"Away with all new truths! Fair and plausible they may be, sound they cannot. Some quiet error may be better than some unruly truth. So the Church may be still, would God thou wert wise alone!" Many parts of this expostulation might have been addressed with much truth to Calvin; for, if his biographers give us correct relations, he did not always bring with him "fair peace wherever he arriv'd." The quiet error of Popery would have remained dominant in some places, had it not been conquered by the spirited exertions of this Reformer. The reader will experience no difficulty in soon determining for himself, by means of facts which will be laid before him, whether more of the spirit of the bold Luther or of the retiring Melancthon was apparent in the mental composition of Arminius.-In the mean time, though Dr. Hall's letter does not breathe that impartiality and moderation which ought to have been among the prime requisites of one who had to sit as a judge, at the Synod of Dort, on the opinions which he has here so prematurely condemned, we must do him the justice to state, that his manifest predilections had not altogether beclouded his judgment. For, in another clause of the same letter, a part of the truth discovers itself, when the good Bishop changes his address and thus speaks of Gomarus: "Neither Gomarus, nor your other grave fraternity of reverend

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Bishop HALL, then Dean of Worcester, was one of the Divines deputed by King James I. to attend the Synod of Dort as representatives of the Church of England. He had the honour of preaching the first sermon before that reverend assembly. It was delivered in Latin, as were all the subsequent discourses and discussions. The text was a remarkable one: Be not righteous over much, neither make thyself over wise.' (Eccles. vii, 16.) In the course of his "He taxed sermon, says the memorable JOHN HALES of Eton, who heard it, the Divines for presuming too far in prying into the judgments of God, and so came to reprove the curious disputes which our age hath made concerning Predestination: That this dispute, for its endlessness, was like the mathematical line, divisibilis in semper divisibilia; that it was in Divinity, as the Rule of Cos in Arithmetic. For the ending of these disputes his advice unto the Synod was, that both parts contending should well consider of St. Paul's discourse in the ninth to the Romans; and, for their final determination, both should exhibit unto the Synod a plain, perspicuous, and familiar paraphrase ou that chapter. For if the meaning of that discourse were once perfectly opened, the question were at an end. From hence he came to exhort them to stand to the former determinations, which had hitherto most generally passed in Reformed Churches, in these points; and told them, that it was an especial part of his majesty's Commission to exhort them to keep unaltered the former Confessions.-How fit it was to open so much of their commission, and thus to express themselves for a party against the Remonstrants, your honour can best judge."

On the 17th of January 1619, Bishop Hall sent in his farewell address, to the Synod, in writing; in which he lamented "his indisposition which bad forced him away unseasonably from the Synod. There was no place upon earth which

Divines have been silent in so main a cause. I fear rather too much noise in any of these tumults: There may too many contend, not intreat.......... WISDOM and CHARITY could teach us to avoid the prejudice of these differences. If we had but these two virtues, quarrels should not hurt us, nor the Church by us. But (alas!) self-love is too strong for both these. This alone opens the flood-gates of dissension, and drowns the sweet but lowly valley of the Church. Men esteem of opinions, because their own; and will have truth serve not govern. What they have undertaken must be true; victory is sought for, not satisfaction; victory of the author, not of the cause. He is a rare man that knows to yield as well as to argue.”—These reflections are exceedingly judicious, especially in reference to Gomarus and his party. It is painful at all times to animadvert upon any of the expressions of such a pious and highly estimable character as Bishop Hall: To avoid such an ungracious employment, I have chosen to devote an additional page to Master Bayle, knowing that my remarks on such a partial writer will elicit some tokens of approbation even from the pious Calvinists. Since these persons in modern times openly avow their love of peace and Christian concord, I would not have them to indulge the imagination, that

Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.

Yet it is a persuasion of which I cannot divest myself, and which I find is not alien to the minds of authors in general, that a perusal of the whole of this APPENDIX would still farther improve their spirit,-gracious although it is, benevolent and kind.

An objection is then raised by Bayle in the following form: "But, it may be said, Would it not be acting the part of a prevaricator, and beneath the dignity of a minister, to be guilty of any neglect in informing his hearers, and setting them to rights when they were under any error in point of doctrine ?" -To this he replies: "Two capital reasons dispensed with his doing this.

so much resembled heaven, as that city, and in which he would have preferred to take up his abode." He had, some time before, removed to the Hague for the benefit of the air; but his distemper still increasing, the King gave him leave to return to England. "But," says the elder Brandt, "some are of opinion, that, under the pretence of indisposition, he prudently and seasonably withdrew himself from the Synod, that he might not have any hand in many things which afterwards happened, and which he expected would come to pass. He signified in particular to the English Ambassador, Sir Dudley Carlton, by Balcanqual the Scottish Divine, about the time of his departure, that he could by no means agree with Deodatus of Geneva !"

"THE ONE is, Because he did not believe that the hypothesis of which he disapproved was prejudicial to salvation. There is no error, however trifling and inconsiderable, which is not better rectified than retained: But when circumstances of time and place do not suffer us to propose novelties (though ever so true,) without at the same time introducing a thousa d disorders into Universities, private families, and into all the State, it is much better to let matters remain as they are than to set about a reformation of them, since the remedy would be worse than the disease. I except all those cases in which the salvation of souls is concerned, and in which we are obliged to deliver them from the jaws of Hell: In such cases charity does not permit us to be inactive, how great soever the disturbances may be which happen in the conclusion; but we must refer the issues to the care and direction of Providence. Arminius | had no motive of this kind which prompted him to oppose the common and received doctrine; nor was it his opinion, that to follow the hypothesis of Calvin was to risk one's salvation.

