Men stand behind opinions and make opinions, there is no system which is not built on a man behind it, which is not the incarnation of a man. Find out what the man is and you find out, at once, the animus of his system; even if it bewilders and mystifies you, you may know what will be its outcome. Crookedness can only come from a schemer. Nonsense from an idiot. Heresy from a dissembler. Straightness from honesty. Falsehood from one who is false, and truth from one who is true.

Importance of Character⤒🔗

Character, in other words, stands back of every­thing, and character alone endures. Genius flashes, talent looms and shrinks, but character is of a stellar and an undiminishable greatness. Why? Because truth is the summit of all things, and justice is truth borne out in affairs, and character is this moral order in concrete and in expression. "It is the rectitude which is perpetual victory and cannot be displaced or overthrown."

Character prevails no matter how the voice may falter, or be drowned in cries, for it is the calm privilege of truth to make itself believed.

A man of downright sincerity is credited however he may blunder. A man of cunning is suspected even when his words are excellent and to the point. The devil quoting Scripture is a devil, and is recognized a devil, however he may look and be robed like an angel of light.

Character cannot be simulated, and it cannot be disguised. It breaks through everything. It is a light which shines through the lantern, however batter­ed its shape or smoky the glass.

This fact is written out in individual lives. Take Abelard, at one time reckoned with Dun Scotus, and Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, among the foremost doctors of the church. He was guilty of an immorality, and that ruined all his works. No one quotes Abelard, not because he is not masterly, profound, but simply on account of a defect of character which nothing can repair.

The same thing re-appears in later instances. Over the graves, alas! of many a splendid modern career has been written the epitaph: "How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, Son of the morning!"

Character stands behind everything, it is that, that abides. It is not what a man knows, or acquires, or achieves, but what a man is that outlives the centuries. Moses and Paul and John stand on their moveless pedestals untouched by the fingers of time. What they were, they are: and what they are, they will be through the unmeasured and unmeasurable ages.

The Divine Legation of Moses is and remains Mosaic; the Divine Doctrine of Paul, Pauline; the Divine Apocalypse of John, Johannean. The reason is that truth was in these men. They spoke the truth.

Not so Judas – not so Hymenaeus and Philetus – not so Pelagius – not so Servetus – not so Laelius Socinus. The words of these men – false as themselves – ate like a canker and died in corruption.

Their works, their writings, perished – their opinions only live in books which write them down. Pelagius is known from Augustine – Servetus from Calvin – Socinus from Turettin. They survive as dead flies, worthless in themselves, embalmed in precious amber. They furnish most impressive illustrations of the Scripture statement, "The lip of truth shall be established for ever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment."

Another illustration is Van Harmin – James Arminius – a man known only from those who opposed him. Arminians themselves never speak of Arminius, no one quotes him but to confute him. He lives but a target – a foil. No man, however like him, or however in harmony with his sentiments, is willing to own him. His opinions stand but as theses to be condemned.

Fas est ab hoste doceri. You can learn as much from the foes of a system as you can from its friends. Foes draw attention to points, which friends must defend, and in the defence truth takes its proportions and outlines, and looms up brighter and brighter. Had it not been for Arminius there would have been no Synod of Dort – no five points of grace made distinctive, no Calvinism as a system, and no Westminster.

To this one man then – to his life, his sentiments, his influence – we owe our Creed – just as we owe the Crucifixion to Judas.

Arminius put the same things in his day which men are putting now. He put them more shrewdly – with far greater sagacity, with finer tact, and, as he was a profounder man than any of our 19^th century errorists, he put them less defiantly, less coarsely and more as insinuations, subtleties, suggestions – tropes of rhetoric – differences of mere words. The course of heresy, however, is so uniformly the same that if you know Arminius you know every man of his class. Just as having seen one serpent you know for ever, after that, what is the serpentine twist.

James Arminius←⤒🔗

Arminius, or as the Dutch called him, Harmensen, was born at Oudewater – a quaint old town of South Holland, lying on the Yssel, and about half way from Rotterdam to Utrecht. This was in the year 1560 – fourteen years after the death of Luther and four years previous to that of Calvin.

