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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27518	The life and death of James Arminius and Simon Episcopius, professors of divinity in the University of Leyden in Holland both of them famous defenders of the doctrine of Gods universal grace, and sufferers for it / now published in the English tongue.; Oratio in obitum reverendi et clarissimi viri D. Jacobi Arminii. English	Bertius, Petrus, 1565-1629.; Courcelles, Etienne de, 1586-1659. Short and compendious history of Simon Episcopius.; J. K.	1672 (1672)	Wing B2048; ESTC R833	34,143	72

especially Gomarus who are able to set it on fire unless they be lookt to Thus far he I shall say nothing of the generality of the Provincial or Dutch Divines how they were at the devotion of those that were chief Actors in the Contra-remonsttatical Tragedy We are come now to the Execution of the Synodical Sentence against the Remonstrants They being thus discharged other Pastors were put and substituted in their places how unwilling soever the Chuches were to receive them In some places these new Pastors were brought in by force of arms Now lest the ejected Remonstrants should teach privately therefore the States-General propose to them a certain ingagement to abstain in the future both directly and indirectly from all even private exercise of their Ministry To which when some could not in conscience subscribe they were condemned to perpetual banishment Alas who could expect such cruelly amongst Protestants that had condemned Papists for the like unchristian practices He that takes a view of our Episcopius and some others of the Remonstrants in their deportment when this dismal Cloud appeared will see cause to admire their faith and fortitude For so dear was the truth unto them and their zeal for it so great that a promise of the same wages or stipend which they formerly enjoyed could not induce them though some of them had but a very mean Estate to oblige and bind themselves unto silence which was commanded them Moreover these Generous spirits did with much boldness after the pronouncing of the of sentence of Banishment defend openly to the States-General their own and their associates Innocency appealing to God the avenger of them that are unjustly oppressed who would at the last day take cognisance of their Cause and judge without respect of person as well their Judges as them Hereupon these Stout Champions for truth were so hastily carryed away by the States Officers out of the limits of the Vnited Provinces that they after their detaining eight moneths at Dort whether they were called as they thought to a free Synod had not granted to them so much as one day in which to bid their families farewell and to set in order their domestick affairs notwithstanding they petitioned for it Episcopius therefore and the rest betook themselves to Brabant and inhabited at Antwerp during the peace between the King of Spain and the States This place these Exiles made choice of for their abode not to joyn with the enemies of their Country in a conspiracy against it nor to endeavour any thing detremental to the Reformed religion as some malevolent persons were bold enough to suggest slaunderously against them but because that place was near and from which they might more commodiously than from any place remote take care of their beloved Churches and Families How faithfully those imployed their talent received of God I shall here pass over in Silence being now to speak onely of Episcopius whose disputations with Peter Wadingus a Jesuit of Antwerp and his Antidote against the Canons of the Synod of Dort do abundanly testify his great care and diligence And also the Confession of faith which he with the other Remonstrant Pastors there did compose and publish that they might stop the mouths of them who calumniously gave forth that the Remonstrants cherisht in their breast monstrous and strange opinions which they durst not expose to publick view When the war was renewed between the King of Spain and the States our Episcopius seeing he could no longer with safety remain in Brabant departed thence into France and inhabited sometime at Rhoan sometime at Paris If thou inquire how in these parts his time was spent those Writings of his there compiled will give thee a worthy Account in case thou art able to peruse his Paraphrase and Observations on the 8 9 10 and 11 Chapters of St. Pauls Epistle to the Romans also his Bodecherus ineptiens his Examen Thesium Jacobi Capelli his answer to to the Defence of Jo. Cameron his Treatise of Christian Magistracy and that of free-will with other works of his laboured there He that with these considers his sollicitous Care for the Churches of his own Countrey which in this time of persecution being destitute of their ordinary Pastors he by diverse Writings and Epistles instructed comforted and incouraged to presevere in the Faith also the many conferences he had with learned men concerning Religion by which he endeavoured to bring them to a more accurate search and inquiry after the truth he I say that considers these things will be so far from thinking that he had many wast hours that he will greatly wonder where time was found for so many and great Atchievments Here Stephen Cureelleus got with him his first Acquaintance and professes that he heard him discourse of some hard points of religion and learned so many things of him that he always afterwards esteemed it a singular happpiness to him that he had acquaintance with so worthy a man Here also Episcopius contracted such a friendship with that most cordial man and eminent Mathematician Mr. Edmund Mercer which afterwards no distance of place or length of time could dissolve or weaken This was he that published this Book by which Camerons opinion of Grace and free-will is examined and intituled it Epistola viri docti and he that was so familiar a friend with Hugo Grotius that Grotius when he last left France committed to him the most precious Treasures he had his Elaborate Manuscripts that by him they might be communicated to others At length Episcopius being desirous to have a perfect Survay of France who as yet knew little more than the Northern part of it went from Paris to Lyons After that he visited Mar. seille Nismes Mompelier Tholouse Afterwards Burdeaux Rochella Poictiers Angiers Tours Orleance and other places And when he had finished his perambulation he returned to Paris and Rhoan where when he had remained a while and had heard that the fervour of the persecution raised in his own Countrey against the Remonstrants was some what alayed he purposed to return thither Leaving therefore France in the year of our Lord 1626 and in the eighth year of his banishment he came to Rotterdam that he might with other brethren lay out his abilities for the gathering of that very numerous Church which is there out of the dispersed Remonstrants And that afterwards he might take care for other Churches in the Vnited Provinces In the mean while by his Writings both in Latin and Dutch he strenuously defended the truth He published in Latin An Apology of the Remonstrants confession An Answer to the Essay of the Leyden Professors with other Books In Dutch he wrote a Treatise of true Antiquity against the Papists Three Treatises against James Triglandius then Preacher at Amsterdam since Professor of Divinity at Leyden with other books In the second year after his return he entred into a Matrimonial state there being then hope of a more peaceable time

