ARMIXIl'S. 



ARMINIUS, JACOBUS. 



rcaw.- for a brief period. contains very liUU that we ibould be 

 noxious to preserve. It U a collection of very doll anecdotes of the 

 > fools of the author'! own period, which indeed hai thU Talue 



in connection with the writing* of the dramatist who ha* informed 

 Au fool* with wit and sense that it afford* evidence that he drew 

 nothing of tbeee qualities from the recorded saying* of the fools of 

 real life. Armin wa* a player in Shakspere* coiu|*ny. Hi* name 

 occur* with that of Sbakspere in a certificate of 1689, aud in King 

 Jam**'* patent to his players in 1603. He U mentioned by Nub, in 

 1692, a* a writer of ephemeral stories and ballada. and in 1609 his 

 name appear* to a translation of a little norel, ' The Italian Taylor 

 and hi* Boy.' Subsequently he published a dramatic piece, entitled, 

 The History of the Two Maids of More Clack*.' The authorship of 

 a play called ' The Valiant Welchman ' has also been asiigned to him. 

 Armin is among the names in the original li*t of the performer* in 

 Shakspere'a plays, given in the fint folio edition ; and he is held to 

 har teen the successor of Kempe in the representation of the moat 

 popular of Sbaktpere's clowns. (Pooli and Jateri; with a Reprint of 

 /bocrt Armi'i Xat uf A'uitia. Printed for the Shakspere Society, 

 1841) 



ARMI'XIUS. [HKRMAKB.] 



ARMI'NIUS, JACO'BUS, from whom the syitem of doctrine called 

 Armiiiian baa received it* name, wa* born in the year 1560, at Oude- 

 watcr, a small town of Holland, through which the little river Isael 

 flows. His real name in Latin wa* Jacobus Hermann!, which in Dutch 

 is Jacob Harmensen. For Harmenaen be adopted the Latinised form 

 Arminius, evidently at an early period of bis life. As Oudewater 

 means in Dutch ' Old Water,' Veterea Aqusc, Arminiua is generally 

 runtime.) in ).i* work* Veteraquinas. He lost hi* father, Hermann, 

 who was a cutler, in his infancy ; and his mother. Angelica, was left 

 with two sons and a daughter in very straitened circumstances. But 

 the young Arminiua found a protector in Theodoru* .Kinilius, who 

 bad once been a Roman Catholic priest, but bad renounced hi* : 

 because be considered the sacrifice of the mss* idolatrous. .Kunliun 

 took Armiuius with him to Utrecht, and gent him to the school of that 

 place. In hi* 16th year Anninius lost his kind patron by death ; but 

 another protector, a native of Oudewater, named Rudolph Snelliug, 

 took him under hi* care, and removed him to Marburg, the capital of 

 Upper Hease (1675). Armiuius had scarcely arrived at Marburg when 

 he heard that hi* native town had been sacked by the Spaniard* and 

 the inhabitants put to the sword. Hurrying back to Oudewater, he 

 found that his mother, sister, brother, and his other relation* bad been 

 killed. He returned to Marburg on foot He went thence to Rotter- 

 dam, and was received into the house of Peter Bertius, the pastor of 

 the Reformed Church in that town. In the same year (1575) he was 

 seat, with Peter Bertius the younger, who afterwards pronounced his 

 funeral oration, to the University of Leyden, which bad just been 

 founded. After he bad studied at Leyden for six yean, " the director* 

 of the body of merchants" of Amsterdam undertook to bear the 

 expenses of bis future education for the ministry, Arminius agreeing 

 that after be had been ordained be would not serve in the church of 

 any other city without the permission of the burgomasters of Amster- 

 dam. In lib'J be was vent to Geneva, which was then the great school 

 of theology for all the Reformed Churches, and where the doctrine* 

 <>f Calvin wire then taught in their moat rigorous shape by Theodore 

 Beta. At Oene> a, Arminius formed that close friendahip which united 

 him through life with Uyttenbogaert of Utrecht. 



