A LETTER, BY THE REV. JAMES ARMINIUS, D. D. &c. &c. TO HIS EXCELLENCY, THE NOBLE LORD, HIPPOLYTUS A COLLIBUS, AMBASSADOR FROM THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE, THE ELECTOR PALATINE, TO THE SEVEN UNITED DUTCH PROVINCES, JAMES ARMINIUS WISHETH HEALTH AND SUCCESS. Most Honourable Sir, WHEN I was lately admitted to a conversation with you, you had the kindness to intimate to me the reports which you understood had been circulated at Heidelberg about my heterodoxy in certain Articles of our faith; and you gave me this information, not only that you might yourself hear from me personally the whole truth about the matter, but, much more, that, by the intervention of your good offices, the suspicions concerning me, which have been so unhandsomely conceived and propagated, might be removed from the minds of other persons, since this is a course which Truth requires. I endeavoured at that interview with diligence and seriousness to comply with your obliging request, and by returning a frank and open reply to each of those questions which your Excellency proposed, I instantly disclosed my sentiments about those several Articles. For, in addition to my being bound to do this by my duty as a Christian man, and especially as a divine, such a course of conduct was demanded from me by the great candour, condescension, and benevolence which you exhibited towards me. But my explanation was so agreeable to your Excellency, (which I ascribe to an act of the Divine Benignity towards me,) as to induce you, on that occasion, to think it requisite, that those propositions of mine should be committed to writing and transmitted to you; not only for the purpose of being thus enabled the more certainly and firmly to form your own judgment about the matter when you had maturely reflected upon it; but also with the design of communicating my written answers to others, that they might confute the calumny and vindicate my innocence. Having followed the counsel of your prudence, and firmly relying on the same hope, I now accede to your further wishes, in this letter; and I entreat your Excellency to have the goodness to peruse its contents with the same candour and equanimity as were displayed when you listened to their delivery. Unless my mind greatly deceives me, your Excellency will find in this letter that which will not only be able to obliterate, but also completely to eradicate, every unjust suspicion concerning me, from the minds of those good men who know, that every one is the best interpreter of his own sentiments, and that the utmost credit is to be given to him who sacredly, and in the presence of God, bears testimony to his own meaning. The Articles of Doctrine about which your Excellency made inquiries, were, as far as my memory serves me, the following: The Divinity of the Son of God, Providence, Divine Predestination, Grace and Free Will, and Justification. Beside these, you inquired about the things which concerned our opinions, in answer to the interrogatories of the States of Holland, concerning the mode of holding the proposed Synod: But as the latter relate to that most eminent man, the Reverend John Uytenbogard, minister of the Church at the Hague, as much as to me, I leave them to be explained by him, whose residence is much nearer to that of your Excellency. With regard to all these Doctrinal Articles I confidently declare, that I have never taught any thing, either in the Church or in the University, which contravenes the Sacred Writings, that ought to be with us the sole rule of thinking and of speaking, or which is opposed to the Dutch Confession of Faith or to the Heidelberg Catechism, that are our stricter formularies of consent. In proof of this assertion I might produce, as most clear and unquestionable testimonies, the Theses which I have composed on these several Articles, and which have been discussed as Public Disputations in the University: But, as those Theses are not entirely in readiness for every one, and can be with difficulty transmitted, I will now treat upon each of them specially, as far as I shall conceive it necessary. I. THE DIVINITY OF THE SON OF GOD. CONCERNING the Divinity of the Son of God, I have taught, and still teach, that the Father has never been without his Word and his Spirit ;-but that the Word and the Spirit are not to be considered in the Father under the notion of properties, as Wisdom, Goodness, Justice, or Power, but under that of really existing persons, to whom it belongs to be, to live, to understand, to will, to be capable, and to do or act, all of which, when united, are indications and proofs of a person;-but that they are so in the Father as to be also from the Father, in a certain order of origin, not through collaterality, to be referred to the Father ;-and that they are from the Father, neither by creation nor by decision, but by a most wonderful and inexplicable internal emanation, which, with respect to the Son, the Ancient Church called generation, but which, with respect to the Holy Spirit, was denominated spiration or breathing, a term required by the very [etymon of the] word SPIRIT. But about this breathing I do not interpose my judgment,-whether it is from the Father and the Son, as the Latin Fathers express themselves, or from the Father through the Son, as the Greek Fathers prefer to define it; because this matter, I confess, far surpasses my capacity. If on any subject we ought to speak and think with sobriety, in my opinion, it must be on this. Since these are my sentiments on the Divinity of the Son of God, no reason could exist why, on this point, I should endure the shafts of calumny. Yet this slander was first fabricated and spread through the whole of Germany, by one in whom such. conduct was exceedingly indecorous; because he was my pupil, and ought to have refrained from that course, having been taught by his own painful experience that he either possessed an unhappy memory or was of doubtful credit; for he had previously been convicted of a similar calumny, and had openly confessed his fault before me, and requested my forgiveness. But, as I learnt from a certain