The parents of Arminius were peasants, and while he was a child their humble home was burned by Spanish soldiers – his parents murdered, and he left an orphan.

For some time the young boy was employed as a servant in the village herberg or inn, but having attracted the attention of several well-to-do people by his deftness and cleverness, he was kindly taken under the care of a clergyman, who superintended his education until he was fitted to enter the University of Utrecht. During his course at the University this benefactor died, but another came to his rescue, who transferred him to the University of Marburg. From thence he was removed again to Leyden, and thus enjoyed superior advantages for acquiring what of learning and culture the Dutch, then the first scholars in Europe, had to confer.

At length, at the age of 22, to round out his studies, he was sent to Geneva, where he had the high privilege of studying under Beza, the successor of Calvin, in whose arms the great Reformer died. Already, in Geneva, the spirit of Arminius began to show itself. To great activity of mind and ardour of inquiry, he added a self-sufficiency and self-assertion, which soon expressed itself in whispered criticisms upon the professors, and in an artful sowing of the seeds of discord, chiefly by means of private conversations, which resulted in drawing together a party of young malcontents, and led to his dismissal.

This circumstance impaired to no small degree the confidence hitherto placed in Arminius – but, regarding his vagaries as the crudities and unintentional irregularities of youth, which larger and matured experience would overcome, his friends resolved to overlook them, and projected for him an extended tour through Italy, including Rome. Here again, however, the unhappy youth proved false to principle. In Rome he adopted the maxim: "Do as Romans do." At least he is accused of kissing the Pope's toe, and of a secret under­standing with Bellarmine, the chief antagonist of Protestantism.

His cleverness, however, still blinded his Netherland friends to his inward dishonesty. In spite of strange hints, now and then, of that which was not loyal, Arminius was elected one of the pastors of Amsterdam.

Here, while posing as most orthodox among the orthodox, he surreptiously promulgated opinions, the inevitable tendency of which was to undermine and overthrow the doctrine professed and to stir distrust and dissension. He was soon accused of not loving the Doctrines of Grace, and many of his brethren began to look upon him and upon his ex­pressions with deep apprehension.

Made Professor at Leyden←⤒🔗

At length, in 1602, the illustrious Francis Junius, Professor of Divinity in Leyden, died, and the friends of Arminius conspired to place him in the vacant seat.

Notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts of the staunch orthodox, the thing was accomplished, and Arminius became the professor – the Classis, however, in setting him apart, exacted from him a solemn and particular promise and pledge that if it should be found that he held any notions other than those of the Belgic Confession, he would confess this in private to his ecclesiastical peers and conscien­tiously refrain from disseminating them broadcast.

Arminius agreed to this, and on entering upon his professorship, he seemed to take much pains to clear himself from all suspicion by publicly proclaiming the received doctrines – doctrines which he afterward as publicly contradicted and which his intimate friends acknowledge were against his convictions at the very time.

This course of things went on a year or two, when it was all at once discovered that Arminius was in the constant practice of maintaining one set of opinions in the professor's chair, and another and opposing set by means of private manuscripts and talks among the students. He was also accustomed while publicly commending the characters and sentiments of the Reformed divines, to artfully insinuate such things as were adapted indirectly to bring them in discredit – lower their influence and weaken their hold on the popular mind.

It was observed along with this, that those who associated with Arminius became disaffected – fell off in their warmth of attachment to principle, and were often dropping words and hints which could not but do damage to the faith and the peace of the Church.

"In this posture of affairs," says Dr Samuel Miller, to whose valuable essay upon the Synod of Dort I am indebted for assistance in regard to these facts,

"In this posture of affairs the magistrates of Leyden, alarmed by the evils which were at work, besought Arminius to hold a conference with his colleagues of the University, before the Classis, re­specting those doctrines to which he objected, that the extent of his objections might be ascertained and made known. But this Arminius declined. In the same manner he treated one proposal after another – declining all explanation – either before a committee or before a Church Court. Now and then in Synod and Classis, and even by secular men, the attempt was made to move in the case, but Arminius was never ready, and had always insur­mountable objections to every method proposed. It was evident that he wished to gain time in which his leaven might work – to put off all decisive action until he should have such an opportunity of influencing leading minds in the country as eventually to prepare them to side with himself. Thus he went on, evading, postponing, concealing, shrinking from investigation and endeavouring in secret to throw odium upon the doctrines and their adherents, hoping thus gradually to diminish their power and ultimately to gain a majority in whatever Synod then might be called."

