovereign. To Sedan he came safe in the beginuiug of the year 1621,
and was kindly received by the Duke to his house and table. — This was his
parting w ith the Church of Paris, where he had lived one and twenty years.
And although great means were made to appease the Court, and albeit many
years after the indictment againt him was taken off, and leave was given
him to live in France, yet was it with that exception, that he should not live
in Paris.— About the year 1623, the famous book of Cardinal Du Perron
against King James of fausous memory, came forth. That book was ex-
tolled by the Romanists with great brags and praises. His Majesty being
especially interessed and provoked by that book, was pleased to recommend
the confutation of it to his old champion. Dr. Du Moulin, who undertook it
upon his Majesty's command. Ana that he might attend that work with
more help and leisure, his Majesty invited hiui to come into England. Aud
292 ArpEXDix D.
formed Pastors, to instruct the people of their charge thai it is
u?datvfid to take up arms against kings, — to shew their congrega-
tions a pattern of obedience in their own conduct, — to pro-
pound their doctrines with modesty, — to abstain from the op-
probrious epithets of Antichrist and Idolatry which they had
formerly bestowed on their adversaries, — to allow no minister to
exercise the pastoral functions beyond his own district, — to
hold no assemblies of deputies from various provinces, and to
open no foreign letters addressed to them, without having con-
sulted the magistrates," &c. Now, in such a state of affairs,
and when the uriion of Protestants and Papists was a favovirite
measure vvith the Prime Minister of France, it is not wonderful
that Grotius should unite his efforts with those of the noble
band of Peace-makers who were his predecessors, such as his
countryman Erasmus, Melancthon, Cassander, Duraeus, &c.
But there were other weighty reasons why, as the Ambassador
of a Lutheran nation and a lover of good men among all reli-
gious denominations, Grotius should not with-hold his influence
from this godlike undertaking. Some of these reasons he has
clearly stated in the following paragraph, from a letter to his
brother in 1640; in which Grotius, it will be seen knew how to
distinguish between many of the exellences and deformities of
Popery : " Images may be seen among the Lutherans, and in
many parts of England. Bishop Mountagu and others have
declared, that a wish to be assisted by the prayers of Apostles
and Martyrs is not an act of idolatry. — Every preparation is
made for a placid conference, which will be holden as soon as
these wars have abated, and which will, I hope, be pi'oductive
of beneficial results: For, both the Spaniards and the French
have consented to have the power of the Pontiff confined within
prescribed limits. It is our duty to beware, that we do not
give the Pope more followers than necessary. Peruse at your
leisure what Mark Antony De Dominis [|the Archbishop of
Spalatro^ wrote while in England, respecting the agreement of
different ages and nations in the moderate honouring of saints,
and concerning the use of images. My own opinion indeed is,
together being moved with compassion by the adversities the Doctor had
suffered for his sake, he offered him a refuge in England, promising to take
care of him, and to employ him in one of his Universities. He accepted that
Royal favour. — Soon after King James fell sick of the sickness whereof he
died. The death of his Royal Patron, and the plague raging in London,
soon persuaded the Doctor to return to Sedan. So he returned to his former
function in the Church and University, serving God with cheerfulness and
assiduity, and blessed with great success. He lived at Sedan thirty and
three years from his return into England unto his death, without any notable
change in his condition."
The same book contains his letter to the Assembly at Rochelle. Dr.
Bates, in his f'ita Selects, furnishes us with nearly the same relation ; but
the attempts to make Du Moulin appear a loyal subject, are nullified by the
very documents adduced for that purpose and by others of the man's own
publications. But it was then the fashion of the I'arty, to blancli the reputa-
tion of every one that was a zealous Calvinist.
APPENDIX D. 293
that those churches which discard images, pursue a safer course;
and I admire and applaud the spirit of the men, who, ivhile
they themselves address holy prayers immediately to God or to
Christ without employing any circuitous mediation, do not at
the same time condemn or deride those persons who flatter
themselves with hopes that it is possible for them to receive
assistance from the exertions of Angels or Saints in their behalf.
Reflect also, whether I ought to accuse the Greek Church of a
dreadful crime, when both the Lutherans and the Calvinists
have on more than one occasion wished to hold communion
with her. The Genevan divines say, that death must be in-
flicted, for all those offences to which the law of Moses ad-
judges that punishment. But the Mosaic law punishes all ido-
laters with death ; and the Genevan teachers account all Papists
idolaters. You perceive, therefore, the consequences that would
follow, if they [the Calvinists]] were possessed of power."
Having seen the base purpose to which all these prophetic
vagaries were directed, let the reader connect with the ravings
of the foreign Calvinistic prophets, who foretold glorious things
to Cromwell and his commonwealth — those of Lilly, Booker,*
and others hired astrologers in this country, — those of the en-
raptured ministers or elders whose wishes were swelled into cer-
tainties, when they spoke, at the commencement and during the
progress of these troubles, about the future glory of their civil
and religious republic,— and those of the second-sighted Calvinists
from beyond the Tweed, who were in that age deeply tinctured
withthespiritofdivinationintothemysteriesof futurity, and prov-
ed themselves apt disciples oftheprophetst Knox and Walsh,— let
* See, in Mr. William Lilly's History of his Life, what he said, as Astro-
lofjer-Generai to Lord Fairfax, at Windsor, when some difference existed
between the Parliament and the Army : " VVe are confident of God's goin"-
." along with you and your army, until the great work, for w/iich he or-
" datnedyou both, is fully perfected, which we hope will be tlie conquering
" and subversion of your' s and tire Parliament's enemies."
* In Blondel's Modest Declaration of the Sincerity and Trutli of the
Reformed Oiurclies of France, it is said, " Knox was endued with a spirit
" of prophecy, by which, accordinjj to the testimony of his own country-
" men, he foretold several things which have since happened, as Whitaker
" observes in his works, De Eccl. q. 5, cap. 13." — This is matter of authentic
church-history among all the Scotch writers of that era.
In no single ecclesiastical history are these prophesying propensities of the
Scotch Covenanters and the English Puritans depicted with such truth of
colouring as in several of those recent magic productions which are generally
attributed to the prolitic genius of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. The man whose
mind is well stored with the historical details of the various epochs in our
national alfairs, which are there delineated, will obtain from the perusal
not only entertainment, but important instruction. Those scenes of past
ages with which he has contracted a familiarity, will live again in his recol-
lection, and be impressed with greater force'on his mind by the brilliant
images with which they are associated, and by the domestic scenery with
which they are surrouuded. I am glad to iind, in his last production
(January, 1823,) few traces of those irreverent appeals to Scripture autho-
rity, which were, perhaps, too commonly in the lips of his early heroes, and
which operated as a shock on the minds of several modern readers, who
204 Al'PEXDlX D.
all these engines of fanaticism be connected together, as they
are related -with marvellous simplicity by the different historians
of the Puritan party, and the reader will then be qualified to
form some adequate notion of tlie extraordinary spirit which
actuated those intolerant and infatuated zealots.* He will then
considered such expressions to be ffreatly overcharged. But to those who
are conversant with that eventful pag:e iu our history, his specimens will not
appear to be too hifjlily coloured ; and it would not be a work of difficulty
to verify many of them by apt quotations from various writers of that period.
It is pleasing, however, to hear the following confession, in answer to the
objection, that the mannei'S depicted in his last work are even more incorrect
than usual; and that his Puritan is faintly traced in comparison to his
Camero7iian: " I agree to the charge ; but although I still consider hypo-
crisy and enthusiasm as fit food for ridicule and satire, yet I am sensible
of the difficulty of holding fanaticism up to laughter or abhorrence, without
using colouring which may give offence to the sincerely worthy and religious.
Many things are lawful which we are taught are not convenient ; and there
are many tones of feeling which are too respectable to be insulted, though
we do not altogether sympathise with them." ,
* When Richard Baxter wrote his pamphlet entitled, The Grotian Religion
Discovered, in 1658, he was a bolder champion in defence of Calvinism, than
he shewed himself to be after the Restoration. At the former period he could
return the following answer to an adversary that reproached him with
" growing fat or lusty upon sequestrations," — " 1 must confess to you, that
it is not only my opinion that the thing is lawful, but that I take it for one
of the besttvorks lean do, to help to cast out a bad minister, and to get a bet-
ter in the place : So that I prefer it as a work of mercy, before much sacri-
fice. Now if I be mistaken in this, I should l)e glad of your help for my
conviction: For 1 am still going on in the guilt." — This is a very curious
excuse for usurping another man's living, especially when the usurper is
himself constituted one of the judges for determining the sufficiency and abi-
lity of those who were not Calvinists, and who were consequently ejected.
While Richard was in possession of his good living, the actual proceeds of
which, he afterwards pretended, were scarcely worth any godly man's atten-
tion, he employed ranch of that sleight which has already been a subject of
reprehension': (See Note, page 251 :} He endeavoured to clear the grand
body of the Calvinists, who were then in power, from being the promoters of
the preceding civil troubles ; and singled out, as usual, the Quakers, Ana-
baptists, &c. as the real culprits^ in his Grotian Religion, (sect. Ixvi,) he
says: "Yet this 1 will say now, to satisfy Doctor Sanderson and niy own
conscience, that of late 1 begin to have a strong suspicion that the Papists
had ti. finger in the pie on both sides, and that they had indeed a hand in the
extirpation of Episcopacy. But my jealousies will not warrant me to affirm
it, or to be confident of it, or to accuse any." Here then is Baxter's own
admission, that the Calvinists had been connected with Papists, — a crime
which they had formerly imputed solely to the Armiiiians. But when Arnii-
nianism and Episcopacy were both destroyed, no farther necessity for con-
cealment existed ; and the intimacy of Calvinists and Papists is openly avow-
ed. When Dr. Thomas Pierce suggested, that in charging some of the
members of the Church of England with Popery, " it had been well if he
had named those Papists and then have publicly declared that he meant no
more;" Baxter replies (sect. Ixix) : " By this time I suppose both you and
all men see that the Papists are crept in among all sects, especially the
Quakers and Seekers, whom they animate, and also among the Anabaptists,
Millenaries, Levellers, yea and the Independents, and if this week's Diurnal
say true, one was taken that was a pretended friend to the Presbyterians.
Must I needs name all these, or else say nothing of them } Or are you able
yourselves to name all the Papists, the Friars and Jesuits, that are now under
the Vizor of any of these sects, playing their parts in England .' You would
take it to he an unreasonable motion : when yet you know, or have reason to
believe, th.at at this day there arc hundreds of them here at work."
APIF.XDIX D. 295
no longer wonder at the prophecies uttered by the Quakers, the
Anabaptists, the Fifth-Monarchy men, and various minor sects,
that had other objects in view than those of the grand Calvinian
phalanx, who had collected their forces, corporal and spiritual,
from every part of Europe to fight the battles of the Lord, as they
termed their attempts to accomplish their own sinister designs
against the regimen established both in Church and State, and
particularly against what they were pleased to call " Armini-
anisra."*
The fact announced in tbe last clause is very remarkable ; and though
the shifty purpose for which it is introduced will be very apparent, ;yet there
are multitudes of other corroborative testimonies of the same fact. The fol-
lowing from Foxes and Firebrands, or a S//ecime7i of the Dcmger and Har-
mony of Popery and Separation, 1682, is one of the most curious : —
•'"Mr. John Crooke, sometime bookseller at St. Paul's Church-yard, at
the Sltip, in London, and since stationer and printer to his most serene
Majesty in Dublin, fold this story following unto Sir James Ware, Knight,
now deceasi-d : Jnno 1656, the reverend divine Dr. Henry Hammond being
one day in the next shop to this said John Crooke's, and there reading the
works of St. Ambrose, a red-coat casually came in, and looked over this
divine's shoulder, and there read the Latin as perfect as himself, which
caused the Doctor to admire that a red-coat should attain to that learning.
Then speaking unto him, he demanded hqw he came to that science. The
red-coat replied, ' By the Holy Spirit.' The Doctor hereupon replied,
' I will try thee further :' and so called for a Greek author, which the red-
coat not only read, but construed. The Doctor, to try him further, called
for the Hebrew Bible : and so for several other books, in which this red-coat
w as very expert. At last the Doctor recollecting with himself, called for a
Welch "Bible, and said, 'If thou bcest inspired, read me this book, and
construe it.' But the red-coat being at last catched, replied, ' I have given
thee satisfaction enough : I will not satisfy thee further; for thou wilt not
believe, though an angel came from heaven.' The Doctor smelling out the
deceit, caused the apprentice to go for a constable ; who being brought to
the shop, the Doctor told the constable, he had something to say against
this red- coat ; and bade him bring him before Oliver Cromwell, then called
the Lord Protector. Tbe red-coat being brougljt to White Hall and exa-
mined, he, after a rustic manner, thoued and tlieed Oliver : but being sus-
pected, it was demanded where he quartered. It being found out at the
Devil Tavern, the Doctor intreated his chamber might be searched ; where
they found an old chest filled partly with his wearing apparel, as also with
several papers and seditious popish books ; amongst which there being a
pair of boots, and papers stuck in one of them, they found a parchment tmll
of licence to this impostor, granted under several names, to assume what
function or calling- he pleased. These being brought before Oliver, for what
reasons it is unknown, vet' the red-coat escaped; bringing several proofs
of what great service he "had done : and the greatest affliction which was
laid on him was banishment ; and what proceeded further, we know not."
t " After the subversion of the hierarchy, there were also several divines
of great learning and talents, who held most of tbe distinguishing tenets of
Arminianism ; but as thev were inflexible loyalists, they were stigmatized as
* malignants,' and driven'into obscurity by the scourge of persecution. The
great" body of Mr. Goodwin's Puritanical friends and connections viewed
Arminianism, at the period when he adopted that system, as a deadly east
wFy'd, which, when permitted by angry heaven to blow upon the garden of
the church, withers every flower, and produces a general blight. Or rather
they regarded it as a region,
■Where all lifc dies, death lives, and nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things.
Abominable, unutterable, and worse
Tlian fables yet have feign'd or lear conceiv'd,
GorgoriS, and Hydras, and Cliimaras dire.
290 APPEXDIX D.
The system of Arminius being confessedly one that is conso-
nant as well to Scripture as to Common Sense, those who espoused
it smiled at these prophetic rhapsodies and puerile effusions of
fanaticism ; and, it is to be lamented, that bome of them, by a
feeling of natural revulsion, proceeded much beyond this, ,and
ran into a contrary extreme, by denying the very important
doctrine of Divine Influence which is the glory of Christianity,
or restricted the operations of the Holy Spirit within narrow
and inefficient limits.* But this feeling, the origin of which
is easily traced, was still more apparent at the Restoration, when
the re-action of hypocrisy and enthusiasm, which had com-
menced under Cromwell, continued its devastations, and threat-
ened at first the complete overthrow of all the vital doctrines of
Christianity, which were common both to the system of Armi-
nius and of Calvin. Yet even at that period, when Religion
was weak and drooping from the wounds which she had receiv-
ed in the house of her professed friends, many Arminians
appeared as champions in the defence of gospel truth, practical
godliness, and experimental religion ;t while, on the other hand,
many Calvinists, ashamed of the sinister and low purposes to
which their predecessors had applied certain evangelical doc-
Hence in the cant of several cf the old Puritans, Prelacy and Arminianism
are not unusually associated with blasphemy, profaneness, and Atheism !
Such, however, was the power of conviction in the mind of Mr. Goodwin,
that, with all these difficulties and discouragements before him, at the ad-
vanced age of -fifty years, he abandoned the school of Calvinian theology,
and boldly preached Christ as the infinitely gracious Redeemer of All
Mankind." Jackson's Life of Goodwin.
* The injurious effects which the general fanaticism of the Calvinists of
that age produced for a season on the mind of Richard Baxter, are thus
described in the Narrative of the most memorable Passag-es of his Ufe and
Times, which, like the Retractations oi St. Auga^Wwe, are exceedingly curious
and edifying : —
" 1 am now therefore much more apprehensive than heretofore, of the
necessity of well-grounding^ men in their religion, and especially of tlie
tvittiess of the indwelling Spirit : for I more sensibly perceive that the
Spirit is the great ivitness of Christ and Christianity to the world. And
though the folly of fanatics tempted me long to overlook the strength of this
testimony of the Spirit, while they placed it in a cet\s.\i\ infernal affection, -
or enthusiastic iiispiration ; yet now I see that the Holy Ghost in another
manner is the witness of Christ, and his agent in the world. The Spirit in
the prophets was his first witness ; and the Spirit by miracles was the
second ; and the Spirit by reiiovation, sanctifi cation, illuminatiuti, and
consolation, assimilating the soul to Christ and heaven, is the continued
witness to all true believers : and if any man have not the Spirit of Christ,
the same is none of his. (Rom. viii. 9.) Even as the rational soul in the child is
the inherent witness or evidence, that he is the child of rational parents.
And therefore ungodly persons have a great disadvantage in their resisting
temptations to unbelief and it is no wonder if Christ be a stumbling-block
to the Jews, and to the Gentiles foolishness."
t " 1 also remember," says Whiston, " what my father told me, that,
after the Restoration, almost all profession of seriousness in religion would
have been laughed out of countenance, under pretence of the hypocrisy of
former times, had not two very excellent and serious books, written by
eminent royalists, put some stop to it : 1 mean The Whole Duty of Man,
and Dr. Hammond's Practical Catechism." {Memoirs, \o\. i. p. lO.J
AITKNOIX D.
297
trines, either entirely abandoned them, or modified them in
such a manner as to deprive them of all their scriptural effici^
ency.*
A fine passage from the judicious Hooker, on the abuse of
the doctrine of Divine Aulhorily, has been quoted, (page 207,)
and an equally pertinent and nervous passage on the abuse of
Spirilual Infliieficc occurs in the HuniJde Address to the Lord
Fairfax and the Council of War, in l6'18, by Dr. Henry Ham-
mond, one of the mildest and most loyal of Divines, vt'hen those
self-constituted arbiters of fallen Majesty had made the death of
his RovAL Master the subject of their deliberations. This
pathetic appeal, after the manner of Luther and Melancthon
w^hen contending against the principles of the German Anabap-
tists, grounds its strong arguments on that doctrine of Divine
Influence v,-h.\ch. connects itself with God's written word, and
refuses to acknowledge any o£ those pretended inspirations which
could not produce such a scriptural voucher. In one part the
Doctor says : " My Lord, and Gentlemen, having among you
some of the nearest of my blood, whose eternal weal must
needs be very dear and precious to me, I am, in the fear of God,
and in the prosecution and discharge of my duty and conscience,
desirous to make this short address to you, to desire j'ou, in the
name and in the bowels of Jesus Christ and by all the obliga-
tions of christian duty and charity, to review some of the prin-
ciples by which you seem to be acted, and whereon to ground
the high enterprises which you have now in hand.
" And 1, Wiiercas you seem to believe, that God by his Spirit
hath put it into your hearts to do what hitherto you have done, and
what now you profess to deliberate to do further against his Majesty,
and all others, who are now fallen into your hands ; I beseech you
to consider, in the presence of that God to whose directions and
Spirit you pretend, what safe ground you have for so doing. For,
I shall suppose that the plain words of scripture are not that
voice of THE Spirit which is your only guide in this matter ; or
if it be, I desire that charity from you, for myself and others,
that you will point us out those scriptures. And I must profess
to believe you bound in duty to God and man, and to your-
selves, to satisfy this desire, to produce that voice of the Spirit
in the received scriptures of God, Avhich may say that to other
christians also which it appears to do to you. But if God's Spirit
be by you conceived to have spoken to you any other way than
in or by some part of the written word, then my second request
is, that you will declare to others the ground of this your per-
suasion, that you have received any such revelation from God ;
that so that pretended Spirit may, according to the rules pre-
scribed by God in his acknowledged word, be tried and ex-
* See a preceding note o!i tlieir abandoumcnt of the doctrine of the Assu-
rance of Salvation, janie 141.
u
208 Arri:xn;x d.
amined regularly, whether it he of God or no, before the subject- ,
matter of such revelation be believed infallible, or accordingly
built upon by you as your warrant or principle of acting any
thing. For, there are evil spirits that come into the world, and
which many times are by God permitted to seduce men, and, that
they may do so the better, they consta.ni\y pretend to come from ^
God, and assume Divine authority to recommend and authorize
their delusions : a thing so ordinary in all ages, that the poet
that would express the embroiling of a kingdom, thinks he can-
not do it better than by bringing in Alecto, a Fury, with a mes-
sage from heaven, to avenge such or such an injury. And of these
our Saviour forewarns us, and tells us, that we shall know them by
their fruits ; and so directs us to judge of the truth of their pre-
tensions by the goodness SiViA commendableness, aX least, jnsti/iable'-
ness of their actions, and not to judge of their actions by their
pretences.^ And beside these evil spirits from without, there is
also an evil spirit within, a great deal of disguised wickedness
in the heart of man, which, when it remains unmortified in
those who believe themselves to be God's chosen saints and taught
by him, is very apt to be mistaken for an inclination of God's
Spirit, and a flame of zeal, when it is really the most contrary to
it. And because there is so much danger, that what is not
fetched from the acknowledged word of God may thus flow
from one of these contrary principles, my next request is, that
it be considered, whether when an angel from heaven, in case
he should teach any other doctrine than what had been by Saint
Pa u l preached to his Galatians, were to be anathematized, and when
the judgments are so fearful, which are pronounced against them
which shall add to the words of that Prophecy which we now re-
tain under the title of the Apocalypse or Revelation, — which being
the last writing which is known to be dictated by the Spirit,
may veiy probably contain a severe denunciation against all those
who pretend to any revelation or prophecy after that concern-
ing the christian church, — whether I say, it be not a matter of
f In that fine sermon. The Christian's Obligations to Peace and Charity,
which was preached in 1647 by Dr. Hammond, before his Majesty, then a
prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle, this subject is treated with great ability.
Take this extract as a specimen: " The Gospel spirit is that which, after the
out-dating of prophecies, pretends to no other direction or incitation or im-
pulsion of the Spirit, than that which lies visible in the New Testament, —
the Spirit that incites us to perform those duties that the Word hath prescrib-
ed us, — the Spirit which, when it comes to be tried whether it be of God or
no, pretends not, like Mahomet, to be a-talking with God whilst he lies
foaming in an epileptic fit; but is content to be judged and discerned by the old
plain doctrines of the gospel, — a regulated, authorized, ordinary, sober spirit.
" Our Saviour hath contributed toward this great work by the exemplari-
ness of his own practice in this kind : — not only in refusing to have the fire
from heaven, that the Boanerges would have helped him to, against the Sa-
maritans,— in reprehending of St. Peter's zeal, when it drew the sword in
his Master's defence against the high priest's servants, — in refusing the aid
of angels from heaven against the heathens that attacked him ; — but, above
all, by that answer of his to Pilate, ' If my kingdom wereof this vmrld, tht n
shoxild my servants figJit,' 8(c. (John xviii, 36.) ; which was certainly part
of thdXgood confession before fite^c mentioned with such honour, 1 Tim.vi,13."
APPENDIX n. 299
fear and just apprehension, to all those who shall affix or impose
upon THE Spirit of God (or pretend to be revealed to them from
that,) any matter of doctrine or pi-actice which acknowledges
not the Spirit of God speaking in the scripture for its only war-
rant or foundation? Or lastly, if from the scriptures you con-
ceive it may be proved, that any part of the unction mentioned
tiiere so far belongs to you that it shall surely lead you into all
truth ; then, first, I beseech you to consider, whether you do not
oblige yourselves, by the same or some other scripture, to prove
to others, (and not only yourselves to be persuaded,) that you arc
those special saints of God to whom that privilege peculiarly belongs,
and as clearly to demonstrate that all others, who conceive that
that unction teaches them directly the contrary to that which you
profess to be taught by it, are impious persons possest with that
deluding spirit of which I now desire you to beware. And se-
condly, to examine whether this differencing of yourselves from
others, this bearing ivitness to yourselves, and judging others,* —
beside that it will look like an act of most pharisaical pre-
sumption, and the very thing which, from Simon Magus down-
ward, hath been observed in all hereticks, calling themselves
* The follovvinjj is a fair sample of the way in which the Calvinists were
accustomed to esteem themselves the most orthodox and godly of professing
christians, while others were regarded as lieatJteu men and publicaris ' It is
ill reference to Mr. Barlee that Dr. Pierce thus writes : " I said, It is not
so good a task to make men Orthodox Christians, as to mnJie them honest
AND SINCERE ONES. Upou which Mv. R. is very angry. If he thinks zY i*
better to know much, than to do well, and prefers a clear head before a
sound and upright heart, what a case is he in ! and how ill hath he done
to commend his preaching ! He adds a little after, ♦ that I and the pious
men of my way, are great admirers and followers of a practical
catechism [Dr. Hammond's] the sixth time published.' What greater com-
mendation could he have given us, than that we follow the good which
we admire .' Would he have us know our lesson, but not observe and
keep it ? orthodox christians, but not practically honest and sincere
ones too? If he, and the godly wew of his way, (as he and they are
wont to word it,) do neither «rf«u>e aor follow that practical catechism, I
wish they did, and beseech God they may. If they neither do nor will, I
will rather he a. pious \hau godly man. that is, (as he hath distinguished,) I will
rather be of thern whom he calls the pious, than of them whom he calls the
godly.
*' He calls his opinions in these matters, ''the very fundamentals of the
covenant of grace ;' but in which of the three Creeds shall we find either of
them.' What Popery is this, to obtrude upon us new articles of faith? I see
King James was a wise, as well as a learned and orthodox man : And so
was he of the lower House, who told Mr. Speaker in his speech, (An. Dom.
1640.) ' That if they were listened to who would extirpate episcopacy, (speak-
' ing of the Presbyterians,) they would, instead of every Bishop put down in
* a diocess, set up a Pope in every Parish: And if the Presbyterian as-
' semblies should succeed, they would assume a power to excommunicate
* Kings, as well as other men : And if Kings were once excommunicated
' men would not care what became of them.' And Mr. Hooker (as I take it)
doth say of such men, ' that they might do well enough to live in a Tf^ilder-
' ness, but not in « Kingdom, or CommGU-weulth.' For all who differ from
their opinions (that is, their mistakes,) shall be said to err in ' the very fuu-
' damentals of the covenant of grace,* and so be looked upon as Healheiis,
and so be used as vessels of wrath."
300 APPENDIX D.
the spiritual, and all others animal carnal men, — whether it will
not be also a great injustice at this time toward them who pre-
tend not to learn any thing from this unction but what they re-
ceive from the doctrine of the gospel, in those books, which have, in
effect and in the last result, the testimony of God from heaven that
they are Jus true infallible word and dictate of his Spirit, and who
desire to make no other use of this to their own advantage, but
only to preserve them in a. quiet possession of what by law belongs
to them, and a capacity of making good their allegiance to him
to whom they have often by law been required to swear it.*
*This clause contains a brief but noble plea for the maintenauceof thejust
rijjhts and the loyal principles of the Arminian clergy. Instead of being
vexed with sequestrations, they wished only for protection in the "quiet pos-
session of wliat hy Icnv belonged to litem,' and for " a capacity of making
good their allegiance to him," their king, " to whom they had often by law
been required to swear it :" And, for both these lawful requests, they could
plead express scriptural authority, in opposition to the unchristian purposes
to which the Calvuiists applied that Divine sanction.
Dr. Thomas Pierce, in 1657, adopted the following method of shewing,
that the Episcopal Church of Euglaud, though then in a state of captivity,
was established by the common law of the laud. His litigious opponent had
expressed his delight "that the British divines at the S\nod of Dortwere the
visibie^«M;/!f/ representers of our mother, the Church of England there."
This circumstance, though false in fact, was one on which the Calvinistic
Dissenters from our church delighted to expatiate. Dr. Pierce thus turns
the inference which the author intended to deduce : " Besides, if those
very few of our men at the Synod of Dort were ' the visible lawful representers
of our mother the Church of England,' how much more were all those who
composed theCatechisra,theComniunion Book, the thirty-nine Articles of our
; English Church, to some of which some Articles of the Synod at Dort have
\,„a most evident repugnance? If so few men at Dort, who were purposely
called out by the same King James, are to denominate thejtidgment of the
whole Oiurch of England, how much more may be said for the Common-
prayer, which was not only subscribed to by all our English Divines at Dort,
but was established by knv and Canon, since the times of our reformation,
by no less than five acts of Parliament in the days of Edward the sixth, aud
Queet) Elizabeth? — compiled by those reformers who were uot persecutors,
but Martyrs? — aud held in practice during the time of no less than four
Princes ? How much more [may be said] for Episcopacy, which is not only
as ancient as Christianity itself in this very land, but was particularly
confirmed by Magna Charta, and by no less than 32 acts of Parliament ?
And in the Forty-second of King Edward the third, the first chaj-.ter enacteth,
that if any statute be made to the contrary, it shall be holden for none. And
in the Twenty-fifth of Edward the First (Chap. 1.2.) MagnaCharta is declared
to be the common law of the land. And 1 hope an ecclesiastical constitu-
tion, whether divine or human, is not the less valid for being corroborated
by the whole civil power."
Such intrepid conduct as this, in the arbitrary days of Cromwell, was in
every respect worthy of a true son of the Church of England. He wa.s
molested in various ways by the commou disturbers of the peace of the ,
Church ; but he was too courageous to be intimidated by threats of seques-
tration, when peaceably engaged in the performance of a lawful duty. In
\i\& Divine Pliilantliropy Defended,he says : " I am told Mr. Barlee is an^ry
that I am not thought worthy of sequestration, and that (for my sake only)
he would be revenged upou the memory of one that is dead. And to fill up
the measure of his comparison, he will have me to deserve as cutting a
reproof, as that which Elymas received from Paul ! (Acts xiii,10.) After a' wail-
ing with tloods of tears that my Triobulary Pamphlets' (as he was pleased
I
APPENDIX D. 301
*' A second principle ^hich I must desire you to review, is
that upon which j'ou conclude, that God hath borne leslimony
to your cause by the many victories which he hath given you.
This concluding of yours, first, proceeds upon a premise directly
false in matter of fact : For, you say, that the KING, by taking
up anus, made his appeal to heaven ; which it is most certain that
he never did. Nay, secondly, this concluding of yours will, by
the same reason, infer that Christianity is not, and that Mahu-
meUsva IS the true religion ; because when the Turks asserted
one and the Greek church the other, and that difference begat a
war betwixt them, it is clear that the Turks were successful, and
the Greek church was most sadly wasted and subdued by them,
and so remaineth to this hour in that unreturned captivity.
Which will therefore be a fit opportunity to make you revert to
the trying of that spirit (which inclines you thus to argue) by
this touchstone : (I.) By considering and examining whether in
the written word any thing be more frequent and visible than
the sufferings of God's people, the shedding the blood of the saints,
the fastening all kind of contumelies on such, particularly that
reproach of Thou bloody man ! , upon David who was a king after
God's heart, the sending or permitting an host against the daily
sacrifice to cast dotvti the truth to the ground, and to practise and
prosper. (2.) Whether it were not Rabshakeh's argument against
the people's adhering to their lawful king Hezekiah, that his mas-
ters arms had been invincible ? (3) Whether that saddest fate of
Nebuchadnezzar, (who, for conquering of God's people and
others, was by God stiled his hammer and battle-axe of the whole
earth,) may not be expected the final lot of others also; — first, to
destroy men, and then to be cast out into the field, to inhabit among
beasts ?* (4) Whether it were not a crime complained of by the
to call them) * had received the applause of no mean persons, and drawn
' disciples from their school;' he presently < stirs up his brethren to finish
• the plot which they had begun of an Ecclesiastical association ;' that, by
their Presbyterian ' censures, such a sorcerer as I may be delivered up to
the devil.' — When I couipare these things with many like passages in his
book, (especially page 2'S2,) I cannot choose but conceive that he would
threaten me into a silence ; and hopes I may think it ?«y safest icai/, to make
as if [ were nonplussed by him and his seniors. Much indeed mi^ht be done,
if I were able to be afraid of sucJl as fear ?iot the Lord of Hosts : But I
seriouslj' profess I do not know which way to do it. For 1 have learned to
distinguish betwixt things necessary, and things coiivenient. I hold it 7ieces-
«ar«/ to keep a good conscience; whereas it is but convenient to keep a
<500i) LIVING. I know a man may he persecuted, and yet be saved."
* Dr. Hammond here shews himself to be a better prophet than those
whom he reprehends. Not only the soldiers whom the Doctor here addresses,
but their Calvinistic Chaplains, and those who so expounded the Scriptures
as to convert them into a sanction for rebellion, were by a wise retribution
of Divine Providence severally punished for their reprehensible participation
in these bloody transactions. Let it be granted , that many of those w ho in the
reign ol ("harles the Second eagerly engaged in this punitive process, were
not men distinguished for piety : This concession, however, is only another
illustration of the same rule in the Divine Economy, — for God does not
302 API'KNDIX D.
people of God, in those who, when God was a Itltle displeased,
did, as adversaries, help forward this nffliclion ? And (5.) Whe-
ther the Psahnist lay not the like ill character on all who perse-
cute those ivhom God halh smitten, and who talk how they may vex
them whom God hath womided ?* By all which it is most evident,
generaUi/ commission good ivien to be the executioners of his wrathful pur-
poses ; but He over-rules the wrong dispositions and the unrighteous practices
of the wicked, to effect his own inscrutable yet benelicent designs.
