must shortly appear, and what will be required of me by the great βραβευτης and αγωνοθετης the judge and awarder of eternal glory, Jesus, the Lord of life and death, and that he will not only demand from me this body, this life, this soul, this spirit, which I have, but also will require the souls and blood of you all at my hands, and also of all those who through you might, by my guiltiness, be led into the devious and dangerous paths of destruction.

"It is to me, indeed, a matter of very little importance to be judged by the men of this day, but, on the contrary, I esteem it an honour to be the object of the hatred of some of the high, and the envy of the low. And I deem it an occasion of satisfaction to be assailed and covered with slander and falsehood, provided that I retain a conscience undefiled, and present it unstained with your blood before Him who alone is the judge of men, and who shall reveal the hidden things of the heart, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe. Nevertheless, I am not so vain as to suppose that I am incapable of committing an error, or that I am exempt from the failings and imperfections incident to human nature; yet I hope and trust that the gracious Lord will forgive me in that which has been wrong. And now let me entreat you who have devoted yourselves to God, if there has been any affection in your hearts toward me, that you aim with me at this one thing, namely, to preserve your conscience pure until the coming of the Son of man; for this being neglected, some have made shipwreck of faith, a loss to which nothing is equal, or indeed can be compared. Hold, therefore, in reverence the truth which you have received, and form not a judgment of any matter, or of me, to secure the favour of any persons contrary to the dictates of reason and conscience.

"It is the business of worldly politicians to accommo date their sentiments to the current of public opinion, just as the vessel shifts her sails to catch a favourable gale. Divines, on the contrary, ought to preserve constancy under all circumstances, and to stand at the utmost distance from every thing like that wavering and indecision which mark the character of others amid the eventful times and changes in which we live. Emulate, therefore, the conduct of the holy and devout. Let your

light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is heaven. Follow after meekness and long-suffering; and as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Let your moderation be known unto all men. Finally, show yourselves to be governed by the Spirit of the Lord, who hath the power of life and death over you and me.

"If I have succeeded in contributing to form in you that state of mind I have just been describing, nothing can happen to me, howeyer painful, which, I shall not wil. lingly endure. Then it will be my glory to reflect that, instead of contributing to make you contentious, irreli. gious, or schismatical, you have become meek, gentle, peaceable, devout, and holy Christians; and thus I shall look forward to that great day when I shall present you as a grateful and acceptable odour to my Lord and Redeemer. Sustained with this hope and this assurance, I could even brave the terrors of death in their most appalling forms. In the meantime, while I am absent from you, being called away to defend the cause and truth of Jesus Christ, do this one thing for my sake, and as a parting token of your esteem,-promise me that you will, day and night, besiege the throne of Divine grace, that God would be propitious to me and the cause I am about to defend. If he hear you, vow with me to present him with devout acknowledgments; but if not, pledge your. selves to be patient under suffering and reproach.

"And thou, O Lord Jesus, who beholdest the very secrets of our hearts, undertake our cause, and be grá. cious to our university, our Church, and our country.AMEN."

CHAPTER X.

THE history of the Synod of Dort derives particular interest from the fact of its assuming the character of a council of the Non-Lutheran Churches of Europe, assembled for the purpose of fixing the bounds of religious opinion to the greater part of the Reformed Churches. In the early periods of their formation, Dr. Mosheim says,

"No standard was erected by them as the rule of correct thinking in these matters, and even while Calvin was expounding his system in Geneva there was not any public law or confession of faith that obliged the Reformed Churches in any part of the world to conform their sentiments to the theological doctrines that were taught in that seminary." This circumstance left the parties listening to them, at liberty to reject or adopt them. And, accordingly, by some they were disavowed, while, by others, they were not only received, but carried out beyond the views of this reformer. Those who embraced

his sentiments were divided into two classes, denominated supralapsarians and sublapsarians. The latter consider. ed Adam's fall merely as being permitted, and that his descendants, thereby being made sinful, might justly be reprobated. The former asserted that God, in order to exercise his awful justice and free mercy, had decreed from all eternity the transgression of Adam, and so order. ed the course of events that he must necessarily sin. Prior to the time of Arminius' divulging his sentiments, which, to a great extent, were similar to those held by Ambrose in the fourth century,* the principal debates among the reformed theologians were between the supralapsa.