"It is a painful narrative," says Dr Miller, "but may truly be affirmed to be the history of every heresy which has ever arisen in the Christian Church.

"When heresy arises in an Evangelical body it is never open and frank. It always begins by skulking and assuming a disguise. Its advocates, when together, boast of 'advanced thoughts', of vast improvements, and congratulate one another on having gone greatly beyond the 'old dead ortho­doxy' and the antiquated errors of our fathers; but when charged with deviations from the accepted faith they complain of the injustice of the accusation as they differ from it only in certain expressions, and indeed only in words. This has been the standing course of errorists ever since the apostolic age. They are almost never honest and candid as a party, in the avowal of their sentiments, until they gain strength enough to feel sure of some degree of popular support. Thus it was with Arius in the 4th century, with Pelagius in the 5^th century, with Arminius and his companions in the 17^th, with Amyraut, the father of modern New-Schoolism, who ruined the orthodoxy of the Huguenots of France, with Charming and the Unitarians of Massachusetts when the last century came in. These men denied their real tenets, evaded examination or inquiry, declaimed against their accusers as merciless bigots and heresy-hunters, and strove, as long as they could, to agree with their orthodox neighbours, until the time came, when, partly from inability to hold in any longer and partly because they felt strong enough to come out, they avowed their real opinions."

Dort and Death←⤒🔗

Finally, in the case of Arminius, there was a universal desire that a Council should settle it. From the Provinces of Holland there went up to the States General a petition that a National Synod should meet "for the purpose of revising the Belgic Confession and the Catechisms of the Church". The Synod of South Holland took alarm at this and begged the substitution of less radical word in the place of "revising":

This attempt to call a National Synod, through the influence of Arminius, failed, but he could not stave off the issue. Finally the nerve of the Church was aroused. Men like Gomarus, Voetius, Bogeman and others threw off their cowardice, and a Synod embracing representatives from the whole Protes­tant world was convened in the city of Dort, for the purpose of helping the Synod of Holland to cope with an evil now grown so formidable that it threatened, like the North Sea, to break in all her dykes.

Before that Synod, made up of Commissioners of the Church of Scotland, of Bishops of the Church of England, then Calvinistic, and of Delegates from Germany, the Palatinate, Switzerland and France, Arminius was summoned. (The French delegates were prevented from attending by their Roman Catholic king.)

A greater summons, however, awaited him. Agitation and horror of mind seized on the unhappy man in his 49^th year. To it he succumbed. "In his last sickness," says his friend and apologist, Bertius, "he was sometimes heard to groan and sigh, and cry out, 'Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and of contention to the whole earth. I have lent to no man on usury, nor have men lent to me on usury, yet every man doth curse me!'."

Such is the report of his friend. Those who opposed him did not hesitate, however, to apply to him those words of Zech. 11:17 and 14:12:

"Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock! The sword shall be put upon his arm and upon his right eye; his arm shall be clean dried up and his right eye shall be utterly darkened."

"And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem: their flesh shall consume away, while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth."

The death of Arminius is like many another interposition where enmity to the truth and to its supporters has been artful, concealed, wilful and virulent. God has a way of reaching the case which is beyond the circle of man's ken or action. His providence all down the ages sets its solemn seal to this unalterable fiat: "The lip of truth shall be established for ever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment."

What Arminianism is←⤒🔗

What then is Arminianism? As Arminius himself first puts it in 1604, it sounds very innocent. "God, being a righteous judge and kind father," he says, "had, from the beginning, made a distinction between the individuals of a fallen race, according to which He would remit the sins of those who should give them up, and put their trust in Christ, and would bestow on them eternal life; also that it is agreeable to God, that all men be converted, and, having come to the knowledge of the truth, remain therein, but He compels no one."