* Were we to give credence to all that has been written by Calvinistic
Dissenters in prejudice of the Episcopal Clergy, prior to the commencement
of the Civil Wars, we must account the latter to have been an abandoned
race of evil-doers. The following is one of the mildest descriptions, of the
multitude of those which Richard Baxter has given to the world : " In some
places, it was much more dangerous for a minister to preach a lecture, or
twice on the Lord's Day, or to expound the Catechism, than never to preach
at all. Hundreds of congregations had ministers that never preached, and
such as were common drunkards and openly ungodly." Common prudence
will however suggest the usual caution to be observed in receiving the testi-
mony of sworn adversaries,nianyof whom were" fattening on sequestrations."
If any impartial man will peruse the productions of those Arminian Di-
vines who flourished at that period, and who on account of their attachment
to the Episcopal Church were refused the common benefit of Toleration con-
ceded to other religious denominations under the Protectorate, he will dis-
cover that their Arminianism, their enforcement of Christian duties as well
as Christian privileges, was the real cause of the oblociuy to which they were
exposed and the persecution which they endured. A few of them, indeed,
to avoid the cant phraseology of the times, seem to have insisted too much
on the/»-Me<5 of saving faith, v/ithout describing its natm-e and the tiecessit^/
of its reception : But it must be recollected, that the auditors whom they
addressed had been strongly charged with solifidian doctrines, and were
consequently the less liable to incur the charge of Legality. — Yet the great
body of these Divines were the real saints of the Most High, and God's pe-
culiar treasure ; and their writings prove them to have been, of all men,
the least addicted to " time-serving and soul-lulling practices." They were,
therefore, as Dr. Hammond observes in the text, not fit subjects for perse-
cution ; and though under the visible chastisements of the Almighty on
account of a nation's crimes and offences, they were not to be vexed by 'Cal-
vinistic task-masters with impunity. It was well said by Richard Baxter,
when in possession of his usurped benefice : " God will not be satisfied with
ivords when his servants are persecuted, his churches destroyed, or his
interest trodden under-foot." 'I he retribution of Divine Providence speedily
demonstrated the truth of this remark, but in a manner exactly the reverse
of good Richard's meaning,.— for his words were intended to apply only to
•* the servants of God" who held theopinions of Calvin.
While some of their cotemporaries were wasting their energies in lament-
ing the decline of high Calvinistic principles and tne prevalence of Artninian-
jsm , these good men sighed and cried for all tlie ahominatio7is that were done
in the midst of Jerusalem, and sedulously endeavoured to effect their ex-
pulsion. Where can be found a more eloquent and scriptural specimen of
this ministerial faithfulness, than in the subjoined paragraph from a Lent
Sermon, entitled Christ and Barabbas, preached in 1G43, by Dr. Ham-
mond, before the Court at Oxford ? It is scarcely necessary to premise,
that, by a very reprehensible practice which had obtained, the high Cava-
liers generally distinguished themselves from their adversaries in convers-
ation by uttering a multitude of profane oaths, instead of interlarding their
common discourse with scriptural phrases, and profanely introducing the
name of God on trivial occasions, which was the almost equally reprehen-
sible custom of the /2oww<Z//m</j. The alarming extent to which this feeling
of aversion was actually carried by the Royalists after the restoration, is
ficarcely credible: It was this which caused Dean Swift to read family-
APPENDIX D. 30;1
(without any necessity of defining or demonstrating any tiling of
the justice of the cause,) that most commonly the prosperity of
arms hath not been the lot of the most righteous, but that either
the chastisement of the sword is thought fit to be their discipline,
or that the comforts of peace (and not the triumphs of war) their
blessing in this life."
Towards the conclusion the pious Doctor adds, " The last
principle to be reviewed is this, that there having been much blood
spilt in this kingdom in the late wars, there must now be some sacri~
Jice offered to God, (that is, some more blood shed,) for the ex-
piation of that sin of blood guiltiness, before God can be pacified
or reconciled to the land. — On which particular, it will (1.) be
worth your serious enquiry, how it should appear tloat that great
issue of blood, let out in the late Avars, (which hath with great
reason been looked on as the shai-pest of God's plagues, and the
saddest part of punishment of the former sins of this nation,) is
now the main and only sin of the land with which God is not
reconciled. Or, (2.) if it were supposed to be so, j^et how it can
he thought iha.t a general refonnation (f that sin, an humiliation
before God for it through the whole land, and a resolidion never to
spill one drop more, were not a more christian probable means to
pacify God, than the proceeding in cold blood to the effusion of
more : The blood of men being never thought a fit sacrifice for
any but the evil spirit ; and peaceable-mi ndedness, charily, and
prayers to his domestics in the most private part of his mansion ; and which
induced some (otherwise) excellent men to neglect many pious observances,
that they might escape the dreaded imputation of being Puritans and
hypocrites.
" Consider but a few of that glitteriusf train of reigning sins in this our
land, in this my auditory, and be astonished, O earth, that they should ever
he received in competition with Christ ! The oaths, that all the importunity
of our weekly sermons [when] turned into satires against that sin, cannot
either steal or beg from ns, — w hat gain or profit do they afford us ? which of
our senses do they entertain, which of our faculties do they court ? An empty,
profitless, temptatiouless sin, sensuality only to the devil-part in us, fumed
out of hell into oar mouths, in a kind of hypochondriacal fit : an affront to
that strict command of Christ to his disciples, JBut I say unto you. Christ-
ians, swear not at all : The best quality that it can pretend to, is that which
Hierocles of old mentions with indignation, ' to fill up the vacuities of the
speech,' to express and man a rage; that is, to act a madman the more per-
fectly. What shall that man give in exchange for his soul to get it back again,
■which he hath parted with so cheap without any barter, sold it for nought and
taken no money for it, (in the Psalmist's phrase,) and now cannot redeem it
with all his patrimony? It v/ould grieve one, I confess, that did but weigh
this sin in this balance, andobservethe Teltelon the wail over against it, how
light and kexy and impertinent a sin this is, to hear that any body should be
damned for it in another world, part with such treasures for such trifles,
make such African voyages, carry out the substantial commodities of a good
land and return with a freight of toys or monsters, pay so hugely dear for such
perfect nothings ! And yet it would grieve one more, that this sin should gWt-
ter in a Protestant Court, and become part of the gallantry and civility of
the place, ay and defame and curse our armies ; that the improsperousness,
ruia, perhaps TlavoKidpia [the destruction], of a whole kingdom should be
imputable to one such; and [that] all our prayers to heaven for you be out-
sounded and drowned by that most contrary eloquence!"
304 Al'PEXDIX I).
the contrile. heart, being the special, if not only sacrifices, which
we find mentioned in the gospel. Or, (3.) how it can appear that
if God require any such sacrifice, you, or any but those whom
the known laws of the land have placed in a tribunal, (and that
legallij erected for such cognizances,)* have any right to put your-
selves into the office of Gentile Priests, as the only persons ap-
pointed to slay that sacrifice. Nay, (4.) it will be worth your
observing, that Christ disclaimed the office of a Judse ; and
thereby rendered it very unfit for any of you to put yourselves
hito that office by virtue of no other title but that of being his
disciples. And, lastly, it is worth your saddest thoughts, whe-
ther by your present councils, and the necessity by you sup-
posed of changing the former Government, it do not now ap-
pear, that the defence of the established laws was on the King's
part the occasion of his taking arms, and on your parts, the de-
sign of altering those laws, and introducing others more suitable
to your inclinations. "\
* " Yet for a few military men, of their own accord, to control the Parlia-
ment, to put the sovereign to death, and coaipletely to o\erthrow the civil
constitution of the country, was an atrocious assumption of power, which
no concurrence of circumstances could possibly justily. The life of any
ruler can only be at the disposal of the constitution ; or of that system of
laws and regulations by which his subjects should be governed. If his life
be taken away by any means hut those provided by the constitution, it is
murder : No pretended or even proved acts of tyranny, can justify his being
put to death in any other way. And what constitution in the civilized world
provides for the infliction of death upon the supreme magistrate ? Every
such infliction either against law, or without its sanction, is murder, by
■whomsoever perpetrated." Jackson's Life of Gooduin.
•f- For this constitutional appeal, in defence of the rights of his sovereign.
Dr. Hammond was stigmatized by those whose feet were swift to shed blood,
and by their republican defenders, as an advocate of tyranny. But after all
the advantages which we, as a nation, have derived from our political expe-
rience in the subsequent epochs of our national history, we can find no pro-
position in the Doctor's Address which will not be readily approved in our
days by men of moderation and piety, whether they be Whigs or Tories.
He had urged it as an objection to one of his adversaries, who afterwards
became a rig|d defender of the regicides, — that, according to the testimony
of the Ancient Fathers, all the primitive christians, in the various jjersecu-
tions which had devastated the infant church, imitated their Lord and Master
in meekly ' givbig their backs to the smiters, and their cheeks to them that
plucked off' the hairs,' (Isa. 1, 6.) and were memorable examples of patient
and unresisting suffering. But this Christian doctrine did not stiit the hot
spirits of Calvin's followers ; and Dr. Hammond's antagonist, who had
learnt his levelling principles in the predestinarian school of those times,
coolly replied, that God had hidden from the first christians this liberty of
RESISTING SUPERIORS, as part of his counsel to bring Antichrist into the
world : but that he had then manifested it to his people [the Calvinists] us a
means of casting Antichrist out. It is unnecessary to state what was under-
stood by the English Antichrist.
I might have elucidated this part of the revolutionary history from the pro-
ductions of many able Arminian writers ; but 1 have preferred Dr. Ham-
mond, because he was accounted the most /ie»-e^it'«/ of his brethren by the
Calvinists of that period. In 1648 he had the honour of having his name
inscribed with disgrace in A Testimony to the Ti-uth of Jesus Christ, and to
our solemn League and Covenant ,- as also against the errors, heresies, a7id
blasphemiesof these times, and the tolerationof them : Subscribed by the mi-
APPENDIX D. 305
Bishop Womack has also observed in his Arcana Dosmatttm
Anti-Remonstrantium : '' This opinion [[the necessary and infal-
lible determination of the will^ is a great and ready inlet to all
nistersof Christ uithin the Province of Londnn. This was si^ed by fifty-
two Presbyterian ministers, and made mention of " new lights and new
truths Nvhich are broached and maintained here in England among' us, — all
of them repugnant to the Sacred Scriptures, the scandal and otfence of all
the Reformed Churches abroad, the unparalleled reproach of this Church
and nation, totally inconsistent with #/(e Covoiant a.uA the Covenanted Re-
formation," &c. Of the three "abominable errors, damnable heresies,
and horrid blasphemies," which they ascribed to Dr. Hammond, "the firsjt-
(says that reverend divine,) is recited by them, paj^e 9, and it is this,
* Christ was given to undergo a shameful death voluntarily upon the cross,
* to satisfy for the sin of Adam, and for all the sins of all mankind.' This is
thtr? plainly set down in their catalogue of infatnous and pernicious errors,
but without the least note to direct what part of this proposition is liable to
that charge, any farther than may be collected from the title of the Errors
under which it is placed, viz. Errors touching Universal or General Eedemp-
tion. From whence 1 presume to discern their meaning to be, that to affirm,
'Christ to have satisfied for or redeemed all sl4nkind,' is this pernicious
error by them abominated. And such I confess I should acknowledge it to be,
if it had any right to be joined with that other, by these men set under the
same head, The damned shall be saved; but 1 hope that error hath re-
ceived no patronage from that [Practical] Catechism, nor sure from that
assertion of C/mst's redeeming' all mioikind."
Such was part of the good doctor's defence in his " View of some Excep-
tions to the P/ae?fcaZ C'«<ecAwm," &c., and I have repeated it in this place
not merely to shew the kind of heresies which these intolerant Calvinists con-
demned, but the double-dealing of which they were guilty in their mode of
classification. But their evident intention to fasten upon the doctor the
charge of favouring the unscriptural doctrine of the Jinal restoration of all
lapsed intelligences, was but a stale trick, which they had learnt of the Dort
Synodists. \nX\Le f Forks of Arminius, (vol.1, page 577,) I have exposed the
highly disingenuous and inferential character of a similar mode of implica-
tion, adopted against an equally plain and scriptural assertion by Arminius
on this very subject, which the Dort divines chose to couple with one of the
assertions of Vorstius, to give it the semblance of an apology for the doctrine
of " Universal Restoration," instead of General Redemption ! — But the
reader will in this work meet with many other instances of the servilitv with
which the English Calvinists aped the manners of the successful Dutchmen,
A circumstance which arose from this interference of the Presbyterian
ministers, is thus related by Isaac Walton : " After which there were many
letters passed betwixt the said Dr. Hammond, Dr. Sanderson, and Dr.
Pierce, concerning God's grace and decrees. Dr. Sanderson was with much
unwillingness drawn into this debate ; for he declared it would prove un-
easy to him, who, in his judgment of God's decrees, differed with Dr. Ham-
mond, fwhom he reverenced and loved dearly,) and would not therefore
engage nimself in a controversy, of which he could never hope to see an end :
nevertheless they did all enter into a charitable disquisition of these said
points in several letters, to the full satisfaction of the learned. 1 think the
judgment of Dr. Sanderson was by these debates altered from what it was
at his entrance into them ; for in the year 1632, when his excellent sermons
were first printed in quarto, the reader may on the margeut find some
accusation of Arminius for false doctrine ; and find, that upon a review and
reprinting those sermons in folio in the year 1657, that accusation of Armi-
nius is omitted. And the change of his judgment seems more fully to appear
in his said letter to Dr. Pierce. And let me now tell the reader, which may
seem to be perplexed with these several affirmations of God's decrees before
mentioned, that Dr. Hammond in a postscript to the last letter of his to Dr.
Sanderson, says, ' God can reconcile his own contradictions, and therefore
advises all men, as the Apostle does, to study moderation, and to be wi'ie
to sobriety.* And let me add further, that if these 52 ministers of Sion Col-
30G APPENDIX D.
enthusiasms ; and it is not only easy but ordinary for men to
intitle their diabolical delusions to the determinations of God's
Spirit ; and his broad seal is frequently stampt upon that com-
mission (to authorize it), which is drawn up by a lying, and one
haply a great deal worse than their own private spirit.* When
men of high ambition, and hot brains, and strong phantasies,
and passionate appetites, will not acquiesce (as you know, many
times they will not) in God's clear and distinct revelations con-
cerning their duty ; but entertain new designs, pretended to a
good end, though the only me^ns visibly conducible to carry
tliem on be apparently unwarrantable ; what methods do they
follow in this case ? God is earnestly sought and wrestled with,
for obtaining a dispensation and success in a course of disobe-
dience, against his own express command. When God, (who
is not so much called upon to counsel, as to countenance and
assist in the affair [^which]] such men have resolved upon, and
lege were the occasion of the debates in these letters, they have, I think,
been the occasion of giving au end to the quinquarticular controversy ; for
none have since undertaken to say more ; but seem to be so wise, as to be
content to be ignorant of the rest, till they come to that place, where the
secrets of all hearts shall be laid open. And let me here tell the reader also,
that if the rest of mankind would, as Dr. Sanderson, not conceal their alter-
ation of judgment, but confess it to the honour of God and themselves,
then our nation would become freer from pertinacious disputes, and fuller
of recantations."
* Nearly four years prior to the Restoration, and while the Church of
England was still under the rod of the oppressor, the Rev. Dr. Pierce re-
marked, h\\\is Divine Parity Defended, " Mr. Barlee saith, 'that God is
* not a mere legislator of conditional decrees, laws and statutes, hut an
* ABSOLUTE DETERMINER in a Sovereign way of the several acts of disobe-
* dience in relation to them.' And though he saith also, that God himself
is without sin, and determines the several acts of disobedietice also, yet that
doth not lesson, but rather aggravate his blasphemy; because he makes
no difference betwixt God's determining the acts of obedience and disobe-
dience, whilst he saith ' he is an absolute unconditional determiner' of both
the one and the other. — Whether James Nayler hath said any thing like it,
I have not hitherto been informed ; but they who adored him as a Christ did
give the Magistrate this reason, ' that they were forced thereunto by the
power of the Lord ; and commanded so of the Lord ; and thereunto moved
of the Lord ; and directed by the Spirit of the Lord.' (The Grand Impostor.)
And when the Presbyterian Ministers of the Kirk of Scotland sent a letter
to the Lord Hamilton inviting him to head their forces, (which, without the
least pretence of authority of Parliament, the Preachers and they only had
made to rise,) they told his Lordship in their letter, that the people weie
animated by the word and motion of con's spirit to take up arms; that is,
to rebel. (Spotswood Hist. Scot.) Now by what principles and opinions they
were betrayed to these things, I leave it to be judged by other men. For the
peace and safety of Church and State, as well as for the interest and good
of souls, 1 am obliged and concerned to deliver mine own soul by giving fair
warnings to other men's. And may it for ever be remembered by such as are
of a party, which they are kind to, and extremely willing to excuse, that
he who justifieth the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, as well as he
who condemnelh the just! (Prov. xvii, \f>.) To shew my mnocence from
so great a transgression as the latter, 1 have not whispered my accusations
ill a corner, but spoken them out unto the world ; nor have I urged them
from giddy rumours and reports, (as one sort of men are wont to do,) but
from the published writings which I accuse."
APPKXDIX D. 307
are prjeengaged to transact,) being provoked by the perverse
importunity of such addresses, permits them, in displeasure, to
the sway of their own inordinate passions, and to prosper in the
irregular pursuit of them, this is presently interpreted to be
God's gracious return unto their prayers, and his casting voice, (the
intimation of bis secret beneplaciture,) for the determination of
their will to this choice of their very rebellion against him, and
consequently it hath, as is pretended, his unquestionable appro-
bation.
" When Balaam, upon Balak's invitation of him to curse
Israel, consulted the Lord first about that message and expedi-
tion, he gave him a clear and peremptory signification of his will
and pleasure. Thou shalt not go with them, thou shalt not curse
the people : for they are blessed. (Num. xxii, 12.) But Balaam,
upon a new and more urgent invitation, seeks God again, that
he may yet obtain leave to gratify his avarice and ambition.
Almighty God, provoked wilh the perversity of this solicita-
tion, permits him to his own lust; and upon this, (which was
but an instance of God's indignation against him, that he was
not satisfied with his express command at first,) without doubt
Balaam would have concluded, that God had now infallibly de-
termined and actually sent him, had he not been rebuked for
his iniquity by a miracle ; But the dumb ass speaking with man's
voice, forbad the madness of the Prophet. (2. Pet. ii, l6.) What
practices have been suggested and put in execution at Munster,
&c. upon a persuasion of such an irresistible determination ?
and what work that opinion may yet help to make in other
parts of Christendom, if not timely prevented, is easy to foresee
without a spirit of divination."
Other eloquent and decided testimonies against this perver-
sion of Christianity, by pretended inspirations, might be ad-
duced : But it becomes necessary to connect Dr. Twisse with
the transactions which have now been briefly recounted, and
with those which followed. This connection will be traced, in
a manner at once the most concise and authentic, by the follow-
ing quotations from Dr. Heylin, who having narrated some of
the mal-practices of the Calvinists, to which allusion has already
been made, proceeds thus : " Such were the fortunes and suc-
cesses of the Presbyterians in the rest of Christendom, during the
last ten years of the reign of King James and the beginnings of
King Charles. By which both kings might see how unsafe they
were, if men of such pragmatical spirits and seditious principles
should get ground upon them. But King James had so far sup-
ported them in the Belgick provinces, that his own Calvinists
presumed on the like indulgence;* which prompted them to set
* It was a most unfortunate circumstance for King Charles, that his
royal father had beeu such an injudicious author. Who would ever have
expected to find the following passage in King James's Defence of the Right
J308 ArrENFiix d.
nought by his proclamations, to vilify his instructions, and des-
pise his messages. Finally, they made trial of his patience also,
by setting up one Knight, of Broadgates, (now called Pembroke
College,) to preach upon the power of such popular officers
as Calvin thinks to be ordained by Almighty God, for curbing
of Kings, in answer to Cardinal Perron ? — " It is moreover granted, if a
Jving shall command any thing directly contrary to God's word, and tending
to the Gubvertin^r of the Church, that clerics in this case oiight not only to
dispense with subjects for their obedience, but also expressly to forbid their
obedience : For it is always better to obey Ood than man. Howbeit, in all
other matters, whereby the glory and majesty of God is not impeached or
impaired, it is the duty of clerics to ply the jieople with wholesome exhor-
tation to constant obedience, and to avert by earnest dissuasions the said
people from tumultuous revolt and seditious insurrection."
This doctrine had a Calvinian origin ; and it was applied by the Calvinists
to their seditious purposes in France, and several years afterwards in Eng-
land. In both kingdoms they easily shewed, that their sovereigns had " com-
manded things directly contrary to God's word, [that is, as that word was in-
terpreted by themselves,] and tending to the subverting of the Church ;"
and, for these alleged oflences against the prosperity of the Calvinistic
Churches, Archbishop Laud aud his Royal Master were finally condemned
to die uu a scatfuld.
It was also most unfortunate for this monarch, that, in the BasiUcon
Doron, which had been published early in the reign of King James and was
among certain classes for above twenty years a subject of public animadver-
sion, the latter bequeathed tohis successor all his hereditary anlipaihies to the
Puritans and Presbyterians, in form following : " Yet for all their cunning,
whereby they pretended to distinguish the lau'fulness of the ojffice from tlie
vice of the person, some of them would sometimes snapper out well grossly
with the truth of their intentions, informino: the people ' that all kings and
* princes were naturally enemies to the liberty of the Church, and could
* never patiently bear the yoke of Christ :' With s\ich Round doctrine fed
they their flocks'. And because the learned, grave, and honest men of the
ministry were ever ashamed and offended with their temerity and presump-
tion, pi-essing by all good means, by their authority and example, to reduce
them to a greater moderation, there could be no way found out so meet, m
their conceit that v^ere turbulent spirits a7iin7>g- thetn, for maintaining tlieir
plots, as I'ARiTY IN THE Church : Whereby the ignorants were embolden-
ed to cry the learned, godly, and modest out of it: Parity, the mother of
confusion, and enemy to unity which is the mother of order ! For if, by
the example thereof once established in the ecclesiastical government, the
politic and civil estate should be drawn to the like, the great confusion that
thereupon would arise may easily be discerned. — Take heed therefore, my
son, to such Puritans, very pests in the Church and Common-weal, whom
no deserts can oblige, neither oaths or promises bind, breathing nothing but
sedition and calumnies, aspiring without measure, railing without reason,
and 7naki7ig their oum i7nagi7iations (without any warrant of the word,) the
square of their conscience. I protest before the great God, (and, since i am
here as upon my Testament^ it is no place for me to lie in,) that ye shall ne-
ver find with any Highland or Border thieves ^reato" ingTatitude and moie
lies and vile pe7-juries, tha7iivith these TASATIc spirits! And suffer not the
principals of them to brook your land, if ye like to sit at rest; except ye
would keep them for trying your patience, as Socrates did an evil wife."
The Puritans aud Presbyterians treasured up this offensive character in
their memories, and visited upon the son the transgressions of the father.
The vanity of Kmg James, and his ambition to be distinguished as a literary
man, n)ade him reckless of consequences ; but his recorded opinions on
this subject, though qualified in the preface to some subsequent editions,
were highly detrimental to the interests of King Charles iu the subsequent
troubles^.
APPKNDIX D. 309
and restraining the power of Kings.* In which, though Knight
himself was censured, the doctrines solemnly condemned, and
execution done upon a book of Parseus, which had misguided
the unfortunate and ignorant man ; yet the Calvinians most
tenaciously adhered to their master's tendries, with an intent to
bring them into use and practice when occasion served. So that
King James, with all his king-craft, could find no better way
to suppress their insolencies, than by turning Mountagu upon
them; a man of mighty parts, and an undaunted spirit; and
one who knew, as well as any, hnw to discriminate the doc-
trines of the Church of England, from those which were pecu-
liar to the sect of Calvin. By which he galled and gagged
them more than his Popish adversary ; but raised thereby so
many pens against himself, that he might seem to have suc-
ceeded in the state of Ismael.
" In this conjuncture of affairs. King James departs this life,
and King Charles succeeds ;t who, to ingratiate himself with
* See an accouut of this, page 208.
f The prosperous condition of England at that period is thus justly 6e-
scr'ihed in Lard Clarendnii's Life, written by himself : "England enjoyed
the greatest measure of felicity, that it had ever known ; the two crowns of
France and Spain worrying each otlier, by their mutual incursions and in-
vasions ; whilst they had both a civil war in their own bowels ; the former,
by frequent rebellions from their own factions and animosities; the latter, by
the defection of Portugal ; and both laboured more to ransack and burn each
other's dominions, tiiau to extinguish their own fire. All Germany welter-
ing in its own blood ; and contributing to each other's destruction, that the
poor crown of Sweden might grow great out of their ruins, and at their
charge ; Denmark and Poland being adventurers in the same destructive en-
terprizes. Holland and the United Provinces, wearied and tired with their
long and chargeable war, how prosperous soever they were in it ; and begin-
ning to be more afraid of France their ally, than of Sjiain their enemy. Ita-
ly, every year infested by the arms of Spain and France ; which divided the
princes thereof into the several factions.
" Of all the Princes of Europe, the King of England alone seemed to be
seated upon that pleasant promontory, that might safely view the tragic suf-
ferings of all his neighbours about him, without any other concernment, thau
what arose from his own princely heart, and christian compassion, to see
such desolation wrought by the pride, and passion, and ambition of private
persons, supported by princes who knew not what themselves would have.
His three kingdoms flourishing in entire peace and universal plenty ; in
danger of nothing but their own surfeits ; and his dominions every day eu-
la-rg-^sd, by sending out colonies upon large and fruitful plantations ; his
strong fleets commanding all seas ; and the numerous shipping of the nation
briug'ing the trade of the world into his ports ; nor could it with unquestion-
able security be carried any whither else: And all these blessings enjoyed
under a prince of the greatest clemency and justice, and of the greatest piety
and devotion, and the most indulgent to his subjects, and most solicitous for
their happiness and prosperity.
O fortunati nimium, bona si sua norint !
"In this ble'^sed conjuncture, when no other prince thought he wanted any
thing, to compass what he most desired to be possessed of, but the affection
andViiendship of the King of England; a small, scarce discernible cloud
arose in the North ; which was shorfly after attended with such a storm, that
never gave over raging, till ic had shaken and even rooted up the greatest
310 APPENDIX D.
this powerful faction, had plunged his father in a war with
the house of Austria, by which he was brought under the ne-
cessity of calling parliaments, and gave those parliaments the
courage to dispute his actions. For though they promised to
stand to him with their lives and fortunes, in prosecution of
that war ; yet when they had engaged him in it, they would
not part with any money to defray that charge, till they had
Stripped him of the richest jewels in the regal diadem. But
he was much more punished in the consequence of his own ex-
ample in aiding those of Rochelle against their King, whereby
he trained up his own subjects in the school of rebellion, and
taught them to confederate themselves with the Scots and
Dutch, to seize upon his forts and castles, invade the patrimony
of the church, and to make use of his revenue against himself.
To such misfortunes many Princes do reduce themselves, when
either they engage themselves to maintain a party, or govern
not their actions by the rules of justice ; but are directed by
self-ends, or swayed by the corrupt affections of untrusty minis-
ters.*
" The Presbyterian-Scots, and the Puritan-English, were not
so much discouraged by the ill successes of their brethren in
France and Germany, as animated by the pi'osperous fortunes of
their friends [ the Calvinists^ in Holland; who by rebellion were
grown powerful ; and by rapine, wealthy; and by the reputation
and tallest Cedars of the three nations ; blasted all its beauty and fruitful-
ness ; brought its strength to decay, and its glory to reproach, and almost to
desolation ; by such a career and deluge of wickedness and rebellion, as, by
not bein^ enough foreseen, or, in truth, suspected, could not be prevented.
* Dr. Heylin has been called, by his enemies, " a favourer of absolute
power," &c. Yet what writer of that age has pointed out with equal clear-
ness the political errors of two sovereigns for whom he entertained the
highest regard ? The state of the British Constitution must likewise be
taken into the account, when we venture to object against some of the senti-
ments which are here avowed. The well-defined jurisdiction and nicely-
balanced power of the several branches of the legislature, now the boast of
this country and the admiration of the civilized world, had at that period
no existence.
It is remarkable, that the English soldiers who had assisted the Dutch in
the recovery of their liberty, and had garrisoned those fortified places in the
Low Countries which this country retained as pledges for monies advanced,
■were almost without exception, after their return, republican in their poli-
tical principles, and inclined on religious subjects to Presbyterianism or
Independency : This partial feeling of alienation from the iiistitutions of
their own country , was not without its effects in the subsequent troubles.
The generous interest too which had been industriously excited, and very
properly cherished, in the sound part of the nation, in favour of the new re-
public, was one of the causes that operated in forming a taste for a more
enlarged religious and civil freedom than had been previously enjoyed. — in
our own days we have seen a similar instance in our neighbours of France,
with this marked difference, however, that religion was one of ihe least con-
siderations among both the parties into which that unhappy country was
divided. The King of France had sent his soldiers to fight the battles of the
new American Republic ; and some of those very men lived long enough to
carry arms in their native land, and assist in the establibhuieut of their own
Republic.
APPEXDIX D. 311
of their wealth and power, were able to avenge themselves on
[|the Arminians] the opposite party. To whose felicities, if those
in England did aspire, they were to entertain those counsels and
pursue those courses by which the others had attained them ;
that is to say, they were by secret practices to diminish the
King's power and greatness, to draw the people to depend
upon their directions, to dissolve all the ligaments of the
former government ; and either call in foreign forces, or form
an army of their own to maintain their doii>gs.t And this had
been the business of the Puritan faction, since the death of
Bancroft ; when by the retirements of King James from all
cares of Government, and the connivance or remissness of Arch-
bishop Abbot, the reins were put into their hands. Which
gave them time and opportunity to grow strong in parliaments,
under pretence of standing for the subjects' property against
the encroachments of the court, and for the preservation of the
true religion against the practices of the Papists, By which
two artifices, they first weakened the prerogative royal, to ad-
vance their own; and, by the diminution of the King's autho-
rity, endeavoured to erect the people's, whom they represented.
And then they practised to asperse with the name of Papist
all those who either join not with them in their Sabbath-
doctrines, or would not captivate their judgments unto
Calvin's dictates. [^See pages 209, 266, 294.]]
" The party in both kingdoms being grown so strong that
they were able to proceed from counsel unto execution, there
wanted nothing but a fair occasion for putting themselves into a
posture of defence ; and from that posture, breaking out into
open war. But finding no occasion, they resolve to make one ;
and to begin their first embroilments upon the sending of the
new Liturgy and book of Canons to the Kirk of Scotland. At
Perth, in l6l8 they had past five articles for introducing private
Baptism, communicating of the sick, kneeling at the Commu-
nion, Episcopal Confirmation, and the observing of such an-
cient festivals as belonged immediately unto Christ : Yet when
those articles were incorporated in the Common-prayer Book,
they were beheld as innovations in the worship of God, and
therefore not to be admitted in so pure and reformed a Church
as that of Scotland. These were the hooks by which they drew
the people to them, who never look on their superiors with a
greater reverence, than when they see them active in the cause
of religion ; and willing, in appearance, to lose all which was
dear unto them, whereby they might preserve the Gospel in its
native purity. But it was rather gain than godliness, which
f These were exactly the steps taken by the Calviuists in the United Pro-
vinces, under the guidance of that ambitious warrior Prince Maurice, the
year prior to the meeting of the Synod of Dort; ihe most suitable preparatioa
Ibr which seemed to be a deep wound on the coustitution then established.
312 APPENDIX D.
brought the great men of the realm to espouse this quarrel;
who, by the commission of surrenderies, (of which more else-
where,) began to fear the losing of their tithes and superiori-
ties, to which they could pretend no other title than plain
usurpation. And on the other side, it was ambition, and not
zeal, which inflamed the Presbyters ; who had no other way to
invade that power which was conferred upon the Bishops by
Divine institution, and countenanced by many acts of Parlia-
ment in the reign of King James, than by embracing that oc-
casion to incense the people, to put the whole nation into tu-
mult, and thereby to compel the Bishops and the regular Cler-
gy to forsake the Kingdom. So the Genevians dealt before with
their Bishop and Clergy, when the reforming-humour came
first upon them : And what could they do less in Scotland, than
follow the example of their mother-city ?
" These breakings-out in Scotland smoothed the way to the
like in England, from which they had received encouragement,
and presumed on succours. The English Puritans had begun
with libelling against the Bishops, as the Scots did against the
King : For which, the authors and abettors had received some
punishment ; but such, as did rather reserve them for ensuing
mischiefs, than make them sensible of their crimes, or reclaim
them from it. So that upon the coming of the Liturgy and
Book of Canons, the Scots were put into such heat that they
disturbed the execution of the one by an open tumult, and re-
fused obedience to the other by a wilful obstinacy.
" These insolencies might have given the King a just cause
to arm, when they were utterly unprovided of all such neces-
saries as might enable them to make the least show of a weak
resistance. But the King deals more gently with them, negoti-
ates for some fair accord of the present differences, and, in l638,
sends the Marquess of Hamilton as his chief Commissioner for
the transacting of the same. By whose solicitation he revokes
the Liturgy and the Book of Canons, suspends the Articles of
Perth, and then rescinds all Acts of Parliament which confirm-
ed the same ; submits the Bishops to the next General Assem-
bly, as their competent judges ; and thereupon gives intima-
tion of a General Assembly to be held at Glasgow, in which
the point of church government was to be debated, and
all his condescensions enrolled and registered. And, which
made most to their advantage, he caused the Solemn
League or Covenant to be imposed on all the subjects, and
subscribed by them. Which in effect was to legitimate the
rebellion, and countenance the combination with the face
of authority.* But all this would not do his business, though
it might do theirs. For they had so contrived the matter,
that none were chosen to have voices in that Assembly, but
* See a Note from Grotius, page 21G.
