Chapter XXV: Part 25

(2.) “_Of the Death of Christ._” Passing over, for brevity’s sake, what is said of the necessity of atonement, in order to pardon, and of Christ having offered that atonement and satisfaction, it is added, “This death of the Son of God is a single and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; of infinite value and price, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world; but because many who are called by the Gospel do not repent, nor believe in Christ, but perish in unbelief; this doth not arise from defect or insufficiency of the sacrifice offered by Christ upon the cross, but from their own fault. God willed that Christ, through the blood of the cross, should, out of every people, tribe, nation, and language, _efficaciously_ redeem all those, and those _only_, who were from eternity chosen to salvation, and given to him by the Father; that he should confer on them the gift of faith,” &c.

(3.) “_Of Man’s Corruption, &c._ All men are conceived in sin, and born the children of wrath, indisposed (_inepti_) to all saving good, propense to evil, dead in sin, and the slaves of sin; and without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they neither are willing nor able to return to God, to correct their depraved nature, or to dispose themselves to the correction of it.“

(4.) “_Of Grace and Free will._ But in like manner as, by the fall, man does not cease to be man, endowed with intellect and will; neither hath sin, which hath pervaded the whole human race, taken away the nature of the human species, but it hath depraved and spiritually stained it; so that even this divine grace of regeneration does not act upon men like stocks and trees, nor take away the properties of his will; or violently compel it, while unwilling; but it spiritually quickens, heals, corrects, and sweetly, and at the same time powerfully, inclines it; so that whereas before it was wholly governed by the rebellion and resistance of the _flesh_, now prompt and sincere obedience of the Spirit may begin to reign; in which the renewal of our spiritual will, and our liberty, truly consist; in which manner, (or for which reason,) unless the admirable Author of all good should work in us, there could be no hope to man of rising from the fall by that _free will_, by which, when standing, he fell into ruin.”

(5.) “_On Perseverance._ God, who is rich in mercy, from his immutable purpose of election, does not wholly take away his Holy Spirit from his own, even in lamentable falls; nor does he so permit them to glide down, (_prolabi_,) that they should fall from the grace of adoption, and the state of justification; or commit the ‘sin unto death,’ or against the Holy Spirit; that, being deserted by him, they should cast themselves headlong into eternal destruction. So that not by their own merits or strength, but by the gratuitous mercy of God, they obtain it, that they neither _totally fall_ from faith and grace, nor _finally continue_ in their falls and perish.”