that are unadvised and imprudent And it is better to prevent an occasion of offence than to excuse it Being come out of Italy he stayed at Geneva and some months after being called home he returned to Amsterdam to his Patrons and Masters furnished through the grace of Christ with a clear testimony from them of Geneva and with a mind very well fitted to do office if it might please the Lord God to use his ministry for his work in his Church For these are the very words of Mr. Beza's Epistle the original of which I have in remembrance At Amsterdam he did easily with grave and prudent men clear himself as to his Italian journey but indeed the weak brethren went on inveighing against it and in their assemblings blaming it till he himself began to be heard in the Church in which as soon as he was beheld it cannot be spoken with how much respect men of all ranks flocked together to hear him For there was in him as ye know a certain incredible gravity mixed with gracefull pleasantness His voice indeed was slender but sweet and loud and piercing but he had an admirable perswasive faculty If any thing were to be adorn'd he so did it as not to exceed the truth If he were to teach any thing he did it with clearness and perspicuity If he were to dispute any thing he manag'd the same distinctly Now the Melody and altering of his voice was so fitted to things that it seemed to flow from them And sith he did not use a Rhetorical dress and the Greeks boxes of pleasant ointment it was either because his nature did abhor them or because he judged it unworthy the majesty of Divine things to use curles and borrowed ornaments when as the naked truth is of its self sufficient for its own defence notwithstanding he so efficaciously perswaded by force and weight of arguments and by the pithiness of his sentences and by the authority of Scripture it self that no man ever heard him but confess'd that his discourses much affected him Some therefore at that time called him the polishing life of truth others the whetstone and sharpner of wits others called him the razor shaving off growing errors and nothing in Religion and sacred Theology was thought to favour well that did not relish with Arminius Also the Pastors and Preachers themselves of that City men both learned and eloquent did reverence him for his learning and ingeniously acknowledge themselves to have been daily very much advantaged by his Sermons And thus our Arminius with spread out sayles prosperous gales a full company of rowers and the good wishes of all that knew him was carried towards fame and glory when it pleased God to exercise his servant even with adversity and to make a tryal of his patience and humbleness by the cross and afflictions Now 't is a thing worth the knowing to understand the beginnings and success hereof There was carried about as it chanced in the hands of some pious men a little Book written by some of the brethren of the Church of Delf against Mr. Beza with this Title An answer to some arguments of Beza and Calvin out of a Treatise concerning predestination on the 9. Chap to the Romans This little book was sent over to our Arminius by Mr. Martin Lidyus of blessed memory who had been formerly a Pastor in the Church of Amsterdam but then was Professor in the Friezlanders new Academy and by him Arminius was requested to undertake the defence of Mr. Beza against the brethren of Delf For Arminius was verily thought a man very fit for this business by Mr. Lidyus who partly by report partly by experience knew the quickness of his wit the sharpness of his judgment and what a wonderful force and power he had both in preaching and in disputing Neither was Arminius altogether strange from this design being one that newly coming out of the School of Geneva carryed about with him in his ears the sound of Mr. Beza's lectures and arguments He therefore betakes himself to the work But whilst he endeavours a refutation whilst he weighs the arguments on each side whilst he confers the Scriptures whilst he torments and wearys himself he was overcome by the truth At first indeed he followed that same opinion which he undertook to oppose but he afterwards by the guidance of the holy Ghost was carried over to that doctrin which he constantly asserted even to the end of his life Which was this That Gods eternal Decree in predestination was not to elect or chuse precisely and absolutely some to salvation whom as yet he had not purposed to create which Mr. Beza would have neither was it precisely and absolutely to elect some to salvation after the decree of their creation and the foresight of their fall but without an antecedent consideration of Jesus Christ which the Delfian brethren held Bu● it was To elect to salvation them of the created and fallen who in time to come would by true obedience of faith answer to God calling them thereunto Which by learned Melancthon and Nicholaus Hemingius and many more divines besides hath been asserted And although such in times past hath been the liberty of our Churches and even now is in very many places that in this Argument in which no ancient Synod hath ever determined any thing any one of the multitude and a Teacher might always without offence to any one choose this or that for to omit others Dr. Jo. Holmannus Secundus who by the very grave advice of excellent Divines and especially of the Lords Curators was called forth after Mr. Pezelius and Mollenius and others were sollicited in vain taught it out of this very place He imbraced as we know the opinion of Hemingius and sharply defended it Not withstanding there were not those wanting at Amsterdam that in this matter were troublesome to Arminius and that accused him for departing from the common and received opinion in our Churches but their vehemency and fiercness was suddenly repress'd and appeas'd by the authority of the Senate and the equanimity and moderation of the brethren so that he always lived with his Collegues at Amsterdam quietly yea friendly and brotherly without any cloud of displeasure or hatred or envy And also this man of God was not only naturally dispos'd to candor and gentleness but also was moreover so formed and fashioned thereto by the holy precepts and Spirit of Chtist that he did quietly bear with him that dissented from him and did not easily despair of any one that was but willing to hear Christ speaking in Scriptures which by his divine moderation and equinimity we all knew and have by so much the more admired it by how much the further we by the testimony of our own conscience perceive our selves yet to be from these good things Now when the University deprived of her Professors by the death of those famous and excellent men Dr. Junius and Dr. Luke