ARMINIANISM AFTER THE SYNOD OF DORT.
The banishment of the Arminians was of short duration. After the death of Prince Maurice of Nassau (1625), and under the reign of his milder brother and successor, Frederick Henry, they were allowed to return and to establish churches and schools in every town of Holland, which became more and more a land of religious toleration and liberty. In this respect their principles triumphed over their opponents. [990] They founded a famous Theological College at Amsterdam (1630), which exists to this day, and has recently been removed to Leyden.
Peace was not so favorable to their growth as controversy. They gradually diminished in number, and are now a very small sect in Holland, almost confined to Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
But their literary and religious influence has gone far beyond their organization. Their eminent scholars, Hugo Grotius, Episcopius, Limborch, Curcellæus, Clericus (Le Clerc), and Wetstein, have enriched exegetical and critical learning, and liberalized theological opinions, especially on religious toleration and the salvation of unbaptized infants. Arminianism, in some of its advocates, had a leaning towards Socinianism, and prepared the way for Rationalism, which prevailed to a great extent in the Established Churches of Holland, Geneva, and Germany from the end of the last century till the recent reaction in favor of orthodox Calvinism and Lutheranism. But many Arminians adhered to the original position of a moderated semi-Pelagianism.
The distinctive Arminian doctrines of sin and grace, free-will and predestination, have been extensively adopted in the Episcopal Church since the reign of Charles I., and in the last century by the Methodists of Great Britain and America, and thereby have attained a larger territory and influence than they ever had in the land of their birth. [991] Methodism holds to the essential doctrines of the Reformation, but also to the five points of Arminianism, with some important evangelical modifications.
[977] His Dutch name is Jacob van Hermanns or Hermanson, Harmensen.
[978] Koornheert was Secretarius at Haarlem, and a forerunner of the Remonstrants (d. 1590). He attacked the doctrine of Calvin and Beza on predestination and the punishment of heretics (1578), wrote against the Heidelberg Catechism (1583), and advocated toleration and a reduction of the number of articles of faith. His works were published at Amsterdam, 1630. See Bayle, art. Koornheert, and Schweizer, Vol. II. p. 40. Another forerunner of Arminianism was Caspar Koolhaas, preacher in Leyden, who was protected by the civil magistrate, but excommunicated by a provincial Synod at Haarlem, 1582. It should be remembered also that Erasmus, the advocate of free-will, against Luther, was held in high esteem in his native country, and that the views of Castellio, Bolsec, and Huber had made some impression.
[979] In the same year (1609) the Pilgrim Fathers of New England arrived in Leyden, where they enjoyed religions freedom till their departure for America (1620). Arminius was born in the same year in which Melanchthon died (1560).
[980] Caspar Brandt: Historia vitæ J. Arminii, ed. by Gerhard Brandt (son of the author), with additions by Mosheim, 1725; Engl. transl. by Guthrie, Lond. 1854. Bangs's Life of Arminius, N. York, 1843. Mosheim calls him 'a man whom even his enemies commend for his ingenuity, acuteness, and piety.' His motto was, 'A good conscience is a paradise.' In his testament (see extract in Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 508, note 7), he affirms that he diligently labored to teach nothing but what he could prove from the Scriptures, and what tended to edification and peace among Christians, excepting popery, 'with which,' he says, 'there can be no unity of faith, no bond of piety and peace.' Grotius was much milder towards the Catholics.
[981] Limborch: Vita Episcopii. Amst. 1701.
[982] On Barneveldt, see the work of Motley; on Hugo Grotius, the monograph of Luden, Berlin, 1806.
[983] In Dutch, Dordrecht or Dordtrecht; in Latin, Dordracum--an old fortified town in which the independence of the United Provinces was declared in 1572.
[984] See the nine instructions of James to the delegates, in Fuller, Ch. H. of Brit. Vol. V. p. 462.
[985] The Dutch delegates held twenty-two additional sessions on Church government.
[986] The five English delegates were allowed the largest sum, viz., ten pounds sterling per day--more than any other foreign divines.--Fuller, l.c. p. 465.
[987] See Hardwick's History of the Thirty-nine Articles, ch. ix., and Heylin's Historia Quinquarticularis.
[988] Schweizer, Vol. II. pp. 26, 143 sq.; also, Graf, and Böhl, 1.c.
[989] Motley (Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Vol. II. p. 309) caricatures the Synod of Dort in a manner unworthy of an impartial historian. 'It was settled,' he said, 'that one portion of the Netherlands and of the rest of the human race had been expressly created by the Deity to be forever damned, and another portion to be eternally blessed. . . . On the 30th April and 1st May the Netherland Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism were declared infallible.'
[990] Hugo Grotius carried the principle of toleration so far that it was said Socinus, Luther, Calvin, Arminius, the Pope, and Arius contended for his religion as seven cities for the birth of the divine Homer. See the verse of Menage, quoted by G. Frank, Geschichte der Protest. Theologie, Vol. I. p. 410.
[991] The Wesleys were Arminians, while Whitefield was a Calvinist. They separated on the question of predestination.