History of Arminianism. — The theology of freedom, essentially Arminianism, in opposition to predestination, necessitated volitions, and imputation of guilt to the innocent is universally acknowledged to have been the doctrine of the entire Christian Church through its most glorious period, the martyr age of the first three centuries. The Calvinistic historian of theology, Hagenbach, says, (vol. i. p. 155:) " All the Greek Fathers, as well as the apologists Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and the Latin Minucius Felix, exalt the autonomy or self-determination of the human soul. They know nothing of any imputation of sin, except as a voluntary or moral self-determination is pre-supposed. Even Irenaeus and Tertullian strongly insist upon this self-determination in the use of freedom of the will." Again, (157:) " Even the opponents of human liberty, as Calvin, are compelled to acknowledge this remarkable unanimity of the Fathers, and in order to account for it they are obliged to suppose a general illusion about this doctrine! "

Arminians contend that we know as well when predestination was introduced into the Church— namely, by Augustine— as we do when transubstantiation and image worship were introduced; that it was in the fourth century, when Pelagius, upon one extreme, made free-will dispense with divine grace, Augustine, on the other extreme, made divine grace irresistibly nullify free-will, and thus both lost their balance; that both invented dogmas never before recognized in the Church; that, tried by the previous mind of the Church, both were equally heretical; that the heresy of one, pushed to the extreme, becomes rationalism and pure deism— the heresy of the other, pushed to extreme, becomes presumptuous antinomianism. They assert that the Eastern Church maintained her primitive position, neither Pelagian on one side nor Augustinian on the other, essentially in the position of modern Arminianism; that hence Arminianism is not a compromise, but the primitive historical position, the permanent centre, rejecting innovations and extremes on either side; that the Western Church, in spite of the great name of Augustine, never became Augustinian. It is, indeed, customarily said by anti-Arminian writers that this was because the " age of systematic theology " had not then arrived. Arminians reply that a theology not only unrecognized during that best period of the Church, but, still more, a theology unanimously condemned as heretical by that period, has little right now to lay claim to preeminent Christian orthodoxy. The Eastern Church namely, the Churches of Asia, with whom the language of our Lord and his apostles was essentially vernacular; the Greek Church, to whom the language of the New Testament was vernacular; and the Russian Church, embracing many millions — all inherited and retain, firmly and unanimously, the theology of freedom, essential Arminianism. The learned Calvinistic scholar, Dr. Shedd, in his " History of Doctrines, (vol. ii., p. 198) says: " The Augustinian anthropology was rejected in the East, and, though at first triumphant in the West, was gradually displaced by the semi-Pelagian theory, or the theory of inherited evil [instead of inherited guilt] and synergistic [or co-operative] regeneration. This theory was finally stated for the papal Church in exact form by the Council of Trent. The Augustinian anthropology, though advocated in the Middle Ages by a few individuals like Gottscluilk, Bede, Anselm, slumbered until the Reformation, when it was revived by Luther and Calvin, and opposed by the papists." It will thus be seen, on a review of th(^ universal Church in all ages, how small, though respectable a minority, Augustinianism, before the Reformation, ever was. With minor exceptions. Arminianism was the doctrine of the universal Church.

The accuracy of Dr. Shedd's statement of the general non-existence of Augustinianism during the Middle Ages is not invalidated by the fact of the great authority of Augustine's name, arising from the powerful genius and voluminous writings of the man. It was no proof that a man was truly Augustinian because he belonged to the " Augustinian order," or quoted Augustine's authority. Such Schoolmen as Bernard, Anselm, and Peter Lombard modified Augustine's doctrine materially, Bonaventura and Duns Scotus were essentially Arminians, and Hincmar, of Rheims, and Savonarola literally so. Gottschalk, the high predestinarian, was condemned for heresy, and Thomas Bradwardine, the "second Gottschalk," made complaints, doubtless overstrained, that in his day " almost the whole world had become Pelagian."

