"the cross of Arminius is grown so heavy among us, and the generality of professors so weak, that the greater part of them are not able to take it up, though truth be fast tied to it." We have somewhere seen a happy allusion made to the anecdote of an honest Hollander, who, in a fit of anger at a refractory horse, after exhausting the whole magazine of Dutch hard names, and harder blows, was left, in the paroxysm of his wrath and orthodoxy, to call him outright-an Arminian. The reproachful application of this term, in failure of every other resource, we suspect is not confined to Holland, nor bestowed alone upon the brute creation. There is at the present time, we must be permitted to say, an unjust use of terms prevailing in some of the professedly learned pulpits, periodicals, and institutions of our land, which, if it be the result of want of information, is inexcusable ignorance; if of a want of regard to known fact and justice to a great and injured name, is, we must feel, palpable wickedness. Arminianism, as near as we can gather, means pretty much any thing which is not considered Calvinistic, and needs the application of a seasonable anathema. At one time, in the sermon of an eloquent pulpit rhetorician, Arminianism is pronounced to be one of the resources of the adversary, from which ruin was to be apprehended, and upon which extermination was to be denounced; at any other time, we are informed in the epistle of a learned professor that no danger was to be apprehended at all, for Arminianism, forsooth, was "dead;" anon we find that it has been officially abjured in the inaugural formulas of theological professors, in company, we believe, with Socinianism, Atheism, and divers other damnables; and next perhaps it has been hurled at the head of some mighty heresiarch in their own firmament, who, like the great red dragon of the Apocalypse, was dragging a third part of the stars of heaven in his tail. The fact that some of the later pupils of the Arminian school degenerated into Pelagianism, no more justifies this language, than the fact that the Genevan successors of Calvin disbelieve the divinity of Christ, justifies our branding Calvinism with a denial of the trinity. Nor is the dexterous versatility with which this term is made to mean any thing or every thing heretical, much palliated by the fact, that it is applied as effectually against the living as against the dead, against another sect as well as against dubious adherents in their own sects. The major term in the syllogism is, Arminianism is every thing heterodox; the minor term is, the Wesleyan Methodists are believers in Arminianism; the consequence-any body may infer.

Still less are these severities upon Arminianism palliated by the fact, that they not seldom come, if we mistake not, from some who are not a little exposed themselves to the charge of being tinged with the same heresy. It is an exquisite mode of repelling all suspicions of the thing, by delivering one's self of denunciations of the name, and whatsoever object you please to make the name signify. We have sometimes suspected that pulpits may be found in our land, in which Arminianism is a monstrum horrendum, without defined or fixed outline, undeveloped in body or limb, save that it has a voracity for devouring souls-and yet, perhaps, something very like Arminianism, or something a little more Arminian

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than Arminianism itself, shall form the staple preaching of that same pulpit. We would like to move the question, whether there be not Calvinistic pulpits, in which Calvin himself, were he to give the length and breadth of his own creed, would receive a cavalier quietus. Or whether there be not soi-disant Calvinists among us, tenacious of the title, around whom Calvin would sooner have wrapped the flames of Servetus, than the mantle of his own name. Or whether there be not theological doctors, who lay out no small expenditure of masterly intellect in cramping the substance of Arminian doctrines into the trammels of a Calvinistic nomenclature of terms, so that with the adoption of more liberalized notions, the "standing order" of articles and formulas may be still retained. The increase itself of a milder theology we hail with delight, as a harbinger of the day when one throb of unity of sentiment and affection shall thrill through the entire heart of the Christian Church. We rejoice that the spirit of Arminius may walk the earth, and his scriptural doctrine may compass the breadth thereof, although his name meet no respect, and his memory no mercy. Yet, with the liberality that can adopt new views, we would love to see the frankness that can, in explicit terms, acknowledge the change, and scorn all equivoque. To take a creed, worded in the most stereotype form of Calvinism-to strip it down to the ipsissima verba, the bare syllables, divested of the entire mass of historical connections and accredited expositions, which, from the author downward, have been embodied in multiplied strata around it-to take the words so stripped, mystify their explicitness, play upon their equivocalness, and writhe their flexibility into any desired obliquity-and then to bring in, under the name of a mere philosophical mode of exposition, all or much of what the creed has for ages been intended to condemn-this is a recipe by which you may stand on one side of the field, and combat for the othera neat expedient by which you may denounce Arminianism as roundly as Bogerman, and believe in it as soundly as Episcopius.

