AMYOT
209
AMYRAUT
fficted with pains in the head, let us not run to en- chanters and fortune-tellers, and remedies of vanity. I mourn for you, my brethren ; for I daily find these things done. And what shall I do ? I cannot yet persuade Christians to put their only trust in Christ. With what face can a soul go unto God that has lost the sign of Christ, and taken upon him the sign of the devil?" The practice of wearing these periaptu was most probably taken from the custom of the Jews, who wore the tephilim, or phylacteries. The Council of Trullo ordered the makers of all amulets to be excom- municated, and deemed the wearers of them guilty of heathen superstition. Faith in the virtue of amulets was almost universal in the ancient world ; it need not, therefore, excite our surprise that some of the less-informed should have adhered to the heathenish practice after their admission into the Christian Church. — Bingham, Orig. Eccl. bk. xvi, ch. v, § 6.
See, generally, Hiibner, Amuletorum historia (Hal. 1710) ; Schwabe, Ueb. e. teutsches A mulct, in Meusel's Geschichtsforcher, i, 121 ; Schumacher, De amuleto quo- dam Gnostico (Guelph. 1774); Emele, Ueb. Amulete (Mainz, 1827) ; Kopp, Paleographia crit. iii, 15. See Talisman.
Amyot, Joseph, a Jesuit missionary to China, was born at Toulon in 1718. At the close of 1750 he arrived at Macao in company with two Portuguese Jesuits, and the brethren of that order already estab- lished at Peking presented a petition to the reigning emperor, Keen-Loong, to the effect that the new- comers were well acquainted with mathematics, music, and medicine. A persecution against the Christians was going on, but the reply of the emperor was favor- able, and he directed the missionaries to be conveyed to Peking at the public expense. Amyot gives an interesting account of the journey in a letter inserted in the " Lettres Edifiantes ct Curieuses," from which these particulars are taken. On arriving at the cap- ital, where an underhand sort of toleration was ex- tended to the missionaries, he applied himself to the stud}' of the Chinese, and afterward to the Manchoo- Tartar language and literature, in both of which he made great proficiency. From that time he appears to have acted rather as a missionary of learning than of religion. While his name scarcely figures at all in the " Lettres Edifiantes," not a year seems to have passed without his dispatching to Europe some infor- mation on the history and manners of the Chinese and Tartars, to the illustration of which he contrib- uted more than any other writer of the 18th century. He remained at Peking 43 years, during which time the order to which he belonged was dissolved, and more than one vigorous persecution was directed against the Christians in China. At the time of Lord Macartney's embassy in 1793, Amyot wrote a letter to the ambassador on his arrival in Peking, ''expres- sive of the most fervent wishes for his success, and offering every assistance that his experience could supply ;" but he was then so infirm as not to lie able to wait on Lord Macartney. In the following .year, 1794, he died at Peking, at the age of 76. Among his works are : 1. Abrege histor. des principaux traits de la vie de Confucius (Paris, 1789), the best history of the Chinese philosopher, the material of which has been carefully selected from the most authentic Chinese sources : — 2. Dictiormaire Tatare-Mantcheou-Franmis, edit, by Langles (Paris, 1789, 3 vols.): — 3. Gram- maire Tatare-Mantcheou (in the 3d vol. of the Mem. concernant la Chine) — Lettres Edifiantes, torn, xxviii.
Amyraldism. See Amyraut.
Amyraut (or Amyralpus), Moise, a French Protestant theologian of the seventeenth century ; born at Bourgueil, in Anjou, in 1596, and instructed in theology at Saumur. He was nominated to suc- ceed John Daille, at Saumur, and was appointed pro- fessor of theology in that academy with Louis Cappel and Joshua de la Place (Placasus) in 1633. In 1631 O
he was sent to attend the national synod of French Protestants at Charenton, who deputed him to de- liver a harangue to the king, which is inserted in the Mercure Franrais of 1631. His conduct in this afi'air gained him the esteem of Richelieu. The emi- nence of the three Saumur professors drew students from many parts of Europe ; but it soon began to be re- ported that their teaching was subversive of the doc- trines of Dort on Predestination and Grace. The views of Amyraut on these topics were derived from Cameron (q. v.), and were first published in a tract, De Predestinatione (Trait e de la Predestination el de ses principalis dependences), in 1634. His views were called Universalist and Arminian, but they were neither. Amj'raut asserted a gratia universalis, in- deed, but he meant \>y it simply that God desires the happiness of all men, provided they will receive his mercy in faith ; that none can obtain salvation without faith in Christ ; that God refuses to none the power of believing, but that he does not grant to all his as- sistance, that they may improve this power to saving purposes ; that none can so improve it without the Holy Spirit, which God is not bound to grant to any, and, in fact, only does grant to those who are elect according to his eternal decree. "In defending his doctrine of universal atonement, Amyraut appealed confidently to the authority of Calvin; indeed, he wrote a treatise, entitled Echanlillon de la doctrine de Calvin touchant la Predestination, to show that Calvin supported his views concerning the extent of the atone- ment, and was in all respects a very moderate Cal- vinist" (Cunningham, The Reformers, p. 395). Uni- versal grace (as Amyraut held the doctrine of it) is of no actual saving benefit to any. He distinguished between objective and subjective grace. Objective grace offers salvation to all men on condition of repentance and faith, and is universal; subjective grace operates morally in the conversion of the soul, and is particular, i. e. only given to the elect. The aim of Amyraut was to reconcile the Lutherans and Calvinists; and his views were received widely, as seeming to soften down the rigid Predestinarianism of Dort. The true pecu- liarity of Amyraut's theology is the combination of a real particularism, in the full Calvinistic sense, with an ideal universality of grace, which, in fact, never saves a single soul (Schweizer, in Herzog, Real-En- cyclop. s. v.). Charges were brought against him by Du Moulin and others, but he was acquitted of heresy by the Synod of Alencon (1637), and afterward at Charenton (1644). Daille and Blondel favored the views of Amyraut. He died in 1664. Eleven years after (1675) the Formula Consensus Ihlvitica (q. v.) was drawn up and published, chiefly against the so- called heresies of the Saumur professor. Amyraldism was, in substance, the theory adopted by Baxter (q. v.), and has been sustained, with various modifications, in recent times, by Williams (Essay on Sovereignty, 1813), Payne (Lectures on Sovereignty and Election, 1838), Wardlaw (On the Atonement, 1844); by Fuller and Hinton among Baptists; by T. Scott and Milner in the Church of England; by many Congregational- ists and New-School Presbyterians in America ; and, of late, by many ministers of the U. P. Church of Scot- land. Among his writings are, 1. Paraphrases <m vari- ous books of the N. T. and of the Psalms (12 vols. 8vo, 1644-1662) : — 2. De la Vocation des Pasteurs (Saumur, 1619, small 8vo) : — 3. Monde Chretienne (Saumur, 1652-1660, 6 vols. 8vo) :— 4. Traite des ReVgions (Sau- mur, 1631, 8vo ; transl. into English, A Treatise con- cerning Religions, etc. Lond. 1660, small 8vo) : — 5. In Symbolum Apostol. exercitaiio (Saumur, 1663, small 8vo) ; besides various sermons and tracts on the dis- puted question of predestination and grace. A list of his works is given by Haag, La France Protestante, i, 72. — Nichols, Calvinism and Arminianism, i, 220- 230; Morrison, Lectures on Rom. ix, p. 376; Neander, Hist, of Dogmas, ii, 680; Schweizer, in Baur u. Zel-