A. D. whom they were entirely rejected. Among these opponents was an individual who had himself received his education in the university of Geneva, Elizabeth. and had consequently imbibed the doctrinal tenets of Calvin. Arminius had arrived at the age of maturity 1591. before he was induced to enter into an exainination of the religious opinions in which he had been educated; but when a careful examination had convinced him of their erroneousness, he promptly and publicly announced his conversion. His high merit had been rewarded by a theological professorship in the university of Leyden; and, as his dogmata must have great weight in forming the opinions of his pupils, he thought it incumbent, from motives of honour and conscience, to declare his dissent from the Calvinistic tenets. Two other considerations impelled him to an open declaration of his sentiments: first, he was persuaded that many individuals in the university besides himself revolted from the doctrine of absolute decrees; secondly, he knew that the Belgic confession, to which he had subscribed, had left this point undecided. Thus animated and encouraged, he taught with equal freedom and success: but as Calvinism was at this time widely spread throughout Holland, his boldness excited a multitude of enemies. He experienced the most severe marks of disapprobation and resentment from those who adhered to the theological system of Geneva, and especially from Gomarus, his colleague in the university of Leyden. Arminius lived to see only the beginning of that controversy, which involved the reformed churches in dissension. CHAP. England soon participated in these unhappy divisions; and the predestinarian controversy, which had been agitated at the beginning of the reformation, which had continued throughout the reigns of Edward and Mary, was renewed at the con1609. clusion of the reign of Elizabeth. Hitherto the controversy between the church and the puritans had been chiefly about habits and ceremonies, but now it began to open upon points of doctrine, and the church was not so much opposed to the puritans as divided against itself. A large proportion of the exiled divines had embraced the Calvinistic doctrines, and on their return, at the accession of Elizabeth, fearlessly avowed that, by giving up the discipline, they did not intend to depart from the doctrine taught at Geneva. That there was no necessary connexion between them had been proved by some of the Swiss cantons, who were Calvinistic in doctrine while they were Zuinglian in discipline. In England this fact now received additional confirmation; for although all the puritans were Calvinists, both in doctrine and in discipline, yet many doctrinal Calvinists were sincerely attached to episcopacy, and filled with honour and advantage the highest stations in the English church. It is admitted by all parties that, throughout the former part of Elizabeth's reign, the influence of the Calvinistic doctrines, in the English church, was decidedly preponderant. The Institutes of Calvin were adopted by the universities as a manual of theological instruction, and the honour of Calvin's name gave reputation even to his errors yet this preponderance by no means amounted to unanimity; and, long before the ap pearance of Arminius, there were divines of eminence who thought that a dissent from the Calvinistic scheme was no dereliction of protestantism, Elizabeth. nor a departure from the doctrines of the articles of the church of England. Baroe, the Margaret professor of the university of Cambridge, declared strongly against the doctrine of absolute predestination. In a prelection on the warning of the prophet Jonah to the Ninevites, illustrating it by parallel cases in the sacred history, he scrupled not to affirm, that it is the will of God that all mankind should have eternal life, if they believe and persevere in the faith of Christ; but if they do not believe, or fall short in their perseverance, then it is not the will of God that they should be saved *. Harsnett, ten years afterwards, at the time when he was chaplain to Whitgift, in a sermon at Saint Paul's Cross, inveighed with great warmth against the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation, popular and predominant as the doctrine at that time was. "The opinion," he observed, "is grown high and monstrous, and men shake and tremble under it;" but he feared not to attack it. He grounded his arguments against the doctrine, on its opposition to the general tenor of Scripture, on its making God the author of sin, on its taking from man all freedom of will, and on its inconsistency with the divine attributes. When the Arminian scheme was developed in England, it was soon discovered that the strength *Baroe, Prælect. 29. + "He was a man of the greatest parts and learning of his time."-Bishop Warburton. 1584 XX. CHAP. of the Calvinists resided in the university of Cambridge. Among all the antagonists of Arminius, none was esteemed by the foreign professor himself to be more worthy of consideration than Perkins. This divine was educated in Christ's college, where he possessed a fellowship. With respect to his opinions on church government, he was an open favourer of the puritanical discipline, and, on account of his non-conformity, was summoned more than once before the court of high commission; but his peaceable demeanour, his acknowledged learning, and perhaps his high Calvinistic doctrines, procured for him a dispensation from the severities exercised towards many of his non-conforming brethren. In his Armil, or Golden Chain, the most popular of his numerous works*, the Supralapsarisan hypothesis he has set forth without disguise or palliation, careless of the disgust or offence which he might give to the enemies or the moderate friends of the Calvinistic scheme. But Perkins has rendered a service to Calvinism which must not be omitted. While every pen was drawn in maintaining speculative systems of doctrine, few were employed in promoting vital Christianity. Calvin, in the last chapter of his Institutes, gave a portraiture of the life and manners of a Christian, but not with the copiousness which the subject required. Perkins filled up the outline which * His works are in three volumes folio, and among them is a treatise on witchcraft, in which he believed as firmly as in absolute predestination. His Armil has been published in various forms, and translated into various languages. Orton, a dissenting minister, well known for his many useful publications, was a maternal descendant of Perkins. Job Orton's Letters to a Young Clergyman, p. 30. 40. Calvin left unfinished, reduced practical Calvinism into method, and showed its natural effects on Christian morality. An advocate of doctrinal Calvinism in the university of Cambridge, not more able, but higher in station, than Perkins, was Whitaker. He had signalized himself in a polemical warfare with the most learned Jesuits of his time; he had encountered "the acuteness of Stapleton and the eloquence of Campion," and had entered the lists with that arch-jesuit Bellarmine. But, though a doctrinal Calvinist, Whitaker was an episcopalian; and thus, while Perkins was only tolerated in his fellowship of Christ's college, Whitaker was master of Saint John's college, and held the influential station of regius professor in divinity. In opposition to the acknowledged sentiments of the governors of the university, there were some individuals sufficiently venturous to proclaim their dissent from the doctrines of Calvin. Barret, a fellow of Caius college, in a Latin sermon delivered before the university, declared his hostility to the Calvinistic doctrines of election and grace, reflecting with great acrimony on the personal character of Calvin, and cautioning his hearers against reading the works of the Genevese reformer. For this sermon Barret was summoned before the vice-chancellor and heads of colleges, and was commanded to make a retractation of his sermon in the church where he delivered it. He complied, but read his retractation in a manner which showed its insincerity, and it was considered as an aggravation of his first offence. So unpopular were both the sermon and the retractation, that several graduates, of different A. D.. Elizabeth. 1595. |