A question will arise, too obvious for us to meet, though too extended for us fully to discuss, how far the persecutions detailed in this volume are attributable to the opinions of the persecutors. The spirit of persecution, their apologists may plausibly say, is peculiar to no abstract religious doctrine; it is the property of the human heart, made by power too proud for contradiction, and is combinable with any opinion. If predestinarian Calvin burned Servetus, antipredestinarian Melancthon approved the deed; if Calvinian Maurice was the evil genius of Holland, Arminian Laud was the scourge of England. It may therefore be asserted, both on grounds of history and philosophy, that the Contra-remonstrant persecution was not the proper result of the Contra-remonstrant opinions.

But to the historical argument, in the first place, be it remembered there is a various reading. There are those who find that the great modern doctrine—the late and reluctantly learned lesson of the religious world-TOLERATION-arose simultaneously with Arminianism; that both are traceable to the same source-to the same It will perhaps be difficult to deny that Mr. Calder is grounded upon historic truth when he affirms that "the Remonstrants,

men.

who had imbibed the opinions and copied the conduct of the amiable Arminius, were the first among the Protestants of Europe to lift up their voice upon this subject." "Barneveldt, who was the principal lay-leader of the Remonstrants, was perhaps the firstst atesman, says Evans Crowe, that made religious toleration one of his maxims." Similar is the result at which the researches of Nichols arrived, who affirms that the earliest proclaimers of toleration in England acknowledge "their doctrine of religious liberty to have been derived from the writings of the Remonstrants." " Though the glory of the first promulgation of tolerant principles," he adds, "does not belong to the Calvinistic Independents, it is undoubtedly due to the Arminian branch of that denomination. Indeed in whatever quarter soever Dutch Arminianism achieved her conquests-whether among Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Independents-she almost uniformly rendered them favorable to the civil and religious liberties of mankind." Mr. Thomas Jackson, in his excellent Life of one of the earliest and most eminent of the English pupils of the Dutch Arminian school, John Goodwin, (a work we wish better known to American readers,) remarks, "It is highly honorable to him, though the fact is little known, that he was the first of our country. men who excited general attention by writing distinctly in defence of universal liberty of conscience as one of the most sacred rights of human nature. He had published several admirable tracts against all coercion in matters purely religious, before either Locke or Milton, or even Dr. Owen, wrote a single line upon the subject." Speaking of Episcopius and his compeers during their banishment after the Synod of Dort, Rev. Richard Watson remarks, "The immense literary labors in which they were compelled to engage during this troublous period have, by the admirable overruling acts of Providence, been rendered most valuable blessings to the whole of Christendom. Such doctrines and principles were then brought under discussion as served to enlighten every country in Europe on the grand subject of civil and religious liberty, the true nature of which from that time has been better understood, and its beneficial effects more generally appreciated and enjoyed." Such then is our reading of the history of the matter. The doctrine, of universal toleration, avowed now by every informed mind, propagated in every form of publication, the most popular motto of the politician, familiar as a household term, is properly a hard-found, dearly bought, modern discovery. Unknown in the days of papacy, misunderstood by the reformers, who claimed it for themselves, but applied it not as a principle to all others, its rise was in the rise of Arminianism; and when its principles were being developed and its contest won, Calvinism was its opponent, the Synod of Dort its Thermopyla, the Dutch Remonstrants its champions, and at their head-may we not say?-their noble leader, Simon Episcopius.

If upon the historical grounds such are our positions, what conclusions may we deduce from the philosophy of the creed itself, and its probable operations upon the human mind? Granting that persecution is often the sheer projectile from the ambition centred in the heart independent of any creed; granting that a Maurice persecuted, not for the sake of the divine decrees, but for his own despotism; that a Laud oppressed, not from love of universal