At the Reformation, however, we encounter the phenomenon that all the eminent leaders at first not only adopted, but even exaggerated, the absolutism of Augustine. This might seem strange, for it was apparently natural that the absolute papacy should identify itself with the absolute, and that asserters of freedom would have stood on the freewill theology. The twin doctrines of the supremacy of Scripture, and of justification by faith, were amply sufficient, without predestination, for their purpose to abolish the whole system of popish corruption. The former dethroned alike the authority of tradition and the popedom; the latter swept away alike the mediations of Mary, saints, and priests. But the first heroic impulse of reform tends to magnify the issues to their utmost dimensions. The old free-will theology belonged universally to the old historic Church, and was identified by the first Reformers with its corruptions. Luther at first, in his reply to Erasmus " On the Bondage of the Will," uttered fatalisms that probably had hardly ever been heard in the Christian Church, and perhaps it would be hard to find a Calvinist at the present day who would adopt the trenchant predestinarian utterances of Calvin. Under the indoctrinations of these leaders, especially of Calvin at Geneva, the absolute doctrines were diffused and formed into the creeds of Germany, the Netherlands, France, England, and Switzerland. But in Germany the " second sober thought " of Melancthon, who at first coincided with Luther, receded from predestination, and Melanchthon himself intimates that Luther receded with him; so that the Lutherans are now essentially Arminian. In the Netherlands the same " second thought," led by Arminius himself, was suppressed by State power. In France, Protestantism, which was Calvinistic, was overwhelmed in blood. In England the Calvinism was generally of a gentle type, and the same " second thought," was awakened by the Arminian writings of Grotius and Episcopius diffused through Europe. And as the English Church gradually inclined to the ancient high episcopacy of the old Church, so it adopted the ancient Arminianism. "Calvinism, persecuted and oppressed, overthrew monarchy and Church, and for a brief period ruled with hardly less intolerance, until, overthrown in turn, Calvinism took refuge in America, and laid foundations here. Even here past sufferings did not teach tolerance, and that doctrine had to be learned from checks and lessons administered by surrounding sources. Calvinism has, nevertheless, here acted a noble part in our Christian civilization. It, perhaps, about equally divides the evangelic Church with Arminianism.

Arminianism, proper and Protestant, came into existence under the severe persecution by Dutch Calvinism, in which the great and good Arminius himself was a virtual martyr. The Synod of Dort, the standard council of the Calvinistic faith, made itself subservient to the unprincipled and sanguinary usurper, Maurice; and even during its sessions the judicial murder of the great Arminian and republican statesman. Olden Barnevelt, was triumphantly announced at Dort, to overawe the Arminians at the synod, who were bravely maintaining their cause under the leadership of the eloquent Episcopius. Then followed the banishment of Episcopius, the imprisonment of Grotius, the ejection of hundreds of Arminian ministers from their pulpits, and the firing of soldiers upon the religious assemblies of Arminian worshippers. The great Arminian writers of Holland, Episcopius, Grotius, and Limborch, are claimed by Arminian writers to be the first public proclaimers of the doctrine of liberty of conscience in Europe, as those two Arminian Puritans, John Milton and John Goodwin, were its earliest proclaimers in England.

Wesleyan Methodism is now by all admitted to be a great modern Arminian development. Beginning most humbly as a half-unconscious awakening, amid the general religious chill of Protestantism, it has not only quickened the religious life of the age, but gathered, it is said, twelve millions of worshippers into its congregations throughout the world. Its theology is very definite, and very nearly the exact theology of James Arminius himself, and of the first three centuries. Cradled in both the Arminianism and High Churchism of the English establishment, Wesley's maturer years earnestly approved the Arminianism, but severed it from the High Churchism. The connection between Arminianism and High Churchism is hereby clearly revealed to be historical and incidental, rather than intrinsic or logical. Yet, even after adopting the doctrine that every Church has the right to shape its own government, as a lover of the primitive, post-apostolic Church, as well as from notions of Christian expediency, Wesley preferred and provided for American Methodism, an episcopal form of government. Arminian Methodism has. in little more than a century of her existence, apparently demonstrated that the Augustinian " systematic theology" is unnecessary, and what it deems the primitive theology amply sufficient for the production of a profound depth of piety, a free ecclesiastical system, an energetic missionary enterprise, and a rapid evangelical success. She exhibits in her various phases every form of government, from the most decisive system of episcopacy to the simplest Congregationalism, all voluntarily adopted, and changeable at will. The problems she has thus wrought suggest the thought that the free, simple theology of the earliest age m. y be the universal theology of the latest.