ArrENDix D. 313
such as were sure unto the side, such as had formerly been un-
der the censures of the Church for their inconformity, and had
refused to acknowledge the King's supremacy, or had declared
their disaffections to Episcopal Government. And that the Bi-
shops might have no encouragement to sit amongst them, they
cite them to appear as criminal persons, libel against them in
a scandalous and unchristian manner ; and finally, make choice
of Henderson, a seditious presbyter, to sit as moderator or
chief president in it. And though upon the sense of their dis-
obedience, the assembly was again dissolved by the King's pro-
clamation ; yet they continued, as before, in contempt thereof.
In which session they condemned the calling of Bishops, the
articles of Perth, the Liturgy, and the Book of Canons, as in-
consistent Avith the scripture, and the Kirk of Scotland. They
proceed next to the rejecting of the five controverted points,
which they called Arrainianism : And finally, decreed a general
subscription to be made to these constitutions. For not con-
forming whereunto, the Bishops, and a great part of the regu-
lar clergy, are expelled the country, although they had been
animated unto that refusal, as well by the conscience of their
duty, as by his Majesty's Proclamation which required it of
them.
" They could not hope that the King's lenity so abused,
might not turn to fury ; and therefore thought it was high time
to put themselves into arras, to call back most of their old
soldiers from the wars in Germany ; and almost all their officers
from such commands in the Netherlands ;* wiiom to maintain,
they intercept the King's revenue, and the rents of the Bi-
shops, and lay great taxes on the people, taking up arms and
ammunition from the States United,f with whom they went ou
* See Note page 310.
•f- That a great sympathy should subsist between the Dutch and the Scotch
at this crisis, will not seem wonderful to those who consider, that the ecclesi-
astical form of government in both countries was Presbyterian, and that
the Canons of the Synod of Dort, and the subsequent severe measures of the
States General, had rendered Calvinism completely triumphant in Holland.
(See pages '22(>, 267.) The author of the Historical Essay vpon the Loyalty
of the Presbyterians, 171.3, says: " The ecclesiastical institution of Presby-
tery does provide such effectual remedies against the usurpations and am-
bition of the clergy, and lays such foundations for the liberty of the subject
in CHURCH MATTERS, that it naturally creates in people a7i aversion from all
tyranny and oppression in the State also : Which hath always made it odious
in the eyes of such princes as have endeavoured to stretch the prerogatives
above the laws of the nation and liberties of the subjects."
The decided leaning of the Dutch towards the Puritans in their ambitious
undertaking to suppress Arminianism and Episcopacy, was early displayed.
G. J. Vossius makes the following mention of it in a letter to Grotius, in 1642 :
" The Puritanic war fills many persons in this country with anxiety. It is
not difficult to learn, from the prayers that are offered up in public, to which
party the aflfections of the Dutch pastors are attracted. Some of them have
no doubt, ' that God requires the work of Reformation happily to proceed,
' as it has auspiciously commenced, and the king's mind to be mollified.'
Though these sentiments manifest an accommodating spirit; yet the pastors
A.
314 Airr.xDix d.
ticket, and long days of payment, for want of ready money
for their satisfaction. But all this had not served their turn, if
the King could have been persuaded to have given them battle,
or suffered any part of that great army which he brought against
them, to lay waste their country. Whose tenderness when they
once perceived, and knew withal how many friends they had
about him, they thought it would be no hard matter to obtain
such a pacification as might secure them for the present from
an absolute conquest, and give them opportunity to provide bet-
ter for themselves in the time to come, upon the reputation of
being able to divert or break such a puissant army. And so it
proved in the event. For the King had no sooner retired his
forces both by sea and land, and given his soldiers a license
to return to their several houses, but the Scots presently pro-
test against all the Articles of the Pacification, put harder pressures
on the King's party, than before they suifered, keep all their officers
in pay ; by their messengers and letters, apply themselves to
the French King for support and succours. By whom en-
couraged under-hand, and openly countenanced by some agents
of the Cardinal Richelieu, who then govei*ned all affairs in
France, they enter into England with a puissant army, mak-
ing their way to that invasion by some printed pamphlets,
which they dispersed into all parts, thereby to colour their
rebellions, and bewitch the people.
" And now [^1640^ the English Presbyterians take the cou-
rage to appear more publickly in the defence of the Scots and
their proceedings, than tliej^ bad done hitherto. A Parliament
had been called on the 13th of April, for granting monies to
maintain the war against the Scots. But the Commons were
so backward in complying with the King's desires, that he
found himself under the necessity of dissolving the Parliament,
which else had blasted his design, and openly declared in fa-
vour of the public enemies.* This puts the discontented rab-
make it sufficiently evident, that nothings is more desirable to them, than
for the king to be content with an empty title, and for novel doctrines to tri-
umph over those which can lay claim to antiquity." After stating this as the
grand object of the Calvinistic combination, he briefly adverts to the differing
ulterior views of tlie Independents and Presbyterians, which finally effected
the overthrow of that oppression and anarchy which both parties had con-
tributed to introduce into the new Commonwealth.
♦The odium of this measure was, as usual, ascribed to Archbishop Laud ;
but with what degree of truth, the following statement from Lord Claren-
don's Life will evince :
" As soon as the House was up, he went over to Lambeth, to the Arch-
bishop, whom he found walking in his garden ; having received a full
account of all that had passed, from persons who had made more haste from
the House. He appeared sad and full of thoughts ; and calling the other to
him, seemed willing to hear what he would say. He told him, 'that he
• would not trouble him with the relation of any thing that had passed, of
• which he presumed he had received a good account; tliat his business was
• only to inform him of his own fears and apprehensions, and the observa-
• tion he had made upon the discourses of some considerable men of the
APPENDIX D. 315
ble into such a fury, that they violently assaulted Lambeth-
House, but were as valiantly repulsed ; and, the next day, break
open all the prisons in Southwark, and release all the prisoners
whom they found committed for their inconformities.
" The Scots, in the mean time, had put by such English for-
ces as lay on the south-side of the Tyne, at the passage of New-
born, make themselves masters of Newcastle, deface the goodly
church of Durham, bring all the Countries on the north-side
of the Tees under contribution, and tax the people to all pay-
ments at their only pleasure. The council of Peers, and a
petition from the Scots, prepare the King to entertain a treaty
with them ; the managing whereof was chiefly left unto those
Lords who had subscribed the petition before remembered.
But the third day of November coming on a-pace, and the
commissioners seeming desirous to attend in parliament, which
was to begin on that day, the treaty is adjourned to London ;
which gave the Scots a more dangerous opportunity to infect
that city, than all their emissaries had obtained in the times
fore-going.
"And though a convocation were at that time [[l64il]] sit-
ting ; yet to increase the miseries of a falling-church, it is per-
mitted, that a private meeting should be held in the Deanery of
Westminster, to which some orthodox and conformable Divines
were called, as a foil to the rest, which generally were of Pres-
byterian or Puritan principles.* By them it was proposed, that
' court, as if the king might he wrought upon, (because there had not been
' that expedition used as he expected,) speedily to dissolve the Parliament;
* that he came only to beseech him to use all his credit to prevent such a
' desperate counsel, which would produce great mischief to the king, and to
' the church ; that he was confident the House was as well-constituted and
' disposed, as ever House of Commons was, or would be ; that the number of
* the disaffected to Church or State, was very small ; and though they might
' obstruct for some time the quick resolving upon what was fit, they would
* never be able to pervert their good inclinations and desires to serve the
* king.' The Archbishop heard him very patiently, and said, he believed the
king would be very angry at the way of their proceedings ; for that, in this
conjuncture, the delaying, and denying to do what he desired, was the same
thing ; and therefore he believed it probable that he would dissolve them ;
without which he could not enter upon other counsels. That for his own
part, he was resolved to deliver no opinion ; but as he would not persuade
the dissolution, which might be attended by consequences he could not fore-
see, so he had not so good an opinion of their affections to the king or the
church, as to persuade their longer sitting, if the king were inclined to dis-
solve them. As he actually did on the 4th or 5th of May, not three weeks
after their first meeting."
* These were the proposals of the sub-committee of accommodation, one
of whom was our Dr. Tvvisse ; and the test, with two exceptions, were in-
clined either to the doctrine of Calvin or to the Presbyterian regimen. From
such men what could be expected, but the complete establishment of Cal-
vinism, and the extirpation of Arniinianism ? Two of them had been mem-
bers of the Dort Synod, and the majority of them seem to have been favour-
ably inclined to the introduction of the canons decreed in that Dutch Assem-
bly. (See page 269.) Archbishop Usher was one of those who had formerly
supposed a greater latitude of indulgence might be allowed to men who
pleaded conscience in bar of their conformity : But he lived long enough to
X 2
31G ArrKNDix n.
many passages in the Liturgy should be expunged, and others
altered to the worse That decency and reverence in officiat-
ing God's public service, should be brought within the compass
of innovations. That doctrinal Calvinism should be entertain-
ed in all parts of the church ; and all their Sabbath-specula-
tions, though contrary to Calvin's Judgment, superadded to it.
But before any thing could be concluded in those weighty mat-
ters, the Commons set their bill on foot against root and branch,
for putting down all Bishops and Cathedral Churches ; which
put a period to that meeting without doing any thing."*
Dr. Heylin then gives a succinct relation of the subsequent
changes in Church and State, the general truth and accuracy of
which are corroborated by the statements of some of the Puri-
tans themselves. Speaking of the Liturgy, he says. It Avas
" not like to stand, when both the Scots and English Pres-
byterians did coiispire against it. The fame whereof had either
caused it totally to be laid aside, or performed by halfs in
all the counties where the Scots were of strength and
power ; and not much better executed in some Churches
of London, wherein that faction did as much predominate,
as if it had been under the protection of a Scottish Army,
But the first great interruption which was made at the offici-
ating of the public Liturgy, was made upon a day of Hu-
miliation, when all the Members of the House of Commons
have painful and ocular demonstration, that religious liberty, even when it
had degenerated into licentiousness, was too confined, and did not satisfy
many of the fanatics of that age. Evelyn says, in his Diary, " Aug. 21,
Ifi'),'), In discourse with the Archbishop of Armagh, the learned James
Usher, he told me, — that the church would be destroyed by sectaries, who
■would in all likelihood bring in Popery. In conclusion, he recommended to
me the study of philology above all numan studies."
f At the close of the note, page 327, Walton praises God for having pre-
vented him " from beingof that party which helped to bring in this covenant
and those sad confusions that have followed it." — He then adds : " I have
been the bolder to say this of myself, because in a sad discourse with Dr. San-
derson, 1 heard him make the'like grateful acknowledgment. The Cove-
nanters of this nation, and their party in parliament, made many exceptions
against the Common Prayer and ceremonies of the Church, and seemed
restless for another reformation. And though their desires seemed not rea-
sonable to the King and the learned Dr. Laud, then Archbishop of Canter-
bury, and many others ; yet to quiet their consciences, and prevent future
confusion, they 3id, in the year 1641, desire Dr. Sanderson to call two more
of the convocation to advise with him, and that he would then draw up some
such safe alterations as he tiiought fit in the service-book, and abate some
of the ceremonies that were least material, for satisfying their consciences ;
and to this end he and two others did meot together privately tw ice a week at
the Dean of Westminster's house, for the space of five months or more. But
not long after that time, when Dr. Sanderson had made the reformation
ready for a view, the church and state were both fallen into such a confusion,
that Dr. Sanderson's model for reformation became tlien useless. Neverthe-
less the repute of his moderation and wisdom was such, that he was, in the
year 1642, proposed by both houses of parliament to the king then in Oxford,
to be one of their trustees for the settling of church aft'airs, and was allowed
of by the King to be so; but that treaty came to nothing." Walton's Life
of Bishop Sandcraon.
AJ-PENDIX D. 317
were assembled together at St. Margaret's in Westminster. At
what time, as the Pi'iest began the second service at the Holy
Table, some of the Puritans or Presbyterians began a Psalm ;
and were therein followed by the rest in so loud a tune, that
the minister was thereby forced to desist from his duty, and
leave the preacher to perform the rest of that day's solemnity.
This gave encouragement enough to the rest of that party to
set as little by the Liturgy in the country, as they did in the
city ;* especially in all such usages and rights thereof, as they
were pleased to bring within the compass of innovations.
" In which conjuncture happened the impeachment and im-
prisonment of eleven of the Bishops: Which made that bench
so thin, and the King so weak, that on the 6th of February the
Lords consented to the taking away of their votes in Parlia-
ment. The news whereof was solemnized in most places of
London with bells and bonfires. Nothing remained, but that
the King should pass it into act by his royal assent ; by some
unhappy instrument extorted from him when he was at Canter-
bury ; and signified by his message to the Houses on the four-
teenth of that month.t Which condescension wrought so much
unquietness to his mind and conscience, and so much unsecure-
ness to his person, for the rest of his life, that he could scarce
truly boast of one day's felicity, till God was pleased to put a
final period to his griefs and sorrows. For in relation to the
last, we find that the next vote which passed in Parliament, de-
prived him of his negative voice, and put the whole militia of
the kingdom into the hands of the Houses. Which was the
first beginning of his following miseries. And looking on him
* •' And yet this excellent book hath had the fate to be cut in pieces with a
pen-knife, and thrown into the fire ; but it is not consumed. At first it was
sown iu tears, and it is now watered with tears ; yet never was any holy thing
drowned and extinguished with tears. It began with the martyrdom of the
compilers ; and the Church hath been vexed ever since by angry spirits, and
she was forced to defend it with much trouble and unquietness. But it is to
be hoped, that all these storms are sent but to increase the zeal and confi-
dence of the pious sons of the Church of England. Indeed the greatest dan-
ger that ever the Common Prayer Book had, was the indifferency and inde-
votion of them that used it but as a common blessing : and they who thought
it fit for the meanest of the clergy to read prayers, and for themselves only
to preach, though they might innocently intend it, yet did not in that action
consult the honour of our Liturgy, except where charity or necessity did in-
terpose. But w hen excellent things go away, and then look back upon us, as
our blessed Saviour did ipon St. Peter, we are more moved than by the
nearer embraces of a ful. and actual possession. I pray God it may prove so
in our case, and that we may not be too willing to ne discouraged ; at least
that we may not cease to love and to desire what is not publicly permitted to
our practice and profession." Bishop Taylor's Preface to his Apology for
authorized and set Forms of Liturgy.
f'Theywho loved the Church, and were afraid of so great an alteration in
the frame and constitution of Parliament, as the utter taking away of one of
the three estates of which the Parliament is compounded, were infinitely
provoked, and lamented the passing that act as an introduction to the entire
destruction of the government of the Church and to the alteration of the
religion of the kingdom : And verv many, who more considered the policy
X 3
318 APl'liNDlX D.
in the first, he will not spare to let us know in one of his pray-^
ers, that the injury which he had to the Bishops of Englandj-
did as much grate upon his conscience, as either the permitting
of a wrong way of worship to be set up in Scotland, or suf-
fering innocent blood to be shed under colour of iustice.+
" JBy the terror of that army, some of the prevailing-mem-
bers in the House of Commons, forced the King to pass the bill
for triennial Parliaments, and to perpetuate the present session at
the will of the Houses ; to give consent for murthering the
Earl of Strafford with the sword of justice ; and suifering the
Arch-bishop of Canterbury to be banished from him; to fling
away the Star-Chamber, and the High-Commission, and the
co-ercive power of Bishops ; to part with all his right to ton-
nage and poundage, to ship-money, and the Act for knighthood ;
tban the justice and piety of the State, did ever after beheve, that, being^
removed out of the Parlia)ne7it, the preserving them [the Bishops] tn the
kingdom was not worth any notable contention. Then they looked upon the
king's condescension in this particular, in a subject that all men knew had
a wonderful influence upon his conscience, as a manifestation that he uwuld
not he constant in retaining, and denying any thing that should he impe-
tuously and fiercely demanded ; which as it exceedingly confirmed those who
were engaged in that party, so it abated the courage of too many who had
always opposed them and heartily detested their proceedings, and made
them more remiss in their attendance at the House, and less solicitous for
any thing that was done there: who by degrees first became a neutral
party, believing they should be safe in angering no body ; and when they
afterwards found no security in that indifferency, they adhered to those whc
they saw had the best success ; and so \i exit sharers with them, in their fu-
ture attempts, according to their several tempers and inclinations."
Lord Clarendon has here tendered a strong reason why the unfortunate
monarch was " deserted at his utmost need" by many of his well-wishers,
who were not afraid of avowing their persuasion, that he inherited too much
of the wayward instability of his royal parent's disposition, which had very
improperly been designated by himself and his courtiers, " tokens of com-
plete king-craft."
f " It was contrived to draw petitions accusatory from many parts of
the kingdom against episcopal government, and the promoters of trie peti-
tions were entertained with great respects; whereas the many petitions of
the opposite part, though subscribed with many thousand hands, were
slighted and disregarded. Withal, the rabble of London, after their
petitions cunningly and upon other pretences procured, were stirred up to
come to the Houses personallj' to crave justice both against the Earl of
Stratford first, and then against the Archbishop of Canterbury, and lastly
against the whole order of Bishops ; which, coming at first unarmed, were
checked by some well-willers and easily persuaded to gird on their rusty
swords; and, so accoutred, came by thousands to the houses, filling all the
outer rooms, offering foul abuses to the Bishops as they passed, crying out
NO Bishops, no Bishops ! and at last, after divers days assembling, grown
to that height of fury, that many of them came with resolution of some
violent courses, in so much that many swords were drawn hereupon at W est-
minster, and the rout did not stick openly to profess that they would pull
the Bishops in pieces. Hereupon the House of Lords was moved for some
order for the preventing their mutinous and riotous meetings. Messages
were sent down to the House of Commons to this purpose more than once.
Nothing was effected ; but for the present (for so much as all the danger was
at the rising of the house) it was earnestly desired of the Lords that some
care might be taken of our safety. The motion was received by some Lords
with a smile. Some other Lords, as the Earl of Manchester, undertooit
APPENDIX D. 319
and by retrenching the perambulation of his forests and chases,
to leave his game to the destruction of each boor or peasant.
And by the terror of this army, they took upon them an autho-
rity of voting doAvn the Church's power in making of canons, con-
demning^all the members of the late Convocation, calumniat-
ing many of the Bishops and Clergy, in most odious manner,
and vexing some of them to the grave. And they would have
done the like to the Church itself, in pulling down the Bishops
and Cathedral Churches, and taking to themselves all their lands
and houses, if by the constancy and courage of the House of
Peers, they had not failed of their design.* But at the last, the
tlie protection of the Archbishop of York and his company, (whose shelter
1 went under,) to their lodgings; the rest, some of them by their long
stay, others by secret and far-fetched passages escaped home.
" On January 30, in all the extremity of frost, at eight o'clock in the dark
evening, are we voted to the Tower, only two of our number had the favour
of the black rod by reason of their age, which, though desired by a noble
Lord on my behalf, would not be yielded. The news of this our crime and
imprisonment soon flew over the city, and was entertained by our well-
willers with ringing of bells and bonfires ; who now gave us up (not v/ithout
great triumph] for lost men, railing on our perfidiousness, and adjudging
us to vvhat foul deaths they pleased. And what scurrile and malicious pam-
Ehlets were scattered abroad, throughout the kingdom, and in foreign parts,
lazoning our infamy, and exaggerating our treasonable practices ! what
insultations of our adversaries was here ! Being caged sure enough in the
Tower, the faction had now fair opportunities to work their own designs.
They therefore, taking the advantage of our restraint, renew that bill of
theirs, (which had been twice before rejected since the beginning of this
session,) for taking away the votes of Bishops in parliament, and in a very
thin house easily passed it : which once condescended unto, 1 know not
by what strong importunity, his majesty's assent was drawn from him
thereunto." Bishop Hall's Hard Measure.
* This is another proof of the salutary influence of this necessary branch
of the legislature, which, even in those days ot ill-defined rights, operated as
a clieck both on th** regal and popular incroachmeuts that were then in con-
templation. No one therefore will be surprised at the subsequent dissoluti(m
of the House OF Peers, which would have been a troublesome appendage
to a Republic, in the fair management of which all men were supposed lo
have a share.
In Lard Clarendon's Life, it is said : " When Mr. Hyde sat in the chair,
in the grand committee of the House for the extirpation of Episcopacy, all
that party [the Republicans] made great court to him ; and the House
keeping those disorderly hours, and seldom lising till after four of the clock
in the afternoon, they frequently importuned him to dine with them, at Mr.
Pym's lodging, which was at Sir Richard Manly's house, in a little court
behind Westminster Hall; where he, and Mr. Hambden, Sir Arthur
Haslerig, and two or three more, upon a stock kept a table, where they
transacted much business; and invited thither those of whose conversion
they had any hope. One day after dinner, Nathaniel Fiennes, who that day
likewise dined there, asked Mr. Hyde whether he would ride into the fields
and take a little air, it being a fine evening; which the other consenting to,
they sent for their horses, and, riding together in the fields between West-
minster and Chelsea, Mr. Fiennes asked him, ' what it was that inclined
* him to adhere so passionately to the Church, which could not possibly be
' supported.' — He answered, ' that he could have no other obligation than
* that of his own conscience and his reason, that could move with him ; for
* he had no relation or dependence upon any churchmen, that could dispose
'him to it; that he could not conceive now religion could be preserved
' without Bishops, nor how the Government of the State could well subsist if
320 Ai'Tiixnix D,
King prevailed so far with the Scots Commissioners, that they
were willing to retire and withdraw their forces, upon his pro-^
mise to confirm the Acts of the assembly at Glasgow, and reach
out such a hand of favour unto all that nation, as might estate
them in a happiness above their hopes. On this assurance they
march homewards, and he followeth after : Where he consents
to the abolishing of Bishops, and alienating all their lands by
Act of Parliament ; suppresseth, by like Acts, the Liturgy, and
and the Book of Canons, and the five Articles of Perth ; re-
wards the chief actors in the late rebellion, with titles, offices,
and honours; and parts with so much of his royal prerogative
to content the subjects, that he left himself nothing of a King,
but the empty name. And, to sum up the whole in brief, in one
hour he unravelled all that excellent web, the weaving whereof
had took up more than forty years ; and cost his father and
him self so much pains and treasure.
" His majesty was informed at his being in Scotland, that the
Scots had neither taken up arms, nor invadedEngland, but that
they were encouraged to it by some members of the Houses of
Parliament, on a design to change the Government both of
Church and State. In which he was confirmed by ike Reinon-
strance of the state of the kingdom, presented to him by the
Commons at his first coming back ; the forcible attempt for
breaking into the Abbey of Westminster ; the concourse of se-
ditious people to the doors of the Parliament, crying out, that
they would have no Bishops nor Popish Lords; and their tu-
multuating iri a fearful manner, even at White-Hall Gates,
where they cried out with far more horror to the hearers, that
* the government of the Church were altered ; and asked him what Govern-
' ment they meant to introduce in its place.' — To which he answered, ' that
'there would be time enough to think of that;' but assured him, and
wished him to remember what he said, ' that if the king resolved to defend
' the Bishops, it would cost the kingdom much blood ! and would be the
* occasion of as sharp a war as had ever been in England : for that there was
* a great numlier of good men, who resolved to lose their lives before they
' would ever submit to that Government.' Which was the first positive
declaration he had ever heard from any particular man of that party ; very
few of them having at that time that resolution, much less avowing it ; and
if they had, the kingdom was in no degree at that time infected with that
poison, how much soever it was spread afterwards."
In a subsequent passage he states the substance of a conversation be-
tween him and the noted Harry Martin, the latter of whom " very frankly
answered, ' that he thought the men knaves who governed the House [of
' Commons] , and that when they had done as much as they intended to do,
' they should be used as they had used others.' — The other pressed him then
to say what he desired; to which, after a little pause, he very roundly an-
swered, I do not think one man wise enough to govei'ti us all : which was the
first word he [Clarendon] had ever heard any man speak to that purpose ;
and would without doubt, if it had been then communicated or attempted,
been the most abhorred by the whole nation of any design that could be
mentioned; and yet it appears it had even so early enteied into the hearts
of some desperate persons : that gentleman being at that time possessed of
a very great fortune, and having great cr^-dit in his country."
APPKNPIX D. 321
the King was not worthy to live ; that they would have no
porter's lodge between him and them ; and that the Prince
would govern better. Hereupon certain members of both
Houses; that is to say, the Lord Kimbolton of the upper;
Hollis and Haslerig, Hampden, Pyra, and Stroud, of the loM'er
House, are impeached of treason, a serjeant sent to apprehend
them, and command given for sealing up their trunks and clo-
sets. But on the contrary, the Commons did pretend and de-
clared accordingly, that no member of theirs was to be im-
peached, arrested, or brought unto a legal trial, but by the
order of that House ; and that the sealing up of their trunks or
closets, was a breach of privilege.
" Now comes Calvin's doctrine for restraining the power of
Kings, to be put in practice. His Majesty's going to the House
of Commons on the fourth of January, is voted for so high a
breach of their rights and privileges, as was not to be salved
by any retraction, or disclaimer, or any thing by him alleged in
excuse thereof. Though his Majesty had sent them a most gra-
cious message of the twentieth of January, in which he pro-
mised them to equal or exceed all acts of favour which any of
his predecessors had extended to the people of England ;* yet
nothing could secure them from their fears and jealousies, un-
less the trained-bands, and the royal navy, the Tower of Lon-
don, and the rest of the Forts and Castles, were put into such
hands as they might confide in. On this the King demurs a
while ; but having shipped the Queen for Holland, with the
Princess Mary, and got the Prince into his power, he denies it
[^the preceding proposal^ utterly. And this denial is reputed
a sufficient reason to take the Militia to themselves, and execute
the powers thereof, without his consent.
" During these counter-workings betwixt them and the King,
the Lords and Commons plied him with continual messages for
his return unto the Houses ; and did as frequently endeavour to
possess the people with their remonstrances and declarations,
to his disadvantage. To each of which, his Majesty returned
a significant answer, so handsomely apparelled, and compre-
hending in them such a strength of reason, as gave great satis-
* " The king inadverteutly resigned a large portion of that power which
is essential to monarchy, but which he had unhappily abused in former in-
stances, by consenting that this parliament should never be dissolved with-
out the concurrence of its members ; and thus rendered them little less
than absolute. Having also, in other respects, complied with their wishes,
he became indignant at their proceedings, and expressed his resolution to
maintain the royal prerogative in opposition to their further demands, which
he contended were exorbitant and unconstitutional. Kxposed at the same
time to popular insult in the metropolis, his Majesty retired to York, and
prepared for war; while the Queen pledged the jewels of the crown in
Holland, and with the money thence arising furnished him with arms and
ammunition. Mean time the parliament, resolved to defend what they
regarded as the rights of the subject, prepared for resistance. Thus was
the country involved in civil discord, and witnessed through a series of years
a lamentable effusion of human blood." Jackson's Life of Goodwin.
3^5 APPENDIX D.
faction to all equal and unbiassed men. None of these mes-
sages more remarkable, than that which brought the nineteen
propositions to his Majesty's hands. In which it was desired,
that all the Lords of his Majesty's Council, all the great Officers
both of Court and State, the two Chief Justices, and the Chief
Barons of the Exchequer, should be from thenceforth nomi-
nated and approved by both Houses of Parliament. That all
the great affairs of the Kingdom should be managed by them,
even unto the naming of a Governour for his Majesty's children,
and for disposing them in marriage, at the will of the Houses.
That no Popish Lord (as long as he continued such) should
vote in Parliament. And amongst many other things of like
importance, that he would give consent to such a reformation
of Chui'ch-government and Liturgy, as both the Houses should
advise. But he knew well enough, that to grant all this, was
plainly to divest himself of all regal power which God had put
into his hands :t And therefore he returned such an answer to
them, as the necessity of his affairs, compared with those im-
pudent demands, did suggest unto him. But as for their de-
mand about reformation, he had answered it in part, before
they made it, by ordering a collection of sundry petitions pre-
sented to himself and both Houses of Parliament, in behalf of
Episcopacy, and for the preservation of the Liturgy, to be
printed and published. By which petitions it appeared, that
there was no such general disaffection in the subjects, unto
either of them, (whether they were within the power of the
Houses, or beyond their reach,) as by the faction was pretended ;
the total number of subscribers unto seven of them only, (the
rest not being calculated in the said collection,) amounting to
four hundred eighty two Lords and Knights, one thousand seven
hundred and forty Esquires and Gentlemen of note, six hun-
dred thirty-one Doctors and Divines, and no fewer than forty
four thousand five hundred fifty nine free-holders of good name
and note.t
f " He [Clarendon] had taken more pains than snch men use to do, in
the examination of religion ; having always conversed with those of ditt'er-
ent op nions with all freedom and affection, and had\ery much kindness
and esteem for many who were in no degree of his own judgment ; and upon
all this, he did really believe the Church of England the most exactly formed
and framed for the encouragement and advancement of learning and piety,
and for the preservation of peace, of any church in the world; that the tak-
ing away any of its revenue, and applying it to secular uses, was robbery
and notorious sacrilege ; and that the diminishing the lustre it had, and had
always had, in the Government, by removing the Bishops out of the House
of Peers, was a violation of justice, the removing a land-mark, and the
shaking the very foundation of Government : and therefore he always op-
posed, upon the impulsion of coiiscience, all mutations in the Church ; and
did always believe, let the season or the circumstance be what it would, that
any compliance was pernicious; and that a peremptory and obstinate
refusal, that might put men in despair of A'hatthey laboured for, and take
away all hope of obtaining what they desired, would reconcile more persons
to the Government, than the gratifying them in part ; which only whetted
their appetite to desire more, and their confidence in demanding it."
" It happened also, that some Members of the House of Com-
mons, many of his domestic servants, and not a few of the no-
bility and great men of the realm, repaired from several places
to the King at York ; so far from being willing to involve
themselves in other men's sins, that they declared the constancy
of their adhesion to his Majesty's service. These men they
branded first by the name of Malignants, and after looked upon
them in the notion of evil councillors ; for whose removing from
the King they pretend to arm, (but now the stale device must
be taken up,) as well as in their own defence : Towards the
raising of which army, the Presbyterian preachers so bestir
themselves, that the wealthy citizens send in their plate, the
zealous sisters robbed themselves of their bodkins and thimbles,
and some poor wives cast in their wedding-rings, like the
widow's mite, to advance the service. Besides which, they set
forth instructions, dispersed into all parts of the realm, for
bringing in of horses, arms, plate, money, jewels, to be repayed
again on the public faith ; appoint their treasurers for the war;
and nominate the Earl of Essex for their chief commander,
whom some disgraces from the court had made wholly theirs.
Him they commissionate to bring the King from his evil coun-
sellors, with power to kill and slay all such as opposed them
in it."
The description given by Dr. Heylin of the seditious doc-
trines that were promulgated at that period by the Calvinists,
is exceedingly piquant, and reminds one of many of the terms
of the French Revolutionists in our days:
" It was also preached and printed by the Presbyterians to
the same effect, (as Buchanan and Knox, Calvin and some others
of the sect had before delivered) ' that all power was originally
* in the people of a Stale or Nation ; in Kings no otherwise
* than by delegation, or by way of trust; which trust might
* be recalled when the people pleased : That when the tmde-
* rived Majesty (as they loved to phrase it) of the common peo-
' pie was by their voluntary act transferred on the supreme
' Magistrate, it rested on that Magistrate no otherwise than
' cumidative ; but privative by no means, in reference unto them
* that gave it : That though the King was Major singulis, yet
* he was Minor universis; superior only unto any one, but far
' inferior to the whole body of the people : That it was lawful
* for the subjects to resist their Princes, even by force of arms,
* and to raise armies also, if need required, for the preservation
* of religion, and the common liberties.t And finally, (for what
f On no point did the Calvinists of that a^e render themselves so vulnerable
to the attacks of the Papists, as ou this of bearing arms against governors.
What a paltry excuse for rebellion Richard Baxter makes, when he says, in
his Key for Catholics : " They will tell us of our ivar, and killing' the king^
in England. But of this I have given them their answer before. ^I'o which
I add, (I .} 'file Protestant doctrine expressed in the confessions of all their
324 APPENDIX D.
else can follow such dangerous premises ?) that Kings being
* only the sworn officers of the commonwealth, they might be
' called to an account, and punished in case of mal-adminis-
' tration, even to imprisonment, deposition, and to death it*
' self, if lawfully convicted of it.' But that which served
their turns best, was a new distinction which they had coined
between the Pcrso7ial and Political capacity of the supreme Ma-
gistrate ; alledging, that the King was present with the Houses
of Parliament, in his Political capacity, though in his Personal
at ^ork ; that they might fight against the King in his Personal
capacity, though not in his Politic, and consequently might
destroy Charles Stuart without hurting the King. This was
good Presbyleriaii doctrine ; but not so edifying at York as it
was at Westminster. For his Majesty finding a necessity to
defend Charles Stuart, if he desired to save the King, began
to entertain such forces as repaired unto him, and put himself
into a posture of defence against all his adversaries."
