redemption of Jesus Christ, and liberating them from that contractedness of mind which is inseparably connected with a belief of the Calvinistic decrees, my end will be answered.
It is a question that has been frequently proposed, If there be no such doctrine as absolute and unconditional predestination and election, why did all the ancient writers teach it? To this I answer; 1. I will venture to affirm that not one in a hundred of those who propose and insist on this question, ever read any, much less all the ancient writers. What they mean by ancient writers is, such as wrote before and after the synod of Dort. But those are rather late than ancient writers. 2. All, even of those writers, do not teach such a predestination and election as are contended for by the rigid Calvinists. 3. None of those that are justly entitled to the character of the ancient writers, and who lived in the three first centuries after our Saviour’s days, ever taught any such, as is sufficiently manifest in the quotations from them in the course of this work. St. Augustine indeed did teach it afterwards, and his followers; yet not without frequently contradicting themselves.
But then, it is further asked, How come the doctrines of absolute election, &c., and the limited extent of our Saviour’s death is taught and so generally received in our own country? They were first introduced into the world by St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in Africa, about 400 years after our Saviour’s days. But they made their appearance in a very crude, indigested, and inconsistent form, and so continued for a number of years: till Calvin, who was contemporary with Luther, attempted to reduce them into a system and from hence it is, that the maintainers of these doctrines have obtained the name of Calvinists. But neither did Calvin himself give the system its finishing stroke: for it would be easy to produce quotations from his works, wherein he asserts both ways, viz. that Christ died for all, and that he only died for the elect. After this, in the year 1618, the synod of Dort gave a kind of finishing stroke to this system of Calvin, and brought it into the form we find it in most of the puritanical writers. Though indeed among these, there is hardly one, but who has here and there a sentence tending to establish the doctrine of an unlimited atonement, which they at other times, when they are guided by the synod’s leading strings, condemn as error and heterodoxy.
But in reference to the prevalency of these doctrines in our own country, it must be observed, that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth there were two men of great note for their learning and parts in the University of Cambridge; the one Dr. Whitaker, who was Regius Professor of Divinity; and the other Peter Baro, a Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity there. Whitaker, who had married into a family much attached to the Geneva Masters, gave himself up to their opinions; and among other points, which chiefly rested in the authority of Calvin and Beza, he began to urge the opinion of absolute predestination, which entirely excludes the greatest part of mankind from the redemption of Christ and sufficient grace; and that according to the design of God and of Christ, he maintained that reprobation is not a negative, but a positive act in God, with respect to man considered in the mass not yet corrupted; and that by means of this decree, and the will of God, many men rush into eternal destruction.
Peter Baro being of the contrary judgment to Whitaker, the disputes between these two celebrated professors ran very high, and for a considerable time drew the youth of the University into two parties; Whitaker at length went to London, and going to Dr. Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, informed him, that the University was disturbed with the Pelagian opinions, to remedy which, he desired that nine articles (afterwards known by the name of the Lambeth Articles) which he had drawn out, might be sent to Cambridge, with the approbation of some of the Bishops. These Articles were so artfully framed, that they might be approved of even by those who differed not a little from his opinion, and yet might afterwards be used by himself for the confirmation of it.
A convention of a few Bishops and other ministers was held in November, 1595, in which the articles received their approbation.
And Whitgift, although he approved not of Whitaker’s opinions, yet through easiness of temper, and fear of discord, he submitted. These articles were transmitted to Cambridge. Whitaker boasts that he had gotten the victory. And meeting with the Chancellor of Cambridge, who was also one of the Queen’s Privy Council, he acquainted him with what he had done, and showed him the articles. That great man, easily perceiving how dangerous it was to determine in points so much contested, heartily disapproved of all that was done, saying, that he would make the authors of this business repent of it. Accordingly he laid the matter before the Queen, informing her what had been decreed by a few divines about the most weighty questions, in which men of the greatest learning could never agree: adding that it was plain what those aimed at who had done this: for they thought and taught, that whatsoever was done in human affairs, whether it were good or bad, it was all necessitated by the ruling force of an immutable decree: and that this necessity was laid upon the very wills of men also, that they could not will otherwise than they did will. “Which things,” says he, “if true, most sovereign Lady, in vain do I, and others of your Majesty’s faithful servants, hold long councils about what is needful to be done in any affairs, and what may be of use to yourself and your kingdom, seeing that all consultation about things that necessarily come to pass, is downright folly.”
The Queen was moved, and ordered Archbishop Whitgift to be sent for. He came, and the subject of the Lambeth Articles was brought forwards: the Queen’s counselors being present, pressed very hard upon him by urging the illegality of the convention; and proceeding to the question concerning fate, “they determined, that this opinion was opposed to good morals and the commonwealth.” The event was, that the Lambeth Articles were suppressed.
Whitaker died in a short time after the Lambeth convention, and was succeeded in the Regius professorship by Dr. John Overall, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, a man of most excellent learning. He taught in this manner, That sufficient grace is offered to every man; that Christ died for every man; that grace leads the way in everything that is good, and free will informed by grace follows after; that grace operates in such ways as cannot be explained, not however by determining to every particular act in a natural manner, and that justifying grace cannot consist with mortal sins before they are repented of.
After this King James I, having ascended to the throne, a conference was held at Hampton-Court, in 1603; and although King James did not think proper to establish absolute predestination at this time, according to the wish of Dr. Reynolds and his party, yet he did much towards it afterwards, by countenancing the proceedings of the synod of Dort, and causing the Bible to be newly translated, which translation, as well as the former, being made mostly by such as were staunch friends to the doctrine of Calvin, no wonder that many texts appear to favour it.
As we are come down to the time of the synod of Dort, I will here give my readers a brief account of that assembly. The universal doctrines were generally taught in the Belgic churches, before Arminius either wrote or spoke in their defense; and as Dr. Heylin has proved, were the national persuasion before Calvinism was heard of. However, in time, Calvinism spread, and just before the synod of Dort, the Calvinists persecuted the Remonstrants, as those were termed who held the general doctrines. The Remonstrants put themselves under the protection of one Barnevelt, a man of great power, in the council of state for the United Provinces; by whose means they obtained an edict from the states of Holland and of West Friezland in 1613, requiring and enjoining a mutual toleration of opinions.
But this indulgence, though very advantageous to the Remonstrants, cost them dearly in the end. For Barnevelt having some suspicion that Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, Commander General of the forces of the United Provinces, had a design to make himself absolute master of those countries, made use of them for the encouraging of such patriots as durst appear in maintenance of the common liberty. This service they undertook rather because they found that the Prince had passionately espoused the quarrel with the Calvinists. From this time the breach was so widened that it could not be closed again, without either weakening the power of the Prince, or the death of Barnevelt.
This last they easily accomplished, for he was put to death contrary to the fundamental
