the appointment. Thus was Episcopius, after having been introduced to this Church three times, set apart to be their pastor on the 17th of October, in the presence of several deputies from the magistracy of Rotterdam. He commenced his regular ministry among them the following Sunday, when he preached from Ephesians i, 22; and on the third of the following January, he was admitted as a member of the classis. But Brandt informs us that the hostility and bigotry of some of the protesting ministers did not cease, and one of them, named Acronius, who is supposed to have entered into an engagement with Peter Plancius, a minister of Amsterdam, to prevent Episcopius from obtaining testimonials, not only separated himself from the classis, on his admission, but influenced others to imitate his conduct; and in this way, not only declared that he was not to be acknowledged as a brother minister, but also produced a complete rent and schism in the Church among the clergy.

CHAPTER V.

EPISCOPIUS had not long entered upon his public duties as a minister, when his extraordinary talents as a preacher began to attract the attention of the inhabitants of the surrounding cities; and thus in spite of the opposition made to him by the bigoted Calvinistic clergy, he was acquiring a degree of fame that made him still more the object of their dislike; because they were aware that the fears they had entertained of his talents and learning giving additional weight to the Arminian cause, would be realized. The reader will recollect the measures adopted by the magistrates and consistory of Alkmaer to obtain his appointment among them. We shall hereafter have to notice the citizens of Utrecht, as having recourse to similar measures to effect the same object. The people of the former place, who before had been twice foiled in their personal application to Episcopius, for the purpose of obtaining his consent to become their minister, were now determined to make a third effort to accomplish their wishes, by applying directly to the magistrates and con

sistory of Rotterdam. They, therefore, deputed their minister, Venator, and three lay gentlemen, to wait upon these two bodies, to ask their consent to his being appointed as a pastor among them. To this request they received a positive refusal. They then earnestly pressed the loan of his services for a certain period, but in this they were likewise unsuccessful; and therefore were under the necessity of returning without effecting the object of their mission.

It was in the month of July, in the year 1611, that those ministers who had adopted the sentiments of Arminius on the subject of predestination, presented a memorial to their high mightinesses, the States of Holland and West Friesland, bearing the name of a Remonstrance, from which circumstance the followers of this professor and eminent divine were afterward called Remonstrants, and by this appellation they will generally be noticed in the subsequent part of this work. This remonstrance was occasioned by the persecution they suffered from the various classes where the Calvinist clergy were the most numerous, and the misrepresentation of their doctrines to the people. They, therefore, presented this document to the States, in which they gave an account of their doctrines, comprehended in the five articles, or points as they are called, and craved protection for themselves and those ministers who entertained sentiments similar to their own.

Such is the statement Limborch gives of this memorial, without entering more particularly into the circumstances which gave rise to it. He was induced, we presume, not to enter farther into the particulars of this part of the history of the Remonstrants, from the fact of his writing the life of Episcopius in Dutch, merely for the use of his countrymen, who were well acquainted with all the circumstances of that part of their history which he had omitted. But a gentleman who had been one of his students, translating it into Latin under his eye, deemed it proper to enter more into detail for the information of those persons in other parts of Europe who might be disposed to read it, and were not so well acquainted with the ecclesiastical affairs of the Low Countries. We shall only introduce a part of the additions made by the Latin translator, because we have already anticipated him in

the passages we have translated from the German of Bentham's Holländischer Kirch und Schulen Staat. The reader will recollect that the above work, as quoted at page 21, says that the Dutch confession was first published in French in 1567,* and was greatly opposed by several ministers, as containing many innovations upon the belief of the Belgian Churches, which then generally adopted the sentiments of Melancthon on the subject of predestination; nevertheless, it gradually gained ground, till at length it was made the test by which to judge of the orthodoxy of candidates for the ministry.

The Latin translator of Episcopius, in his more extended details of this part of the history of the Remonstrants, gives an account of the origin of the Belgic confession, as stated in a letter sent by Saravia to Uitenbogaerdt. The passage runs thus: "I confess that I am one of those who assisted in drawing up that confession of faith, as was also Herman Modetus: but I know not whether there are any others surviving. It was originally written in the French language, by that servant of Christ and martyr, Guido de Bres. But before it was published, he communicated it to some ministers of God's word, whom he could find, requesting them to amend what they deemed wrong, to add what in their judgment was deficient, and curtail what might be superfluous; in order that it might not be accounted the work of a single person: but certainly none of those who were concerned in it ever thought of it being appointed as a rule of faith, but that each person was to prove his own faith from the sacred Scriptures."+

* Different dates are assigned to this confession, chiefly arising from the fact of its being revised at different times, as will be seen from the following extract from the preface of an addition of it published by the order of the Synod of the Walloon Churches held at Leyden in 1667. La confession imprimeé l'an 1561 ou 1562, selon quelques uns, etoit envoyeé a Philippe II., Roy d'Espagne, et á ľ Empereur Maximilien II., l'an 1566.