That such doctrines should induce a consonant practice, is
not at all wonderful. One instance of which Dr. Heylin gives
in his account of the Fight at Brentford : " Out of which town
he beat two of their choicest regiments, sunk many pieces of
cannon, and much ammunition, put many of them to sword
in the heat of the fight, and took about five hundred prisoners
for a taste of his mercy. For, knowing well how miserably
they had been mis-guided, he spared their lives ; and gave them
liberty on no other conditions, but only the taking of their
oaths not to serve against him. But the Houses of Parliament,
Churches, and in the coustant stream of their writers, is for obedieuce to the
Sovereign powers, and against resisting them upon any pretences of heresy
or excomtnunication, or such like. (2.) The wars in England were raised
between a king and parliament, that, joined together, did constitute the
higlifst power ; and upon the lamentable division, (occasioned by the
Papists,) the people were many of them uncertain which part was the higher
and of greatest authority : some thought the king, and others thought the
parliament, as being the representative body of the people (in whom foW-
ticians say is the yJ/rt/es^a-s 'ye«7i.9,J and the highest judicature, and having
the chief part in legislation and declaration what is just or unjust, what is
law and what m against law. Had we all been resolved in England which
side was by law the higher pou'er, here had been no war. So that here was
no avowed resisting of the higher powers. None but a parliament could
have drawn an army of Protestants here under their banner. (3.) And
withal that very parliament (consisting of nobles, knights, gentlemen and
lawyers, who all declared to the people, that by law they were bound to
obey and assist them,) did yet profess to take up offensive arms only against
delinquents, or rather, even but defensive against those men that had got
an army to secure them from justice : and they still professed and avowed
fidelity to the king." The sophistry of this reasoning is exposed in an-
other part of the Appendix. But the phrase of " not resisting the sovereign
povyers upon any pretences oi heresy, excomnnmication, or such-like," is an
artifice too palpable to be overlooked : For these alleged crimes were not
among the "pretences" usually adduced bj' the Calvinists of that age, as
palliations for the murder of their lawful monarch. Eut it must be recol-
lected, that Baxter wrote this paragraph about a year prior to the Restoration.
Between several of his statements and arguments hefnre and after that
event, any person may easily discover a marvellous discrepancy.
APrENDIX D. 325
being loath to lose so many good men, appointed Mr. Stephen
Marshall, (a principal zealot at that time in the cause of Pres-
bytery) to call them together, and to absolve them from that
oath : Which he performed with so much confidence and autho-
rity, that the Pope himself could scarce have done it with the
like."*
* What reply do the defenders of the Puritans give to this statement,
which is confirmed by that of two eminent historians of that period ? One
of those defenders says : *' This has all the appearance of forgery. — Priestly
absolution was as remote as possible from the practices of the Puritans ; and
they rejected all claims to the power of it, with the utmost abhorrence. The
Parliament's army, at the same time, stbod in so little need of these pri-
soners, which were 07ifi/ 150 men, that there is good reason to suspect the
whole account to be a falsehood." — What a pitiful evasion ! " Because
the Puritans Te]ected vriest/t/ absolution, the whole account is a falsehood :"
Excellent logician ! Yet this is the method adopted by Brook, in his Lwes
of the Puritans, io extenuate the crimes of such blood-thirsty fanatics as
Marshall. In the absence of all historic testimony even from the greatest
admirers of his author, this famous biographer, in his sketch of Marshall's
Life, affords us glaring instances of this luminous mode of ratiocination.
This is another : Lord Clarendon had said, in reference to the ministers'
petition, presented to Parliament, " The petition itself was cut off, and a new
one of « z'ery different nature annexed to the long list of names : And when
some of the ministers complained to Mr. Marshall, with whom the petition
was lodged, that tkeij never saw the petition to tvhich their names were
annexed, but had signed another petition against the canons, Mr. Marshall
replied, ' that it was thought fit, by those who understood the business better
' than they, that the latter petition should be preferred, rather than the
* former.' " (Hist, i, 239.) — What is Mr. Brook's answer ? " This, indeed,
is a charge of a very high nature, and ought to have been well substantiated.
Why did not the ministers complain to the committee appointed by the
House of Commons to enquire into their regular methods of procuring hands
to petitions? The learned historian answers, ikx^'ithey were 'prevailed upon
to sit still and pass it by : For the truth of which we have only his lordship's
word, as nothing of the kind appears in Rushworth, Whitlocke, or any other
impartial writer oi\\\oi><i\Am&s. The whole affair has, therefore, the ap-
pearance of a mere forgery, designed to blacken the memory of Mr. Marshall
and the rest of the Puritans."
Omitting all animadversion on the expression 07ily his lordship's word,
(though for " unbending veracity" Lord Clarendon's name is celebrated
throughout Europe,) omitting likewise any allusion to Rushworth and Whit-
locke as "impartial writers," one might ask Mr. Brook, if, in our own
reforming- age, he never read or heard of such an exchange being effected
between two petitions " of a very different nature." But if his recollection
will not furnish him with fit precedents in the modern history of petitioning,
I will furnish him with one of a more ancient date. It is in reference to the
famous; Presbyterian Testimony to the truth of Jesus Christ, of which some
mention has been made, page 305, and concerning which it is said in
J ACKSOfi's Life of John Goodwin: " Verydishonourable collusion was prac-
tised in obtaining signatures to this objectionable document. In the copy
that was laid before Mr. John Downame, and to which he affixed his name,
no mention was made either of Dr. Hammond or of Mr. Goodwin ; their
reputed errors and heresies being foisted in afterwards. It happened un-
luckily, that Downame had licensed the Doctor's book for publication, and
thus recommended it to general perusal. When he therefore found, that,
by a manoeuvre of his Presbyterian friends, he was made to condemn as
heretical a work to which he had given his public sanction, he complained
bitterly of their disingenuous conduct. Others of the subscribers, one would
hope for their own credit, were imposed upon in the same manner."
On the most flimsy foundation of Mr. Brook's assertion or suspicion, rest
many other of his palliations and defences of Mr. Marshall, who might
326 Al'l'ENDIX D.
The Doctor afterwards states the varied success of each of
the parties in the subsequent campaign, the failure of the Ox-
ford treaty, and the excesses of the soldiery in defacing the
cathedral churches of Winchester, Canterbury, Rochester, and
Chichester, He then adds: " The King lost Reading in thespring,
received the Queen triumphantly into Oxon within a few
•weeks after, by whom he was supplied with such a considera-
ble stock of arms and other necessaries, as put him into a con-
dition to pursue the war. This summer makes him master of
the North and West ; the North being wholly cleared of the
enemy's forces, but such as seemed to be imprisoned in the
Town of Hull. And having lost the cities of Bristol and Exon,
no towns of consequence in the West remained firm unto them,
but Pool, Lime, and Plymouth : so that the leading members
■were upon the point of forsaking the kingdom ; and had so done,
(as it was generally reported, and averred for certain,) if the
King had not been diverted from his march to London, upon
a confidence of bringing the strong city of Gloucester to the like
submission. This gave them time to breathe a little, and to
advise upon some course for their preservation ; and no course
■was found fitter for them, than to invite the Scots to their
aid and succour, whose amity they had lately purchased
at so dear a rate. But that which proved the ston-
gest temptation to engage them [[the Scots^ in it, "was an
assurance of reducing the Church of England to an exact con-
formity, in government and forms of worship, to the Kirk of
Scotland ;* and gratifying their revenge and malice, by prose-
easily be convicted on the sole unbiassed testimony of his own sermons and
letters, of being, what Echard styles him, " a famous incendiary, and
" assistant to the Parliamentarians ; their trumpeter in their fasts, their
" confessor in their sickness, their counsellor in their assemblies, their
" chaplain in their treaties, and their champion in their disputations !"
* Hear Master Robert Baylie, minister at Glasgow, and one of the Scottish
Commissioners to the Assembly of Dk'ines at Westminster, — a man in every
respect worthy of being associated with his intolerant compeer Rutherford,
v/ho'iQ doctr'mes of co-e7-cionhdi\ii been so ably exposed in Bishop Heber's
edifying Life of Dr. Jeremy Taylor. — In the" First Part of his ' Dissuasive
from the Errors of the Times,' published by Authority in 1645, Baylie
says: " But so long as Divine dispensatiou besets our habitations both spi-
ritual and temporal, the Church no less than the State, with great numbers
of daring and dangerous adversaries, we must be content, according to the
call of the prophet Joel in another case, ' to prepare war, to beat our plough-
shares into swords, and our pruning-hooks into spears ;' in this juncture of
time the faint must take courage, 'and the weak say, I am strong.' — It seems
that yet for some time the servants of God must earnestly contend for many
precious truths, which erroneous spirits do mightily impugn: for the help
and encouragement of others in that warfare, I, though among the weakest
of Christ's soldiers, do offer these my endeavours."
He then depicts the flourishing stateof the Church, provided she would cor-
dially embrace the Presbyterian discipline : "Let England once be counte-
nanced, by her superior powers, to enjoy the justand necessary liberty of Con-
sistories for congregations, of Presbyteries for Counties, of Synods for larger
shires, and National Assemblies for the whole land, — as Scotland hath long
)>os!iCssed these by the unanimous consent of King and Parliaincut without the
APPENDIX O. 327
cuting the Arch-bishop of Canterbury to the end of his trage-
dy. For compassing which ends, a solemn league and cove-
nant is agreed between them ; first taken and subscribed to,
by the Scots themselves ; and afterwards by all the Members
in both Houses of Parliament ; as also, by the principal officers
of the army, all the Divines of the Assembly, almost all those
which lived within the lines of communication, and in the end
by all the subjects which either were within their power, or
made subject to it.* Now by this covenant the party was to
bind himself, amongst other things, first, ' that he would en-
' deavour, in his place and calling, to preserve the Reformed
* religion in Scotland, in doctrine, discipline, and government :
* That he would endeavour, in like manner, the reformation of
* religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, according to
* the word of God, and the example of the best reformed
' churches ; but more particularly, to bring the churches of God
' in all the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uni-
* formity in religion, &c. Secondly, That Avithout respect of
* persons they would endeavour to extirpate Popery and Pre-
* lacy ;t &c. And thirdly. That he would endeavour the dis-
least prejudice to the civil State, but to the evident and confessed benefit
thereof; or as the very Protestants in France, by the concession of a Popish
State and King, have enjoyed all these four spiritual courts the last fourscore
years and above : — Put these holv and Divine instruments in the hand of
the Church of England ; by the blessing' of God thereupon, the sore and
great evil of so many heresies and schisms shall quickly be cured, which
now not only troubles the peace and welfare, but hazards the very subsist-
ence both of church and kingdom. Without this mean, the Slate will toil
itself in vain about the cure of such spiritual diseases."
* " And to that end, the presbyterian party of this nation did again, in
the year l(i43, invite the Scotch covenanters back into England : and hither
they came marching with it gloriously upon their pikes, and in their hats
with this motto, For the Crown and Covenant of both Kingdoms ! This I
saw and sufiFered by it. But when I look back upon the ruin of families, the
blood-shed, the decay of common honesty, and how the former piety and
plain dealing of this now sinful nation is "turned into cruelty and cunning!
when I consider this, I praise God that he prevented me from being of that
party which helped to bring in this covenant, and those sad confusions that
nave followed it." Walton's Life of Sanderson.
t The reader will by this time have become acquainted with the implied
signification of these expressions. To give him a better view of this subject,
I copy the following paragraph from the Remonstraiice of the Commons,
1628 : " And as our fear concerning change or subversion of religion, is
grounded upon the daily increase of Papists, so are the hearts of your
good subjects no less perpleved, when with sorrow they behold a daily
growth and spreading of the faction of the Armiuians, that being, as your
Majesty well knows, a cunning way to bring in Popery, and the professors
of those opinions [are] the common disturbers of the Protestant churches,
and incendiaries in those states wherein they have gotten any head, being
Protestants in show but Jesuits in opinion Who, notwithstanding,
are much favoured and advanced, not wanting friends even of the clergymen .
to your Majesty, namely. Dr. Neale, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. L,aud,
Bishop of Bath and Weils, who are justly suspected to be unsound in their
opinions that way. And it being now generally held the way to preferment
and promotion in the church, many scholars do bend the course of their
studies to maintain those errors."
328 APPENDIX D.
' covery of such as have been, or shall be incendiaries, malig-
' nants, and evil instruments, either in hindering the reforma-
* tion of religion, or in dividing between the King and his
^ people, &c.' Of which three articles, the two first tended to
the setting up of their dear Presbyteries ; the last, unto the
prosecution of the late Arch-bishop, whom they considered as
their jri-eatest and most mortal enemy.*
" The terror of this covenant, and the severe penalty imposed
on those which did refuse it,t compelled great numbers of the
Clergy to forsake their benefices, and to betake themselves to
such towns and garrisons as were kept under the command of
his Majesty's forces ; whose places were in part supplied by
such Presbyterians who formerly had lived as lecturers or
trencher-chaplains: or else bestowed upon such zealots as
flocked from Scotland and New-England, like vultures and
other birds of rapine, to seek after the prey. But finding the
deserted benefices not proportionable to so great a multitude,
they compelled many of the [^Episcopal^ clergy to forsake
their houses, that so they might avoid imprisonment or some
worse calamity.^ Others they sent to several gaols, or shut
The authors of this Remonstrance must have been cunning men indeed
to know in what single European State the Arminians, at that period, (1628)
" had gotten any head." 1 know of none, except England; and whattheir
condition was in this country, will be the subject of a subsequent inquiry.
* " And about this time the bishop of Canterbury having been by an un-
known law condemned to die, and the execution suspended for some days,
many citizens, fearing time and cool thoughts might procure his pardon,
became so maliciously impudent as to shut up their shops, * professing not
to open them till justice was executed.' This malice and madness is scarce
credihle, but Isaw it." Isaac Walton.
f " July 23, 1643. The Covenant being pressed, I absented myself ; but
finding it impossible to evade the doing very unhandsome things, 1 obtained ]
a licence of his Majesty, dated at Oxford and signed by the King, to travel
again." Evelyn's Diary,
X " For myself, addressing myself to Norwich, whither it was his majesty's
pleasure to remove me, I was at the first received with more respect, than
in such times I could have expected. There I preached the day after my
arrival to a numerous and attentive people ; neither was sparing of my
pains in this kind ever siuce, till the times, ^rowin^ every day more impa-
tient of a bishop, threatened my silencing. 'Inere, tnough with some secret
murmurs of disaffected persons, I enjoyed peace till the ordinance of seques-
tration came forth, which was in the latter end of March following. Then
when I was in hope of receiving the profits of the foregoing half year, for the
maintenance of my family, were all my rents stopped and diverted, and in
the April following came the sequestrators, viz. Mr.Sotherton, Mr. Tooly,
Mr. Rawly, Mr. Greeuewood, &c. to the palace, and told me that by virtue
of an ordinance of parliament they must seize upon the palace, and all the
estate [ had, both real and personal, and accordingly sent certain men appointed
by them, (whereof one had been burned in the hand for the mark of his
truth,) to apprize all the goods that were in the house, which they accord-
ingly executed with all diligent severity, not leaving so much as a dozen of
trenchers, or my children's pictures out of their curious inventory. Yea they
■would have apprized our very wearing clothes, had not Alderman Tooly
and Sheriff Raw ley declared their opinion to the contrary. These goods,
both library and household stuff of all kinds, were appointed to be exposed
tojiublic sale. Much enquiry there was when the goods should be brought
APPENDIX D. 329
them up in ships whom they exposed to storms and tempests,
and all the miseries which a wild sea could give to a languish-
ing stomach.* And some again they sequestered under colour of
to the market; but in the meantime Mrs. Goodwin, a religious good gentle-
woman, whom yet we had never known or seen, being moved with com-
passion, very kindly offered to lay down to the sequestrators that whole sum
which the goods were valued at; and was pleased to leave them in our
hands for our use, till we might be able to repurchase them ; which she did
accordingly, and had the goods formally delivered to her by Mr. Smith, and
Mr. Greenewood, two sequestrators. As for the books, several stationers
looked on them, but were not forward to buy them; at last Mr. Cook, a
worthy divine of this diocese, gave bond to the sequestrators, to pay to them
the whole sum whereat they were set, which was afterwards satisfied out of
that poor pittance that was allowed me for my maintenance.
" Yet still 1 remained in my palace though with but a poor retinue and
means ; but the house was held too good for me : many messages were sent
by Mr. Corbet to remove me thence. The first pretence was, that the com-
mittee, who now was at charg'e for an house to sit it in, might make their
daily session there, being a place both more public, roomy, and chargeless.
Out we must, and that in three weeks' warning, by miasumnier-day then
approaching, so as we might have lain in the street for ought I know, had
not the providence of God so ordered it, that a neighbour in the close, one
Mr. Gostiin, a widower, v/as content to void his house for us.
" This hath been my measure, wherefore I know not ; Lord, thou knowest,
who only canst remedy, and end. and forgive or avenge this horrible op-
pression."— Bishop Hall's Hard Measure.
* " Dr. William Beal, master of St. John's College, Cambridge, being
active in gathering the University plate for his Majesty, was (with the ex-
cellent Dr. Sterne, now Lord Archbishop of York) sent, surrounded in their
respective colleges, carried to London in triumph, in which persecution
there was this circumstance remarkable : — ^That though there was an ex-
press order from the Lords for their imprisonment in the tower, which met
them at Tottenham high-cross, (wherein, notwithstanding, there was no
crime expressed,) yet they were led captive through Bartholomew-fair, and
so as far Temnle-bar, and back through the city into the tower, on purpose
that they miglit be hooted at or stoned ; and so for three years together
hurried from prison to prison, (after they were plundered and sequestered,
two words which signify an Mwrfoiw^",) without any legal charge against them,
or trial of them ; it being supposed surely that they would be famished at
land, and designed that they should be stifled when kept ten days under
deck at sea, or, all failing, to be sent as galley-slaves to Algiers, till this
worthy person was exchanged, and had liberty to go to Oxford to serve his
Majesty there, as he had done here, by a good example, constant fasts and
prayers, exact intelligence, convincing and comfortable sermons, as be did
all the while he lived; till his heart broke to see (what he always feared,
and endeavoured in vain to persuade the moderate part of the other side of)
his Majesty murdered, and he died suddenly with these words in his mouth,
(which thestanders-by understood with reference to the state of the public,
as well as the condition of his own private person,) I believe the resur-
rection. When Dr. Edward Martin was Masterof Queen's College, he was as
much persecuted by the faction for six or seven years from Cambridge to
Ely- house, thence to ship-board, and thence to the Fleet, with the same
disgrace and torment I mentioned before in Dr. Beal's life, for being
active in sending the University plate to the King, and in undeceiving
people about the proceedings of the pretended parliament, that is, in send-
ing to the King that which should have been plundered by his enemies ; and
preaching as much for him as others did against him. His sufferings were
both the smarter and the longer, because he would not own the usurpation
so much as to petition it for favour, being unwilling to own any power they
had to imprison him, by any address to them to release him.
"And when in a throng of other prisoners he had his liberty, he chose to be
an exile beyond sea at Paris, rather than submit to the tumult at home at
Y
330 Ari'EXDlX D.
scandal, imputing to them such notorious and enoi'mouS crimes,
as would have rendered them uncapable of life, as well as liv-
ings, if they had been proved. But that which added the
most weight to these oppressions, was the publishing of a mali-
cious and unchristian pamphlet, entitled, The Jirst century of
scandalous and malignant Piiests:* which whether it were
London or Cambridge. If he was too severe against the Presbyteries of the
Reformed Churches [abroad], which they set up out of necessity, it was out
of just indiguatioti against the Presbytery of England which set up itself
i)iii of schism. And when he thought it unlawful for a gentleman of the
Church of England to marry a French Presbyterian, it was because he was
transported by the oppression and outrage of the English. But being many
years beyond sea, he neither joined with the Calvinists, nor kept any com-
munion with the Papists ; but n-onfined himself to a congregation of old
English and primitive Protestants ; where, by his regular life and good
doctrine, he reduced some recusants to, and confirraeJ more doubters in,
the Protestant religion, so defeating the jealousies of his foes, and exceeding
the expectation of his friends. Returning with his Majesty, in lfi60, he was
restored to his own preferments." Lloyd's fforthies.
* In no part of their mystification of plain matters-of-fact have the Cal-
vinists failed so completely, as in this concerning scandalous ministers.
Allusion has been made to it in a pieceding page, 302 ; and it may be satis-
factorily proved, even at this distance of time, that, in many of the instances
adduced, no foundation whatever existed for the crimes alleged. When
parishioners were invited to bring accusations before a partial Committee,
many of them, preferring gain to godliness, viewed the minister of their
parish in the sole light ot the receiver of their tythes, and often invented
false statements concerning men of the greatest talents and piety. But several
of these sanguine farmers shared the common fateof ignorant reformers ; for,
the Presbyterian and other sectarian ministers that were inducted into the
sequestered livings, soon manifested a greater fondness for their tythes and
other rights of the church than their ejected predecessors, and were guilty
of as grievous exactions as those of which they had complained in the con-
duct of others. — In the following extract from Baxter's Kty for Catholics,
written while he enjoyed the benefice of an episcopal divine, whom Richard
vjith great disinterestedness considered to have been justly ejected for his
allced incompetency, it will be seen, the pious incumbent could talk, very
learnedly about tythes and maintenance, and accounted himself and his
Calvinistic brethren entitled to these perquisites on account of " having
L-ONF, so MUCH to take down the lordliness and riches of the clergy." But
he o'ives a modest hint to the ruling powers respecting the alienation of
church-lands of which they had been guilty. — See page 2(;8.
"Another reproach that the Papists cast on the ministry, is greediness,
covetousnes, and being hirelings. And therefore they put these into the
mouths of Quakers and other sectaries. And what is their ground .' for-
sooth, because we take tythes, or other set maintenance ; because we have
food and raiment, and our daily bread. I have said enough of the cause
itself in my several writings against the Quakers. If any doubt whether
the Papists be their teachers, orof the same mind, besides many greater evi-
dences, the manuscript from Wolverhampton before mentioned may be full
satisfaction. This tells men that ' for filthy lucre sake we scratch itching
• ears with doctrines of liberty ;' and thus it learnedly versifieth :
' With pleasing words they scratch all cars that itch.
• That Mammon (whom they serve) may make them rich.
' For they are mercenaries, that will be hir'd
* To preach what doctrines are by men desir'd.'
<< It is a well -known case that the ministers of this land, and of all the re-
formed churches, commonly do uiauy of them want necessaries, and some
want food and raiment, and the rest of them for the most part have little
more. Or if one of au liundred have two hundred pounds a year, it is ten
APPKNDIX P. 331
more odious in the sight of God, or more disgraceful to the
church, or offensive to all sober and religious men, it is hard
to say. And as it seems, the scandal of it was so great, that the
publisher thereof, though otherwise of a fiery and implacable
nature, desisted from the putting forth of a second century, though
he had promised it in the first, and was inclinable enough to
have kept his word. Instructions had been sent before to all
counties in England, for bringing in such informations against
their ministers as might subject them to the danger of a depri-
vation.* But the times were not then so apt for mischief, as to
serve their turns ; which made them fall upon these wretched
and unchristian courses to effect their purpose. By means
"whereof, they purged the church of almost all canonical and
orthodox men. The greatness of which desolation in all the
parts of the Kingdom, may be computed by the havock which
they made in London, and the parishes thereunto adjoining,
according as it is presented in the bill of mortality hereunto
subjoined."
to one but taxes and other payments bring it so low, that he hath no
superfluities. And some, that have not wives or children, do give all that
they can gather to the poor ; and some, upon my knowledge, give more to
charitable uses, than they receive for the work of their ministry, living on
their own means. And they have themselves been the means of taking down
the lordly prelacy and riches of the clergy: and though they would not have
had the lands devoted to the church to have been alienated, yetjthey would have
had it so distributed as might but have reached to have made themaiutenance
of ministers to be an hundred pounds a year. This was the height of their
covetousness and ambition, as you call it."
There is much craft in this statement. Baxter couples " the pastors of
the Reformed Churches" abroad with the dominant ecclesiastics at home, in
order to make out his case. " A hundred pounds a year for maintenance,"
however, was no bad stipend in those days ; and if the excellent men who
were wrongfully ejected had received half of tliat sum annually, they would
have accounted themselves in comparatively felicitous circumstances.
* " It may be easily imagined, with what a joyful willingness these self-
loving reformers took possession of all vacant preferments, and with what
reluctance others parted with their beloved colleges and subsistence : but
their consciences were dearer than both, and out they went ; the reformers
possessing them without shame or scruple, where 1 will leave these scruple-
mongers. — In London all the bishops' houses were turned to be prisons,
and they filled with divines that would not take the Covenant
or forbear reading the Common Prayer, or that were accused
for some faults like these. For it may be noted, that about
this time the parliament sent out a proclamation to encourage all lay-men
that had occasion to complain of their ministers, for being troublesome or
&c?it\f}i?i\o\x&, 01 that confortned not to orders of parliament, to make their
complaint to a select committee for that purpose ; and the minister, though
one hundred miles from London, was to appear there and give satisfaction,
or be sequestered; (and, you may be sure, no parish could want a covetous,
or malicious, or cross-grained com|jlainant :) by which means all prisons in
Loudon, and in many other places, became the sad habitations of conform-
ing divines. — The common people were made so happy, as that every parish
might choose their own minister, and tell him when he did, and when he
did not preach true doctrine: and by this and the like, means several
churches had several teachers, that prayed and preached for and against
one another; and engaged their hearers to contend furiously for truths
which they understood not." Isaac Walton.
V 2
332 AiMu;xi)ix D.
The Summary of this Billis as follows :
" The total of the Ministers of London, within this bill of moitalitv,
besides Pauls and Westminster, turned out of their livings. 11.5
Whereof Doctors in Divinity (most of them plundered of their goods,
and their wives and children turned out of doors) above . . 40
Imprisoned in London, and in tlie ships, and in several gaols and cas-
tles in the country ...... .20
Fled, to prevent imprisonment 25
Dead, in remote parts and prisons, with grief ... 22
And. at the same time, about forty churches void, having no
constant Minister in them.
" By this sad bill confined within the lines of communication, pn
London^ and some villages adjoining, we may conjecture at
the greatness of that mortality which fell amongst the regular
clergy in all parts of the kingdom, by plundering, sequestering,
and ejecting ;f or finally, by vexing them into their graves,
by so many miseries as were inflicted on them in the ships, or
their several prisons. In all which ways, more men were
outed of their livings by the Presbyterians in the space of
f Isaac Walton gives the following relation of the manner in which Dr.
Sanderson preserved his small living of Boothby Pannel, after he had been
ejectedfrom the Divinity chair at Oxford: — " There was cue Mr. Clarke,
the minister of Adliugton, who was an active man for the parliament and
covenant ; and one that, when Belvoir Castle (then a garrison for the par-
liament) was taken by a party of the king's soldiers, was taken in it, and
made a prisoner of war in Newark: they became so much concerned for his
enlargement, that the committee of Lincoln sent a troop of horse to seize and
bring Dr. Sanderson a prisoner to that garrison ; and they did so. And
there he had the happiness to meet with manv, that knew him so well as to
reverence and treat him kindly ; but told nim, ' He must continue their
prisoner, till he should purchase his own enlargement by procuring an ex-
change for Mr. Clarke, then prisoner in the king's garrison of Newark.' In
time done it was, upon the following conditions : That Dr. Sanderson and
Mr.Clarke, being exchanged, should live undisturbed at their own parishes;
and if either were injured by the soldiers of the contrary party, the other
having notice of it, should procure him a redress, by having satisfaction
made for his loss, or for anj' other injury ; or if not, he to be used in the
same kind by the other party. Nevertheless, Dr. Sanderson could neither
live safe, nor quietly, being several times plundered, and once wounded in
three places; but he, apprehending the remedy might turn to a more into-
lerable burthen by impatience or complaining, forbore both ; and possessed
his soul in a contented quietness, without the least repining. But though
he could not enjoy the safety he expected by this exchange, yet by his pro-
vidence that can bring good out of evil, it turned so much to his advantage,
that, whereas his living had been sequestered from the year 1644, and con-
tinued to be so till this time of his imprisonment, he, by the articles of war
in this exchange for Mr. Clarke, procured his sequestration to be recalled,
and by that means enjoyed a poor but more contented subsistence for him-
self, his wife and children, till the happy restoration of our king and church."
This is a fair specimen of the sufferings of those conscientious clergymen
who evinced their attachment to Episcopacy, and were at the same time
permitted to retain their benefices. What then must have been the suffer-
mgs of those poor divines who were plundered, sequestered and ejected I
APPKXDix r>. 3f33
three years, than were deprived by the Papists in the reign of
Queen Mary ; or had been silenced, suspencfed, or deprived,
by all the Bishops, from the first year of Queen Elizabeth, to
these very times. [[1642.^ And that it might be done with some
colour of justice, they instituted a committee for plundered
ministers,* under pretence of making some provision for such
godly preachers as had either suffered loss of goods by his Ma-
jesty's soldiers, or less of livings for adhering to the Houses of
Parliament. Under which stiles they brought in a confused
rabble of their own persuasions, or such at least as were most
likely to be serviceable to their ends and purposes ;f some of
which had no goods, and most of them no livings at all to lose.
But the truth was, they durst not trust the pulpits to the regu-
lar Clergy ; who, if they had offended against the laws, by the
same laws they ought to have been tried, condemned, and deprived
accordingly ; that so the patrons might present more deserving
persons to the vacant churches.:]; But then this could not stand
*" The persons invested with this authority, were called The Committee
FOR Plundered Ministers. By the royalists, however, they were deno-
minated The Committee for Plundering ministers : a designation which was
highly appropriate. In the month of July, 1G43, they were empowered to
receive int'ormation against Scandalous Ministers, and to deprive them of
their livings, though no Malignancy in regard to the Parliament were proved
against them. From this time the Committee for Scandalous Ministers, and
that for Plundered Ministers, were united, and continued so to the end of
the Long Parliament.
" This Committee made terrible havock of the regular Clergy. It exclud-
ed from the Church many comparatively worthless ministers, whose faults
it was careful to emblazon before the world, to the scandal of religion and
public morals ; but it treated not a few upright, learned, and pious men
with great severity, because of their conscientious attachment to episcopacy
and to their king. Who can repress the feeling of indignation, on finding
that such men as the Ever-Memorable Hales of Eton, and Dr. Brian Wal-
ton, the immortal Editor of London Polyglot Bible, were by this Committee
deprived of their ecclesiastical preferments, and left to starve, or subsist by
the kindness of their friends ?" Jackson's Life of Goodwin.
\ " Dec. 4, 1G53. Going this day to our church [Depiford] I was surprized
to see a tradesman, a mechanic, step up : I was resolTEd yet to stay and see
what he would make of it. His text was from 2 Sam. xxvi, 20: 'And
Senaiahwent down also, and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in the time of
snoiv.' The purport was, that no danger was to be thought difficult whea
God called for shedding of blood ; inferring, that now the Saints were called
to destroy temporal governments — with sucli feculent stuff. So dangerous a
crisis were things grown to!" Evelyn's Diary.
X " Now not only my rents present, but the arrearages of the former years,
which I had in favour forborne to some tenants, being treaclierously confessed
to the sequestrators, were by them called for, and taken from me ; neither
was there any course at all taken for my maintenance. 1 therefore addressed
myself to the committee sitting here at Norwich, and desired them to give
order for some means, out of that large patrimony of the church, to be
allowed me. They all thought it very just, and there being present Sir
Thomas Woodhouse, and Sir John Potts, parliament men, it was moved
and held fit by them and the rest, that the proportion which the votes of the
parliament had pitched upon, vi.?. ^'400 per annum, should be allowed to
me. My lord of Manchester, who was then conceived to have great power
in matter of these sequestj-ations, was moved herewith. He apprel;ended it
very just and reasonable, and wrote to the committee here to set out so
334' APPENDIX D.
■with the main design : For possibly the patrons might present
such clerks as "would go on in the old way, and could not be
admitted but by taking the oaths of supremacy and allegiance
to our Lord the King ; and by subscribing to the discipline and
doctrine of the Church of England, which they were then
resolved to alter. Or, could they have prevailed so far with
the several patrons, as to present those very men whom they
had designed unto the profits of the sequestered benefices ; yet
then they were to have enjoyed them for term of life, and
might pretend a legal right and title to them, which would
have cut off that dependance on the Houses of Parliament,
■which this design did chiefly aim at. So that the best of this
new Clergy were but Tenants at will ; and therefore must be
servile and obsequious to their mighty landlords, upon whose
pleasure they depended for their present livelihood.t
many of the manors belonging to this bishopric as should amount to the said
sum of ^400 annually ; which vvas answerably done ur.der the hands of the
whole table. And now 1 well hoped, I should yet have a good competency
of maintenance out of that plentiful estate which I might have had; but
those hopes were no sooner conceived than dashed ; Tor before I could
gather up one quarter's rent, there comes down an order from the com-
mittee for sequestrations above, under the hand of Serjeant Wild the chair-
man, procured by Mr. Miles Corbet, to inhibit any such allowance; and
telling our committee here, that neither they, nor any other had power to
allow me any thing at all : but if my wife found herself to need a mainte-
nance, upon her suit to the committee of Lords and Commons, it might be
granted that she should have a fifth part, according to the ordinance,
allowed for the sustentation of herself and her family. Hereupon she sends
a petition up to that committee, which after a long delay was admitted to
be read, and an order granted for the fifth part. But still the rents and
revenues both of my spiritual and temporal lands were taken up by the
sequestrators, both in Norfolk, and Suffolk, and Essex, and we kept off
from either allowance or account. At last, upon much pressing, Beadle
the solicitor, and Rust the collector, brought in an account to the com-
mittee, such as it was ; but so confused and perplexed, and so utterly
imperfect, that we could never come to know what a fifth part meant : but
they were content that 1 should eat my books by setting off the sum, en-
gaged for them out of the fifth part. — Whiles I received nothing, yet some-
thing was required of me. They were not ashamed, after they had taken
away and sold all my goods and personal estate, to come to me for assess-
ments, and monthly payments for that estate which they had taken, and
took distresses from me upon my most just denial, and vehemently required
me to find the wonted arms of my predecessors, when they had left me
nothing." Hinhop Hall's HurdMeasure.