manuscript which was transmitted to Leyden out of Germany, and which the same youth had delivered to the Heidelberg divines, he took the ground-work of his calumny from those things which I had publicly taught concerning the economy of our salvation as administered by the Father through the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the explanation of this economy I had said, "that we must have a diligent regard to this order, "which the Scriptures in every part most religiously observe; "and that we must distinctly consider what things are attributed "as peculiar to the Father in this matter, what to the Son, and "what to the Holy Spirit." After this, some other persons seized upon a different occasion for the same calumny, from my having said, that the Son of God was not correctly called Aurofeov, "Very God," in the same sense in which that word signifies, "God from himself." This audacious inclination for calumniating was promoted by the circumstance of my having explained in a different manner, certain passages of the Old and New Testament which have been usually adduced to establish the consubstantiality or the coessentiality of the Trinity. But I can with ease in a moment shew, from the books of the Old and New Testament themselves, from the whole of Antiquity, and from the sentiments of the Ancient Church, both Greek and Latin, as well as from the testimony of our own divines, that nothing can be deduced from those alleged misinterpreted passages which is with the least semblance of probability adverse to the sound and orthodox faith. In his able defence of Calvin against the treatise of Hunnius, entitled "CALVIN JUDAIZING," the learned Paræus has taught that this last occasion was seized upon in vain; and he has liberated me from the necessity of this service.* To spend any time in confuting the First Slander, [which was circulated by the young student,] would not repay my trouble. Those who know that the Father in the Son hath reconciled the world unto himself, and administers the word of reconciliation through the Spirit, know likewise that, in the dispensation of salvation, an order must be considered among the Persons of the Trinity, and their attributes must not be confounded, unless they be desirous of falling into the heresy of the Patripassionists. Respecting the Second Occasion, which concerns the word Αυτοθεον, σε very God," an answer somewhat more laboured must be undertaken, because there are not a few persons who are of a contrary opinion; and yet our Church does not consider such persons as holding wrong sentiments concerning the Trinity. This is the manner in which they propound their doctrine. "Because "the essence of the Father and of the Son is one, and because it "has its origin from no one, therefore, in this respect, the Son is "correctly denominated Autobeov, that is, God from himself.” But I reply, "The essence of the Son is from no one, or is from himself," is not the same as, "The Son is from himself, or from no one." For, to speak in a proper and formal manner, the Son is not an essence, but having his essence by a certain mode Υπαρξεως of being or existence. They rejoin:" The Son may be considered in two respects, "as He is the Son, and as He is God. As He is the Son, He is * It argues extraordinary ignorance on the part of the Calvinists, that, in the case of Arminius, and, subsequently, in that of Grotius, they adduced as a crime in these two eminent men that which had been taught to them in the commentaries of Calvin, and of which the zealous but shallow sticklers for supposed Genevan orthodoxy seem to have been utterly unconscious till it was pointed out to them by their betters, "from the Father, and has his essence from the Father. But "as He is God, He has his essence from himself or from no one :" But the latter of these expressions is the most correct; for to have his essence from himself implies a contradiction. I reply, I admit this distinction: But it is extended much further than is allowable. For as He is God, He has the Divine Essence: As he is the Son, He has it from the Father. That is, by the word “ God,” is signified, generally, that which has the Divine Essence without any certain mode of subsistence. But, by the word "the Son," is signified a certain mode of having the Divine Essence, which is through communication from the Father, that is, through generation. Let these double ternaries be taken into consideration, which are opposed to each other in one series : 66 TO BE THE SON : To have Deity from no one: And it will be evident, that among themselves they mutually correspond with each other, thus:-" To have Deity," and "to be God:" "To have Deity from the Father," and "to be the Son :" ، To have Deity from no one,” and “ to be the Father," are consentaneous, though under the word " Father," as an affirmative, that is not signified which has its essence from no one: For this is signified by the word “ Ingenitus,” inwardly-born, which is attributed to the Father, though not with strictness, but only to signify that the Father has not his essence by the mode of generation. But the word "FATHER," by its own force and meaning is conclusive on this point: For where order is established, it is necessary that a beginning be made from some first person or thing, otherwise there will be confusion proceeding onwards ad infinitum. But, with respect to origin, He who is the First in this order has his origin from no one: He who is the Second, has his origin from the First: He who is the Third has his origin from the First and the Second, or from the First through the Second. Were not this the real state of the matter, there would be a COLLATERALITY, which would make as many Gods as there were collateral persons laid down; since the Unity of the Deity in the Trinity is defended against the Anti-trinitarians solely by the relation of origin and of order according to origin. But that it may evidently appear what were the sentiments of Antiquity about this matter, I will here adduce from the Ancient Fathers, both of the Greek and Latin Church, some passages which are applicable to this subject. |