The views of Arminius on the points of predestina- tion and grace are presented in the following articles, drawn up almost entirely in words which may be found in his writings : (1.) God, hy an eternal and immuta- ble decree, ordained in Jesus Christ, his Son, before the foundation of the world, to save in Christ, because of Christ, and through Christ, from out of the human race, which is fallen and subject to sin, those who by the grace of the Holy Spirit believe in the same his Son, and who, by the same grace, persevere unto the end in that faith and the obedience of faith ; but, on the contrary, to leave in sin and subject to wrath those who are not converted and are unbelieving, and to con- demn them as aliens from Christ, according to the Gospel, John iii, 36. (2.) To which end Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, died for all and each one, so that he has gained for all, through the death of Christ, reconciliation and remission of sins ; on this condition, however, that no one in reality enjoys that remission of sins except the faithful man, and this, too, accord- ing to the Gospel, John iii, 16, and 1 John ii, 2. (3.) But man has not from himself, or by the power of his free will, saving faith, inasmuch as in the state of de- fection and sin he cannot think or do of himself any thing good, which is, indeed, really good, such as sav- ing faith is ; but it is necessary for him to be born again and renewed by God in Christ through his Holy Spirit, in his mind, affections, or will, and all Ids fac- ulties, so that he may be able to understand, think, wish, and perform something good, according to that saying of Christ in John xv, 5. (4.) It is this grace of God which begins, promotes, and perfects every thing good, and this to such a degree that even the regenerate man without this preceding or adventitious grace, exciting, consequent, and co-operating, can neither think, wish, or do any thing good, nor even resist any evil temptation : so that all the good works which we can think of are to be attributed to the grace of God in Christ. But as to the manner of the opera- tion of that grace, it is not irresistible, for it is said of many that they resisted the Holy Spirit, in Acts vii, 51, and many other places. (5.) Those who are graft- ed into Christ by a true faith, and therefore partake of his vivifying Spirit, have abundance of means by which they may fight against Satan, sin, the world, and their own flesh, and obtain the victory, always, however, by the aid of the grace of the Holy Spirit; Jesus Christ assists them by his Spirit in all tempta- tions, and stretches out his hand ; and provided thejr are ready for the contest, and seek his aid, and are not wanting to their duty, he strengthens them to such a degree that they cannot be. seduced or snatched from the hands of Christ by any fraud of Satan or violence, according to that saying, John x, 28, " No one shall pluck them out of my hand." But whether these very persons cannot, by their own negligence, desert the commencement of their being in Christ, and embrace again the present world, fall back from the holy doc- trine once committed to them, make shipwreck of their conscience, and fall from grace : this must be more fully examined and weighed by the Holy Scrip- ture before men can teach it with full tranquillity of
mind and confidence. This last proposition was mod- ified by the followers of Arminius so as to assert the ' possibility of falling from grace. In his scheme of theology Arminius "accepted the church's developed ideas respecting God and respecting man, and then expounded with keen dialectical rigor the only doc- trine which could harmonize the two. His mission was to point out how God could be what the church taught that he was, and man what the church de- clared him to lie, at one and the same time. The readjustment of the disturbed and abnormal relations of man to God, by justification, is the central thought of Protestant theology ; the announcement and expo- sition of their relations in that readjustment was the work of Arminius. Magnify either of the related terms to the final suppression of the other, and error is the result. Magnify the Divine agency to the com- I plete suppression of the human in that readjustment, and fatalism is inevitable. Magnify the human to the complete suppression of the Divine, and extreme Pelagianism is the result. To Arminius is the church indebted for her first vivid apprehension and scientific statement of the Christian doctrine of the relation of I man to God."
I The services of Arminius to theology are summed ! up as follows by Watson {Miscellaneous Works, vii, '■ 476) : " They preserved many of the Lutheran church- | es from the tide of supralapsarianism, and its constant concomitant, Antinomianism. They moderated even Calvinism in many places, and gave better counte- nance and courage to the sublapsarian scheme ; which, though logically, perhaps, not much to be preferred to that of Calvin, is at least not so revolting, and does not impose the same necessity upon men of cultivating that hardihood which glories in extremes and laughs at moderation. They gave rise, incidentally, to a still milder modification of the doctrine of the decrees, ! known in England by the name of Baxterianism, in ! which homage is, at least in words, paid to the justice, i truth, and benevolence of God. They have also left t on record, in the beautiful, learned, eloquent, and, | above all these, the scriptural system of theology fur- nished by the writings of Arminius, how truly man | may be proved totally and hereditarily corrupt, with- 1 out converting him into a machine or a devil; how I fully secured, in the scheme of the redemption of man | by Jesus Christ, is the divine glory, without making j the Almighty partial, wilful, and unjust ; how much the Spirit's operation in man is enhanced and glorified ! by the doctrine of the freedom of the human will, in connection with that of its assistance by Divine grace ; | with how much lustre the doctrine of justification by j faith in Christ shines, when offered to the assisted choice of all mankind, instead of being confined to the forced acceptance of a few ; how the doctrine of elec- tion, when it is made conditional on faith foreseen, harmonizes with the wisdom, holiness, and goodness [ of God, among a race of beings to all of whom faith was made possible ; and how reprobation harmonizes with justice, when it has a reason, not in arbitrary will, the sovereignty of a pasha, but in the principles of a righteous government."