* Dr. Miller, in his Philosophy of Modern History, says, "Arminius proposed, in the year 1604, a modification of the doctrine of predestination, which had already, in the fourth century, been held by Ambrose, that the decrees of God, by which he determined the future condition of every individual, were not absolute and irre spective, but were formed in reference to that foreknowledge` by which the conduct of each individual was foreseen, so that each should be eternally happy or miserable, not according to an arbi trary determination of the Almighty, but according to his own conduct in the present life, foreseen, yet not controlled."*

In support of this opinion, this writer gives the following pas sage in the form of a note :-"As it is unreasonable to refer the foreknowledge of God to his present consciousness of his own pur. poses, such an application involving a direct contradiction, it must relate to the future conduct of men, foreseen as the ground of the Divine determinations; and therefore these determinations cannot be, as the Calvinists represent them, irrespective or void of reference to the actions of men."

In commenting on the following passage, Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate, Ambrose remarks, "He did not predestinate before he foreknew, but he predestinated the rewards of those whose obedienee he foreknew."-See Tomline on Calvinism.

rians and sublapsarians; but so soon as certain divines felt it to be their duty to represent the Deity as extend. ing his goodness and mercy to all mankind, these two classes of theologians gave up their debates, and, forgetting their differences as matters of little importance, united their forces to crush what was deemed an awful and dangerous error, which maintained that God is loving to every man, and hateth nothing that his hands have made. And to carry out their abhorrence of this statement, the Synod of Dort was assembled to excommunicate and banish those who advocated it. This union of the supra and sublapsarians, though it arrayed a mighty host against the benevolence of Christianity as it was exhibited by the fathers of the Christian Church during the first three centuries, was, however, ultimately an advantage to Christendom: for, prior to a check being given to the darings of some of the supralapsarians by those writers who presented the image of Divine goodness to the reformed world as it is exhibited by our philanthropic and holy religion, the former had proceeded to such lengths in their description of God, in creating men for and adapting means to secure their misery and damnation, so as to present him, who, in the language of Scripture, is said to be Love, as a being, of whom, in point of malignity, the prince of the lower regions is but a faint image and expression. Let not the modern Calvinist, who cannot or will not read the immense mass of quotations from the writings of the leading men of that school, as they were collected by the Remonstrants, in proof of the horrible sentiments maintained by their opponents, attempt to deny this statement. These men, to show that they had dealt fairly with the writers whose sentiments they quoted, ap. pended to each passage the name of its respective author, and the faithfulness of these quotations has never yet been questioned. "Not only would the minds of all sober Christians in these days be shocked when perusing the monstrous sentiments propounded in these extracts, but even the Calvinists of Cromwell's time, rigid as they were, felt themselves scandalized by any allusion to them, and would not admit that their opinions had the least affinity to such desecrating dogmas."*

* See Watson's Dictionary, article CALVINISM.

That the excitement consequent upon religious contro. versy and debate may carry men to make certain statements which they would not adopt in their more sober moments, will be readily admitted. And it is hoped that this was the case with many of those writers whose declarations are so awfully revolting and injurious to the character of the Divine Being, and his attributes of goodness, wisdom, and mercy, as exhibited in the Scriptures; and who, while presenting a system of fate which never had a precedent save in the teachings of the Koran, accompanied it with other opinions connected with this subject far more odious than any thing ever dictated by the prophet of Mecca. So much were the members of this synod aware of this fact that they seemed alarmed at any allusion to them, and when Episcopius, who, accord. ing to Mosheim, "was admired even by his enemies, on account of the depth of his judgment, the extent of his learning, and the force of his eloquence," did, in connec tion with his brethren, wish to begin the defence of their cause by refuting the opinions of the Calvinists, they peremptorily forbade his making any such attempt. The design of the Arminians, says this writer in this proposal, was probably to get the people on their side, by such an unfavourable representation of the Calvinistic system, as it had been exhibited by many of these very synodists; and in this way to excite disgust in the minds of those that were present against its patrons and abettors.*

* Mr. Nichols says, in his Arminianism and Calvinism Compared, that about four years before the Synod of Dort, the predesti. narian controversy was conducted on both sides with much spirit and ability. Some of the Calvinistic professors, who had been ac. customed to utter the wildest and most revolting opinions that ever escaped from human lips, were compelled to observe greater reserve and caution, lest their adversaries should expose the irreverence and blasphemy of all such expressions. The whole Calvinistic brother. hood throughout France, Germany, and the Low Countries, had received warning letters to be guarded in the delivery of their opi. nions. But Macchovius, professor at Franeker, who disregarded this caution, continued to speak in the same fearless and unguarded manner as he had always done; and the Arminians, as might have been expected, quoted several of his expressions in proof of the demoralizing tendency of such an exhibition of Calvin's doctrines. This incensed the Presbyterian class at Franeker, who prepared a charge against him, which finally came before the Synod of Dort