Puritan Papers: Vol. 5, 1968-1969

J. I. Packer

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781596388772
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología cristiana

Among the 11 papers are biographies of John Wycliffe and Joseph Alleine, studies of the Puritans on eschatology and justification, and two articles on Arminianism.

Part 1

The Manifold Grace of God

1968

1

The Arminian Conflict
and the Synod of Dort

John R. de Witt

Christians here and there throughout the world in 1968 have celebrated the 350th anniversary of the convocation of the Synod of Dort. To most people even the name of Dort is probably not familiar, except as connected with a once important seaport and the oldest of the cities of Holland. And in the minds of those who know anything at all about the synod, very often all that remains is something of the odium so long attached to it by reason of the slanders of its enemies. Even so evangelical a writer as Thomas Haweis (1732–1820) could speak of the “rigour and asperity” with which the Arminians were treated, and complain of “the unchristian persecution which followed and drove these men from their churches and their country, into exile and poverty.”1 It is not difficult to imagine what other less friendly critics have said. John Goodwin, for example, the enemy not only of Dort but also of the Westminster Assembly, compared the synod with Herod “when for his Oath’s sake, contrary to his mind and desire otherwise, He caused John the Baptist’s head to be given unto Herodias in a platter.”2 On the other hand, however, no less an observer than Richard Baxter commented, on the Westminster Assembly: “The Divines there Congregate were Men of Eminent Learning and Godliness, and Ministerial Abilities and Fidelity: and . . . as far as I am able to judge by the Information of all History of that kind, and by any other Evidences left us, the Christian World, since the days of the Apostles, had never a Synod of more Excellent Divines (taking one thing with another) than this Synod and the Synod of Dort were.”3 And William Cunningham goes so far as to say: “The Synod of Dort, representing as it did almost all the Reformed Churches, and containing a great proportion of theologians of the highest talents, learning, and character, is entitled to a larger measure of respect and deference than any other council recorded in the history of the church.”4 That is very high praise indeed!

But, it may be asked, of what concern is such a synod to us? Several answers may be given. The Synod of Dort has a peculiar historical interest for Britain in that, while it was chiefly a Dutch gathering, yet King James I was in fact partly responsible for its very existence! In the years before 1618–19 he joined his powerful influence to that of men in the Netherlands who were demanding the convocation of a national synod to settle the theological controversies which were disturbing the peace and endangering the newly won freedom of the United Provinces from the Spanish tyranny. The Elector of the Palatinate was James’s son-in-law and added his own weight to that of the English king in calling of a synod. And most important of all, when the time came for the synod to meet, James appointed five delegates, all of the episcopal party, who with the other foreign divines that were to attend would have the prerogative of full participation in its deliberations and the right to vote. These were George Carleton, then bishop of Llandaff and afterwards of Chichester; Joseph Hall, afterwards successively bishop of Exeter and Norwich; John Davenant, afterwards bishop of Salisbury; Samuel Ward, the celebrated scholar and master of Sidney College, Cambridge; and Walter Balcanqual, a Scot, but chaplain to the king and afterwards dean of Rochester. Hall became ill after a few weeks and was unable to continue his duties, but was replaced by Thomas Goad, chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is worthy of remark that these men all represented the prelatical and not the Puritan party in the Church of England. That Bishop Carleton was prepared to sit as an ordinary (albeit influential and respected) member of a synod convened in the Reformed manner and presided over by a mere presbyter says much about the view of episcopal government which then prevailed in England, a view soon to be altered radically under the direction of men like William Laud with their inflated and un-Protestant notions of the divine right of episcopacy. It is also significant that these Englishmen, a prelate and two prelates-to-be, all signed the Canons of the Synod of Dort. One would have expected such a profession of Calvinism from the heirs of Cartwright and Perkins: the world knows that they were one with their continental counterparts. But that such churchmen could do so is abundant proof that Calvinism remained the predominant theology in the English Church throughout the reign of James I. It was only under his son Charles I that that sad decay began in earnest which was later to bear such bitter and tragic consequences.5

But the Synod of Dort retains great importance for religious reasons as well. The history of the Reformed Churches in the seventeenth century and their development since that time can scarcely be understood without reference to the Arminian controversy and its resolution at Dort. This is, of course, especially the case with those Churches which descend from the Dutch Reformation. But it is only slightly less so with others. The Westminster Assembly itself was at certain points clearly influenced by its great continental predecessor, even in terms of internal organization. And quasi-ecumenical as it was, the Synod of Dort has exercised far more influence than one may think would have been the case with a struggle which was in the first instance an internal, national question affecting only the United Provinces.