This sounds plausible and innocent until you put beside it the clear statement of the fact. God, from eternity, from a fallen, lost race, hath chosen some to salvation. From this it comes about that these are drawn to faith and piety, and by God's grace preserved. The remainder of the human race are left in their original and natural condition of depravity – go on to sin and die in condemnation.

Take the Arminian statement and pull it to pieces. It is based on Free Will and no Fall.

Man can determine himself either way as he likes. God for seeing this, decrees that those who choose holiness shall be saved, and that those who do not shall be lost. In other words, God has nothing to do with salvation except to register human decisions as they occur. He does not know who, or not, will be saved, but waits on the after event for information, and to gather up whatever control of the creature He may.

Calvinism denies this statement at its every point.

Man is fallen. A sunken creature, he is still sinking by his own weight. His tendency is down. He is a stone which has dropped from a steeple, and cannot lift itself up. He is water running downhill, which cannot flow back.

He cannot, therefore, determine himself in the upward direction toward God, but is dead to holiness and dead in sin. God, therefore, must come in to quicken. "You hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins."

How many God will quicken, awaken and draw to Himself, God must determine. The choice is His. He must choose. Yea, He has chosen already, and from eternity foreknows His people whom he has ordained.

Arminianism is the doctrine of Satan and makes man a god. Calvinism is the doctrine of Christ, and makes man the poor and needy, helpless undeserving debtor of unmerited Free Grace.

Calvinism, in experience, is based on new birth. This is an argument which does not weigh with the Arminian because he has no new birth.

If you try to describe a sapodillo to one who never tasted, never saw the fruit, you leave no impression.

By and by someone else comes along and denies that sapodillos are sweet, or that there is such a fruit. Your man does not know. He does not care. He cannot. He has no interest.

But here is another. He comes from the West Indies. He has eaten sapodillos all his life – and seen them grow.

You mention sapodillos, and this Cuban cries, "I know that fruit. It is sweet like honey and round and breaks into three segments – a black seed in each segment. Oh, I have eaten them 10,000 times." If any one denies these things he will contend it.

Our arguments from the new birth seem light and empty to a natural man. He runs right back to choices. "I chose," or "did not choose." "I" "I," his religion is "I".

But here is another who has had another experience. He chose and chose, and still remained what he was. He resolved and resolved and broke down. He turned over a new leaf, and lo! it was the old leaf blotted. Then God came in and touched on his life. Something moved him, he hardly knew what, and infused a new spirit within him. And now, this second man cries, "God! God!" His religion in interposition. God came in and God made me willing. God chose; "Salvation is of the Lord."

This thing is to the Jew a stumbling block – to the Greek foolishness. It must be. These men – the Jew, the ritualist, the Greek, the intellectual thinker – never experienced it. They never got beyond opinions, sentiment, endeavours, ceremonies of the church – a few resolutions and tears.

What do they know of a mystery – an inward revelation of Christ – a true revolution of nature? How can they ascribe all the glory to God? It is absurd even to think it.

The Arminian denies that God might justly pass by our guilty lost race, as He did pass by angels. He denies that in fact, God passes by any. He holds that the same chance is given to all – the same appliances – the same gracious assistance and the same power. If not, he cries "Unfair!"

Whoever wills then, originates, over and above these things common to all, his own act. He distinguishes himself, and makes himself to differ. He saves his own self and owes to God nothing which God did not owe him before.

"God, if He let the race fall, was bound," says the Arminian, to "provide a Saviour for the fallen. He was also bound to give an equal grace to all, that all may get hold of that Saviour. If all have an equal grace, then those who USE it, make themselves to differ."

That flatly contradicts St. Paul, (1 Cor. 4:7 – "For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?") reverses the whole Bible, and, to His face, withstands Almighty God.

The Faith of God's Elect←⤒🔗

The other system, the system which opposes Arminius, hold that God – regarding a fallen, guilty, lost, sinful race – a race deserving to die, hath mercy on whom He himself will have mercy. All are hell deserving, but He rescues a multitude whom no man can number by the distinguishing grace of the Holy Spirit and by the blood of His beloved Son.