I hiring his residence at Geneva be gave great offence to some of the 

 Aristotelian teachers of the Geneva school, l-y advocating in public 

 and lecturing in private to bia friends on the Logic of Kauius. He 

 luul imbibed a love for the philosophical and logical principle* of 

 Itauius from his patron Snelliua, Thinking it advisable to leave Geneva 

 for* short tin)', be went to Basle, where the faculty of divinity offered 

 to ooufi r u|>on him the degree of Doctor gratia ; but be declined it, 

 muddrring himself too young, and in 1583 returned to Geneva, where 

 be continued his theological studies for three years more. In 1586 

 the fame of James Zabarrlla, who was professor of philosophy at Padua, 

 induced him to take a journey into Italy in the company of a friend. 

 They first went to bear the professor at Padua, aud from Padua pro- 

 ceeded to Rome. After spending Mven months in this journey, Armi- 

 iiius cam* Lack to Geneva, and soon received an order from the burgo- 

 masters of Amsterdam to return tu that town. He bad taken this 

 journey without tlieir knowledge, and rumours bad spread abroad 

 that be bad kiswd the pope's slipper, held intercourse with the Jesuit*. 

 and especially with Cardinal Bellarmin that, in short, he had become 

 a Roman Catholic. The testimony of bis friend cleared him from these 

 charges. Arminius used afterwards to say that be derived no little 

 benefit from this journey, as " be saw at Rome a inyaUry of iniquity 

 much more foul than he had ever imagined." He was ordained minister 

 at Anwterdam on the llth of August 1688, when be was twenty-eight 

 }ears old, aud be won became distinguished as a preacher. 



In 1589 Theodore Coonibert of Amsterdam publiahed several works, 

 in which be attacked the doctrine of predestination, which wa* taught 

 l.y !'* and the Ceneva school To obviate Coornhcrt's objection*, 

 some ministers of I>clft proposed a change in Beta's doctrine. They 

 agreed with Ursa that divine predestination waa the antecedent, uncon- 

 ditwoeJ, and immutable decree of God concerning the salvation or 

 damnation of each individual; but whereas Beza represented that 



man, not c.mM.lm d aa fallen or even aa created, was the object of thi* 

 unconditional decree, .the ministers of Delft made this peremptory 

 decree subordinate to the creation and fall of man. They thought this 

 hypothesis would do away with Coornbert's objection, that the doctrine 

 of absolute decrees represented God as the author of *in aa such 

 decrees made sin necessary and inevitable, no lea* than damnation. 

 Arminius was requested to refute the work of the minuter* of 1 vlft. 

 He consented to do so, but aa he examined the arguments of Beza 

 and the minister*, he I egan to doubt which of the two views to adopt, 

 and at length became inclined to embrace those views of the doctrine 

 which he had undertaken to refute. He therefore laid aside the design 

 of writing any answer. Meanwhile, on the 16th of September 1690, 

 be married Elizabeth Reael, daughter of Laurent Reael, a judge aud 

 senator of Amsterdam. 



In the course of his sermons at Amsterdam, Armiuius commenced 

 an exposition of St Paul'* Epistle to the Roman*, in which some of 

 the new view* which be hod adopted found expression, and led to 

 keen disputes with those who defended the Calviniatio views. In 1593 

 the consistory of Amoterdam gave an audience to the contending 

 parties, and ordered them to cease all controversy, until a general 

 synod could be summoned to determine the subject of the dispute. 



Arminius however did not publicly propound those peculiar doctrines 

 on predestination and grace which constitute Arminianiam, as iii-tiii- 

 guished from Calvinism, until the year 1604, when he was professor of 

 divinity in the University of Leyden. As early as 1591, soon after he 

 bad read the work* of Coornhert, he expressed doubts aa to the Cal- 

 vinistic doctriue, but his election to the professorship at Leyden 

 proves that he had not yet openly proposed his whole theory. A 

 general suspicion of bia heterodoxy had gone abroad, but he either 

 bad not syntematiiied hi* views, or he waa afraid to express them 

 fully. 



