2. In*1621, Episcopius, at the request of the leading Remonstrants, drew up a formula of faith under the. title Confessio seu declaratio sententue pastorum qui in Feed. Belg. Remonstrantes vocantur (Episc. Opp. ii, 69), in 25 chapters, which was widely circulated. A cen- sura of this confession was published by Polyander and four other Leyden professors, to which Episcopius re- plied in his Apologia pro Confessione, 16.30. The "Con- fessio" disappointed the Gomarists, for it was perfect- by sound on the Trinity, thus refuting the charge of Socinianism brought against the Arminians. It was received with great favor by the Lutherans. A num- ber of eminent names adorn the literary history of Ar- minianism in Holland and France; among them the most prominent, besides Episcopius, are Curcellsaus, Vossius, Grotius, Casaubon, Limborch, Le Clerc, and Wetstein (all to be found under the proper heads in this Cyclopaedia). It is to be regretted that in the hands of some of these eminent men Arminianism was corrupted by semi-rationalism.
3. The effect of the controversy appeared in France in the modified Calvinism of Amyraldus (q. v.). Nor was the dispute confined to the reformed churches. During the whole of the sixteenth century the Church of Rome was agitated with the controversy upon grace and free-will. The Benedictines and Domini- cans had already broken the ground; but the battle raged in its greatest fury between the Jesuits and the Jansenists, the latter being ably represented by the religious of the monastery of Port Royal, near Paris. Here again it happened, as in Holland, that the con- troversy extended itself from religion to politics. The Jansenists of France became the reformers of the age, the men of free thought and bold discussion, while the Jesuit party were the advocates of the court and the old abuses, both in church and state. At the same time, it is a curious fact that in Holland the Armin- ians were the friends of liberty and free discussion, in France the Calvinists; the two parties had changed places. The Jesuits, who were Arminians, were now the persecutors, and the Jansenists, or Calvinists, the patient and afflicted sufferers. See Jansenists.
4. In Germany, the Lutherans, of course, sympa- thized fully in the Arminian movement.. In the Re- formed Church the decisions of Dort were admitted as authoritative for a time; but "this outward show of victory was really a defeat; for the true elements of Arminianism were not killed at Dort, but grew up, si- lently but surely, within the bosom of the orthodox Reformed Church. ... In the period of Wolfianism the Reformed dogmatics were finally purged from the doctrine of absolute predestination" (Ebrard, Christ- liche Dogmatik, i, § 3s). It is a shrewd remark of Nicholls, that had there been a great religious body, apart from Calvin's followers, with which all Protest- ants who did not adopt Luther's doctrine of the sacra- ments might have united themselves, the doctrines of Calvin would not have been so widely diffused on the Continent between 1540 and 1600 (Calvinism and Ar- minianism, I. iv).
5. In England the so-called Arminian doctrines were held, in substance, long before the time of Ar- minius. The Articles of Religion arc regarded by some writers as Calvinistic, by others as Arminian. The truth seems to be that they were meant to be am-
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biguous, or, to use a kinder word, comprehensive, so as to leave liberty of opinion in the church on a ques- tion so obscure and difficult. On this point, see, on the Arminian side, Burnet, Exposition of Thirty-nine Articles; Laurence, Bampton Lecture, 1801; Fletcher, Work*) ii, 21G, 218; Browne, On Thirty-nine Articles (Lond. 1864, 4th ed.) : and on the Calvinistic side, Cunningham, Reformers and Theology of the Reforma- tion (Edinburgh, 1862, Essay iv ; also in Brit, and For. Evany. Rev. No. 35, and reprinted in Amer. Thcol. Rer. Oct. 1861, art. v). It is certain that Cranmer had a hand in drawing up the Necessary Erudition of a Chris- tian Man (1543), just before the compilation of the. Ar- ticles, and that book (the Erudition) is by no means Cal- vinistic. Latimer, Hooper, Bilson, Andrews, Overal, and Hooker "might with propriety have been called Arminians, had Arminianism, as a system of doctrine, prevailed when they wrote" (Nicholls, Calvinism and A rminianism, I, xevi). Baro (q. v.), professor of divin- ity at Cambridge, taught Arminianism, and his case gave rise to the Lambeth Articles (q. v.). But Armin- ianism unfortunately became a political question. Two Arminian bishops, Laud and Juxon, became members of his majesty's privy council at the precise juncture when the liberty of the subject, and the prerogative of the crown were brought into direct competition. John Playfere, Margaret professor at Cambridge (f 1608), published a strong defence of the Arminian doctrine, under the title of An Appeal to the Gospel for the true Doctrine of Predestination (republished in Cambridge Tracts, 1717). Dr. Samuel Hoard, rector of Moreton (f 1657), originally a Calvinist, became a strong Ar- minian, and published God's Love to Mankind manifest- ed, by disproving his absolute Decree for their Damnation (Lond. 1633, 4to), which called forth answers by Dave- nant, Twisse, and Amyraut. In the civil war the Arminians gradually ranged themselves with King Charles, the Calvinists with Parliament. But John Goodwin (q. v.), who was ejected in 1645, was one of the ablest defenders of Arminianism in his time. See Jackson, Life of Goodwin (1822, 8vo). When the war was over the Church of England was destroyed, and Arminianism seemed to have perished with it. The restoration of Charles II took place (1660) ; Armin- ianism returned with prelacy, and held for more than half a century almost undisputed sway in the Church of England. It must be observed, however, that as the Arminianism of Laud differed from that of the Dutch leader in many points, so did that of the divines of Charles II and their successors in many more. Laud combined it with views of sacramental efficacy which Arminius would have denounced as superstitious; the later school of divines, though far from Socinianism, threw the doctrines of grace into the shade, and dwelt more on the example of Christ than his atonement. Among the eminent Episcopal Arminian divines of England are Cudworth, Pierce, Jeremy Taylor, Til- lotson, Chillingworth, Stillingfleet, AVomack, Burnet, Pearson, Sanderson, Heylyn, Whitby, Patrick, Tom- line, Coplestone, Whatelv, etc. Arminianism at last, in the Church of England, became a negative term, implying a negation of Calvinism rather than an}* ex- act system of theology whatever. Much that passed for Arminianism was, in fact, Pelagianism. In the Church of England, most of those theologians who have deviated from the golden mean maintained by Arminianism (between Calvinism on the one hand and Pelagianism on the other) have fallen into error as to the Trinity, while those who have adhered to the evan- gelical doctrine of Arminius have retained all the veri- ties of the orthodox faith. The pure doctrine of Ar- minianism arose again in England in the great Wcsley- an Reformation of the seventeenth century. Its ablest expositions may be found in the writings of John Wes- ley, John Fletcher, and Richard Watson, whose Theo- logical Institutes (best edit. N. Y. 1850, 2 vols. 8vo) is the most complete Arminian body of divinity extant Dd