+ This confession, which consists of thirty-seven articles, differs from the Augsburgian and many other confessions, in the point of predestination. It agrees for the most part with the confession of the reformed French Churches; those, therefore, that embraced it gave themselves, in imitation of the French, the distinguishing title of Reformed. Others gave themselves the name of Calvinists, because both the confessions, as well the French as this, are drawn

This statement of one of the compilers of this confession was introduced for the purpose of showing the right of the Remonstrants to object to its articles, and the injustice of compelling not only candidates for the ministry to subscribe to it, but likewise requiring those already in that office to do it, or excluding them from the pulpit, as was the case with several of the synods where the majority were Calvinists. The patrons of absolute predestination not only set up this confession as a standard of faith, but condemned any departure from it as they would a departure from the word of God, thereby making it of equal importance with the sacred oracles.* This occasioned the opposite party to question the validity of the claim to profound deference thus set up in its favour by the Calvinists, and led them to wish for a national synod to be called, for the purpose of examining these claims, and, if necessary, to revise it, and appoint at the same time a uniform mode of examining candidates for the ministry. Both parties wished for a synod, but with very different objects-the Arminians, to have the High Calvinist sentiments softened down; and the Calvinists, to have them confirmed. The Arminians wished the proceedings of the synod, and examination of the confession, to be referred to the States of Holland; the Calvinists, to be confined solely to the clergy. As the greater part of the gentlemen who held the government of the States, at that time, were Arminians, they wished this reference to be made to them, in the revision of the confession and catechism, fully aware that if it were left with the ministers, they would be made still more rigid in their terms on the Calvinistic points; and therefore would only consent up according to the opinions of John Calvin. The reason why they did not follow the confession of Augsburgh, was partly because of the affinity of language between the Walloons and the French, and the agreement of that of the Flemings and Brabanters with the Walloon speech. Nevertheless, the Dutch Reformed screened themselves sometimes behind the Augsburgian confession, because it was not so disagreeable at court as the Calvinian, since the latter sect was esteemed to be more addicted to tumults and uproars than the Lutheran. Brandt.

* Uitenbogaerdt says, "Some called it a second rule of faith, the Bible in miniature, and I have heard it stated in a large assem bly that the Scriptures were to be expounded according to these two formularies, the confession and catechism."

to the calling of the wished-for synod, on the ground of the reference being conceded. This was rejected by the Calvinist party, as they saw that by this means their object would be frustrated; and the synod was of course not held. As the classes, however, in some places continued to reject the Arminian ministers, especially those of Alkmaer, where they had suspended or rejected from the ministry five clergymen, because they either did not come up to their views of orthodoxy, or refused to sign the confession, as it was interpreted by the abettors of absolute predestination ;* the Arminian ministers therefore deemed it proper, in the way of self-defence, to present the aforenamed remonstrance.

In this celebrated instrument they not only state the doctrines they rejected, as held by their opponents, but likewise give a statement of those they embraced and taught. Both were presented in five articles.† To this

* Among the five persons who were suspended from the ministry, was an ancient man, says Brandt, who had been a preacher at least 36 years, and had formerly quitted considerable preferments in the Church of Rome. Venator, named as waiting upon Episcopius, suffered the same fate, being charged with heterodoxy for refusing to sign the confession. And it is to be understood that the refusal was chiefly on the account of their being examined, not only on the express words of the confession, but likewise on the Calvinistic inferences which were deduced from them, by their predestinarian examiners. Nichols.

+ Although we are aware that these articles have repeatedly appeared in English, yet we think it right to give them here, that the reader may have them under his eye while perusing this work. We shall give them, with few exceptions, in the words of Chamberlayne, whom we find, upon collating his translation with the original of Brandt, to have rendered them almost literally. We have three other versions before us, each of which gives them in a milder and less Calvinistic form; and as Brandt undoubtedly had access, if not to the original document, yet to a correct copy of it, we have thought it right to present as literal a copy of them as possible, in order that the reader may judge of the sentiments of the men who pronounced them heretical and not to be tolerated, and refused to hold Christian communion with those who maintained them.

In this remonstrance they first stated the doctrines they rejected, and which they summed up in five points.

I. That God, as some assert, of his own will, by an eternal and irreversible decree, had ordained some from among men who were not yet created, much less considered as fallen, to everlasting life; and the others, by far the greater part, to eternal damnation, without any regard to their obedience or disobedience, and that for the pur.