10. The controversy on these difficult subjects was not decided by the decrees of the synod of Dort, which, it will be seen under that article, were purposely drawn up in a politic and wary manner, so as to quadrate with the opinions, and not to outrage the feelings, of any grade of Calvinists. Prior to the convention of that celebrated assembly, the doctrines of Calvin had been refined upon and incautiously carried out to some of their legitimate consequences, in a manner almost without precedent, except that of the Mohammedan doctors on the absolute fate which holds a distinguished place in the Koran. Several of the brightest and most acute wits in Europe occupied themselves in sublimating to the height of extravagance the two kindred branches of predestination,--the eternal and absolute election of certain men to everlasting glory, and the reprobation of the rest of mankind to endless punishment, without regard in the divine mind to the foreseen faith of one class or to the foreseen unbelief of the other. This course was commenced by Beza, the contemporary and successor of Calvin, who possessed neither his genius nor his caution; and his writings contain several rash assertions on these points, which, it is probable, would never have obtained the approbation of his departed friend and instructer. Zanchius, with true Italian astuteness, carried on this process of refinement in high style; and his predestinarian _improvements_ were only equalled by those of Piscator, Pareus, Keckerman, Hommius, Kimedontius, Polanus, Sturmius, Danæus, Thysius, Donteklock, Bogerman, Gomar, Smoutius, Triglandius, down to the minor tribe of Contra-Remonstrants, Damman, Maccovius, and Sibrandus Lubbertus. Nor were the clever divines of our own country a whit behind the foreigners in accomplishing this grand object; and the theological reader, on seeing the names of Perkins, Whitaker, Abbot, and Twisse, will instantly recognise men whose doctrinal vagaries were familiar to all the Calvinists in Europe. No one can form an adequate conception of the injury thus inflicted on the divine attributes of wisdom, goodness, and mercy, as they have been revealed in the Scriptures, unless he has read the immense mass of quotations from the writings of these and other divines, which were presented to the notice of the synod of Dort by the Remonstrants, especially in their _Rejection of Errors_ under each of the five points in dispute; the proofs of which were quoted from their respective authors, and the accuracy and faithfulness of which were never called in question. Not only would the minds of all sober Christians in these days be shocked when perusing the monstrous sentiments propounded in those extracts, but even the tolerably stiff Calvinists of Oliver Cromwell’s time felt themselves scandalized by any allusion to them, and would not admit that their opinions had the least affinity to such desecrating dogmas. Little more than twenty years after the synod of Dort, that distinguished polemical divine and accurate scholar, Dr. Thomas Pierce, published his able and very interesting pamphlet, entitled, “A Correct Copy of Some Notes concerning God’s Decrees;” in which, without naming the authors, he gave ten extracts from celebrated Calvinistic treatises, to prove, that “there are men of no small name who have told the world, that all the evil of sin which is in man proceedeth from God only as the author, and from man only as the instrument.” Four of these extracts will furnish sufficient matter to every judicious mind for mournful reflections on the strange obliquities to which the human understanding is liable:--(1.) “A wicked man, by the just impulse of God, doeth that which is not lawful for him to do.” (2.) “When God makes an angel or a man a transgressor, he himself doth not transgress, because he doth not break a law. The very same sin, namely, adultery or murder, inasmuch as it is the work of God, the author, mover, and compeller, is not a crime; but inasmuch as it is of man, it is a wickedness.” (3.) “God can will that man shall not fall, by his will which is called _voluntas signi_; and in the mean while he can ordain that the same man shall infallibly and efficaciously fall, by his will which is called _voluntas beneplaciti_. The former will of God is improperly called his will, for it only signifieth what man ought to do by right; but the latter will is properly called a will, because by that he decreed what should inevitably come to pass.” (4.) “God’s will doth pass, not only into the permission of the sin, but into the sin itself which is permitted. The Dominicans,” the high predestinarian order in the church of Rome, “do imperfectly and obscurely relate the truth whilst, beside God’s concurrence to the making way for sin, they require nothing but the negation of efficacious grace, when it is manifest that there is a farther prostitution of sin required.” Of these four passages the first is from Calvin himself, the second from Zuinglius, and the third and fourth from Dr. Twisse. This pamphlet was the first in a smart controversy, in which Doctor (afterward Bishop) Reynolds, Baxter, Hickman, and Barlee, took part against Dr. Pierce, but in which those eminent men virtually disclaimed all community of sentiment between themselves and such high predestinarians. In their warmth, however, they accused the Doctor of having “rifled the well-furnished cabinet of the Batavian Remonstrant writings,” and of not having hesitated “to be beholden to very thieves, namely, such roguish pamphlets as _Fur Predestinatus_ and others are, rather than want materials for invectives against Calvin, Beza, Twisse,” &c. In his reply, the Doctor says, “When I published my papers on God’s decrees, I had never so much as seen that well-furnished cabinet, the ‘_Acta Synodalia Remonstrantium_;’” and he proves that he has copied none of his extracts from _Fur Predestinatus_. As his opponents were “so unthankful for the lenity” which he had displayed in giving “so _short_ a catalogue,” he added other affirmations of a still more revolting import, if that were possible. The four extracts which follow, will serve as a correct specimen of the gross and unguarded assertions of some of those good men who were thus exposed; the first two are from Zanchius, the other two from Piscator, both of them men of renown in that age:--(1.) “Reprobates are compelled with a necessity of sinning, and so of perishing, by this ordination of God; and so compelled that they cannot choose but sin and perish.” (2.) “God works all things in all men, not only in the godly, but also in the ungodly.” (3.) “Judas could not but betray Christ, seeing that God’s decrees are immutable; and whether a man bless or curse, he always doth it necessarily in respect of God’s providence, and in so doing he doeth always according to the will of God.” (4.) “It doth or at least may appear from the word of God, that we neither can do more good than we do, nor omit more evil than we omit; because God from eternity hath precisely decreed that both [the good and the evil] should so be done. It is fatally constituted when, and how, and how much, every one of us ought to study and love piety, or not to love it.” In that newly emancipated age, the ample discussion of these topics could not fail to produce much good; and the result in the course of a few years was, that a vast number of those who had implicitly followed the guidance of Calvin, deserted his standard, and either went completely over to the ranks of Arminius, or halted midway under the command of Baxter. From that time to the middle of the eighteenth century, those dogmas which are usually designated as ultra-Calvinian or Antinomian, received no support except from such shallow divines as Dr. Crisp and his immediate admirers. But when the Rev. John Wesley and his brother, as Arminians, propounded the doctrines of the Gospel in as evangelical a manner, and with as marked success, as any Calvinist, a number of those excellent men, both in the church and among the Dissenters, who had been early benefited by the ministry of the two brothers, thought, as many now do, that it was impossible for any thing to be evangelical that was not Calvinistic; and, apparently with the design of being at as great a remove as possible from a reputed heresy, they became in principle real Antinomians. In forming this conclusion, and in running to a supposed opposite extreme, such persons seem to have forgotten that those truly evangelical principles,--which in Germany and the neighbouring states effected the reformation from Popery, which transformed sinners into Christians and martyrs, and which, in the perverted state of society that then obtained, but too painfully reminded the sainted sufferers of the domestic, municipal, and national grievances and persecutions to which the earliest confessors of the name of Christ were subjected,--had been in beneficial operation long before Calvin’s doctrinal system was brought to maturity, and when he was known only as the humble and diligent pastor of the church of Geneva. And even after the publication of his “Institutes,” which contained the peculiarities of his creed, he had to wait many years, to labour hard, not always in the most sanctified spirit, both from the pulpit and the press, and to endure many personal mortifications, before he was able to obtrude his novel dogmas on his own immediate connections, or to make any sensible impression on the generally received theology of his learned contemporaries. Such persons ought also to recollect, that, as Dr. Watts justly observes, “some of the most rigid and narrow limitations of grace to men are found chiefly in Calvin’s _Institutions_, which were written in his youth. But his comments on Scripture were the labours of his riper years and maturer judgment.”