•f At the close of this paragraph Dr. Heylin has given us the true reason of
the servility so conspicuous in the chief divines who accepted preferment
during the continuance of the Commonwealth. To insure ministerial faith-
fulness, it is necessary that every pastor should be independent of the people
of his charge, both with regard to stipend and continuance in office. Such
a system, like every thing earthly, is capable of being abused ; and, on this
account, it would be absurd to contend, that noneof the episcopal divines who
•were ejected had formerly abused this liberty : That would be in effect to say,
that they were not human beings, but in a condition so stable and angelical
as rendered them incapable of being perverted. But it may be confidently
averred, that, in all cases in which it is possible to institute a comparison
between the effects of the two systems, for one pastor that errs through neg-
lect of duty, two may be found in the opposite system whose error consists
in men-pleasing, servility, and sometimes in the most disgusting hypocrisy.
APPENDIX D. ^335
" The Scots having raised an army of eighteen thousand foot,
and three thousand horse, taking the dragoons into the reckon-
ing, break into England in the depth of winter. Anno l643,
and marched almost as far as the banks of the river Tyne,
without opposition. There they received a stop by the coming
of the Marquis of Newcastle, with his northern army, and
entertained the time with some petit skirmishes, till the sad
news of the surprise of Selby by Sir Thomas Fairfax compelled
him to return towards Vork with all his forces, for the preserv-
ing of that place, on which the safety of the north did depend
especially. The Scots march after him amain, and besiege that
city, in which they were assisted by the forces of the Lord
Fairfax, arid the Earl of Manchester, who by the Houses were
commanded to attend that service. The issue whereof was
briefly this ; that having worsted the great army of Prince Ru-
A few eminent royalists, through providential circumstances, retained
their livings : This was the case with Dr. Sanderson, Dr. Pierce, Mr. Bull,
and some others, who had been deprived of the offices which they held in the
University. They contrived to make some slio;ht variation " from the strict
rules of Ffubric," and adhered, as far as they lavyfully could, to the excellent
forms of the Common Prayer in the celebration of public worship. While
io;norance and fanaticism were continuing their march of devastation
tiirough the land, these great and good men devoted their leisure to import-
ant occupations for the benefit of future ages. Beside the numerous books
of devotion that were then composed and published t)y the episcopal clergy,
several of ihem were engaged with Dr. Brian Walton, in the completion of
tbat most erudite and valuable work, the London Polvglott Bible. Short
biographical notices of the good Bishop's accomplished co-adjutors have
lately been given in his Life, by the learned editor of " Dr. Johnson's Dic-
tionary," the Rev. John Todd, A. M. F. R. S. &c. To that great undertaking
allusion is made at the close of the following quotation by Dr. Pierce, who
was one of the ever-horioured labourers:
" Nor can 1 guess at the reason, why he takes an occasion to tell the
■world, that he hath very few hearers of all his good preaching ; as if it were
a fine thing to be insufferable in a pulpit, and to preach men out of their
patience. But if he is, in good earnest, so much more painful and more
■wholesome in his preaching tlian I am, why do the chiefest and most intelli-
gent of his parisliioners take the pains to go from him no less than two
miles, as well in the Winter, as in the Summer.' If he is not already, 1
do wish with all my heart he were, as much beyond me in every thing that is
good, as he can imagine, or desire: [Jpon condition I might not be worse
than I am, I would be glad if every creature might be abundantly better.
Though a pastor's pains should not be measured by his preaching, (there
being many other duties incumbent on him,) yet he knows I am a weekly
preacher. And if he is more, I cannot think the better of him, or that he
takes the more, but fperhapsj the less, pains. For many have found it by
experience, {exceptmg the labour of lips cmd lungs,] a much easier thing to
preach twice every week in one manner , than once a fortnight in another.
J.Iust all those glories and ornaments, those venerable supports of our En-
glish Church, (the very latchets of whose shoes, ive weekly preachers are
hardly worthy to untie,) be either hinted or held forth to be ' lazy lubbers,'
because their lips do not labour twice a week in a pulpit ? Let those learned,
industrious, and righteous men (not to be named or thought on without a
preface of highest reverence and honour,) be once restored to those places
h'om v/hich tbey were thrown by none other than Presbyterians, and they
vi\\\ preach more ;7i one day, than any correptory corrector can do in tu'enty
years .' And, whilst they are not "preaching, they are doing thir.gs of
sreater moment,"
336 Ari'ENDix D.
pert* at Marston-moor, on the second of July, York yielded on
composition upon that day fortnight; the Marquis of Newcastle,
with many gentlemen of great note and quality, shipped them-
selves for France ; and the strong town of Newcastle took in by
the Scots on the j 9th of October then next following. More
fortunate was his Majesty with his Southern army, though at
the first he was necessitated to retire from Oxon at such time as
the forces under Essex and Waller did appear before it. The
news whereof being brought unto them, it was agreed that
Waller should pursue the King, and that the Earl's army should
march westward to reduce those countries. And here the mys-
tery of iniquity began to shew itself in its proper colours. For
whereas they pretended to have raised their army for no other
end, but only to remove the King from his evil counsellors,
those evil counsellors, as they call them, were left at Oxon, and
the King only hunted by his insolent enemies. But the King,
having totally broken Waller in the end of June, marched after
Essex into Devonshire, and having shut him up in Cornwall,
where he had neither room for forage, nor hope of succours, he
forced him to fly ingloriously in a skifFor cockboat, and leave
his army in a manner to the conqueror's mercy. But his horse
having the good fortune to save themselves, the King gave
* This young Prince was the son of the ex-king of Bohemia and of King
Charles's sister ; and his employment in the English army at that eventful
juncture must present, to a reflecting mind, one of those remarkable muta-
tions to which families as well as individuals are subject in this world, and
which are over-ruled by the good providence of God to the accomplishment of
his own wise purposes. Prince Rupert had to fight against those very Calvi-
nists by whose aid his father had once hoped to become Emperor of Germany
as well as King of Bohemia ; and his principal associates in arms were per-
sons, who, if they made any profession of religion at ail, called themselves
" Arminians," and whose principles his nearest relatives bad contributed to
vilify and condemn, at the Synod of Dort and on subsequent occasions. See
pages 242, 255.
But the Lady Elizabeth, the Elector Palatine, and their royal offspring,
had learnt wisdom by their sufferings ; and, long before the commencement
of the Civil Wars, had begun to cultivate the friendship of the Arminians
both in Holland and England. They professed the greatest regard for Gro-
tius : And his friend Johnson, to whom reference has been made in page 216,
was chaplain to the Queen of Bohemia. Respecting this accomplished cler-
gyman, Vossius thus writes to Grotius in 16'42, at a period when the latter
wished, as a peace-maker, that some one would reply to the slanders of
Rivet, and had recommended that service to Vossius and Johnson ; and this
extract may be considered as their answer to his application : " And Doctor
Johnson, chaplain to the Queen of Bohemia, has just been here. When I
told him, that the time was nearly expired for delivering my letter to the
French messenger, and after I had said that I was transmitting it to you, he
requested me to present his best compliments to your excellency. He desired
me also to add, that an accusation has been preferred against him, in the
English Parliament, for heterodoxy; and not merely against him, but
against the Queen also, for bestowing her patronage upon such a heretic. —
But by the prudence of certain individuals, this affair was dismissed without
further discussion." — At such a juncture, it would have been impolitic to
interfere with the project of Grotius, however highly it might be approved.
But Johnson and Vossius had other more powerful reasons why they declined
this euterprize in a manner the least calculated to give offence.
APPENDIX I>. 357
quarter to the foot, reserving to himself their cannons, arms^
and ammunition, as a sign of his victory. Ami here again the
war might possibly have been ended, if the Khig had followed
his good fortune, and marched to London, before the Earl of
Essex had united his scattered forces and Manchester was
returned from the northern service. But setting down before
Plymouth now, as he did before Gloucester the last year, he lost
the opportunity of effecting his purpose, and was fought withal
at Newbury, in his coming back, where neither side could boast
of obtaining the victory.
" But howsoever, having gained some reputation by his wes-
tern action, the houses seem inclinable to accept his offer of
entering into treaty with him for an accommodation. This he
had offered by his message from Evesham on the 4th of July,
immediately after the defeat of Waller ; and pressed it by another
from Tavistock on the 8th of September, as soon as he had
broken the great army of the Earl of Esses. To these they
hearkened not at f.rst. But being sensible of the out-cries of
the common people, they condescend at last, appointing Ux-
bridge for the place, and the thirtieth day of January for the
time thereof. For a preparative whereunto, and to satisfy the
the importunity and expectation of their brethren of Scotland,
they attaint the Arch-bishop of High Treason,* in the House of
* "In his last sad sermon on the scaffold at his death,he did (as our blessed
Saviour advised his disciples) pray for those tliat persecuted and despitefully .
used him. And not only pardoned those enemies, but dispassionately begged
of Almighty God that he would also pardon them ; and besought all the pre-
sent beholders of this sad sight, that they would pardon and pray for him.
But though he did all this, yet he seemeii to accuse the magistrates of the
city, for not suppressing a sort of people whose malicious and furious zeal
had so far transported them, and violated all modesty, that though they
could not know whether he were justly or unjustly condemned, were yet
sutFered to go visibly up and down to gather hands to a petition, that the par-
liament ivoidd hasten his execution. And he having declared how unjustly be
thought himself to be condemned, and accused for endeavouring to bring in
Popery, (for that was one of the accusations for which he died,) he declared
with sadness, ' That the several sects and divisions then in England (which
' he had laboured to prevent) were now like to bring the Pope a far greater
' harvest, than he could ever have expected without them ;' and said,
' these sects and divisions introduce prophaneness under the cloak of an ima-
' giuary religion,' and ' that we liave lost the substance of religion by
* changing it into opinion ;' and, ' that by these means the Church of Eng-
* land, which all the Jesuits' machinations could not ruin, was fallen into
* apparent danger by those [covenanters] which were his accusers.' To this
purpose he spoke at bis death; for which, and more to the same purpose,
the reader may view his last sad sermon on the scaffold." Walton's L,i/e of
Bishop Sanderson.
'Ihe conduct of Archbishop Laud in the whole of his misfortunes was
consistent, dignified, and pious. " He was brought to the scaffold, Jan. 10,
1645, after he had endured some affronts in his anti-chamber in the Tower,
by some sons of schism and sedition, who unseasonably, that morning he
was preparing himself to appear before the Great Bishop of our souls, would
have him give some satisiacuon to the godly, (for so they called themselves,)
for bis persecutions, which he called discipline. To whom he answered.
That he was now shortly to give an account of all his actions at an higJter
338 APPENDIX n.
Commons, and pass their bill by ordinance In the House of
Peers, in which no more than seven Lords did concur to the
sentence ; but being sentenced howsoever, by the malice of the
and more equal tribunal, and desired he might not be disturbed in his prepa-
rations for it. Others asked him (to ruffle his soul into a passion, now he
was fairly folding it up, to deliver it into the hands of his Redeemer,)
' What were the most comfortable words a man should die with in his mouth?'
And he mildly answered, ' I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ :'
adding meekly, (when asked Hmva man at that time might express his assu-
rance,) ' That such assurance was to be found within, grounded on the word
of God concerning Christ's dying for us, and that no words were able to ex-
press it rightly.'
" Having stripped him of all the honours of an archbishop, they would
have denied him the privilege of a malefactor, to have his own worthy con-
fessor Dr. Sterne, since Archbishop of York, about him ; taking it so ill,
that he would not admit of Marshall, (that was fitter to be the executioner,
than a chaplain,) that because he would not die according to the humour of
the Presbyterians, he should not die in the honourable way of an Archbishop.
Being brou»htout of the tower to the scaffold, he ascended it with an extra-
ordinarily cneerful and ruddy countenance, as if he had mounted rather to
have beheld a triumph, than to be made a sacrifice ; and came not there to
die but to be translated, and exchange his mitre for the crown of martyr-
dom.
" The clearness of his conscience being legible in the cheerfulness of his
dying looks, as the serenity of the weather is understood by the glory and
ruddiness of the setting sun ; there desiring to have room to die, and declar-
ing that he was more willing to go out of the world, than any man to send
him; he first took care to stop the thinks near the block, and remove the
people he spied under it, expressing himself that it was no part of his desire
that his blood should fall upon the heads of the people; in which desire it
pleased God he was so far gratified, that there remaining a small hole from
a knot in the midst of a board, the fore-finger of his right hand at his death
happened to stop that also : and then at once pardoning and overcoming his
enemies, many of whom coming thither to insult, went away to weep for
him, who had this peculiar happiness with his master, that he gained that
reverence by his adversity, that neither he nor any gained in prosperity."
His prayer on the scaffold is peculiarly affecting. After commending him-
self to '• the riches and fulness of God's mercies," he thus most devoutly
poured out his soul before the mercy-seat of Heaven : " I ,ook upon me, but
not till thou hast nailed my sins to the cross of Christ, but not till thou hast
bathed me in the blood of Christ, not till 1 have hid myself in the wounds of
Christ ; that so the punishment due unto my sins may pass over me. And
since thou art pleased to try me to the uttermost, 1 most humbly beseech
thee, give me now, in this great instance, full patience, proportionalile com-
fort, and a heart ready to die for thine honour, the king's happiness, and
this church's preservation. And my zeal to these (far from arrogancy be it
spoken!) is all the sin (human frailty excepted, and all incidents thereto)
which is yet known to me in this particular, for which I come now to suffer :
I say, in this particular of treason. But otherwise my sius are many and
great: Lord, pardon them all, and those especially (whatever they are)
which have drawn down this present judgment upon me. And when' thou
hast given me strength to bear it, do with me as seems best in thine own
eyes. Amen.
'•'And that there may be a stop of this issue of blood, in this more than
miserable kingdom, () Lord, I beseech thee, give grace of repentance to all
blood-thirsty people. But if they will not repent, O Lord, defeat and frus-
trate all their designs and endeavours, which are or shall be contrary to the
glory of thy great name, the truth and sincerity of religion, the establish-
ment of the King and his posterity after him in their just rights and privi-
leges, the honour and conservation of Parliaments in their just jjower, the
preservation of this poor church in her truth, peace and patrimony, and the
APpENnix D. 339
Presbyterians both Scots and English, he was brought to act the
last part of his^tragedy on the 10th of January, as shall be told
at large in another place. This could presage no good success to
the following treaty. For though covenants sometimes may
be written in blood, yet I find no such way for commencing
treaties. And to say truth, the King's commissioners soon found
what they were to trust to : For, having condescended to ac-
company the commissioners from the Houses of Parliament,
and to be present at a sermon preached by one of their chap-
lains, on the first day of the meeting, they found what little
hopes they had of a good conclusion. The preacher's name was
I-ove, a Welshman, and one of the most fiery Presbyters in all
the pack : In whose sermon there were many passages very
scandalous to his Majesty's person, and derogatory to his honour;
stirring up the people against the treaty, and incensing them
against the King's commissioners ; telling them, ' that they came
* with hearts full of blood ; and that there was as great a dis-
* tance betwixt the treaty and peace, as there was between hea-
' ven and hell.' Of this the Oxon Lords complained, but could
obtain no reparation for the King or themselves; though after-
wards Cromwell paid the debt, and brought him to the scaffold
when he least looked for it."*
settlement of this distracted and distressed people nnder their ancieut laws
and in their native liberties. And when thou hast done all this in mere mer-
cy for them, O Lord, fill their hearts with thankfulness, and with religious
dutiful obedience to thee and thy commandments all their days. So, Amen
LordJesu, Amen!"
* The 'contrast'fbetween Mr. Love and Archbishop Laud is very strik-
in":. It is stated " as a circumstance contributing to make the death of the
former appear the more judicial, that, when Archbishop Laud was beheaded,
this Mr. Love, in a most inhuman triumph, flourished his handkerchief
dipt in the blood of that great and venerable prelate."
Finding that the Parliament did not act according to his wishes. Love and
some other Presbyterians entered into a conspiracy for the overthrow of their
formerly much-esteemed Republican government. Aftera trial of si.\ days, lie
was convicted of treason (June 27,1651) and the court pronounced sentence of
death upon him as a traitor. In his defence he said : " I have been called a
malignant and apostate; but God is my witness, I never carried on a ma-
lignant interest : I still retain my covenanting principles, from which, by
the grace of God, I will never depart. Neither am I an incendiary between
the two nations of England and Scotland ; but I am grieved for their divi-
sions ; and if I had as much blood in my veins as there is water in the sea, I
would count it well spent to quench the fire that our sins have kindled be-
tween them. 1 have all along engaged my life and estate in the Parliament's
quarrel, against the forces raised against the late King ; not from a prospect
of advantage, but from conscience and duty : and 1 am so far from repent-
ing, that, were it to do again upon the same unquestionable authority, and
for the same declared ends, I should as readily enga^^e in it as ever, though
I wish from my soul that the ends of that just warhad been better accom-
plished."— What hold could any government have on a man who avowed
sentiments like these ? His " covenanting principles" were so accommodat-
ing as to be turned with equal facility in favour of a Commonwealth or a
Monarchy. In one of Sir Henry Vane's letters to Cromwell, a little before
that period, he writes thus concerning Mr. Love : " I am daily confirmed in
my opinion, that he and his brethren do stillretain their old leaven, and are
340 APPENDIX D.
He afterwards thus alludes to the great schism among the
Puritans and the treaty that was proposed between the King
and Parliament :
[not] ingenuous at all towards us, whatever they pretend; but have dexter-
ity enough to take us on our weak side, thinking thereby to save themselves
entire in their principles, and gain some, while this decisive work in Scot-
laud be over. For it is plain unto me, that they do not judge us a lawful
MAGISTRACY, or esteem anything treason that is acted by them to destroy
us, in order to bring the King of Scots as head of the Covenant. Yet whilst
such, they help up their party in the face of us, and for their better encou-
ragement meet with clemency and favour from us ; unto which you are much
depended upon to cast in also your influence , to balance your brother Heron
who is taken for a back-friend to the Black Coats."
The reader will perceive from this extract, that Love and his friends were
concerned in that enterprize of Charles the Second, which terminated fatally
to his cause in the defeat at Worcester. Great intercession was made to the
men in power in behalf of Mr. Love. The republican Colonel Hammond,
brother to the loyal Doctor, (seepage 297,) writes thus to Cromwell, July
22 : " When I had the honour to know you well, it was your lordship's way
in your affairs, (and sure it was the good way, the way of God,) to give a
full summons before blood was shed. 1 cannot say but this poor man [Love]
might have avoided his offence from what was to be known ; but such an
eminent warning as this, if not received, will leave like offenders for ever
altogether inexcusable. But, most of all, the hearts of many, if not the
most, of good men here, of all parties, are exceedingly set to save his life
from this ground — that it may be a means to unite the hearts of all good men
the bent of whose spirits is set to walk m the ways of the Lord. For certainly
though some of them are under severe bondage, and do not only vvan't
themselves spiritual liberty, but are at enmity with those that have it, from
their own dark forms and principles, yet they [the Presbyterians] are to be
preferred far before a generation that does much increase, who are turned
aside out of the good way, aud turn the grace of God into wantonness, and
pursue iniquity with greediness, following the lusts of their own corrupted
hearts, till they are carried to that excess of wickedness that is hardly to be
named among christians. Such as these, and the irreconcileable generation
of Cavaliers, do especially boast aud please themselves in their hopes of the
destruction of this poor man."
But all intercession was unavailing : He was brought to the scaffold on the
22d of August. In his address to the people, he said, among other things :
" 1 am this day made a spectacle unto God, to angels, and to men. I am
made a grief to the godly, a laughing-stock to the wicked, and a gazing-
stock to all: yet, blessed be God, I am not a terror to myself: though there
is but a little between me and death, there is but a little between me and
heaven. — I am for a regulated mixed monarchy, which J judge to be one of
the best governments in the world. I opposed, in my place, the forces of the
late king ; because 1 am against screwing up monarchy into tyranny, as
much as against those who would pull it down to anarchy. I was always
against putting the King to death, whose person I promised in my covenant
to preserve ; and I judge it an ill way of curing the body politic, to cut off
the political head. 1 die with my judgment against the eng-agement : I pray
God to forgive them who impose, and them who take it, and preserve them
who refuse it. Neither would 1 be looked upon as owning the present go-
vernment: I die with my judgment against it. And I die cleaving to all
those oaths, vows, covenants and protestations, which were iuiposed by the
two houses of Parliament. I have abundant peace in my own mind, that I
have set myself against the sins aud apostacies of the time. Although my
faithfulness hath procured me the ill-will of men, it hath secured me peace
with God : 1 have livet! in peace, and I shall die in peace." How far his ran-
cour personally against the king could consist with these protestations of his
love for " a mixed monarchy," the reader may easily determitie. The whole
of his address and of his prayer, however, was highly confirmatory of the
reasoning contained in Vane's letter to Cromwell, The account of Love's
APPENDIX D. 341
" These proposals did not satisfy the Puritan English, much
less the Presbyterian Scots, who were joined in that treaty.
They were resolved upon the abolition of Episcopacy, both
root and branch ; of having the militia for seven years abso-
lutely, and afterwards to be disposed of as the King and the
Houses could agree ; and finally, of excercising such an unli-
mited poAver in the war of Ireland, that the King should nei-
ther be able to grant a cessation, to make a peace, nor to show
mercy unto any of that people on their due submission. And
from the rigour of these terms, they were not to be drawn by
the King's commissioners ; which rendered the whole treaty
fruitless, and frustrated the expectation of all loyal subjects,
who languished under the calamity of this woful war. For as
the treaty cooled, so the war grew hotter ; managed for the
most part by the same hands, but by different heads : concern-
ing which, we are to know, that, not long after the beginning
of this everlasting parliament, the Puritan faction became sub-
divided into Presbyterians and Independents.* And at the
trial and execution states : "He then prayed with a loud voice, saying [among
other things] : "Father, my hour is come. Thy poor creature cau say,
without vanity and falsehood, he hath desired to glorify thee on earth ; glo-
rify thou him now in heaven. He hath desired to bring the souls of other
men to heaven ; let now his soul be brought to heaven. Lord, heal the
breaches of these nations : Make England and Scotland as one staff in the
Lord's hand ; that Ephraim may not envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim j
but that both may fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines. O that men of
the Protestant religion, engaged in the same cause and covenant, may not
delight to spill each other's blood, but engage against the common adversary
of religion and liberty ! God shew mercy to all who fear him. Lord, think
upon our covenant- keeping brethren of the kingdom of Scotland. Keep them
faithful to thee ; and let not those who have invaded them overspread their
land. Prevent the shedding of more christian blood, if it seem good in thine
eyes. God shew mercy to thy poor servant, who is now giving up the ghost.
O blessed Jesus, apply thy blood, not only for my justification unto lite, but
also for my comfort, for the quieting of my soul, that so 1 may be in the joys
of heaven before 1 come to the possession of heaven."
The behaviour of these two men in the awful article of death was exceed-
ingly dissimilar. It is not difficult to say, which of them witnessed the best
and most christian confession before men, and behaved in a manner befit-
ting such a solemn occasion. Love had stated to the court on his trial :
" The Act of August 2, 1650, makes it treason to hold any correspondence
with Scotland, onto send letters thither. Here my counsel acquaints me with
my danger, because, being present when letters were read at my bouse, I am
guilty of co7icealment : and therefore 1 lay myself at your feet for mercy."
Yet. though thus self-convicted of treason against the government under
which he lived, in the settlement of which he had greatly interested himself,
he could say boldly on the scaffold : " 1 see men thirst after my blood, which
will only hasten my happiness and "their ruin. For though lam of a mean
parentage, my blood is the blood of a christian, of a minister, of an inno-
cent MAN, and of A MARTVR, and this 1 speak without vatiity I"
These and other circumstances, when impartially considered, will pro-
duce this conclusion — Archbishop Laud manifested in his dying moments
much of the contrite and humble spirit of the publican, while Love dis-
played many traits of the boasting Pharisee.
•In the letter of Vossius, already quoted, page 314, he proceeds to say: —
" But those who are opposed to the Bishops, are of different judgments on
one topic. Many of them wish all the power of church-government to be
342 APPENDIX D.
first, the Presbyterians carried all before them both in camp
and council : But growing jealous at the last of the Earl of
Essex, whose late miscarriage in the West was looked on as a
plot to betray his army, they suffered him to be wormed out
of his commission ; and gave the chief command of all to Sir
Thomas Fairfax, with whose good services and affections they
were well acquainted: To him they joined Lieutenant Gereral
Oliver Cromwell, who from a private Captain had obtained to
be Lieutenant to the Earl of Manchester in the associated
Counties, as they commonly called them ; and having done
good service in the battle of Marston-moor, was thought the
fittest man to conduct their forces. And on the other side, the
Earl of Brentford, (but better known by the name of General
Ruthven,) who had commanded the King's army since the fight
at Edge-hill, was outed of his place by a Court-contrivement,
and that command conferred upon Prince Rupert, the King's
sister's son, not long before made Duke of Cumberland and
Earl of Holderness.
" By these new Generals, the fortune of the war, and conse-
quently the fate of the kingdom which depended on it, came
to be decided. And at the first, the King seemed to have much
the better by the taking of Leicester ; though afterwards it
turned to his disadvantage : for many of the soldiers, being
loaded with the spoil of the place, withdrew themselves for the
disposing of their booty, and came not back unto the army,
vested iu a Presbyterian Assembly. But the rest of them declare, that such
a yoke is mofe grievous than that of the Bishops : They contend, therefore,
that such power must be committed to each pastor separately, that he may
teach the people and govern them according to the word of God. The latter
are called Independents, to distinguish them from the Episcopalians and
the Presbyterians, as they style themselves. Pym, whose influence in Par-
liament is very great, is said to be of the same sentiments as the Presbyteri-
ans. But many persons who seem to agree with him on other points, oppose
him in this : And it is the opinion of multitudes, that, though these two
parties may effect a double triumph, in the destruction of the whole of the
kijig's authority and in the abolition of Episcopacy, yet in a short time they
will be completely at variance with each other; because multitudes enter-
tain no less antipathy to the power of the Presbytery than to that of the Bis-
hops."
The Independents displayed this very hatred of Presbyterianism, before
the ^e^ 0/ Uniformity VI AS passed at the Restoration, as Clarendon informs
lis in his Life : " It is very true, from the time of his majesty's coming
into England, he had not been reserved in the admission of those who had
been his greatest enemies, to his presence. — The Presbyterian ministers
he received with grace, and did believe that he should work upon them by
persuasions, having been well acquainted with their common arguments by
the conversation he had had in Scotland, and was very able to confute them.
— 1 he Independents had as free access, both that he might hinder any
conjunction between the other factions, and because they seemed wholly to
depend upon his majesty's will and pleasure without resorting to the Parlia-
ment, in which they had no confidence ; and had rather tfiat Episcopacy
should flourish again, than that the Presbyterians should govern. — The
King had always. admitted the Quakers for his divertisement and mirth ;
because he thought, that of all the factions they were the most innocent, and
had least of malice in their natures against his person and his government."
APPENDIX D. 343
til] it was too late. News also came, that Fairfax with his army
had laid siege to Oxon, which moved the King to return back
as far as Daventry, there to expect tlie re-assembling of his
scattered companies. Which happening as Fairfax had desired,
he marched hastily after him, with an intent to give him battle
on the first opportunity : In Avhich he was confirmed by two
great advantages ; first, by the seasonable coming of Cromwell
with a fresh body of horse, which reached him not until the
evening before the fight : and secondly, by the intercepting of
some letters sent from General Goring, in which his Majesty
was advised to decline all occasion of battle, till he could come
up to him with his Western forces. This hastened the design
of fighting in the ad vei'se party, who fall upon the King's army
in the fields near Naisby, (till that time an obscure village,) in
Northamptonshire: on Saturday, the IQth of June, the battles
joined ; and at first his Majesty had the better of it, and might
have had so at the last, if Prince Rupert, having routed one
wing of the enemy's horse, had not been so intent upon the
chase of the flying enemy, that he left his foot open to the
other wing; who, pressing hotly on them, put them to an ab-
solute rout, and made themselves masters of his camp, car-
riage, and cannon; and, amongst other things, of his Majesty's
cabinet : In which they found many of his letters, most of them
written to the Queen : which afterwards were published by
command of the Houses, to their great dishonour. For whereas
the Athenians, on the like success, had intercepted a packet of
letters from Philip King of Macedon, their most bitter enemy,
unto several friends, they met with one amongst the rest to the
Queen Olympias ; the rest being all broken open before the
council, that they might be advertised of the enemy's purposes,
the letter to the Queen was returned untouched ; the whole
Senate thinking it a shameful and dishonest act to pry into the
conjugal secrets betwixt man and wife.*
* The following quotation from Clarendon's Life, though hi;^hly honour-
able to the character of the King as a good husband, is derogatory to him
as the Supreme Governour of a free nation, and affords a good clue to many
of the misfortunes which befel his cause under this system of favouritism
and consequent mismanagement. From such disclosures as these, we must
form a high opinion of the loyalty and devotedness of those excellent men
who, while they frequently were tiiemselves sutferers from this unrighteous
system of government, adhered with invincible integrity to their liege Lord
and his forlorn hopes to the very close of his unsuccessful enterprizes.
" The King's affection to the Queen was of a very extraordmary alloy ; a
composition of conscience, and love, and generosity, and gratitude, and all
those noble affections which raise the passion to the greatest height : inso-
much as he saw with her eyes, and determined by her judgment. And did
not only pay her this adoration, but desired that all men should know that
be was swayed by her : which was not good for either of them. The Queen
was a lady of great beauty, excellent wit and humour, and made him a just
return of noblest affections ; so that they were the true idea of conjugal af-
fection, in the age in which they lived. When she was admitted to the kni)W-
ledge aud participatiou of the most secret affairs, (from which she had been
344 APPENDIX D.
" This miserable blow was followed by the surrendry of Bris-
tol, the storming of Bridgwater, the surprise of Hereford, and,
at the end of winter, with the loss of Chester. During which
time the King moved up and down with a running army, but
with such ill fortune as most commonly attends a declining side.
Tired with repulse upon repulse, and having lost the small
remainder of his forces near Stow-on-the-Wold, he puts him-
self, in the beginning of May, into the hands of the Scots com-
missioners, residing then at Southwell in the County of Notting-
ham, a manor-house belonging to the See of York. For the
Scots having mastered the northern parts, in the year 1644,
spent the next year in harrassing the country, even as far as
Hereford ; which they besieged for a time, and perhaps had
carried it, if they had not been called back by the letters of
some special friends, to take care of Scotland, then almost
reduced to the King's obedience, by the noble Marquis of Mon-
trose. On which advertisement they depart from Hereford, face
Worcester, and so marched northward : from whence they pre-
sently dispatch Col. David Lesly, with six thousand horse;
and with their foot employed themselves in the siege of
Newark ; which brought down their commissioners to Southwell,
carefully restrained by the Duke of Buckingham, whilst he lived,) she took
delight in the examiuing and discussing them, and from thence in making
judgment of them; in which her passions were always strong.
" She had felt so much pain in knowing nothing and meddling with no-
thing, during the time of that great favourite, that now she took pleasure in
nothing but knowing all things, and disposing all things; and thought it
but just, that she should dispose of all favours and preferments, as he had
done ; at least, that nothing of that kind might be done, without her privity:
Not considering, that the universal prejudice tliat great man had undergone,
was not with reference to his person but his power ; and that the same power
would be equally obnoxious to murmur and complaint, if it resided in any
other person than the King himself. And she so far concurred with the
King's inclination, that she did not more desire to be possessed of this unli-
mited power, than that all the world should take notice thatjshe was the
entire mistress of it : Which in truth (what other unhappy circumstances
soever concurred in the mischief) was the foundation upon which the first and
the utmost prejudices to the king and his government were raised and pro-
secuted. And it was her Majesty's and the kingdom's misfortune, that she
had not any person about her who had either ability or affection to inform
and advise her of the temper of the kingdom, or humour of the people, or
who thought either worth the caring for.
•' When the disturbances grew so rude, as to interrupt this harmony, and
the Queen's fears, and indisposition which proceeded from those fears, dispos-
ed her to leave the kingdom, which the King, to comply with her, consented
to, (and if that fear had not been predominant in her, her jealousy and ap-
prehension that the Kin^ would, at some time, be prevailed with toyield to
some unreasonable conditions, would have dissuaded her from that voyage) ;
to make all things therefore as sure as might be, that her absence should not
be attended witli any such inconvenience, his Majesty made a solemn pro-
mise to her at parting, that he would receive no person into any favour or
trust, who had disserved him without her privify and consent ; and that, as
she had undergone so many reproaches and calumnies at the entrance into
the war, so he would never make any peace, but fey her interposition and
mediation, that the kingdommight receive that blessing only from her."