For this Gospel system there are these things to say:

1. It bows to God and submits to His sovereignty. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
2. While not free from difficulties to our carnal, finite reason, it covers the facts of the case, as the other does not. We feel that we are fallen. We feel we are helpless. We feel we cannot save ourselves nor help to do it, and that we need to BE saved.
3. The Bible system turns on faith, not choices, efforts which are works. It hinges salvation on faith. "I, Martin Luther, an unworthy preacher of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, thus profess and believe that this article: That faith alone without works can justify before God, shall never be overthrown, neither by the Emperor, nor by the Turk, nor by the Tartar, nor by the Persian, nor by the Pope with all his cardinals, bishops, sacrificers, monks, nuns, kings, princes, powers of this world, nor yet by all the devils in hell. This article shall stand fast whether they will or no. This is the true Gospel. Jesus Christ redeemed us from our sins and He only. This most firm and certain truth is the voice of Scripture, though the world and all the devils rage and roar. If Christ alone takes away our sins, we cannot do it by our works; and as it is impossible to embrace Christ but by faith, so He cannot be embraced by works. Faith, then, must embrace Christ, before works can follow, and it must embrace Him and hold Him alone, without any consideration whatever of works. This, this only is the Gospel. In it will I abide. Amen and Amen!"

If faith and faith alone embraces Christ, then this faith, going out into the invisible, to embrace One whom I have never seen with my eyes, and to cast on Him my whole destiny, is a God-given faith – a special distinguishing faith, not common to all – not possible to all. "The faith of God's elect."

Every man who has this kind of faith knows where it comes from and recognizes it as something immortal – part of his new nature which cannot be lost.

Irreconcilable Systems←⤒🔗

To recapitulate. If I am Arminian, I must deny Predestination and I must hold:

1. That our race possesses a free will to do that which is good.
2. That justification comes by a meritorious faith – i.e. by a faith of my own, and which merits.
3. That if the faith is my own and from me, I may lose it, and there is no certain assurance.

If I am a Calvinist I assert, on the other hand, Predestination – then:

1. Man fallen has no free will to do what is pleasing to God.
2. Justification is by faith, which is "the gift of God".
3. "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance" on God's part – or my part. Once a believer always a believer. "My sheep shall never perish."

The battle, then, is seen to range around the first point. "Down with predestination!" is the cry of all the enemies of Evangelical truth. "Get that doctrine out and we will agree."

"Yes," is our answer, "Get that out and you get all out."

But why contend it?

Because we are set of God to contend it…

Because the battle of truth is the battle of lie. Better die than lie, or run from a lie because we fear to face it.

"We ought to set ourselves," says Calvin in his sermon on Hymenaeus and Philetus, "We ought to set ourselves against perversions of the truth and to rebuke them sharply. For if we wink at them and let them pass, we give them our support. And then we may boast as we please about being Christians, but there are more devils among us than Christians if we countenance falsehood."

"Therefore," goes on the Reformer, "therefore, let us look well to the doctrine entrusted to us, and if we see wicked persons trying to infect the Church of God, to darken the doctrine or to destroy it, let us endeavour to bring their works to light that everyone may behold them, and thereby be enabled to shun them. If we attend not to these things we are traitors to God and have no zeal for His honour, nor for the salvation of His Church. We must be the out and out enemies of wickedness, if we will serve God. It is not enough for us to refrain ourselves from wrong and sin, but we must condemn these as much as possible that they may not gain influence or get the upper hand."

These trumpet tones of Calvin tell us how men spoke and felt to whom God's truth was dear, in times that tried men's souls.

My brother, do men, of this day, class thee along with the Puritans? Then:

Bear the honour well, right noble is
Thine ancestry; and if thro' following Him,
Who bore thy sin, the world should frown,
Lift up thy head – fear not,
For He who made thee His,
Will give thee courage, honour, influence,
And that true victory which ever crowns
His free-born sons.