redemption but from love of his mitre, may we not still suspect that, in other cases, the intolerance is the fair logical corollary from the doctrines; or at least that the spirit of ambition and the spirit of the creed may have formed a composition of forces into a concentrated action toward the same object? We hesitate not to say, then, that, reasoning a priori, were we to set about constructing a creed for the absolute purpose of winding the spirit of self-exaltation up to the very maximum of intensity, human ingenuity could never devise one more suitable, than that which tells the self-supposed favorite of Heaven that, being loved with an everlasting love, an omnipotent fiat has predestined him by an indefeasible patent which secures at once the means and the end to a crown of fadeless glory; while the mass of the reprobate species around him, wisely passed by, are left in eternal abandonment and utter worthlessness, to the glory of God's justice. The effects of such a creed may be circumstantially modified and counteracted, but alone it must be disastrous. Often will a natural amiableness mitigate it, or the grace of God neutralize it, or outward events defeat it, but not seldom will it present us with a Bogerman or a Sibrand-creatures of their creed, claimants in disguise of an angelic nature alternately bursting with indignation that they are clogged by clay and gravitation to the earth, and dealing a just abhorrence upon the reprobate incarnates that presume to oppose them.* What presumption more accursed than to question their celestial title? What heresy more particularly damnable than to demonstrate the outrageousness of their dogmas; and how will their intolerance rise to the boiling point, just as the weakest, and sorest, and most sensitive spot feels most resistlessly the vital thrust of argument? They will adjure you to touch some more "comfortable" point, and warn you not" to disturb the consciences of God's elect." In their more exulting moments, their spirit will evolve itself in human vocables like those of Altingius. "That God hath reprobated whom he pleased according to mere will, without any regard to sin; that the sins which follow such reprobation were the fruits of it; nevertheless God is not the author of them: and that though the hardening and blinding of men's hearts and eyes proceeded from God, nevertheless we ought to cry with the cherubim, Holy is God though he reprobates! Holy is God though he blinds! Holy is God though he hardens" Then give such a being a little brief authority, and he will "play such fantastic tricks before high heaven" as will find a feeble type in the exile of Episcopius, the dungeon of Grotius, and the scaffold of Barneveldt.

We have spoken upon this subject-since we are speaking of the past and not of the present-with the freedom of history. If at the

*This may hardly be considered a mere fancy picture. Balcanqual, in one of his letters from the Synod of Dort, says, "Sibrandus and Gomarus keep their fits of madness by course; the last fit before this came to Gomarus' turn, and this day Sibrandus flew out, but with such raving and fierceness of countenance that he was checked in his words by the lay and ecclesiastical presidents." + Mr. Calder adds, "After these remarks had been made, the synod, says Brandt, judged that enough had been said on the first article of the controversy and we think so too." And we say ditto to Mr. Calder. And so at the present day we presume would say every reader of every sect who has no particular taste for blasphemy.

VOL. VIII.-January, 1837.

8

present day there are those who hold a Calvinism moderated and divested of objectionable features, to them our remarks upon a different thing-the Calvinism, namely, of another age-of course, do not apply. At the same time, while we object to the tendencies of a creed to deform the character, we may the more admire the character that resists all such influences, and retains its unmarred symmetry and native excellences. It is a lovely charity and a robust liberality that can respire and expand the heart into the largest magnanimity, in spite of the clasping cramp of an iron system. The nature of our subject has led us to speak largely of isms and ists, of polemic doctrines and theologic leaders. We are no idolaters of mighty names. We believe not truth because it is what Arminius taught, but we believe what Arminius taught because it seems to us truth. To characters eminent for excellence we justly yield our admiration, to those who have been the defenders and mediums of the truths we love we award a due gratitude. If even in the beauty of the sanctuary the church may exult that her voice of "praise" goes up in unison "with the glorious company of apostles, the goodly fellowship of prophets, and the noble army of martyrs," no wonder that the individual holder of any opinion feels himself gratefully sustained by a coincidence with more mighty minds, and that the body of every denomination cherish the recollection of names whose merits and achievements constitute to them a sort of ancestral glory. If this principle, when carried to excess, be dangerous to our independence of opinion, we know not in what better language the proper limitations can be expressed, than that with which the subject of Mr. Calder's excellent memoir closed his memorable speech at the Synod of Dort, and with which we shall close our train of remark:-"Dear to us, it is true, may be distinguished names, distinguished persons, and the sanctity of this synod, but still more dear to us ought to be the sanctity of TRUTH."

ART. VII.-INFIDELITY PORTRAYED.

Practical Infidelity Portrayed, and the Judgment of God made Manifest. An Address, submitted to the consideration of Robert D. Owen, Kneeland, Houston, and others, of the Infidel Party in the city of New-York. By ABNER CUNNINGHAM. D. Cooledge, New-York; J. Loring, Boston; N. Kite, Philadelphia. 12mo, pp.

144. 1836.

We notice this little work, not because we think it ranks high as a literary production, or merits special attention on account of any peculiarity it possesses to enlighten the understanding or excite feelings of devotion, but solely for the purpose of introducing the facts it sets forth as illustrative of the practical tendency of infidel principles. It found its way to our table some months ago, and would have received an earlier notice, but for the circumstance that we had not time to examine it, and the paragraph which first caught our eye on looking into it appeared too vapid and commonplace to merit particular attention. Since then we have read it through, and find in it a developement of facts which, on account of their bear