11. His first tract on predestination was published in 1552; and the first complete edition of his “Institutes” did not see the light till the year 1558; but the change in Melancthon’s opinions, from the fatality of Stoicism, to the universality of the Gospel, occurred at least six years prior to 1535, when the second edition of his “Common Places” was published, that contained his amended creed, and strong cautions against the contrary doctrines. One of the most eloquent and best informed writers of the present age has, in reference to this subject, justly observed: “Both Luther and Melancthon, after their creed became permanently settled at the diet of Augsburg, (A. D. 1530,) kept one object constantly in view,--to inculcate only what was plain and practical, and never to attempt philosophizing. They perceived, that before the reformation the doctrine of divine foreknowledge had been grossly misconceived and abused, although guarded by all the logic of the schools; and they felt, that, after it, they had themselves at first contributed to increase the evil, by grounding upon the same high argument, although for a very different purpose, the position of an infallible necessity. Thenceforward, therefore, they only taught a predestination which the Christian religion explains, and the Christian life exemplifies. Thus, while their adversaries philosophized upon a predestination of individuals, preferred one before another by divine regard because worthy of such a preference, they taught only that which has been revealed with certainty,--the predestination of a peculiar description of persons, of _a people zealous of good works_, of the Christian church contemplated as an aggregate, not on account of its own dignity, but on account of Christ its supreme Head, and _the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him_. While restoring Scriptural simplicity to the doctrine of predestination, perplexed and disfigured by the vanity of the schools, they studiously and anxiously preserved every trace of that universal benevolence by which Christianity is particularly distinguished. ‘Let us,’ they said, ‘with both our hands, or rather with all our heart, hold fast the true and pious maxim, that God is not the author of sin, that he sits not in heaven writing Stoical laws in the volumes of fate; but, endowed with a perfect freedom himself, he communicates a liberty of action to his creatures; firmly opposing the position of necessity as false, and pernicious to morals and religion. God, we may be assured, is no cruel and merciless tyrant; he does not hate and reject men, but loves them as a parent loves his children.’ Universal grace, indeed, was at all times a favourite topic with the Lutherans; nor would they admit of any predestination except that of a beneficent Deity, who was _in Christ reconciling the world to himself_; except a predestination conformable with that order of things which he has established, and with the use or abuse of the means which he has ordained. ‘The Almighty,’ they said, ‘has seriously willed and decreed, from eternity, all men to be saved and to enjoy everlasting felicity; let us not therefore indulge in evil suggestions, and separate ourselves from his grace, which is as expanded as the space between heaven and earth; let us not restrain the general promise, in which he offers his favour to all without discrimination, nor confine it to those who, affecting a peculiar garb, wish to be alone esteemed pious and sanctified. If many perish, the fault is not to be imputed to the divine will, but to human obstinacy, which despises that will, and disregards a salvation destined for all men.’ ‘And because _many are called, but few are chosen_, let us not,’ they added, ‘entertain an opinion highly impious,--that God tenders his grace to many, but communicates it only to a few; for should we not in the greatest degree detest a Deity by whose arbitrary will we believed ourselves to be excluded from salvation?’ Upon the important point likewise of the conditional acceptance of the individual, their ideas were not more distinct than their language was explicit. ‘If God chose,’ they argued, ‘certain persons only in order to unite them to himself, and rejected the remainder in all respects alike, would not such AN ELECTION WITHOUT CAUSES seem tyrannical? Let us therefore be persuaded, that some cause exists in us, as some difference is to be found between those who are, and those who are not, accepted.’ Thus they conceived that, predestinating his elect in Christ, or the Christian church, to eternal salvation, he excludes none from that number by a partial adoption of favourites, but calls all equally, and accepts of all who obey his calling, or, in other words, who become true Christians by possessing the qualifications which Christianity requires.--'He,' they stated, who ‘falls from grace, cannot but perish, completely losing remission of sin, with the other benefits which Christ has purchased for him, and acquiring in their stead divine wrath and death eternal.’ Melancthon, who in his private correspondence expressly termed Calvin the Zeno of his day, says, ‘Let us execrate the Stoical disputations which some introduce, who imagine that the elect always retain the Holy Spirit, even when they commit atrocious crimes,--a manifest and highly reprehensible error; and let us not confirm in fools security and blindness.’”