Arminianism came to be much more important after its apparent defeat at Dort in 1619 than it had been before, and broadened into a movement of international proportions which affected theological and philosophical thought throughout Western Europe, not only in Holland, but in England, France, Switzerland, and Germany. It was a precursor of liberalism and the Enlightenment, a close ally of Socinianism (Unitarianism), and an introducer of innovations which had a grave and widespread effect. One thinks in this connection of Grotius and his governmental theory of the atonement, for example; and of the Arminianism of the Church of England which contrived at last to defeat Puritanism and stamp out the original Reformed position of the English Reformation.

The definition of doctrinal differences which occurred at the Synod of Dort has ever since been decisive for evangelical Protestantism. “The Arminian controversy,” wrote Philip Schaff, “is the most important which took place within the Reformed Church.”6 Great numbers of men who perhaps know nothing whatever of the Synod of Dort as such, yet nevertheless continue to think in terms of the categories of its doctrinal pronouncements and are guided by them, either positively (as in the case of the Puritans, men like Jonathan Edwards, C. H. Spurgeon, and others) or negatively (as in the case of John Wesley, Charles G. Finney, and many prominent modern evangelists). Indeed, it is difficult to see how, in terms of the doctrines of grace and the whole of the locus soteriology, these categories can be avoided. But more on this head presently.

James Arminius

To understand what took place in the Low Countries during the first two decades of the seventeenth century it is necessary to go back to Arminius himself and the proximate origins of the struggle associated with his name. We need not here inquire at any length whether there was Arminianism before Arminius. The errors identified as Arminianism are far older than the man himself and can be traced in ancient as well as modern Church history. To be sure, certain figures in sixteenth century Holland can be signalized as furnishing something of the background against which Arminius is to be seen: i.e., Erasmus, Coornhert, Duifhuis, Coolhaes, and others. But we have to do here with a specific movement in the Reformed churches.

James Arminius—latinized from Jacob Hermanson—was born at Oudewater (South Holland) in 1560. His father, a cutler, died while he was still very young, and his upbringing was undertaken by Theodorus Aemilius, a former Roman priest now converted to Protestantism. Upon his death in 1574, the youth was befriended by one Snellius, a native of Oudewater but professor of mathematics at Marburg. Through Petrus Bertius Sr. and Taffin the court preacher he was registered in 1576 as the twelfth student at the newly established University of Leiden. At the expense of one of the guilds of Amsterdam he was later sent to complete his studies at Geneva, where he sat under Beza, the successor to Calvin, and also at Basel. In 1588 he became one of the ministers of Amsterdam where his work at first met with considerable acceptance. It was not long, however, before the trouble started. Curiously enough, the doctrinal peculiarities of Arminius, those points at which he deviated from the confessional position of the Church, were first detected during the course of his preaching. He was engaged in a systematic exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, and while some were surprised by his explanation of earlier passages, it was especially in connection with Romans 7:14ff. that his teaching roused a storm of protest. Here he suggested that the apostle was speaking, not of the regenerate—as most Reformed exegetes had understood it—but of the unregenerate man, one who is under the law, but knows its weakness and inability to save, and therefore seeks a redeemer: he is not yet a Christian, but stands upon the very threshold of faith. The congregation was in an uproar. Arminius was accused of contravening the confessions and adopting the Socinian interpretation. His senior colleague, Petrus Plancius, a fiery Calvinist and also a famous geographer and patron of Dutch exploratory expeditions, immediately registered protests against him which were investigated by the consistory. Rumor spread throughout the country. In subsequent discussions it became clear that Arminius had difficulties with the Belgic Confession, and especially with article 16 (“Of Eternal Election”). Martinus Lydius, professor at Franeker, Johannes Uytenbogaert, the court preacher, and Jean Taffin, now minister of the Walloon congregation in Amsterdam, intervened as mediators in the dispute, which resulted in Arminius pledging himself to adhere henceforth (as he claimed to have done before) to the words of the confessions. Again, in connection with his sermons on the ninth and thirteenth chapters of Romans exception was taken to his preaching—with respect to the doctrine of election, and also the place of the civil magistrate in the government of the Church; but so careful was he in his manner of expression that his opponents, who were watchful enough, found themselves unable to prove their suspicions against him.