"THE OTHER is, Because his new method could be of no service in clearing up the principal difficulties, which occurred on the subject of Predestination.-He substituted, in the room of one hypothesis, which abounded with great difficulties, another, which at the bottom was attended with no less. For the Arminians have no sooner answered certain objections, which, as they pretend, cannot be refuted by the system of Calvin, than they find themselves exposed to others, out of which they cannot extricate themselves, except by ingenuously confessing the weakness of the understanding, or by paying their humble submission to the infinite incomprehensibility of God." -On the latter part of this reply it is scarcely necessary to animadvert: For the Arminians account it no small recommendation of their mode of interpreting the revealed will of God, that, after they have defended this scriptural position, The Lord is good to ALL, and his tender mercies are over ALL HIS WORKS,' and after they have demonstrated its harmony with other divine declarations, and especially with the account which the Almighty has been pleased to give of his perfections,—they can then, without solicitude, leave all those counsels of the Divine Mind which have not been direct subjects of revelation, and can most sincerely unite with the Apostle in this appropriate exclamation, How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! They do not imitate the Calvinists in obtruding themselves as forbidden and ungracious guests

into the arcana of heaven, or in rashly stating all the stipulations of a supposed covenant entered into, between God the Father and God the Son, long before the worlds were made: The Arminians do not presume to be wise above what is written, in this and in other instances, by a vain attempt to fathom the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.' -From the reasoning employed throughout the whole of this paragraph, it is evident, that Bayle has deduced his conclusions from wrong premises. On these points he has been misled by his authorities; and has erroneously attributed to Arminianism, as a system, the difficulties that occur in some parts of the scriptures themselves, and particularly in a few chapters of St. Paul's writings. St. Peter, when speaking of the latter, informs us, that in them are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.'

The former part of Bayle's reply, is, in brief: "Arminius was not of opinion, that to follow the hypothesis of Calvin was to risk one's salvation." Such a circumstance, instead of detracting from the great merits of this excellent man, or preventing him from propounding his sentiments in a free community, ought, on the contrary, to serve the more highly to exalt his character. His gentle and tolerant spirit knew, and he was not afraid to avow, that the errors into which Calvin and his friends had fallen were only those of the judgment; and his evangelical charity, which hoped all things,' would not allow him even to insinuate, that the Calvinistic doctrines necessarily tended to make shipwreck of faith, or to produce loss of salvation, in all those by whom they were embraced. His conduct in this respect was eminently generous, manly, and Christian. Contrast it with that of a gloomy zealot, the passionate Gomarus: In the Conference between him and Arminius, holden in 1608, in the presence of the Great Council of the States of Holland, after each of them had explained his sentiments, the Advocate of Holland told them, in the name of the States," that he thanked God because there was no considerable difference between them, at least not in relation to any of the capital points of the Christian Faith;" and he required both of them, afterwards to observe silence about the transactions of that Conference. Gomarus then requested to have permission to speak, and declared, "that the sentiments of his colleague, in reference to the points in dispute between them, were of such a description as would make him unwilling

to appear before God his Judge, if he himself entertained any that resembled them !"-This natural stroke of Calvinian bitterness was a source of the greater surprise to the whole assembly, because every man in it who was possessed of common understanding had perceived, from the explanations into which the two Professors had then entered, that the difference between them did not affect the fundamental doctrines of religion. The conduct of Gomarus on that occasion elicited the following remark from one of his shrewd cotemporaries: "I should much sooner choose to appear before the judgment of God with the FAITH of Arminius, than with the CHARITY of Gomarus!" Bayle himself, in mentioning this circumstance, offers for it the subjoined charitable apology, "We ought to impute to a personal animosity the cruel opinion of this adversary of Arminius." Some persons, however, will be inclined to impute it to the intolerant and exclusive spirit which Calvinism, when unadulterated, displays in all situations in which it obtains the supremacy.

A similar instance of the ungovernable maliciousness of Gomarus is thus stated: When about to proceed to the Synod of Dort, at the close of the year 1618, he waited at Groningen for the Divines who had been deputed from Bremen, that he might travel in their company to Dort. He expected that Dr. Matthias Martinius, the eldest of those Divines, would be of the same sentiments with himself on doctrinal points, that is, a bigotted Supralapsarian; and he hoped to be able, by offering inducements to him on the journey, to have his support in carrying those high doctrines, and imparting stability to them, by obtaining for them the great ecclesiastical sanction of the approaching Synod. But he found himself mistaken in the

When he had accompanied them as far as Amsterdam, be there entered into discourse with them about the Remonstrants and the deceased Arminius; but when he heard Lewis Crocius, the learned Colleague of Martinius, say, with the usual courtesy in the course of conversation, "Arminius of pious memory!" he fell into a great passion, spat upon the ground, and cried out, "What! he of pious memory? Nay, his memory is detestable!" In a great rage he instantly left the inn, and accomplished the remainder of the journey by himself.

If Arminius had on any occasion discovered such an unamiable disposition as this, or had his manners been equally rude and ungracious, Bayle might have had some semblance of

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