APPENDIX D. 345
Ijefore remembered. From thence the King is hurried in post-
haste to the town of Newcastle, which they looked on as their
strongest hold. And being now desirous to make even with
their masters, to receive the wages of their iniquity, and being
desirous to get home in safety with that spoil and plunder which
they had gotten in their marching and re-marching betwixt the
Tweed and Hereford, they prest the King to fling up all the
towns and castles which remained in his power, or else they
■durst not promise to continue him under their protection.
" This turn seemed strange unto the King ; who had not put
himself into the power of the Scots, had he not been assured
before-hand by the French Ambassador, of more courteous
usage ; to whom the Scots commissioners had engaged them-
selves, not only to receive his person into their protection, but
all those also which repaired unto him, as the King signified by
his letters to the Marquis of Ormond. But having got him
into their power, they forget those promises, and bring him
under the necessity of writing to the Marquisses of Montrose
and Ormond to discharge their soldiers ; and to his governours
of towns in England, to give up their garrisons. But then, to
make him some amends, they give him some faint hopes of
suffering him to bestow a visit on his realm of Scotland, (his
ancient and native kingdom, as he commonly called it,) there to
expect the bettering of his condition in the changes of time.
But the Scots hearing of his purpose, and having long ago cast
off the yoke of subjection, voted against his coming, in a full
assembly ; so that we may affirm of him, as the Scripture doth
of our Saviour Christ, viz. He came unto his own, and his own
received him not. (John i. 2.) The like resolution was taken
also by the commissioners of that nation, and the chief leaders
of their army, who had contracted with the two houses of Par-
liament, and for the sum of two hundred thousand poiands in
ready money, sold and betrayed him into the hands of his ene-
mies, as certainly they would have done the Lord Christ him-
self for half the money, if he had bowed the Heavens, and
come down to visit them. Being delivered over unto such com-
missioners as were sent by the Houses to receive him, he was
by them conducted on the third of February, to his house of
Holdenby, not far from the good town of Northampton ; where
After applying these remarks to the king's conduct respecting the conclu-
sion of the Oxford treaty, which failed as much through this weakness in his
Majesty, as through the indirect management of some of the Parliamentary
Commissioners, the noble historian proceeds to state: "About the time
that the treaty began, the Queen lauded in the North: And she resolved, with
a good quantity of ammunition and arms, to make what haste she could to
the King; having at her first landing expressed by a letter to his Majesty, her
apprehension of an ill peace by that treaty; and declared, that she would
never live in England, if she uiight not have a guard for the security of her
person. Which letter came accidentally afterwards into the hands of the
Parliaiueut, of which they made use to the Queen's disadvantage."
z
34G APrKNDIX D.
he was kept so close, that none of his domestick servants, no
not so much as his own Chaplains were suffered to have any
access unto him."*
Having stated the various indignities to which King Charles was
subjected by his relentless persecutors, Dr. Heylin closes his ac-
count thus : "In which conjuncture, 1 646, it was thought expedient
by the Houses of Parliament, to send commissioners to Newcastle,
and by them to present such propositions to his sacred Majesty,
as they conceived to be agreeable to his present condition. His
Majesty had spent the greatest part of his time since he came
to Newcastle, in managing a dispute about Church-governnnent
with Mr. Alexander Henderson, the most considerable cham-
pion for Presbytery in the Kirk of Scotland. Henderson was
possest of all advantages of books and helps, which might
enable him to carry on such a disputation. But his Majesty
had the better cause, and the stronger arguments. Furnished
with which, (though destitute of all other helps than what he
had within himself,) he prest his adversary so hard, and gave
such satisfactory answers unto all his cavils, that he remained
master of the field, as may sufficiently appear by the printed
papers. And it was credibly reported, that Henderson was so
* •' And whereas the then usual law of expulsion was immediately to
banish into the wide world by beat of drum, enjoiuing^ to quit the ^own with-
in twenty-four hours, upon pain of beinff taken and used as spies, and not
to allow the unhappy exiles time for the disposal either of their private
affairs, or stating the accounts of their respective colleges or pupils ; the
Rev. Dr. Sheldon, now Lord Bishop of London, and Dean of his Majesty's
Chapel Royal, and Dr. Hammond, were submitted to a contrary fate, and
by an order from a Committee of Parliament, were restrained and voted to be
prisoners in that place, from which all else were so severely driven. But
such was the authority and command of exemplary virtue, that the person
designed to succeed in the Canonry of Christ Church, though he had ac-
cepted of the place at London, and done his exercise for it at Oxford, acting
as public orator in flattering there the then-pretending Chancellor, yet he
had not courage to pursue his undertaking, but voluntarily relinquished that
infamous robbeiy, and adhered to a less scandalous one in the country.
And then the officer who was commanded to take Dr. Sheldon and him into
custody upon their designed removal. Colonel Evelin, then governor of Wal-
lingford Castle, (though a man of as opposite principles to church and
churchmen as any of the adverse party,) wholly declined the employment,
solemnly protesting, that if they came to him they should be entertained as
friends, and not as prisoners.
" But these remorses proved but of little effect ; the Prebend of Christ
Church being suddenly supplied by a second choice, and Oxford itself being
continued the place of their confinement : where accordingly the good doc-
tor remained, though he were demanded by his Majesty to attend him in the
Isle of Wight at the treaty there, which then was again re-inforced. The
pretence u])on which both he and the reverend doctor Sheldon were refused,
was, that they were prisimers ; and probably the gaining that, was tVje cause
why they were so. But notwithstanding the denial of a personal attendance,
the excellent prince required that assistance which might consist with ab-
sence, and at this time sent for a copv of that sermon which almost a year
before he had heard preached in that place. The which sermon his Majesty
and thereby the public, received with the accession of several others deliver-
ed upon various occasions." — Dr. Fell's Life of Dr. Hammond.
APPENDIX D. 347
confounded with grief and shame, that he fell into a desperate
sickness, which in fine brought him to his grave ; professing, as
some say, that he died a convert ; and frequently extolling
those great abilities which, when it was too late, he had found
in his Majesty. Of the particular passages of this disputation,
the English commissioners had received a full information ; and
therefore purposely declined all discourse with his Majesty, by
which the merit of their propositions might be called in ques-
tion. All that they did, was to insist upon the craving of a
positive answer, that so they might return unto those that sent
them ; and such an answer they shall have, as will little please
them. For though his fortunes were brought so low, that it was not
thought safe for him to deny them any thing ; yet he demurred
upon the granting of such points as neither in honour nor in
conscience could be yielded to them. Amongst which, those
demands which concerned religion, and the abolishing of the
ancient government of the church by Arch-bishops and Bi-
shops, may very justly be supposed to be none of the least.
But this delay being taken by the Houses for a plain denial,
and wanting money to corrupt the unfaithful Scots, who could
not otherwise be tempted to betray their Sovereign ; they past
an ordinance for abolishing the episcopal government, and set-
ling their lands upon trustees for the use of the state.
" Amongst which uses, none appeared so visible, even to vul-
gar eyes, as the raising of huge sums of money to content the
Scots, who from a Remedy were looked on as the SrcKNESs of
the common-wealth. The Scots' demands amounted to five
hundred thousand pounds of English money, which they of-
fered to make good on a just account ; but were content for
quietness sake to take two hundred thousand pounds in full
satisfaction. And yet they could not have that neither, unless
they would betray the King to the power of his enemies. At
first they stood on terms of honour ; and the Lord Chancellor
Loudon ranted to some tune (as may be seen in divers of his
printed speeches, ") concerning the indelible character of disgrace
and infamy which must be for ever imprinted on them, if they
yielded to it. But in the end, Presbyterians on both sides did
so play their parts, that the sinful contract was concluded,t by
which the King was to be put into the hands of such commis-
sioners as the two Houses should appoint to receive his person.
-f- In a succeeding part of this narrative it will be seen that the King re-
rnaiiietl oulj' four mouths iu the hands of his Presbyterian adversaries, before
the Independents iu the army seized upon his person. This frustration of
their hopes and ultimate desig;us otfended the Scotch Parliament, who deput-
ed the Duke of Hamilton, in 1648, to invade England with a powerful army,
and to fight for the King under the disguise of a fresh oath called the
Engage:\ient. This expedition and its ostensible purpose were disliked by the
General Assembly of Scotland. The Sample of True Blue Presbt/ferian I^i/alty
says, " This Declaration of the Assembly was made to the estates who had by
an Act of Parliament raised an army to go into England, lo rescue the Kii>g out
348 Al'l'liNDIX D.
The Scots to have one hundred thousand pounds in ready
money, and the public faith (which the Houses very prodigally
pawned upon all occasions) to secure the other. According
of the hands of the sectaries ; which expedition the Assembly of the Kirk
opposed, and declaimed against, and afterwards did excommunicate the
Duke of Hamihon and the wholearmy for engaging in that expedition against
the consent of the Assembly." In Baylie's recommendation of the Presbyterian
gfovernmeut (by authority) he states \tsmild7iess,andthei>i/ri'q)ient occurrence
of excommunication, as circumstances which ought toinduce the English na-
tion cordially to adopt it. He says: " It is a singular rarity among them to see
any heart so'hard as not to be mollified and yield before that stroke be given.
Evcommunications are so strange in all the Reformed Churches, (hat in a
whole Province a man in all his life will scarce be witness to one ; and,
among them who are cut otf bjy that dreadful sword, very few do fall in the
States' hand to be troubled with any civil inconvenience." In the particular
instance now adduced, it is true, " very few did fall into the States' hands,"
because it was a case in which the d«;a7 power and the ecclesiastical were at
variance. But these '* mild ecclesiastics" proceeded against the delinquents
to the extent oftheir power. " The Commissioners of the General Assembly
did, by their acts of Oct. 6, and Dec. 4, l(i48, appoint church-censures to
be inflicted on those who had been concerned in that Engagement, in order
to bring them to repentance. And the following Assembly of July 26, 1649,
approved what these Commissioners had done, and farther appointed such of
the Engagers as remained obstinate and impenitent, after due process in the
Ecclesiastical Judicatories, to be excominunicated." Those who know what
a fearful thing a Presbyterian excommunication was in those days, will find
no difficulty in forming a due estimate of the intolerance of the Presbytery.
But a perusal of the correspondence between " the Commissioners" of the
General Assembly" and " the Committee of Instates of Parliament," on that
occasion, will serve to elucidate the mercenary and cruel spirit which then
predominated. The former declared : " We call to record the Searcher of
ail hearts, the Judge of the world, that our not concurring with your Lord-
ships'proceedings hitherto hath not flowed fron» want of zeal against secta-
ries, foi' the suppression of whom and for the advancement of a work of
reformation we are ready to hazard all in a lavful way; nor from any
remissness in that which concerns his Majesty's true Imnour and happiness,
and the preservation of monarchical government in him and his posterity ;
norfrom any want of tenderness of the privileges of Parliament; nor from
w ant of sympathy with our afflicted and oppressed brethren in England : nor
from partial or sinistrous respect to any party or person whatsoever within the
kingdom ; but from mereteiiderness in the point of securityof religion and
the union between the kingdoms, and from the unsatisfactoriness of the
grounds of your Lordships' Declaration. — The wars of God's people are
tailed ' the wars of the Lord. (Num. xxi, 14 ; 2 Chron. xx, 15.) And if our
mating and drinking, much more our engaging in war, must be for God and
his glory ; (I Cor. x,31.) ' Whatsoever we do in word or deed, we are com-
manded to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,* and so for his glory. (Col.
iii, 17.) The kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof is to besought in
the first place and before all other things. (Matt, vi, 33.) It was the best
flower and garland in the former expeditions of this nation, that they were
for God and for \fX\^\oxifrincipaUy and mainly. But if the principal end of
this present engagement were for the glory of God, how comes it to pass that
not so much as one of the desires of the Kirk, for the safety and security of
religion in the said engagement, is to this day satisfied or granted ; but on
the contrary, such courses are taken as are destructive to religion? And if
God's glory be intended, whatmeaneth the employing and protecting in this
army so many blasphemers, persecutors of piety, disturbers of divine wor-
ship, and others guilty of notorious and crying sins .' Again, how can it be
pretended, that the good of religion is principally aimed at, when it is pro-
posed and declared, that the King's Majesty shall be brought to some of his
Jnouses in or near London, with honour, freedom and safety, before eve
Ari'r.NDix D. 349
unto which n^eement his Majesty is sold by his own subjects,
and betrayed by his servants ; by so much wiser (as they
thought) than the traitor Judas, by how much they had made
a better market, and raised the price of the commodity which
they were to sell. And being thus sold, he is delivered, for
the use of those that bought him, into the custody of the Earl
of Pembroke, (who must be one in all their errands,) the Earl
of Denbigh, and the Lord Mountague of Boughton, with twice
as many members of the lower House ; with whom he takes
his journey towards Holdenby, before remembered, on the third
there he any security had from him, or so much as any application made to
him, for the good of reliijioi) ? What is this, but to jjostpoue the honour of
God, the liberties of the Gospel, the safety of God's people to a human iuter-
est, and to leave religion iu a condition of uncertainty, unsettledness, and
hazard, while it is strongly endeavoured to settle and make sure somewhat
else."
To these remarks the Committee of the Scotch Parliament opposed the fol-
lowing : " We answer by acknowledging and believing, that all the wars of
the people of God should be the wars of God. undertaken at the command
of those who have lasvful authority under God, as were the wars by the com-
mand of Moses, Joshua, the judges and kings of Judah, and as uudertaken
by warrant from God's vicegerents, so for an honest cause, for the glory of
God. But whereas it is assumed that ^/iwc«5"rt^'e«((f«# is not such, we deny
it ; because it hath the warrant of lawful authority — the estates of Parlia-
ment: and the cause being honest to do a duty commanded of God to our
prince, God is glorified by doing that duty. The relieving of our King out
ot prison is a duty : ' If my kuigdom,' says our Lord, ' were of this world,
' then vroiild mi/ servants Jig ht, that I should not be delivered to the Jews.'
(John xviii, 3!i.) Our Lord suppones it was a common duty, that subjects
should (ight to prevent the captivity of their King : And if a war be lawful to
prevent captivity, is it not lawful to deliver him from that base captivity ?
Are we less obliged in duty to our native prince than Abraham to his kins-
man Lot.' who engaged in a war for rescuing him, notwithstanding Lot
had associated himself in war with wicked men, the Sodomites. (Gen. xiv.)
Are we less obliged than David and his associates to their captive wives, who
engaged in war for their freedom ? (1 Sam. xxx.) As for the duty of honour,
for performance whereof we have engaged ourselves, we believe it is a duty
commanded by God himself iu the fifth commandment. (Prov. xxiv, 22 ; 1
Pet.ii, lb', 17.) We are forbidden to use our christian liberty as a cloak of
maliciousness, for withholding or withdrawing duty. Yea Pagans by the
light of nature, reading the law of nature, whicn is from the God of nature,
do use all honour to their kings. Yea holy Samuel, undoubtedly zealous of
God's honour, notwithstanding he knew certainly by Divine revelation that
God had rejected Saul, yet honoured him before the people. (I Sam. xv, 30. j"
But the most consummate piece of hypocrisy was displayed, when the re-
verend divines of the General Assembiv, who had inculcated the necessity of
imposing their covenant on others, could deliberately avow the following sen-
timents : " The engagement is carried on by such means and ways, as tend
to the destroying of religion, by ensnaring and forcing the consciences of tlie
people of God, with unlawful bands and oaths, and oppressing the persons
and estates of such as have been most active and zealous for religion and the
Covenant. All which is strengthened and authorized by acts of Parliament,
appointing that ' all that do not obey or [that] persuade others not to obey
'the resolutions of Parliament and CommitLce aueut this engagement, or
' who shall not subscribe the act and declaration of the 10th of June, 1648,
* imposed upon all the subjects, shall he holden as enemies to the cause and
* to religiou.' " — How abhorrent to every christian principle and humane
feeling is this attempt, in which the ministers of the gospel of peace and the
Scottish legislature vie with each other, to lejcitiiu'te rcbt'Hiou by quoting the
holy scrii»tures fur their seditious proceedings !
Z i*
350 APPENDIX D.
of February :* And there so closely watched and guarded, that
none of his own servants are permitted to repair unto him.
Marshal and Caryl, two great sticklers in behalf of Presbytery,
(but such as after warped to the Independents,) are by the
Houses nominated to attend as Chaplains.* But he refused to
hear them in their prayers or preachings, unless they would
officiate by the public Liturgy, and bind themselves unto the
rules of the church of England : Which not being able to ob-
tain, he moves the houses by his message of the 17th of that
Month, to have two Chaplains of his own. Which most un-
christianly and most barbarously they denied to grant him.t
» " These two Presbyterian chaplains [Carj-l and Marshall] regularly per-
formed divine worship at Holmby-house in Northamptonshire. His Majesty
however never attended, but spent his Sabbaths in private ; and though they
waited at table, he would not allow them to ask a blessing. The Oxford
historian, who mentions this circumstance, relates the following curious
anecdote : ' It is said, that Marshall did, on a time, put himself more for-
ward than was meet to say grace ; and, while he was long in forming his
chaps, as the manner was among the saints, and making ugly faces, his
Majesty said grace himself, and was fallen to his meat, and had eaten up
some part of his dinner, before Marshall had ended the blessing : but Caryl
was not so impudent.' "
In the life of Marshall, with relation to the early part of his career, it is
observed, " He was as conformable as could be desired, reading divine ser-
vice, wearing the surplice, receiving and administering the sacrament
kneeling : approving, commending and extolling episcopacy and the liturgy;
observing all the holi'lays with more than ordinary diligence, preaching up-
on most of them. This he did so long as he had any hopes of rising that
way. His ambition was such, I have great reason to believe, that he was
once an earnest suitor for a deanery, which is the next step to a bishopric ;
the loss of which made him turn schismatic. His son-in-law Nye was heard
to say, ' that if they had made his father a bishop, before he had been too
♦ far engaged, it might have prevented all the war : and since he cannot rise
' so high as a bishop, he will pull the bishops as low as himself : yea, if he
* can, lower than he was himself when he was at Godinanchester.' " It is
also related of Marshall, that he once " petitioned the King for a deanery,
and at another time for a bishopric, and being refused, his Majesty told him
at Hohnby, that he [Marshall] would on this account overthrow all."
•f- In a subsequent page (351) it will be seen that his Majesty was ultimately
gratified in his desire of enjoying the conversation and prayers of his chap-
lains. The Presbyterians pretended, that the Independents were the actual
murderers of the king, and that themselves were guiltless of the great
offence. But let any man retlect on the scandalous and cruel treatmeut which
his Majesty endured at the hands of the Presbyterians, and he will exclaim,
The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel! Few circumstances gave them
more sensible chagrine than any allusion to the courtesy and respect mani-
fested by the Arm) jto the captive monarch, — a course of conduct so opposite to
the Puritanic severity which tiie royal sutferer had received fromthe Presbyte-
rians. Listen to the vituperative expressions of Richard Baxter, who to the very
close of life could not endure the mention of the greater apparent kindness of the
Independents : " While the King was at Hampton Court the mutable hypo-
crites first pretended an extraordinary care of his honour, liberty, safety,
and conscience. They blamed tlie austerity of the Parliament, tvho Jiad
denied 1dm the atteiidance of his oivn Chaplains And. of his friends in whom
he took most pleasure. They gave liberty for his friends and Chaplains to
come to hiui : they pretended that the}' v.fuuld save him from the incivilities of
the Parlir.ment and Presbyterians. Whether this were while they tried what
terms they could make with him for themselves, or while they acted any
other part J it is certain that the King's old adherents began to extol the
APPENDIX D. 351
" Having reduced him to this strait, they press him once
again with their propositions ; which being the very same
which were sent to Newcastle, could not in probability receive
any other answer. This made them keep a harder hand upon
him, than they did before ; presuming, that they might be able
to extort those concessions from him by the severity and soli-
tude of his restraint, when their persuasions were too weak,
and their arguments not strong enough to induce him to it.
But, great God ! how fallacious are the thoughts of men ! How
wretchedly do we betray ourselves to those sinful hopes which
never shall be answerable to our expectation ! The Presbyterians
had battered down Episcopacy by the force of an Ordinance ;
outed the greatest part of the regular Clergy of their cures
and benefices ; advanced their new form of government, by the
votes of the Houses ; and got the King into their power, to
make sure work of it. But when they thought themselves
secure, they were most unsafe. For being in the height of all
their glories and projectments, one Joice, a cornet of the army,
comes thither with a party of horse, removes his guards, and
takes him with them to their head-quarters, which were then at
Woburn, a town upon the North-west Road in the County of
Bedford :* followed, not long after, by such Lords and others as
were commanded by the Houses to attend upon him ; who, not
being very acceptable to the principal officers, were within
very few weeks discharged of that service. By means whereof,
the Presbyterians lost all those great advantages which they had
Army, and to speak against the Presbyterians more distastefully than before.
When the Parliament offered the King's propositions for concord, (which
Vane's faction made as high and unreasonable as they could, that they might
come to nothing,) the Army forsooth offer him proposals of theirovvn, which
the King liked better ; but which of them to treat with, he did not know. At
last, on ^/ie*«fW«i the judgment of the army changed, and they began to
cry for justice against the King; and with vile hypocrisy, to publish their
repentance, and to cry Gou mercy for their kindness to the King, and con-
fess that they tvere under a temptation : but in all this, Cromwell and Ireton,
and the rest of the Council of War appeared not : the instruments of all this
work nmst be the common soldiers." Baxter's Life and Times.
* The flimsy pretence has been already detailed, page 346, under which the
Rev. Doctors Sheldon and Hammond were purposely prevented from attend-
ing his majesty on a former occasion. Bishop Fell thus relates the subsequent
concession of the army :
"In the mean time his Sacred Majesty, sold by his Scottish into the hands
of his English subjects, and brought a prisoner to Holdenby, where, strip-
ped of all his royal attendants, and denied that common charity which is
afforded the worst of malefactors, the assistance of divines, though he with
importunity desired it, he being taken from the Parliament Commissioners
into the possession of the army, at last obtained that kindness from them
(who were to be cruel at anotherrate) which was withheld by the two Houses,
and was permitted the service of some few of his chaplains, whom he by
name had sent for, and among them of Dr. Hammond. Accordingly the
good Doctor attended on his master in the several removes of Woburn,
Cavesham, and Hampton Court, as also thence into the Isle of Wight, where
he continued till Christmas ICA? ; at which time hisMajer,ty's attendants were
again put from him, and he amongst the rest,"
352 APPENDIX D.
fancied to themselves, and shall be better husbanded to the use
of their adversaries, though it succeeded worse to his Majesty's
person, than possibly it might have done, if they had suffered
him to remain at Holdenby, where the Houses fixt him.*
* Baxter says : " The king's old adherents began to extol the army, and
to speak against the Presbyterians more distastefully than before." This is
very true : Hear how ^ooA old Judge Jenkins expressed himself on that
occasion, in his pamphlet entitled An Apology for the Army :
** The army, to their eternal honour, have freed the King from im-
prisonment at Holmby. It was high treason to imprison his Majesty : to
free his Majesty from that imprisonment, was to deliver him out of traito-
rous hands, which was the army's bounden duty by the law of God and the
.land. That party refused to suffer his Majesty to have two of his Chaplains for the
exercise of his conscience who had not taken the covenant; free access was
not permitted. Doth the army use his Majesty so .' All men see, that access
to him is free ; and such Chaplains as his Majesty desired are now attending
on his grace. Who are the guilty persons .' the army, who, in this action of
delivering the king, act according to law, or the said party vvho acted trea-
sonably against the law .' The two Houses are no more a Parliament, than
a body without ahead a man. The two Houses can make no court without
the King; they are no body corporate without the King; they all, head and
members, make one corporate body. Two Houses, and a Parliament, are se-
veralthings. Theyare guarded by armed men, divide thepublic money among
themselves, and that party endeavours to bring in a foreign power [the Scots]
to invade this land again, if they be no Parliament, as clearly they are
none without his Majesty, they have no privileges, but do exercise an
arbitrary, tyrannical and treasonable power over the people. You say, The
disohedltnce of the army is a sad public precedent , like to conjure up a spirit
of universal disobedience. I pray object not that conjuring up to the army,
whereof you and the prevailmg party in the Houses are guilty, who con-
jured up the spirit of universal disobedience against his Majesty, your and
our only supreme governour. For the covenant you mention, it is an oath
against the laws of the land, against the petition of right devised in Scot-
land, wherein the first article is, to maintain the reformed religion in the
church of Scotland : and certainly there is no subject of the English nation
doth know what the Scottish religion is. 1 believe the army took not the
covenant. No man by the law can give an oath in a new case without an-
act of Parliament ; and therefore the imposers thereof are very blameable,
and guilty of the highest crime.
" The kingdom hath better assurance of reformation from the army
than from the Houses, for that, in their military way, they have been
just, faithful and honourable, they have kept their word : That party of the
Houses have been constant to nothing but in dividing the public treasure
among themselves, and in laying burthens upon the people ; and in break-
ing all the oaths, vows and promises they ever made: As the army hath
power, so now, adhering to the King, all the laws of God, nature, and
man, are for them ; their armies are just and blessed; and the King is
bound in justiee to reward his deliverers with honour, profit, and mere
liberty of conscience. By the deliverance of the King and kingdom from
the bondage of that party in the two Houses by the army, their renown will
be everlasting ; they secure themselves, they content and please the kingdom,
city and country, as appears by their confluence to see nis Majesty and the
army, and their acclamations for his Majesty's safety and restitution ; all
which doth evidence to every one of the arm v, how acceptable the intentions
of the army are to the people of this land, wlio have been so long inthralled.
Sir Thomas Fairfax, let your worthiness remember your extraction and
j'our lady's, by the grace and favour of the prince, to be in the rank of nobi-
lity. Remember what honour and glory the present age and all posterity
-will justly give to the restorer of the King to his throne, of the laws to their
strength, and of the afflicted peonle of this land to peace : Let the colonels
and commanders under you, and likewise our soldiery, rest assured, that
AVVENDIX D. 353
" This great turn happened on the fourth of June, Anno lC-t7,
before he had remained but four months in the power of the
Houses : Who having brought the war to the end desired,
possest themselves of the King's person, and dismissed the
Scots, resolved upon disbanding a great part of the army, that
they might thereby ease the people of some part of their bur-
thens, l^ut some great officers of the army had their projects
and designs apart, and did not think it consonant to common
prudence, that they should either spend their blood, or consume
their strength, in raising others to that power, v/hich being ac-
quired by themselves, might far more easily be retained, than it
had- been gotten.* Upon these grounds they are resolved against
disbanding, stand on their guards, and draw together towards
London, contrary to the will and express commandment of their
former masters, by whom they were required to keep at a grea-
ter distance. The officers thereupon impeach some members
of the lower House ; and knowing of what great consequence
it might be unto them to get the King into their power, a plot
is laid to bring him into their head-quarters without noise and
trouble : which was accordingly effected, as before is said. Thus
have the Presbyterians of both nations, embroiled the kingdom
first in tumults, and afterwards in a calamitous and destructive
■war, in which the sword was suffered to range at liberty,
without distinction of age, sex, or quality. More goodly houses
plundered and burnt down to the ground, more churches sacri-
legiously profaned and spoiled, more blood poured out like
water within four years' space, than had been done in the long
course of civil wars between York and Lancaster. With all
which spoil and public ruin, they purchased nothing to them-
selves but shame and infamy ;t as may be shewn by taking a
they shall not only share in the renown of this action, but also shall have
such remuneration as their haughty courage and so high a virtue doth
deserve. This his Majesty can and will do, the Houses neither will nor can."
* " The Presbyterians, now in the fulness of their power, with the Parlia-
ment, the city of Loudon, and the Scots at their command, openly avowed
their hostility to a general toleration ; and the victorious army, composed of
Independents, and of various classes of religionists, perceived that they had
lavished their blood merely to substitute one tyranny for another, and had
conquered only for their own ruin. In this exigence they preferred petitions
and remonstrances to the Parliament, and on the failure of these legal wea-
pons, under the impulse of resentment and despair, resorted to violence, and
destroyed the Presbyterian power, the government, and themselves. They
became indeed the instruments of their superior officers, and were ultimate-
ly made the engine of Cromwell, by whom they, with the nation at large,
were despoiled of their great political object, constitutional liberty, but were
nevertheless gratified with their favourite Toleration." Jackson's Goodwin,
f " Peruse over all books, records and histories, and you shall find a
principle iu law, a rule in reason, and a trial in experience, that treason
doth ever produce fatal and final destruction to the offender, and never
attains to the desired end : (two incidents inseparably thereunto :) and
therefore let all men abandon it, as the poisonous bait of the devil, and
follow the precept in holy scripture, serve God, honour the King, ani>
HAVE NO COMPANY WITH THE SEDITIOUS." Coke's Institutes.
354 APPENDIX D.
brief view of their true condition before and after they put the
state into these confusions.
" And first, the Scots not long before their breaking out against
their King, had in the court two Lords high stewards, and two
grooms of the stole, successively one after another. And at
their taking up of arms, they had a master of the horse, a cap-
tain of the guard, a keeper of the privy purse, seven grooms of
eight in his Majesty's bed-chamber, and an equal number at the
least of gentlemen-ushers, quarter-waiters, cup-bearers, carvers,
sewers, and other officers, attending daily at the table.* I speak
not here of those who had places in the stables, or below the
stairs ; or of the servants of those lords and gentlemen who ei-
ther lived about the court, or had offices in it. All which to-
gether, make up so considerable a number, that the court
might well be called an academy of the Scots nation ; in which
so many of all sorts had their breeding, maintenance, and pre-
ferment. Abroad, they had a Lieutenant of the Tower, a for-
tress of most consequence in all the Kingdom ; and a tnaster-
gunner of the navy, an office of as great a trust as the other:
and more of those monopolies, suits, and patents, which were
conceived to be most grievous to the subjects, than all the En-
glish of the court. In the church they had two Deaneries, divers
prebendaries, and so many ecclesiastical benefices, as equalled
all the revenues of the Kirk of Scotland. All which they had
lost, like iEsop's dog, catching after a shadow. And yet by
catching at that shadow, they lost all those advantages which
before they had both in court and country ; and that not only
for the present, but in all probability for the time to come. Such
losers were the Scots by this brutish bargain ; but whether out
of pure zeal to the holy discipline, or their great love to filthy
lucre, or the perverseness of their nature, or the rebellious
humour of the nation, or of all together, let them judge that
can.t
♦" In the Privy Chamber, besides the carvers and cup -bearer3, such a dis-
proportion of the gentlemen belonging to it, that once at a full table of wait-
ers, each of them having a servant or two to attend upon him, I and my man
were the only English in all the company." Hevlin's Life of Laud.
•f " The whole frame of the ancient government of Scotland had been so
entirely confounded by Cromwell, and new-modelled by the laws and cus-
toms of England, that is, those laws and customs which the Commonwealth
had established ; that he had hardly left footsteps by which the old might be
traced out again. The power of the nobility was so tctally suppressed and
extinguished, that their persons found no more respect or distinction from
the common people, than the acceptation they found from Cromwell, and
the credit he gave them by some particular trust, drew to them. Their be-
loved Presbytery was become a term of reproach, and ridiculous ; the pride
and activity of their preachers subdued and reduced to the lowest contempt ;
and the standard of their religion remitted to the sole order and direction of
their commander-in-chief. All criminal cases (except where the General
thought it more expedient to proceed by martial law,) were tried and punished
before Judges sent from England and by the laws of England ; and matters
of civil interest before itinerant Judges, who went twice a year in circuits
APPENDIX D. 355
" If then the Scots became such losers by the bargain, (as most
sure they did,) as sure it is that their dear brethren in the cause
of Presbytery, the Puritans or Presbyterians in the reahn of
England, got as little by it. The English Puritans laid their
heads and hands together to embroil the realm, out of a confi-
dence, that, having alienated the greatest part of the tribes from
the house of David, they might advance the golden calves of
their Presbyteries, in Dan and Bethel, and all other places
whatsoever within the land. And for the maintenance thereof,
they had devoured (in conceit) all chapter-lands, and parcelled
them amongst themselves into augmentations.* But no sooner
had they driven this bargain, but a vote passed for selling those
lands towards the payment of the debts of the commonwealth.
Nor have they lived to see their dear Presbytery settled, or their
lay-elders entertained in any one parish of the kingdom. For
the advancement whereof, the Scots were first encouraged to
begin at home, and afterwards to pursue their work by invading
England.
" Nor fared it better with those great Achitophels of the po-
pular party, who laboured in the raising of a new common-
wealth, out of the ruins of a glorious and ancient monarchy.
