its doctrines into the four quarters of the globe, must be - denominated a Church, and which has existed nearly one hundred years, retaining the orthodoxy of its venerable founder, without any such confession.* That Churches are awfully liable to deteriorate and depart from those orthodox principles with which they were primitively distinguished, we admit; but a regard to something more than written confessions, oaths, and subscriptions, is necessary to keep them pure. There must be anxiety for the maintenance of those vital principles of union which, though quite eluding research, if submitted to analysis, yet forming those moral ligaments which unite the spiritual body of Christ, enable the subjects of them to recognize each other, "just as the living recognize the living; while no artificial process can avail to enable the dead to exercise such a discriminative office." "Let but a community," says a modern writer, with whose sentiments we concur, "whether more or less extended in its sphere, be pure in manners; let the Scriptures be universally and devoutly read by its private members, and honestly expounded by its teachers; and in this case it will be very little annoyed by the intrusion of heretical or licentious candidates. A Church of this order offers nothing which such persons are ambitious to possess; they will stand aloof; tests will be superseded, and the rod of discipline brought out only on the rarest occasions."

the ministry; nevertheless, this is not done by articles in the form of Leges Scripta.

"A consistory of divines might spend a century in digesting, first, a profession of faith, and then a code of morals and a rule of discipline, such as should stand as a universal law of Church communion. In the meantime a Christian society, fraught with the vital principle of piety, and faithful to itself, and to its trust, far from awaiting impatiently the result of the conference, might rather hail demur after demur, and fervently hope that the sittings of this Sanhedrim of Christendom might be protracted to the consumma. tion of all things. Nothing that is truly important need be foregone until the creed and code should be brought to perfection ;nothing that we need sigh for would be conferred upon us by the boon when at length it should be granted."-Fanaticism.

CHAPTER XV.

WE shall now follow those ministers who returned into the Netherlands, and very briefly notice the system of persecution that was adopted against them, their brethren, and their flocks, by the Contra-Remonstrant clergy and magistrates. The reader should understand that, immediately after the departure of the foreign divines from Dort, the provincial members of the synod proceeded, with closed doors, to prepare those measures which should carry out their designs of ejecting the Arminian ministers from their Churches throughout the whole of the Nether. lands, and devise plans for the guidance of the magistrates who were to act as their instruments in effecting their purposes. As is customary, according to Baxter, in Presbyterian governments, the ministers of the Dutch Church claimed a kind of secular power, not using it themselves, but binding the civil authorities to imprison men, or con. fiscate their property, when they had excommunicated them; and in this way strove to rid themselves of the responsibility and guilt of the punishment thus inflicted upon persons whom they had denounced as heretics. Hence Calvin, in denying that he was the cause of Servetus' death, says, "I only advised our magistrates, as having a right to restrain heretics by the sword, to seize upon and try that arch heretic; but after he was condemned, I said not one word about his execution." On such conduct we shall offer no comment, but judge it pro per to record the sentiments of a modern writer, who, when speaking of such a species of ecclesiastical autho rity and finesse, says, "And then the abominable hypocrisy of not itself touching the sword of justice, (alack, the cleanness of its hands!) but of setting the civil power at work when blood is to be shed, can never fail to render

*

*See page 77 of this work.

+ If he said not one word about his execution after he was condemned, he had said enough before, to show what he could, and what he would do to procure it. "For he wrote to Farel, (and his own handwriting is still extant in Paris,) saying that if his authority was of any avail, he would prevent Servetus from returning alive. And he kept his word."-Nichols' Arminianism and Calvinism compared, part i, p. 271.

its executions so much the more cruel and severe. Το be tried and condemned by one authority, and punished by another, is a hard fate, and can differ very little from that of becoming the victim of blind fury." How truly the latter part of this statement is borne out by what the Remonstrant clergy and their people suffered, the details we shall present, though very few, compared with what might be given out of a vast mass of facts, will painfully prove.

In noticing some of the deeds of ecclesiastical bigotry which were executed at this period in the Netherlands, by men who were rigidly attached to the creed of Calvin, and too fearfully imitated his persecuting measures, we do not intend to intimate that it is a necessary consequence of persons receiving the doctrines which he advanced, that they must necessarily imbibe the persecuting spirit with which he was distinguished. A better temper marks the present age, and none are more opposed to such conduct than most of those who assume the name of this celebrated doctor. But while the writer bears this testimony to the moderate and catholic spirit of many of those who are now considered the followers of the Geneva reformer, still it will be no departure in him from the liberality of the present age to relate acts of illiberality by persons in the Dutch provinces, who were designated by Calvin's name at the period of which he is writing. Never did any portion of the Protestant Church, since the time that the cruel and tyrannical power of popery was disavowed, imbibe so much of the ruthless and bigoted spirit of persecution, as did the Dutch Calvinistic divines against their brother ministers and fellow Christians, who had adopted the doctrines of Arminius. In support of this statement, we beg leave to present the reader with the following extract from a publication issued after the closing of the Synod of Dort, by the theological faculty of Wurtemberg, in Saxony, under the title of A Faithful Warning to all the Lutheran Christians in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and other Countries; in which they say, when speaking of the synod, "The Calvinists have condemned the Arminians upon the article of election, and in so doing have condemned us, inasmuch as the latter