It is significant, surely, that the man’s views were first revealed in this way: not in writing, nor in conversations with his colleagues, but in his public ministry. There is, one may think, a close relationship between theology and preaching. Theology after all is not something studied in isolation from life; it is not restricted to an ivory tower where a man may be cut off from the Church and the body of Christian people. If theology is sound and biblical, therefore, then preaching will bear the same character; but if there is departure from the truth in the study, in a similar way preaching cannot but be affected. So close is it to the very heartbeat of the Church, so much a part of its most intimate life, that any real assessment of preaching is at once an assessment of the spiritual health of the Church. One wonders, however, whether there have been, or are, many Planciuses to raise protest against unsound doctrine; and still more—and it must be remembered that the Reformation was still young in Holland at this time—whether there are many congregations so alert to what is taught from the pulpit, and at the same time so concerned that it be in accordance with the Word of God, as to be dismayed and alarmed when a minister hints at doctrinal innovations and evidences departures from the truth. A survey of the history of many among even the most prominent evangelical congregations will indicate that people are perfectly capable of sitting under a Calvinist and an outspoken Arminian in direct succession the one to the other, and yet not noticing anything at all, or if they do, not caring about the difference. It ought to be remembered that Arminius himself was anything but an outspoken Arminian, but with Plancius to hear him and the people instructed under his ministry, the very smell of error was more than enough. For the remainder of his time in Amsterdam Arminius lived in relative peace, and did a good deal of constructive work there, but he was never trusted.

In 1602 the plague raged in Leiden, and Franciscus Junius, the celebrated professor of theology at the university there, fell a victim to it. The following year Arminius was appointed to succeed him, much to the distress of many in the Church. At Leiden a conflict soon broke out between him and his senior colleague Franciscus Gomarus, a strong Calvinist and one of the most notable divines of the age, a conflict in which it was evident that Arminius took serious exception to certain of the doctrinal positions in the Reformed confessions. Though now, as before in Amsterdam, he pledged not to contradict these confessions in his teaching and largely adhered to this in his public lectures, he gave certain select students private instruction in the course of which he much more freely voiced his dissatisfactions and doubts. There is no question but that Arminius was a man of deep learning and large gifts. He was a conscientious and faithful student of the Scriptures, and no doubt sincere in his investigations and inquirings after truth. These things are not, however, equivalent to orthodoxy in doctrine—no matter how admirable in themselves; and his success in winning over young men to his own point of view soon became apparent when these appeared before the classes (presbyteries) for entrance into the ministry. Throughout the few short years left him, Arminius was the storm-center of a theological quarrel which began to affect the whole country. The ruling oligarchy under the leadership of John van Olden Barneveldt supported the Arminians; the great mass of the Protestant population and the ministers demanded adherence to the doctrinal position of the Church. But in this period there remained something vague and intangible about the dispute; the issues at stake were not sharply defined. Arminius refused to give precise, public form to his opinions. Clearly, however, the nature of the Church’s relationship to its professed doctrinal position was at the bottom of the trouble.

Arminius is always carefully described, even by his critics, as a grave, sober, consistent Christian against whose life no finger of blame could be pointed. Unquestionably, in private life he was exactly that. But it is an extraordinary view of character and Christian morality that can, on the basis of certain personal traits and virtues, overlook glaring public faults, and, still more, ignore any connection between a man’s inner life and his professional, ministerial vows. If it be true—as it certainly seems to have been—that the man pledged himself to adhere in his teaching to the doctrine of the Church (to which he was bound in any case, as one of its ministers), and then set out in private ways to undermine and alter it, he was guilty of a very serious fault indeed. One may object that a man’s duty to truth transcends his duty to the Church, or, at any rate, to the teaching of the Church; and that therefore, if a choice must be made, it should be in the interests of truth rather than of dogma and confession. But it is a very rash thing to fly in the face of the confessions of the Church. There are occasions, to be sure, when a man must take his stand upon Scripture and in defiance of false doctrine and the churchmen who uphold it. But if such an occasion arises, he should clearly do that publicly, openly, and by renouncing his obligations ...