To which end they employed the Presbyterians, as the fittest
instruments for drawing the people to their side, and preaching
up the piety of their intentions ; which plot they had been
carrying on from the first coming of this King to the crown of
England, till they had got his sacred person into their posses-
sion : Which made them a fit parallel to those husband-men
in St. Matthew's gospel, (Matt. xxi. 38.) who said amongst
themselves, ' This is the heir, come let us kill him, and let us
seize on his inheritance.' A commonwealth which they had
founded, and so modelled in their brains, that neither Sir
Thomas More's Utopia, nor the Lord Verulam's new Atlantis,
nor Plato's Platform, nor any of the old ideas, were equal to it :
throtig:h the kingdom, and determined all matters of rig^ht by the rules and
customs which were observed in England. They had liberty to send a par-
ticular number that was assigned tothem,to sit in the Parliamentof England,
and to vote therewith all liberty; which they had done. And in recom-
pence thereof, all such monies were levied in Scotland, as were given by the
Parliament of England, by which such contributions were raised, as were
proportionable to the expense, which the army and garrisons which subdued
them put the kingdom of England to. Nor was there any other authority to
raise money in Scotland, but what was derived from the Parliament or Gene-
ral of England. And all this prodigious mutation and transformation had
been submitted to with the same resignation and obedience, as if the same
had been transmitted by an uninterrupted succession from King Fergus :
And it might well be a question, whether thegenerality of the nation was not
better contented with it, than to return into the old road of subjection. But
the King would not build according to Cromwell's models, and had many
reasons to continue Scotland within its own limits and bounds and sole de-
peiidence upon himself, rather than unite it to England with so many
hazards and dangers as would inevitably have accompanied it, under any
government less tyrannical than that of Cromwell." Ci.auendon's Life,
* See a note from Baxter, page 331.
356 API'EKDIX D.
The honours and offices whereof, they had distributed amongst
themselves, and their own dependents. But havinjr brought the
King (though, as itchanced,by other hands) to the end []to which^
they aimed, and beingintent on nothing more than the dividing of
that rich prey amongst themselves, gratifying one another with
huge sums of money, and growing fat on the revenues of the
crown and the lands of the church, and guarded as they
thought by invincible armies, they were upon a sudden scattered
like the dust before the wind, turned out of all, and publicly
exposed to contempt and scorn.* All which was done so easily,
with so little noise, that the loss of that exorbitant power did
not cost so much as a broken head, or a bloody nose ; in pur-
* This wonderful change was indeed the Lord's doing and it u<as warvel-
lous in the ei/es of the Vihoie nation. That great and wise man, the Earl of
Clarendon, alludes to this singular interposition of Providence in the follow-
ing pious strain : " The easy and glorious reception of the King, in the man-
ner that hath been mentioned, without any other conditions than what had
been frankly offered by himself in his Declaration and letters from Breda ;
the Parliament's casting themselves in a body at his feet, in the minute of
his arrival at Whitehall, with all the professions of duty and submission ima-
ginable ; and no man having authority there, but they who had either emi-
nently served the late King, or who were since grown up out of their nonage
from such fathers, and had thoroughly manifested their fast fidelity to his
present Majesty ; the rest who had been enough criminal, shewing more ani-
mosity towards the severe punishment of those who having more power in the
late times had exceeded them in mischief, than care for their own indemnity:
This temper sufficiently evident, and the universal joy of the people, which
was equally visible, for the total suppression of all those who hau so many
years exercised tyranny over them, made most men believe both abroad and
at home, that God had not only restored the King miraculously to his throne,
but that he had, as he did in the time of Hezekiah, prepared the people, for
the thing was done suddenly , (2 Chron. xxix,36.) in sucn a manner, that his
authority and greatness would have been more illustrious, than it had been
in any of his ancestors. And it is most true, and must never be denied, that
the people were admirably disposed and prepared to pay all the subjection,
duty and obedience, that a just and prudent king could expect from them,
and had a very sharp aversion and detestatiou of all those who had formerly
misled and corrupted thera ; so that, except the General, who seemed to be
possessed entirely of the affection of the army, and whose fidelity was now
above any misapprehension, there appeared no man whose power and interest
could in any degree shake or endanger the peace and security the King was
in ; the congratulations for his return being so universal from all the counties
of England, as well as from the Parliament and city; from all those who
had most signally disserved anddisclaimedhim, as well as from those of his
own party and those who were descended from them : Insomuch as the King
■was wont tneriily to say, as hath been mentioned before, * that it could be
'nobody's faultbut his own, that he had stayed so long abroad, when all
* mankind wished him so heartily at home.' "
The brief remark which he immediately subjoins, is likewise worthy of cor-
sideration : "it cannot therefore but be concluded by the standers by, and
the spectators of this wonderful change and exclamation of all degrees of
men, that there must be some wonderful miscarriages in the State, or some
unheard of defect of understanding in those who were trusted by the King in
the administration of his affairs; that there could in so short a time be a
new revolution in the general affections of the people, that they grew even
■weary of that happiness they were possessed of and had so much valued, and
fell into the same discontents and niurmurings which had naturally accom-
panied them in the worst times."
APPKNfilX D. 357
chasing whereof, they had wasted so many millions of treasure,
and more than one hundred thousand lives."
Dr. Heylin has stated the period when his Majesty was taken
into custody by the army, in whose power he remained a year
and a half before he was executed. Another old historian thus
relates that sad catastrophe and some of tlie causes which pre-
ceded it :
" Every public action of the King or his ministers being mis-
interpreted, combinations were held between the factious Eng-
lish and discontented Scots ; whose begging-time being over at
Court, they bethink of coming to plunder the country. The
faction gives out, that the King had deserted the Protestants of the
Palatinate and France, when the truth is, they had deserted him.
The Bishops in their visitations were every where opposed, and
the troublesome taught how to elude all church-obligations by
common law> By a general odium cast upon all acts of govern-
ment, and a perverse spirit of discontent, fears and jealousies,
raised throughout the three kingdoms, and vehemently possessing
all sorts of people ; by the necessities of the King and some
foreign troubles ; by the treachery of some that had the manage-
ment of the affairs of Scotland ; that which was at first but a n
opinion, after that a book-controversy, (and which never durst
look beyond a motion, a petition, a supplication, a conference, a
disputation, and some private murmurings at best,) became now
a war.
" The cause whereof, on the one side, was an old schism main-
tained ; men's private interests promoted ; rebellion, that sin like
witchcraft ; the overthrow of all laws and government ; the ruin
of learning, religion and order ; the piecing-up of broken estates
by rapine and phmder ; an ambition to attain to those honours
and preferments in troublesome times, that they despaired of in
those more quiet, as derived on persons of more worth and de-
serving ; a canting pretence for liberty of conscience and of the
subject, that proved at last nothing but licentiousness ; the
umbrage of the public good, when it appeared at last but the
project of private persons, who no sooner overthrew the govern-
ment but they quarrelled one with another ; till at last, instead
of one good government, we had so many that we had none at
all; and, instead of an excellent king, all the blood, treasures
and pretences ended in a sordid, base, bloody, tyrannical and
upstart usurper, raised out of the meanest of the people ; a
revenge of some particular and personal wrongs, with the ruin of
the public ;* the setting up of sects, cchisms and heresies upon
* *' Riddles ! Cromwell, Whalley, Ireton, &c. and the army, weep and
grieve, (but the hysena weeps when it intends to devour,) at the hard condi-
tions the houses put upon him ; and the houses are displeased with the army's
hard usage of him : And yet both ruiu him, the one bringing him to the
block and holding him there by the hair of the head, and the other cutting
off his head. The Scots durst not trust the cavaliers with him ; nor the
358 Al'l'EXDlX D.
the subversion of the established doctrine and discipline ; a per-
petual disgrace and dishonour to Christianity and the English
nation, occasioning such burdens and mischiefs as the child
unborn may rue ; burdens and mischiefs conveyed from them to
late posterity : The desolation of the country ; the ruin of gal-
lant churches, castles and cities; the undoing of some thousands
of families; the blood of 80,000 killed on both sides and on all
occasions ; an unnatural division and animosity begun even
among relations, that is like to last from generation to genera-
tion ; abominable canting ; taking of the name of God in vain ;
hypocrisy ; perjury against the oaths of allegiance and supre-
macy, the protestation, yea, against the covenant which they
took themselves, and all the obligations they owed to God or
man ; the mocking of God by fasts, prayers, and seeking of his
face to wicked and vile purposes ; the making of him the author
of the abominations he abhors; the making of religion only a
cloak to villainies; and all the ordinances of it, especially sermons
and sacraments, the ministries of horrid undertakings ; filling
pulpits with such nonsense and lies as all ears that heard tingled;
such encouragement to loose fancies and vile opinions, to en-
large and increase their party, as left not unshaken any founda-
tion in the whole compass of Christian religion ; a sacrilege
unheard of, that was to swallow up all bishops' and deans' and
chapters' lands, all tithes and ministers' maintenance, all univer-
sities and public schools, all hospitals, colleges and charitable
foundations ; a rapine that carried away all the crown revenue,
and sent a great royal family a-begging; devoured the estates of
above 12000 noblemen, gentlemen and persons of eminent qua-
lity; and indeed left no man so much propriety as to say. This is
mine, there being no other law or judicature than that arbitrary
Houses, the Scots : nor the army, the Houses ; nor the Junto, all the army;
nor N. the Junto, being never safe till he put his finger into the royal
neck, to see, after execution, whether the head were really severed from the
body. All the quarrel was, that the Cavaliers kept the Kiiigfrom the Parlia-
ment; and the meaning of this, it seems, was, that they kept him from the
block.
" A Prince they destroyed that thej' durst not despise, all the grandees in
the army not daring to own the least murtherous thoughts towards him pub-
licly, when they set agitators, that is, two active soldiers out of every regi-
ment in the army, (now modelled into such desperate sects and villainies,} to
consult about the horrid fact in private, and to draw a bloody paper, as the
Agreement of the People, which was but a conspiracy of traitors ; Cromwell
assuring ihe King, as he had a soul, that he should be restored; and his sou Ireton
at the same time drawing up a remonstrance that he should die. The army
treat him like a prince ; and that they might deceive his devout soul the more
securely, allow him the service of his chaplains, and the liberty of his con-
science, (the greatest enjoyments left him in this world,) with a design the
more successfully to use him like a traitor. Ah brave prince ! that none
durst have abused, had they owned what they designed; whom the Houses
had saved, had they not been cajoled by the army ; and the army, had it not
been cajoled by the Houses. ' 1 he King granted too much,' saith Sir Harry
Vane to him at the Isle of Wight ; ' and loo little,' saith the same man to the
Houses; and the King must die, when, whatsoever they asked, they meant
his Life. " Lloyd's fVoithies.
ATPENDIX D. 359
one of the sword ; carrying on of the public good till the nation
was beggared ; a crying up of ihe power of parliaments, till the
House of Lords was laid by, and the house of Commons, (consist-
ing of almost five hundred gentlemen,) reduced to fifty or sixty
mechanics and poor fellows, who are turned out by their own
army as a pack of knaves and fools ; a pretence to make the
king glorious till he was murdered, and fighting for him against
evil counsellors till they cut off his head,-the best counsellor he
had ;* the rendering of a nation, once the envy and terror of the
* " The Prefacer owns, 'That travelling has hitherto been so mischievous,
' that it is well it has been so little in fashion. Such worthy men as are einploy-
' ed abroad may bring home generous notions of liberty, and make admirable
* remarks on the contrary state : which being inculcated from the pulpit,
* and enforced by the learned arguments of able divines, must needs over-
* throw those servile opinions, which of late have been too much backed by
* God's authority, almost to the ruin of a free people.' Here we have before
us a true platform of our author's grand design : together with an exact
delineation of the manner and couductof the villainy through all its steps aud
gradations. This was the darling method which the Rabbis of the Separation
used heretofore, to new-plant the gospel and to pull down the High Places
of the church and monarchy together. The project was first set ou foot by
English and Scotch travellers ; who, having unhappily sojourned awhile at
Frankfort, sinAva. the strange land oi Gawevsi, became bewitched at length
with the charms of a new discipline : Upon a return home, they made such
a pother with fantastical notions of liberty, and such pert remarks upon the
aclmirable constitutions of the English Church, that the whole nation soon
rang with the jingle of reformation. Innovations, grievances and disobedi-
ence to rulers, were inculcated from the pulpit, and the multitude rendered
uneasy both to their governors and themselves, by'calumnies, scruples, and
such like arguments of good and able divines. The authority of magistrates
was blasted and rundown by the fair and specious pretensions of R/ree peo-
ple ; and Christian loyalty, patience and submission were quite dashed out of
countenance by the horriole outcry of dangerous and slavish ojnnions. Never
was any black and infamous project so graduated along with good names;
nor the power of godliness so stifled with inward suggestions of the Spirit.
" The ring-leaders of the faction drew the rabble after them with the hal-
lowed whistle of conscience and inspiratiou ; with prayers unmerciful, ele-
vation of hands and voices, and eyes lifted .up to heaven : while their hearts
were fixt on sacrilege and rapine [that inheritatice of the saints) and other
creature comforts here below. The tickling of wanton and itching ears was
called ' touching the conscience ;' and he was thought the fittest champion
to sacrifice Antichrist to the beasts of the field and fowls of the air, that
could boldly and fluently utter the most edifying nonsense. They caught the
simple, even all the sons and daughters of the separation, with the witchcraft
of rebellion at last; as once a pied piper drew children after him, with the
unaccountable strains of magic and enchantments. And after they had run
through the various stages of heterodoxy and schism, liberty and insurrection,
prophaneness and blasphemy, plunder and devastation ; they completed their
reformation in the ruin of the church and state, the depression of the nobi-
lity, selling the gentry for slaves, the exaltation of sovereign mob, and the
murder of the best of princes.
" I do verily believe, (and surely the black annals of those unhappy times
have put it beyond all question,) that if all the religious barbarities and execu-
tions which were acted by those who are now sainted up to everlasting rest,
and, as it were, conjured to heaven by the republican chaplains of those
times ; if all the consequences too, under which the whole reformation groans
at this very day, could be represented at once unto the view ; it would be the
most sad aud astonishing sight, the most tremendous object of horror and
360 Al'l'ENDIX D.
world, now its scorn and contempt ; and Englishmen, once the
glory of Europe, now its shame for doing that which Turks and
Pagans and the barbarous abhorred, crying out, Youjight and
judge your King ! Not to say any thing of the general horror and
consternation that seized all the christian world upon that hor-
rid conspiracy. The letting loose of all the Jesuitical principles
that had troubled the world, but were never before owned by
things that would be called Protestants. As,
" That success is a sign of God's blessing and presence with
any people in any undertaking.
"That nothing is to be established in public that goeth against
any man's opinion, humour or conscience in private.
" That if any court, judicature, form of worship or law be
abused, then it must be presently laid down and not used.
" That any thing that hath been used by the Papists, or that
is but pretended to be Popish, must be abrogated : A principle
that the Jesuits, observing our blind zeal against Popery, have
suggested, to overthrow all religion under pretence of avoiding
Popery.
" That dominion is founded upon grace, and that the wicked
have no right to any thing that they enjoy.
" That the law of the land was not made for the righteous
but for sinners : so they abused a place of scripture that sounds
that way.
compassion, that ever eyes beheld; and would easily convince us, that our
travellers and reformers did not copy the example of Him who was meek and
lowly, and who came, not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." The Com-
7nonviealtICs Man Unmasked.
In the last paragraph, the reader will perceive an allusion to Richard Bax-
ter's Saints' Everlasting Rest, which he composed " in quarters far from
home," when, as a republican chaplain, " he was cast into extreme languish-
ment by the sudden loss of about a gallon of blood." In that curious and
(otherwise) very edifying treatise, he has given us several touches of his party
principles, which it would, for many reasons, have been more decorous to
omit in a work devoted to piety. In one passage, when speaking of heaven,
he says : " I think. Christian, this will be a more honourable assembly than
you ever here beheld ; and a more happy society than you were ever of before.
Surely Brook, and Pym, and Hampden, and White, &c. are now members of
a more knowing, unerring, well-ordered, right-aiming, self-denying, unani-
mous, honourable, triumphant senate, than this from w hence they were taken
is, or ever parliament will be. It is better to be door-keeper to that assembly,
whither Twisse, &c. are translated, than to have continued here the modera-
tor of this. That is the true Parliamentum beattim, the blessed parliament ;
and that is the only church that cannot err." — In another description of " the
city of rest," he tells us : "Subscription and conformity no more urged;
silencing and suspending are there more than suspended; there are no bishops
or chancellors' courts; no visitations nor high commission judgments; no
censures to loss of members, perpetual imprisonment or banishment." In a
comparison on the same subject he says: " O the sad and heart-piercing
spectacles that mine eyes have seen in four years' space ! In this fight a dear
friend fell down by me ; from another, a precious christian brought home
wounded or dead : scarce a month, scarce a week without tlie sight or noise
of blood. Surely there is none of this in heaven. Our eyes shall then be
tilled no n or. , nor our hearts pierced, with such fighls as at Worcester, Edge-
liill, Newbury, &c." Other passages of a similar aspect and tendency occur
in different parts of that treatise.
Al^l'EXDIX D. 361
" That all the prophecies and revolutions forespoken of, con-
cern England; and that they may make any stir to fulfil these pro-
phecies : all that they did, being, as they said, nothing but God's
pouring out his vials on the beast, ^-c* The whole Scripture being
understood, not according to the inward sense, but according to
the outward sound ; and as the fool thinketh, so the bell
tinketh.
" Against the King, the Law, and Reltg^on, were &
company of poor ti'adesmen, broken and decayed citizens, de-
luded and priest-ridden women, discontented spirits, creeping,
pitiful and neglected ministers, and trencher-chaplains ; enthu-
siastical factions, such as Independents, Anabaptists, Seekers,
Quakers, Levellers, Fifth-Monarchy Men, Libertines, the rude
rabble that knew not wherefore they were got together; Jesuited
politicians, tailors, shoemakers, linkboys, &c. ; guilty and noto-
rious offenders, that had endured or feared the law ; perjured
and deceitful hypocrites and atheists, mercenary soldiers, hollow-
hearted and ambitious courtiers, one or two poor and disobliged
lords, cowardly and ignorant neuters, here and there a Protest-
ant frighted out of his wits. These were the faction's champions.
" On the King's side, there were all the Bishops of the
land ; all the Deans, Prebends and learned men ; both the Uni-
versities ; all the Princes, Dukes and Marquisses ; all the Earls
and Lords, except two or three that stayed at Westminster to
make faces one upon another, and wait on their Masters the
Commons, until they bid them go about their business, telling
them they had nothing to do for them and voting them useless;
all the knights and gentlemen in the three nations, except a score
of sectaries and atheists that kept with their brethren and sisters
for the cause ; the judges and best lawyers in the land ;t all the
statesmen and counsellors ; the officers and great men of the
kingdom ; and all the Princes and States of Europe.
* The following extract from Dr. Heylin is a good attack apon the Calvin-
istic prophets of that age ; itis fighting them with their own weapons :
"Others with no unhappy curiosity observingthe number ot words which
make up this covenant, abstracted from the preface and conclusion of it,
found them amounting in the total to six hundred and sixty-six, neither more
nor less, which being the number of the beast iu the Revelation, pursued
with such an open persecution and prosecuted to the loss of so many lives, the
undoing of so many families, and the subverting of the government both of
church and state, majvery justl3-entitle it to so much of Antichrist, as others
have endeavoured to conftr on the Popes of Rome. For if the Pojje shewed
any thingof the spirit of Antichrist by bringing Cranmer, the first protestant
Archbishop of Canterbury, to th£ stake at Oxford ; this covenant and the
makers of it did express no less in bringing the last Protestant Archbishop to
the block in London."
•f- In the long and respectable list of " the judges and best lawyers in the
land," who were persecuted for righteousness' sake, was Judge Jenkins,
whose very judicious and extensively circulated pamphlets gave vast um-
brage to the republican usurpers. Lloyd gives as the following account of
this excellent man :
" David Jenkins, upwards of 58 years a Student in Grays-Inn near
London, of so much skill, when a private and young man, that niy Lord
Aa
302 AriM'.xnix dv
** The Earl of Strafford gave his Majesty safe counsel in the
prosperity of his affairs, and resolute advice in extremity, as a
true servant of his interest rather than of his pov?er. So emi-
Bacon would make use of his collections in several cases, digesting' them
himself; aud of so much repute in his latter years, that Attorney Noy,
Herbert, and Kan ks, would send the several cases they were to prosecute
for his Majesty, to be perused by him, before they were to be produced in
court. All the preferment he arrived at, was to be Judj^e of South-Wales,
a place he never sought after, nor paid for the patent, being' sent him with-
out his knowledge, and confirmed to him without his charge; in which
capacity, if prerog^ative of Ids dear master, or the poiver of his beloved
church, came in Ins way, stretching themselves heyond the law, he would
retrench them ; though suffering several checks for the one, and excom-
munication for the other : Notwithstanding that, he (h€art of oak) hazarded
liis life for the just extent of both ; for being teiken prisoner at the surprise
of Hereford, and for his notable vindication of the King's party and cause,
J)y those very laws (to the undeceiving of thousands) Uiat were pretended
against them, as the violators of the law; aud for increasing the fe\id
between the Parliament aud the army, and instilling sucaessfully into the
latter principles of allegiance, (by shewing them that all the parliamentary
ordinances for indemnity and arrears, were but blinds for the present,
amounting not to laws which they could trust to for the future, without his
Majesty's concurrence; whose restoration he convinced them was their
unavoidable interest, as well as their indispensable duty,) he ■was carried
first to the Chancery, secondly, to the Kings-bench, and at last, to the bar
of their House, the authority of all which places he denied ; and though he
and the honourable Lewis Dives were designed sacrifices for Ascham and
DorislauSjhe escaped with his life in eleven years' durance, out of which he
got 1656, not by creeping out of the window, by cowardly compliance, but
going forth at tne door, fairly set open for him by Divine providence, hazard-
ing bis life for that which was the life of his life, his conscience. He died
at nis house at Cowbridge, (his age having some years before given him a
qnietns est from public employments,) Dec. 6, 1663."
The worthy old lawyer accounted it a great honour to be a sufferer for his
royal master. In the short preface to his Lex Terre he relates a circum-
stance highly to the credit of the unfortunate monarch. After slating, that
in the beginning of the long parliament he himself " lay under three excom-
munications, and the examination of seventy-seven articles in the High
Commission Court, for opposing the excess of the bishops", &c ; he adds,
■*' In the timeof the attorueysliips of Mr. Noy and the Lord Banks, they were
pleased to make often use of me, and many references concerning suits at
court upon that occasion came to my knowledge ; and, as I shall answer to
God upon my last account, this is truth, that all or most of the references
which 1 have seen in that kind (aud I have seen many) were to this effect,
that his Majesty would be informed by his council if the suits preferred were
AGREEABLE TO THE LAWS, and NOT INCONVENIENT TO HIS PEOPLE, before
be would pass them. What could a just and pious Prince do more ?"
The following is the style iu which he concluded one of his pamphlets, and
the last paragraph (respecting an act of oblivion, &c.) was the closing bur-
den of all his productions -.
" There is no doubt but that many in both Hoyscs are free from this
great sin, and that most of the prevailing party had at first no inteutions
to proceed so far ; but the madness of the people, (who are very unstable,
aud so they will find them,) and the success of their armies (having this
great rich city to supply them with all accommodations,) have so elated
them, that the evil is come to this height. For myself, to put me to death
in this cause, is the greatest honour lean possibly receive iu this world:
Dulce et decorum est niori pro patria. And for a lawyer, and a judge of the
law, to die, Dum sa net is pa trice legibus obsequitur, for obedience to the laws,
will be deemed, by the good men of this time, a sweet-smelling sacrifice,
aud by this and future times, that / died fill of years, and luid an honest
and /tonourable end. And posterity will take knowledge of these men, who
APPENDIX D. 363
nent was he, and my Lord of Canterbury, that rebellion de-
spaired of success as long as the first lived, and schism of licen-
tiousness as long as the second stood. Take my Lord of Strafford
as accused, and you will find his integrity and ability, that he
managed his whole government either by the law or by the
interest of his country. Take him as dying, and you will see
his parts and piety, his resolution for himself, his self- resigna-
tion for the kingdom's good, and his devotion for the Church,
whose patrimony he forbade his son upon his blessing. — But
these qualities, which rendered him so amiable to his Majesty,
represented him formidable to the Scots; so that some who were
not well persuaded of the justness of his sentence, thought he
suffered, not so muchybr ivhat he had done already, as for what
he was like to have done, had he lived, to the disservice of that
nation ; and that he was not sacrificed so much to the Scots'
revenge as to their fear. And certainly his fall was, as the
first, so the most fatal wound the King's interest ever received ;
his three kingdoms hardly affording another Strafford, that is,
one man his peer in parts and fidelity to his Majesty. He had
a singular passion for the government and patrimony of the
church : both which he was studious to preserve safe and sound
either opining them to be of sacred extraction or at leastof prudent
constitution relating to holy performances. The first institution of
the president's place in the North, was to *?/^/)re,yi' rebellions ; and
my Lord's first care in that place was to prevent them. How care-
fully did he look outhonest and wise clergymen, thatmightinstruct
and guide, — how prudently did he choose knowing and noble
gentlemen, that might govern and awe that rude corner of the
kingdom, equally obnoxious to the insinuations of the old super-
stition that crept thither from beyond the seas, and of the late
innovations that stole in thither from beyond the Tweed, both
dangerous to the people and troublesome to government !
I
put some to death for subverting of the laws, and others for supporting of
them, &c. Yet mercy is above all the works of God ; the King is God's
Vicar on earth. In Bracton, who was a judge in Henry the third's time,
ou shall find the King's oath : To shew mercy, is partof it. You are all
is children ; say and do what you will, you are all his subjects, and he is
your King and parent : Pro magna pecca to paululum supplied satis est patri :
[A. father is satisfied with a very slight degree of punishment for a great
offence :] and therefore let uot the prevailing party be obdurate, out of a
desperation of safety. That which is past is not revocable : Take to your
thoughts your parents, your wives, your children, your friends, your for-
tunes, your country ; wherein foreigners [the Scots] write, there is Mira aeris
suavitas, et rerum oinnium abundantin : [a wonderful mildness in the at-
mosphere, and an abundance of every thing.J Invite them not hither;
the only way to be free of their company will be, to restore his Majesty, and
receive from him an act of oblivion, a general pardon, assurance for the
arrears of the soldiery, and meet satisfaction to tender consciences. — God
rRESERVE THE KtNG AND THE LAWS : DAVID JENKINS, Prisoner in
Newgate,"
AA 2
364
Al'l'ENDIX D.
" How clearly did he see through the mutinies and pretences
of the multitude, into the long-contrived conspiracies and designs
of several orders of more dangerous men, whose covetousness
and ambition would digest, as he foresaw, the rash tumults, into
a more sober and solemn rebellion ! How happily did he
divine, that the affronts offered the King's authority on the score
of Superstition, Tyratmy, Idolatry, Mai-administration, Liberty*^
Sj'C. (words as little understood by the vulgar, as the design that
lay under them,) were no other than essays made by certain
sacrilegious and needy men, to confirm the rapines upon church
and state they had made in Scotland, and to open a door to the
same pi'actices in England ; to try how the King, who had al-
ready ordered a revocation of all such Usu7-pations in Scotland
and had a great mind to do the like in England, would bear their
rude and insolent attempts, — whether he would consult his
pofver or his goodness, assert his Majesty or yield to their impor-
tunity ! How nimbly did he meet with the faction by a protes-
tation he gained from all the Scots in England and Ireland,
against the covenant of their brethren in Scotland ; at the same
time, in several books which he caused to be printed, discover-
ing that the Scottish faction, that so much abhorred Popery,
* " Prcf. 'The books that are left us of the ancients are full of doctrines,
• sentences and examples, exhorting to the conservation or recovery of the
' public liberty.'-Here he would fain shelter himself again under tlie authority
of the ancients; who, as 1 have shewn before, have already turned him out
of their society, for his insufficiency and false accusations. The ancientsnever
dreamed of such a liberty as he would inculcate ; since it was the main design
of their philosophy, to curb all irregular sallies of our nature, and bound our
appetites with a prudential restraint. Public liberty, in the mouth of a flam-
ing enthusiastic zealot, is like a naked sword in the hands of a lunatic bro-
ther, dangerous and destructive ; and the one should no more be trusted alone
■without a limitation, than the other without a scabbard. It is a licence to
kick, bite, swear, and j^lay the libertine through all the various scenes of car-
nality and lust; to be covetous and, what is worse, to rebel for conscience'
sake; to write treason directly or indirectly, and cheat our neighbour with a
sealous twinkling of the eye or in saying of a prayer. He that is free-born, is
likewise born in a state of subjection to laws; and though, by his birth-right,
is entitled to certain privileges and civil rights, yet he is also entitled to some
certain measures of obedience, as he is a subject: And whosoever talks so
loftily of the one, and industriously conceals the other, does but abuse the
multitude into dangerous sentiments, with a nonsensical jingle of words,
and is so far from being a true English politician, that he is a down-right
shuffling impostor. Christianity, with its dark train of passive doctrines, is
a slavish and unintelligible thing in his esteem. Never was any fond man so
blind au admirer of his mistress's charms and perfections, as he is a lover
of his country's legal liberties, without any regard to the safety of religion :
Jiever did good St. Augustine declaim with more vehemence against the
salvability of the heathens, than Le has done against these ' slavish opi-
* uions suckt in at the schools ; and which some have been so unfortunate
' to carry to their graves, and (he might have added) to heaven.' — He would
fain make the wondering world believe, that Passive Obedience and Legal
Liberties are inconsistent things ; and that one is fatally destructive of the
other : but that is his want of judgment, and sound understanding. St.
Paul, who was undoubtedly as great an assertor of Passive obedience as
ever was in the world, pleaded such Liberties as these under Nero, and
before the Magistrates of Philippi. But he likewise knew, that civil rights
can have only a civil defence ; and, if that fail, there is no higher appeal
or remedy to be expected, but the Divine protecliou." Commonwealtlvs Man
L'jiuiunlieiL
APPKNniX D. S65
proceeded in this sedition upon the worst of Popish principles
and practices ; and that this godly leagvie which was so much
applauded by the people, was a combination of men acting over
those traitorous, bloody and Jesuitical maxims of Mariana,
Siiarez, and Bellarmine, which all good people abhorred. When by
the diligence of the King's enemies, and the security and treason
of his pretended friends, who made it their business to persuade
his Majesty that there was no danger, so long until there was no
SAFETY, * he saw a faction formed into councils and drawn
up into armies ; — when he saw one kingdom acting in open
rebellion, and another countenancing and inclining to it; — when
he discovered a correspondence between the conclave of Rome
and the Cardinal of France, between the King of France and
the rebels of Scotland, between the leaders of the Scottish sedi-
tion and the agents of the English faction, (one Pickering, Lau-
rence, Hampden, Fines, &c. being observed then to pass to
and fro between the English and the Scottish Brethren,) and
saw letters signed with the names (though as some of them al-
leged since, without the consent) of the five members |^of the
House of Commons,^ &c. ; — when the government in church
and state was altered,t the King's ships, magazines, revenue,
* This is one of tiie crimes which were alleged, by one of our old historians,
against the Duke of Hamilton : "For interceding for Loudon, and hin-
dering Montrose, so as to niake the king believe ' that the Scots would not
invade England,' till he himself writes ' that they were on the borders.'
Yet, by a Providence which one calls digitus Dei, "(after great overtures of
money and of discoveries, to save his life,) he was in 1619 beheaded at West-
minster, for the king, by that party whom he was thought to serve against
the king." When the king heard lliat he led the Scots army, (see page 348,)
for which he suffered, his majesty said, " Nay, if he leads them, there is
no good to be done for me."
He was without doubt a very dangerous man in such a Court as that of
Charles the First, whose letters he was accused of taking out of his pockets
and of divulging the king's secrets to his enemies. Some of the unjust odium
which was bestowed on Archbishop Laud and his royal master, is well des-
cribed by Dr. Heylin in the following passage :
"Look on them [the Scotch] in the church, and we shall find many of
that nation beneficed and preferred in all parts of this country ; and, of all
these, scarce one in ten who did not cordially espouse and promote their
cause amongst the people. They had beside no less assurance of the English
Puritans than they had of their own ; those in court (of which there was no
very small number) being headed by the Earl of Holland, those in the coun-
try by his brother, the Earl of Vv'arviick ; the first being aptly called in a let-
ter of the Lord Conway to the Lord Archbishop, the spiritual and invixible
head, the other, the visible and temporal head of the Puritan faction. And,
which was more than all the rest, they had the Marquis of Hamilton for their
lord and patron, of so great a power about the King, such authority in the
court of England, such a powerful influence on the council of Scotland, and
such a general command over all that nation, that his pleasure amongst
them passed for law, and his words for oracles; all matters of Grace and
FAVOf R ascribed to him, matters of Harshnf.ss or Distaste to the King or
Canterbury. To speak the matter in a word, he was grown of Scots in fact,
though not of title ; his Majesty being looked on by them as a cypher only, iu
the arithmetic of State."
t Some of the crude notions about civil government which this alteration
suggested, in the minds of different consiientious individuals who wished
aa3
366 APPENDIX D.
forts, and faithful servants were seized on ; the orders of state
and the worship of God were affronted by a barbarous multitude,
that, with sticks, stools, and such other instruments of fury as
were present, disturbed all religious and civil conventions ; and
the King's agents, Hamilton, Traquair and Roxborough,
(pleased, no doubt, with the commotions they at first raised,
and by new, though secret, seed of discontents improved,) in-
creased the tumults by a faint opposition, which they might have
allayed by vigorous ■punishments, — all the declarations that were
drawn in the King's name being contrived so as to overthrow
his affairs ; — in a word, when he saw that the traitors were got
into the King's bed-chamber, cabinets, pockets and bosom, *and,
to discover some principle which might sanction their adherence to the
usurped government, are thus summarily stated by Feilkner, in his Chris-
tinn Loyalty ;
" In our late dreadful times of civil war, the whole management of
things against the King, and the undertaking to alter and order public
affairs without him, was a manifest and practical disowning the King's
supremacy. Some persons then who would be thought men of sense, did
assert, ' that thougn the King was owned to be supreme governour, yet the
• SUPREMEST sovereign power was in the people.' Others declared, ' that
' the title of supreme governour was an honorary title given to the King,
' to please him instead of fuller power.' And in the issue, by a pretended
act, it was called treason, to say, that the Commons, assembled in Parlia-
ment, were not the supreme authority of the nation. But there were also
some who then affirmed, the whole body of the people to be superior to the
Parliament, and that they might call them to an account."