defended our sentiments on that point;* and they have banished their most eminent ministers from their country for ever. They would treat the Lutherans, if within their power, in the same way, charging them with being Pelagians and heretics. For with them it is a principle that heretics ought to be rooted out by force, as Calvin, Beza, and several others of their leaders have maintained, and thereby shown themselves to be advocates for the execu tion of bloody decrees."+ When we know that many of these Dutch divines made high-sounding professions of piety as the ministers of the meek and holy Founder of our religion, and yet associated with it so much rancorous and malignant passion, one can but sigh over the weakness of human nature.

Their first measures went to prepare the way for the expulsion of those professors from their office in the university of Leyden, who were in the least suspected of leaning to Arminianism. And in doing this, they caused the ban of their deprivation to fall upon some of the most dsitinguished scholars of the age. Among these were Gerard Vossius, regent of the theological college, "a person pre-eminent for his learning, discretion, and vir. tues; being well skilled in polite literature, history, and sacred and profane antiquities;" Caspar Barlæus, viceregent of the same college, a distinguished scholar and poet; Peter Bertius, professor of ethics; William Cod. dæus, professor of Hebrew; Gilbert Jacchæus, professor of philosophy; John Meursius, professor of Greek; Cornelius Sylvius, professor of jurisprudence. The ejecting these men from their offices, or otherwise degrading them, by

* Melancthon, one of the restorers of ancient learning, like Zuinglius, rejected the stern dogma of absolute predestination, in which he has been followed by the Lutheran body, leaving it to become, in after ages, the distinction of the followers of Calvin, and still more of his successor, Beza.-Sir J. Mackintosh's History of England, vol. ii, p. 143.

"The popish authority claimed by the Calvinists was indeed more odious and more unreasonable, because more self-contradictory, than that which the ancient Church inherited through a long line of ages: and they now punished with death those dissenters who had only followed the examples of the most renowned of Protestant reformers, by a rebellion against authority for the sake of maintaining the paramount sovereignty of reason." "-Sir J. Mackintosh's History of England, vol. ii, p. 132.

the Contra-Remonstrant party, does not much surprise us; and had they stopped there, no very great complaints had been uttered against them. They had long sighed for the distinction these offices conferred, and it must have been deeply mortifying to them, to have seen them held by the Arminians; and now that they had got the ascendancy, it was natural for them to enter into the possession of the good things hitherto principally enjoyed by their opponents. It is only just for us to say that we think that neither Calvinistic nor Arminian virtue could rise so high as to enable its subject to leave in office a defeated antagonist, when accessible by the victor. As to the dishonourable and cruel means adopted by the Contra-Remonstrants to gain the ascendancy, that is another matter. Festus Hommius, who had long wished for the distinction attached to a professorship, and had viewed with deep mortification the elevation of Episcopius to that dignity, now saw himself robed in a professor's gown, a reward bestowed upon him for ali his double dealing and hostility to the Remonstrants.*

The next step was to carry their designs of exclusion into all the provincial classes, requiring the members to subscribe to the canons of the Synod of Dort; and when any refused, they were instantly deprived of their ministry, and the civil authorities immediately followed with a de

* The office of divinity professor in this university is the most eminent post of honour to which a Dutch divine can aspire. When he appears in public, he wears a large black silk gown, bordered with velvet, on which the word "Leyden" is worked in silver. Festus, besides being thus elevated, was farther honoured in being appointed to be the bearer of a copy of the acts of the synod to our James, who presented him, it is said, with a gold cup and salver. Heinsius intrigued to be sent on this errand, but Festus manœuvred and supplanted him. James, with that inconsistency peculiar to his character, while he thus rewarded the messenger of the States for bearing these Calvinistic decrees, subsequently published an order prohibiting the clergy, who were under the degree of a bishop or dean, to preach on the deep points of predestination, election, reprobation, or the irresistibility of God's grace; and then interposed with the States on behalf of a traitorous monk of the Dominican order, who of course advocated these doctrines. It is true, James did this from political motives to please the Spanish court, as he had previously acted when joining in the condemnation of the Remonstrants to gratify Maurice and his minions.-Brandt, Sir John Carr, Crowe, Lord Nugent.