In 1602 a pestilential disease raged at Amsterdam and the neigh- 

 bouring town?, during which Armiuius showed the greatest courage 

 and kinduess in visiting the sick. The disease carried off two of the 

 professors of the University of Leyden, Lucas Trclcatius, the elder, 

 and Francis Juniua, professor of divinity. The curators of the uni- 

 versity turned their eyes upon Arminiua a* a fit successor to Junius ; 

 but it was only utter repeated application* on the part of the univer- 

 sity that the authorities of Amsterdam consented to give him permis- 

 sion to leave on the 15th of April 1603. A* be waa suspected of 

 holding heterodox opinion*, before he wa* finally appointed he held 

 a conference with Francis Goinar, who was also professor of divinity 

 at Leyden, and who became afterwards his capital enemy, at the Hague, 

 the 6th of May 1603, and the result was, that Goiuar declared the 

 suspicions entertained of Ariminius to be groundless. He underwent 

 another examination, a private one, conducted by Gomar, for the 

 degree of Doctor of Divinity, which he received the llth of July 

 1603. Armiuius waa the first on whom thu University of Leydeu 

 conferred the degree of Doctor. 



On the 7th of February 1604, Arminius propounded certain theses 

 on predestination, of which the sum was this : " Divine Predesti- 

 nation is the decree of God in Christ, by which he has decreed with 

 himself from eternity, to justify, adopt, and gift with eternal life, to 

 the praiso of hi* glorious grace, thu faithful whom be has decreed to 

 gift with faith. On the other hand, Reprobation is the decree of the 

 anger or severe will of God, by which he has determined from eternity, 

 for the purpose of showing his auger aud power, to condemn to eternal 

 death, aa placed out of union with Christ, the unbelieving wli.>, l>y 

 their own fault and the just judgment of God, are not to believe." 

 On the but day of October, Gomar openly attacked these positions of 

 Arminiua, and from this day may be dated the long series of tumults 

 which ensued. In 1605 Arminius waa created Hector Magnificus of 

 the University, which office he quitted February 8th, 1006. Mean- 

 while the disputes continued. Featus Houimius, a minister of Leydeu, 

 Janus Kuvhlin, principal of the Theological College, and the uncle of 

 Arminius, were aiming his warmest adversaries. Deputies from the 

 churches of sll the provinces of Holland, and deputies from the Svuo.l 

 of Leyden, required from him a conference on the subject of his 

 opinions. Preachers attacked him from the pulpit as a Pelagian, and 

 [ worse than a Pelagian. A National Synod, which had not been held 

 | for twenty years, was demanded, to settld the disputes about predes- 

 tination. The States-General granted permission, on the 15th of March 

 1606, to convoke the synod. On the 22nd of May 1607, an assembly 

 ! was held at the Hague, at which Arminius waa present, to settle the 

 manner in which the synod waa to be held. In 1608, Armiuius him- 

 self and bis friend Uyttenbogaert applied to the .States of Holland to 

 convoke a synod, that these grave controversies might be settled. In 

 the same year Arminius and Goinar held a conference before the 

 Supreme Court of the Hague, which declared in its report that these 

 1 two professors differed on point* of little importance, and unessential 

 to religion. Arminius gave in an account of hi* opinions to the States 

 at the Hague on the 30th nf October 1608. 



Before the proposed synod could be held Arminius died. All these 

 disputes embittered bis life and hastened liis end. The disease which 

 carried him off at last had long lain Intent. It broke out on tlie 7th 

 of February 1609; but he recovered so far as to resume the usual 

 duties of hi* professorship, though still weak. At hist he sunk under 

 his disorder and expired 19th October 1609. His death was most 