* " By which the King was so observed and betrayed withal, that as far as
they could find his meaning by words, by signs and circumstances, or the
silent language of a shrug, it was posted presently into Scotland, some of his
bed-chamber being grown so bold and saucy, that they used to ransack his
pockets when he was in bed, to transcribe such letters as they found, and
send the copies to their countrymen in the way of intelligence. A thing so
well known about the court, that the Archbishop of Canterbury in one of his
letters, gave him this memento, that he should not trust his pockets with it."
Heylin's Life of Laud.
" And here I might justly enough take occasion to lament the fate as well
as admire the glory of puissant and great princes, whom a Symnel or Jack
Straw, a Prefacer or dawbing historian may expose to infinite hazards and
disturbances. Though they govern their people with the mildness and cle-
mency of guardian angels, yet they must not partake of their divine tran-
quillity ; their character is not always their security, nor their bravery their
protection. For, suppose them adorned with all royal qualifications, with
the laws of generosity, punctilios of true honour, and* all the niceties of jus-
tice : grant that they ascend the royal throne with the gladsome shouts and
acclamations of the people, and gain a diadem by inheritance or desert. Yet
they can only hold intelligence with the faces of men, but cannot spell out
intrigues, and converse with inclinations. Due allegiance and honour is all
the tribute that subjects can defray, or they themselves can exact ; and how
shall they know but the most seemingly regular and plausible forms of
speech maybe nothing but a neat well-acted hypocrisy and a mere studied
disguise .' Unnecessary offers and over-hasty officiousness smell strong of
interest and dark design ; how then can they tell, whether the most grave
and submissive application be the free result of a good intention, or mere
solemn flattery and artificial address ? Nay, how can they be assured, but
their greatest enemies may be those of their own household .' Whether they
that are adopted into the secrecy of their bosoms, that depend on their smiles,
and sport themselves for a while in their warm beams, will help to guard the
throne, or toshak'C it.'" Commonwealtlt,'s Man Unmasked.
APPENDIX I>. 867
by false representation of things, had got time to consolidate
their conspiracy, and that the King's concessions to their bold
petition (about the liturgy, the high-commission, the book of
Canons, and the five articles of Perth,) were but encourage-
ments to put up bolder ; — finding that force could obtain that
which modesty and submission had never compassed, and imput-
ing all kindness to the King's weakness rather than goodness ; —
his apprehensions in that affair were at Council-board, (Dec. 5,
1639,) against the King's indulgence to them ; He voted, ' that
* they were to be reduced by force, (being a people, as his Majes-
'ty observed of them,/o*< hy favours and jvon by punishments^ in
' an offensive war that would put a period to all the troubles in
' five months, whereas a defensive war will linger many years.'—
Neither was he less careful of the church's doclrine than disci'
plitie, forbidding the Primate's [^Archbishop Usher^ obtrudii.g
the Calvinists' school-points for Articles of faith ; and, instead
of the polemic Articles of the Church of Ireland, to receive the
positive, plain and orthodox Articles of the Church of England;
neither admitting high questions nor countenancing the men
that promoted them, aiming at a religion that should make men
serious rather than curious, honest rather than subtile ; and that
men lived high, but did fiot talk so : Equally disliking the
Trent Faith, consisting of canons, councils, fathers, &c. that
would become a library rather than a catechism, and the Scots
Confessions, consisting of such schooUnicelies as would fill a
man's large table-book and common-place, rather than his heai't.
Julius Caesar said, other men's wives should not be loose, but his
should not be suspected. And this great Lord advised the pri-
mate of Ireland, ' that as no clergyman should be in reality
* guilty of compliance with a schism, so should not he in ap-
* pearance,' adding, (when the Primate urged the dangers on all
sides,) as Caesar once said, * You are too old to fear, and I too
* sickly' — A true saying, since, upon the opening of his body, it
was found that he could not have lived, according to the course of
nature, six months longer than he did by the malice of his ene-
mies,— his own diseases having determined his life about the same
period that the nation's distemper did. Philip the First of Spain
said, he could not compass his design as long as Lerma lived ;
nor the Scots theirs, as long as Strafford acts and with his own
single worth bears up against the plot of three kingdoms, like
Sceva, in the breach, with his single resolution duelling the
whole conspiracy."
The historian then gives an account of the conduct of King
Charles under his accumulated sufferings: '•' How tender his
conscience ! that was resolved to do public penance, for consent-
ing to the Earl of Strafford's death, (a deep sense of which action
went with him to his grave,) and to the injuries done the church
in England and Scotland. How careful his heart ! in that, when
368 APPENDIX D.
the commissioners at the Isle of Wight urged him to allow the
lesser catechism of the Assembly, * that being (they said) but a
small matter/ he said, Though it seem to you a small mailer, yet I
had rather part ivilh the choicest Jlower in my crown, than permit
your children to be corrupted in the least point of their religion.—
That prince who, besides the great examples he gave them, began
his reign with the highest act of grace that he could, or any king
did in the world ; I mean the granting of the petition of right,
■wherein he secured his people's estates from taxes that are not
given in Parliament, and their lives, liberties and estates, from all
proceedings not agreeable to law :* A king that permitted his
chief favourite and counsellor, the Duke of Buckingham, whose
greatest fault was his Majesty's favour, to satisfy the kingdom,
both in Parliament and Star-chamber, in the way of a public
process : And gave up Mainwaring and Sibthorpe, both (as I
take it) his chaplains, to answer for themselves in Parliament,
saying, ' He that will preach more than he can prove, let him
' suffer :' That a king that was and did so, as he was and did,
should be first suspected and then opposed, should be rendered
ridiculous abroad and odious at home, should easier persuade his
foreign enemies to a peace, than his own subjects to contribute
to a war, and that of their own advising and persuading : That
the Scots should fight and he not dare to call them rebels ; and
* " The Kinj at all times when there is no Parliament, and in Parliament,
is assisted with the advice of the judges of the law, 12 in number ; for Eng-
land at least hath two sergeants when fewest, an attorney and solicitor, twelve
masters of the chancery ; his council of state consisting of some great pre-
lates, and other great personages, versed in state aftairs, when they are
fewest, to the number of twelve. AH these persons are always of great sub-
stance, which is not preserved but by the keeping of the law; the prelates
versed in divine law, the other grandees in affairs of state and managery of
government; the judges, king's sergeants, attorney, solicitor, and masters
of the chancery, versed in law and customs of tne realm ; all sworn to
serve the King and his people justly and truly. The King is also sworn to
observe the laws ; and the judges have in their oath a clause, 'that they
• shall do common right to the King's people, according to the established
' laws, notwithstanding any command of tl^e King to the contrary under the
• great seal, or otherwise.' The people are safe by the laws in force, with-
out any new. The law finding the Kings of this realm assisted with so
many great men of conscience, honour, and skill in the rule of common-
wealth, knowledge of the laws, and bound by the high and holy bond of an
oath upon the evangelists, settles among other powers upon the King, a
power to refuse any bill agreed upon bynoth Houses, and power to pardon
all offences, to pass any grants in his minority, not to be bound to any law
to his prejudice whereby he doth not bind himself, power of war and peace,
coining of money, making all officers, &c. The law, for the reasons afore-
said, hath approved these powers to be unquestionable in the King, and all
Kings have enjoyed them till the third of Nov. 1640.
"It will be said, ' Notwithstanding all this fence about the laws, the laws
' have been violated, and therefore the said powers must not hold : the tw»
• Houses will remedy this.' The answer to this is evident : There is no time
past, nor time present, nor will there be time to come, so long as men
manage the law, but the laws will be broken more or less, as appears by
the story of every age. All the pretended violations of this time were reme-
died by acts to which the King consented before his departure, 10 Jan. 1&41.
Jenkins's Law of the L'lnd.
APPENDIX D. 869
his faithful counsellors should assist him, and he not dare to own
them as friends: That such a king should be abused to Parliaments
by his servants, and to his people by Parliaments; should be first
intreated out of his magazines, castles and whole militia, and
then fought against with them ;* should be forced out of one
town and shut out of another: That such a prince should see his
■whole court voted and dealt with as traitors ; his estate seques-
tered for delinquency ; his clergy and church (which he was by
oath obliged to defend and maintain in its due rights) ruined for
keeping the fifth commandment, and Qhe doctrine contained
in^ Rom. xiii ; hi^ churches turned to stables ; his loyal subjects
murthered, plundered, banished, and he not able to help them,
his laws and edicts overruled by I-know-not-what orders and
ordinances ; his seals and great offices of state counterfeited ; all
the costly ornaments of religion rviined and defaced ; learning,
that was his honour and his care, trampled on by its and his old
enemies, the ignorant.t — These are things that the world could
*" For the considerations aforesaid the King's party adhered to him.
The law of the land is their birtli-ri<^ht, their guide; no offence is com-
mitted vviiere that is not violated. They found the commission of array
warranted by the law ; they found the King in this Parliament to have
quitted the ship-money, knighthood- money, seven courts of justice, con-
sented to a triennial Parliament, settled the forest bounds, took awav the
clerk of the market of the household, trusted the house with the navy,' pas-
sed an act not to dissolve this Parliament without the Houses' assent . No
people in the world so free, if they could have been content with laws,
OATHS, and reasons ; and nothing more could or can be devised to secure
us, neither hath been in any time. Notwithstanding all this, we found the
Kiu^ driven from London by frequent tumults, that two thirds and more of
the Lords had deserted that House for the same cause, and the greater part
of the House of Commons left that House also for the same reason ; new
men chosen in their places against law by the pretended warrant of a coun-
terfeit seal, and in the King's name against his consent, levying war against
him, and seizing his ports, forts, magazines and revenue, and converting'
them to his destruction, and the subversion of the law and land, layin<r
taxes on the people, never heard of before in this land, devised new oaths
to oppose forces raised by the King, nor to adhere to him but to them in this
war ; which they call the negative oath, and the vow and covenant.
" By several ways never used in this kingdom, they have raised monies to
foment this war, and especially to enrich some among them : namely, first,
excise; secondly, contributions, thirdly, sequestrations; fourthly, fifth
parts; fifthly, twentieth parts; sixthly, meal-money; seventhly, sale of
plundered goods ; eighthly, loans ; ninthly, benevolences ; tenthly, collec-
tions upon their fast-days; eleventhly, new impositions upon merchandizes ;
twelfthly, guard, maintained upun the charge of private men ; thirteenthly,
fifty subsidies at one time ; fourteenthly, compositions with such as they
call delinquents ; fifteeuthly, sale of Bishops' lands, &c.
" From the King's party means of subsistence are taken ; before any indict-
ment, their lauds are seized, their goods taken : the law allows a traitor or
felon attainted necessaria sibi et familicB sua in victu et vestitu : where is
the covenant? where is the petition of right? where is the liberty of the
subject?" Jbid.
f " Another way to advance the darling anti-monarchical design is, by bring-
ing the public schools and universities into disgrace: 'These are the dangerous
' strong-holds of Antichrist, where principles of loyalty and passive doctrines
' are sucked in with greediness :' and therefore it is held convenient to throw
370 APPENDIX D.
never believe till it felt them, and will not believe when the
impressions of them are worn off. This wise and good King,
the same in all fortunes, was he that must pardon his enemies,
some dust in these eyes of the nation, that the free-born projectors may more
commodiously come at the head. And this was the great pride and luxury of
the brotherhood in the former days of tyranny and civil combustion ; when
the sweating teachers, after a few winks and groans, began to thunder against
a vain philosophy, and wet their handkerchiefs in running down the neces-
sity of human learning. This was not only inculcated from the tub, but froi»
the press also in solemn formidable manner ; as may be seen in the author?
of Light out of Darkness and The tVhite Stone, But here we find the repub-
lican doctors differed among themselves : For some were not absolutely for
pnlling down but only regulating the constitution of our academies, and pro-
posing expedients for reforming of schools and promoting of all kinds of
science. Thus speaks the author of Academiaruni JExamen, dedicated to
Major general Lambert: 'Seeing Divine Providence hath made you (with the
* rest of those faithful and gallant men of the army) signally instrunieutal,
* both in redeeming the English liberty, almost drowned in the deluge of ty-
* ranny and self-interest, is^'c. I hope the same providence will also direct
* j'ou to be assistant to continue the same, <^c. And moreover, guide you to
' set your hand and endeavour for the purging and reformation of academies
* and the advancement of learning which hitherto hath been little promoted
* or looked into.'
" The author of the Examen did not merely find fault, censure and
talk magisterially ; but, with a seeming modesty (a quality unknown to
our new regulator,) he confesses it is far more easy to demolish, than to
erect a complete structure ; especially for a single person of a mean talent :
And after he had offered some plausible expedients for a rectification of
Logic, Metaphysics, Grammar, Mathematics and natural Philosophy ; he
owns himself obnoxious to many errors ; and hopes that better and more
able pens will help to supply his defects. — With his new models, foreign
experiments and ideals of government, and other chimerical bawbles, what
a woful and sorry wight must he appear amongst a learned and venerable
assembly ? Nay, how would each junior sophister (lately dismist from
school) give him cause to sneak, beg pardon, and repent, in the strength
of Hesiod and Homer ? The former of these (as Bornchius notes) has writ-
ten with so much wisdom and acumen, that he may, even now, be read
with singular advantage by those that apply themselves to politics and
moral philosophy. The latter (as Rapin thinks) had the vastest, sublimest,
and most universal genius that ever was : it was by his poems that all the
worthies of antiquity were formed : From hence the lawgivers took the
first plat-form of the laws they gave to mankind : The founders of monar-
chies and common-wealths from hence took the models of their polities :
Hence the philosophers found the first principles of morality, which they
have taught the people : Hence Kings and Princes have learnt the art to
govern, and captains to form a battle, to encamp an army, to besiege
towns, to fight and to gain victories, &c.
" The compilers of those statutes, which he ignorantly explodes, knew
very well what they did ; and though they had a different taste or notion of
learning from what he entertains, yet it follows not, but they may have
been in the right. As they could not then understand (as he over-wisely
ntimates) the present state of learning in the world ; so they never design-
ed, that Students should be limited and tied all their lives to a particular
system, when the empire of knowledge or philosophy should be enlarged.
I know no greater assertors of philosophical liberty, than the gentlemeu
that have had their education in our universities : And if some are parti-
cularly ftho' not exclusively) directed to study Aristotle and his works, it is
no more than what is proper, just, nay necessary, upon the account of ex-
trinsical motives and inducements. For the Peripatetic terms, and modes
of expression, are now interwoven throughout a great part of the Roniau-
Catholic Theology, which is better defended by arguments drawn from a
metaphysiinl system, than by reasons, texts, and deductions from holy
writ; and if we cannot confront our enemies with their own weapons, and
APPENDIX D. 371
but must except his friends out of pardon ; he that, when all his
subjects had sworn oaths of allegiance to him, must swear an
oath devised by his subjects (called Covenant) against himself:
He, Avithout whom no oath could be imposed upon the subjects,
hath an oath imposed upon him by his subjects, and in that oath
must swear that [^Episcopal]] government in the church Auli'-
christian, which was the only christian government for fifteen
define, divide, distinguish artificially, unravel cryptical syllogisms and
subtile arguments, with equal facility and readiness, we may betray the
cause which we would williiiu'ly maintain, and give them occasion to triumph.
" The Greek and Latin Fathers encountered the Pagans, Jews, and Here-
tics, with such philosophical weapons, as the necessity of those times re-
quired ; and it may look at this time like a kind of defection, a betraying
the Protestant cause, to slight the logical and metaphysical learning taught
in the universities : But this is no part of the prefacer's main care, nor does
it (i believe) in the least concern his conscience. No : A King or no King,
is now the grand question and important controversy among us ; and a few
generous republican notions about liberty out-weigh, with him, all the
learning and divinity of Europe. What profound notion of learning our
prefacer has found out, for the instruction of mankind, lam not worthy to
know ; for I am no interpreter of dreams. He may value, for aught 1 know,
the languages of Gypsies above Greek and Hebrew . He may extol, if he
pleases, the inspection of urine above all parts of physical knowledge :
He may fancy, perhaps, that the dissection of a flea or the tail of a fish, or
such like curious employment, is a most admirable and useful part of na-
tural philosophy ; that calculating the nativity of a common-wealth, and
the fall of a monarchy, is an excellent and profitable part of modern astro-
logy : This he may call speaking pertinently, and acting like a man; and
the extinguishing all remorse, compassion and good nature, may pass for
a subduing the passions in his philosophy. — One threat reason, I suppose,
that induced the Prefacer to undervalue the old philosophy, and Aristotelian
doctrines, is this : Aristotle, it seems, both in his ethics and politics, afiirms
in plain terms, that of all forms of government the monarchical is the best:
He asserts, ' that wise men are fitted by nature to command, and that others
* of strong bodies but weak intellectuals, are chiefly designed for subjection
' and obedience ;' than which nothing can be more grating and disobliging to
men of a republican temper and inclination.
" Here let the generous reader give me leave to make a stand a while, and
complain a little of the hard fate of learning in this age : Suppose a man has
entertained and polished his mind and rational faculties with the works of
those ancients, that rescued and preserved their natural reason and religion
amidst all the wildnesses of pagan darkness and confusion, (such as Orpheus,
Homer, Euripides, j^schylus, Menander, Xenophon, Socrates, Aristotle,
Pythagoras, Hierocles and others,) together with all the divine and perfec-
tive discourses of Cicero, Seneca, Virgil, Horace, and the rest of the Grecian
and Roman Poets and philosophers : Let him add to all these the pious and
seraphical discourses of the Fathers ; be able to recite and confute all heresies
from Nicholas andCerinthus, Carpocrates and Valentinus, successively down
to the times of John a Leyden, and all the rest of our modern innovators.
Nay, though he comprehend all the rarities and treasures of the Vatican,
the Escurial, the Ambrosian, Florentine, and Bodleian libraries; yet that
very wretch, whose politics and reading never raised him higher than The
Door of Hope, Poor Man's Cup, God's loud Call, A Token for Children,
The Morning Seeker, Nonsuch Charles, The Assembly's Works, Scotch
Psalms, and The Account of Denmark, shall start up as grand a resolver of
cases, expounder of dark texts, confounder of heresies, and modeller of
Stales, as the most celebrated oracle of divinity or law . Nay, a confident
traveller, by virtue of a hard forehead, a set of stories and legerdemain of the
pen, shall on asudden transform the most excellent body of men into a loose
pack of worldlings and silly graceless professors." Commonwealth's Man
Unmasked,
372 ArriiNDlX D.
hundred j'ears : And when divines dispute that and other points
probably, the poor King and his people must swear iheva peremp-
torily.
" These aforesaid assassinates [[the members of the High
Court of Justice^meet in the painted chamber, become now the
Jesuits' chamber of meditation,* to consult about the slaughter ;
and being heated by one or two of their demagogues, that per-
suaded them that the saints should bind the kings in chains and
the nobles with fetters of iron, beseeching them, with bended
knees and lift-up eyes and hands, in the people's name, who yet
were ready to have stoned thera, not to let Benhadad go, — they
dare (but guarded strongly by a set of executioners like them-
selves) to convene before them, Jan. 19, 1649, Charles, King of
England, &c., now to be deprived of his life, as he had been
before of his kingdoms. Here the conspiracy might be seen in
a body, a poor pettifogger Bradshaw,t that had taken the oath of
allegiance and supremacy but three weeks before, leading the
herd as President, and the whole plot in his draught. The
charge being read, his most excellent Majesty, (looking upon it as
below him to interrupt the impudent libel and vie tongue with
the Billingsgate court,) with a calmness, prudence and resolution
peculiar to his royal breast, asked the assassinates, by what au-
thority they brought a king, their most rightful sovereign, against
the public faith, so lately given him at a treaty between him and
his two Houses } And upon the prating foreman's bold sugges-
tion, that they were satisfied in their own authority, replying
rationally, ' That it was not his own apprehension, nor theirs
' neither, that ought to decide the controversy.' — Monday, Jan.
22, after three bloody harangues at their fast Jan. 21, on Gen.ix,
6 ; Matt, vii, 1 ; Psalm cxlix, 6, 7j (three texts as miserably tor-
mented that day as his Majesty was the next, — these men always
first being a torment to scripture, the great rule of right, and
* " Those that had been eight years endeavouring to murder the King in a
war, are made his judges now that war is over. A prettj' siofht! to have seen
Clement, Ravillac, Faux, Catesby, and Garnet, one day eiuTeavouring to de-
spatch a King, and the next advanced to be his judges ; after prayers and
fasts, the great fore runners of mischief, whereby they endeavoured as im-
pudently to engage God in the villainy be forb'd, as they had done the people
in a treason which they all abhorred, — for the remonstrance framed by Ireton
for questioning the King, was called the Agreement of the People. When all
the ministry of England, and indeed of the world, cried down the bloody de-
sign, contrary to oaths and laws and common reason, as the shame and dis-
grace of religion, these assassinates were satisfied with the preachments of
one pulpit -huttbon Peters, a wretched fellow, that, since he was whipt by the
governors of Cambridge when a youth, could not endure government ever
after; and the revelations of a mad Hertfordshire woman concurring with
the proceedings of the army, for which she was thanked by the House ; her
revelations being seasonable, and proceeding from an humble spirit."
f " Jan. 17, 1649. 1 heard the rebel Peters incite the rebel powers met in
the painted chamber, to destroy his majesty; and saw that arch-traitor
Bradshaw, who not long after condemned him." Evelyn's Diary.
AlTliNDlX D. G7'3
then to all that lived according toil,)* they being perplexed with
the King's demurrer to their unheard-of jurisdiction, resolved
among themselves, after some debate, to maintain it as boldly.
"Long were they troubled how they might assert their power,
longer how they might execute it ; some would have Majesty-
suffer like the basest of malefactors, and that in his robes of
habiliments of state, that at once they might dispatch a king and
monarchy together : Others' malice proposed other horrid vio-
lences to be offered to him, but not to be named among men ; till
at last they thought they should gratify their ambition to tri-
umph over monarchy sufficiently if they beheaded him ; and so,
waving all his pleas for himself and the allegations of mankind
for him ; — after several unworthy harangues, consisting of nothing
else but bold affirmations of that power whereof they had no one
ground but those affirmations and reflections on the King's
demurrer, as a delay to their proceedings; when indeed he has-
tened them, by offering that towards the peace of the kingdom
in one hour that was not thought of in several years ; notwith-
standing his seasonable caution to them, ' That an hasty sen-
* tence once past, might be sooner repented of than recalled ;
' conjuring them, as they loved the liberty of the people and the
* peace of the kingdom they so much pretended for, they would
* receive what he had to offer to both ;' — the club of assassinates
proceed to this horrid sentence : * Whereas the Commons of
* England in Parliament have appointed them an High Court of
' Justice for the trying of Charles Stuart, King of England, be-
* fore whom he had been three times convented, and at first time
' a charge of high treason and other crimes and misdemeanours
' was read in the behalf of the kingdom of England,' &c. Here
the clerk read the charge ; which charge being read unto him as
aforesaid, he, the said Charles Stuart, w^as required to give his
answer, but he refused so to do, and so exprest the several pas-
sages at his trial in refusing to answer. ' For all which treasons
' and crimes, this court doth adjudge, that the said Charles Stuart
* In the lon^ catalogue of crimes allesred against Hugh Peters, (who was
executed at ChariDg Cross, Oct. 16, 1660, ) the following are euumerated :
"On Sundaj', the 21st of January 1649, he preached at Whitehall, from
Psalm clix, 8, * To bind their kings with chains,' &c., applying his text and
sermon to the late King, and highly applauding the proceedings of the army,
saying, 'This is a joyful day, and 1 hope to see such another day to- morrow.*
That the Sunday after his Majesty was sentenced to die, he preached again
upon the same text at St. James's, saying, ' He intended to have preached
' upon another text before the poor wretch, but that the poor wretch refused
* to hear him.' — That in the afternoon of the same dav he preached at Sepul-
chre's, and repeated all his parallel between his late "Majesty and Barabbas,
crying out, that none but Jews would let Barabbas go. — That", in this sermon,
he said, 'Those soldiers who assisted in this great work, had Emmanuel writ-
ten on their bridles.' — That after the King was murdered, Peters said,
' Lord, now Jettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen
* thy salvation.' — That a while after the execution, he said, • I rejoice to
' think of that day ; for to me it seemed like the great and last day of judg-
* ment, when the saints shall judge the world.' "
374 APPENDIX D.
* as a tyrant, traitor, murthererand a public enemy, shall be put
* to death by tlie severing his head from his body.' To which
horrid sentence the whole pack stood up, by agreement among
themselves before made ; and, (though they agreed in nothing
else, either before or since,) unanimously voted the bloody words,
words of so loud a guilt, that they drowned all the earnest propo-
sals of reason and religion, offered by a prince who was a great
master of both. All the great throng that pitied but could not
help afflicted majesty, (with whom they saw themselves drawn
to the slaughter,) groaned upon the sentence, but with the peril
of their lives ; it being as fatal then for any persons to own
respect or kindness to Majesty, as it was for the King to carry
it ; and as dangerous for others to be good subjects, as for him
to be a good king.* They that were to force him out of his life,
forced others out of their loyalty ; endeavouring fondly to de-
pose him from his subjects' hearts, as they had done from his
throne. Much ado had the best of princes to gain the privilege
of the worst malefactor : (1.) To see his children and relations
for the satisfaction of his mind. Or (2.) his chaplain. Bishop
Juxon, to settle his conscience : the latter of whom being per-
mitted to come not till eight of the clock on Saturday night ;
the incomparable prince enjoying in the midst of tumults a calm
serenity, being full of his own majesty, and having a greater
power over his temper than his enemies had over his person,
bespeaks him thus: 'My Lord, that you came no sooner,! believe,
* was not your fault; but now you are come, because these rogues
'pursue my blood, you and I must consult how I may best part
' with it.' Indeed, all the while, he did all things becoming a
christian obliged by his calling to suffer, not reflecting that he
was a prince, (to whom such usages were unusual,) born to com-
mand. Since they could not keep the bishop from coming to
him, they disturbed him both the next day, Jan. 28, in reading
divine service, and preaching on Rom. ii, 29, and at other times
at St. James's, with scoffs and unnecessary and petulant disputes,
which he either answered irrefragably or neglected patiently ;
and at Whitehall with the noise of the workmen that prepared
the scaffold ; he being brought thither on purpose, Jan. 28, at
night, to die often by every stroke of the axe upon the wood,
before he should die, once for all, by one stroke of it upon him-
self Neither do they only disturb, but, either out of fear or de-
sign, tempt him too with unworthy articles and conditions,which
* " Remarkable here the difference between his Majesty's temper and the
'i'arliament's : For that very liberty of opinion which they themselves asserted
under the notion of Liberty of Conscience, they punished five of the Judges,
that voted against their sentiments, severely : The King entertained with
respect those two that voted against liis judgment and interest too, the one
dying with a character from his master of an upright maji ; and the other
being dismissed upon his own earnest petition, with the honour of having
been a soodaervunt," Lloyd's Worthies.
Al'PENDIX D. 375
being levelled at his honour and conscience, as their other
malices were at his life, after hearing one or two of them read
to him, he resolved not to sully the splendour of his former vir-
tues with too impotent a desire of life. His soul applied itself
to such duties of religion, as reading, praying, confession of sins,
supplication for enemies, holy communions and conferences, and
such offices of humanity as sending legacies to his wife and
exile children, and exhorting those at home admitted to him
Jan. 29 to this purpose, his last words to them being taken in
writing, and communicated to the world by the Lady Elizabeth
his daughter, a lady of most eminent endowments,* who, though
born to the supremest fortune, yet lived in continual tears, and
died confined at Carisbrook in the Isle of Wight. Till at last,
(all endeavours for preventing so great a guilt failing,) even Col.
Downes, one of their own members, attempting a mutiny in the
army, and the Lord Fairfax being resolved with his own regi-
ment to hinder the murther, until the conspirators in vain urging,
* That the Lord had rejected him,' took him aside to seek the
Lord, while their instruments hasten the execution by private
order, and then they call that a return of their prayers. On the
fatal day, Jan. 30, 16"49, having desired five preachers, sent to
pray with him by the junto, to pray for him if they pleased,
telling them, he was resolved, that they who had so often and so
catiselessly prayed against him, should not, in his agony, pray with
him ; and preparing himself with his own devotion in the offices
of the church, he was strengthened in his sufferings by the suf-
ferings of his Saviour, whose body and blood he received that
morning, and the history of whose passion fell to be the chapter
of the day of his. So that he came cheerfully from St. James's
to Whitehall, often calling on his slow guards that kept not pace
with him, to move faster, with these words, ' I now go before
' you lo strive for an heavenly crown, with less solicitude than I
* formerly have led my soldiers for an earthly diadem ;' with
extraordinary alacrity ascending the stairs leading to the long
gallery, and so to the cabinet chamber ; whence, his supplica-
tions being ended, he went through the banquetting-house to the
adjoining scaffiald, with the same spirit he used to ascend his
throne, shewing no fear of death but a solicitude for those that
were to live after. He thought it to as little purpose to harangue
the army as to compliment a mastiff or a tyger, and others were
kept at such distance, that they might see but not hear ; and
therefore he expressed himself to those that stood near him."-
*" He wished me not to grieve and torment myself for him, for that
would be a glorious death that he should die, it being for the laws and liber-
ties of this land, and for maintaining the true Protestant religion. He bid
me read Bishop Andrews's sermons, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Policy, and Bis-
hop Laud's book against Fisher, which would ground me against Popery. He
told me, he had forgiven all his enemies, and hoped God would forgive them
also ; and commanded us, and all the rest of my brothers and sisters, to
forgive them &c."
S76 AFPENDIX D.
After stating the intrepid conduct of his Majesty on the scaf-
fold, the historian concludes his narrative thus : " Then the
King, making some pious and private ejaculations before the
block, as before a desk of prayer, he submitted without that vio-
lence they intended for him, if he refused his sacred head to one
stroke of an executioner, (that was disguised then, as the actors
wereall along,) which severed it from his body. — So fell Charles
the First, and so expired with him the liberty and glory of
three nations ;* being made in that very place an instance of
human frailty, where he used to shew the greatness and glory of
majesty."
* This is a true expression on the part of the venerable historian, as will
be seen by a subsequent part of this Appendix : For, how enormous soever
might have been some acts of administration durintf the reign of king
Charles, the usurper who subsequently exercised the functions of royalty
appears in several of his public measures to have adopted the sentiments of
Rehoboam when he said to the people : " Whereas my predecessor did lade
you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke : He hath chastised you
■with whips, but 1 will chastise you with scorpions."
In these notes I have produced many things in favour of King Charles the
First and Archbishop Laud — two rather unpopular personages in the pre-
sent age. But though unpopular on account of many transactions in which
they were implicated, both of them were possessed of eminent virtues,
which they displayed to the greatest advantage in the course of their un-
merited misfortunes. In the exercise of strict impartiality, it becomes me
to record their virtues as well as their failings ; and when my readers have
perused all that I have written, I hope it will be made as apparent to them
as it has long been to myself, that their personal virtues far transcended the
sum of their imputed failings. Another opportunity will occur for demon-
strating that the British Constitution, even at the particular juncture of its
deepest depression in the reign of King Charles, contained within itself
copious materials for selt-restoration ; and that the violent course pursued
by the Calvinistic mal -contents, was not that which the laws suggested for
the redress of grievances. This has already been briefly proved in the ex-
tracts from Judge Jenkins.
I refer the reader to the TVorhs of y1rminius,{\o\. 1. p. 456.) fof my recorded
opinions of King James and his unfortunate successor; and I now subjoin
the concluding paragraph of that article, in proof of my exemption from
criminal party bias in the narration of facts : " Such petty enterprizes as
these, in which James was arttully enlisted, were degrading to the royal
character; and the impetuosity with which he prosecuted them, tended
greatly, in that new age of thought, to alienate men's minds from the regal
dignity and the established institutions, which have their best security in
the manifestations of affection and respect on the part of those for whose
benefit they are sustained and administered. Flattered as the great pacifi-
cator of nations by those that needed his aid, and boasting in private of
his successful cunning and policy, which he was pleased to call ' king-
craft,' his majesty imbibed very false ideas both of his own capabilities and
of his royal power and prerogatives, and infused, into the minds of his
children, the same unmanageable notions, which seemed to descend as by
generation to the last of his unfortunate race. In forming a judgment con-
cerning his immediate successor, we are too apt to contemplate Charles as
an insulated personage ; but if we consider the high veneration in which he
held his royal father's published sentiments both on religion and politics,
instead of viewing him as the self-tutored despot, we shall rather pity him
as an obedient son, who, from mistaken yet conscientious motives, endea-
voured to carry into practical effect those tyrannical principles about the
truth of which neither his royal parent, nor any of those around his person,
would ever suffer him to hesitate. But the decisive national crisis was far
advanced at the very comnieuceuieut of his reign, and had assumed a must
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