These quotations might be augmented by others from the earliest Lutheran authors, more Arminian in their import than any which Arminius ever wrote: but the preceding are sufficient to show, that, during upward of thirty years, the Protestant church in Germany was nourished by doctrines most manifestly at variance with the refinements afterward promulgated by Calvin. Real conversions of sinners were never more abundant than in that golden age; yet these were produced by the blessing of God upon an evangelical agency that had scarcely any thing in common with the Genevan dogmas. With these and similar facts before him, therefore, no Calvinist can in common honesty claim for the peculiarities of his creed, for those doctrines which distinguish it from the Melancthonism of the Protestant churches of England and Germany, the exclusive title of EVANGELICAL. Equally fallacious is the ground on which he can prefer any such claim on account of the alleged counsel and advice given by Calvin to our reformers while they were engaged in the formation of our Articles and Liturgy. On no fact in the ecclesiastical history of this country are our annalists more completely at agreement than on this,--that Calvin’s name and writings were scarcely known in England till the time when the persecution under Queen Mary forced many of our best divines into banishment; and that, to the great future disquietude of the church, several of these exiles on their return imported a personal bias either in favour of his discipline or of his dogmas. Anterior to that period he had received no such pressing invitations from our reformers, and from the king himself, as Melancthon had done, for his friendly theological aid in drawing up the doctrinal and disciplinary formulæ of our national church. The man who asserts the contrary to this, and who has the hardihood to deny the Melancthonian origin of the Articles and Liturgy, discovers at once his want of correct information on these subjects, and has never read the convincing documents appended to the Archbishop of Cashel’s (Dr. Laurence’s) “Eight Sermons,” being the Bampton Lectures for 1804, and entitled, “_An Attempt to Illustrate those Articles of the Church of England which the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical_;” Todd’s treatise “_On Original Sin, Free Will, &c, as maintained by certain Declarations of our Reformers_;” Plaifere’s “_Appello Evangelium_;” nor even the portable yet convincing pamphlets of Kipling and Winchester, the former entitled “_The Articles not Calvinistic_;” the latter, “_A Dissertation on the Seventeenth Article of the Church_.”

12. There is one fact connected with these assumed yet unfounded claims, which has never yet been placed in its proper light, but which it may be well briefly to notice in this place. Calvin himself, in 1535, wrote the following truly Melancthonian paragraphs as part of his preface to the New Testament in French: “This Mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, was the only, true, and eternal Son of God, whom the Father was about to send into the world, that he might collect all men together from this horrid dispersion and devastation. When, at length, that fulness of time arrived, that day preordained by the Lord, he openly showed himself as that Messiah who had for so many ages been the desire of all nations, and hath most abundantly performed all those things which were necessary for the redemption of all men. But this great blessing was not confined solely within the boundaries of the land of Israel, since, on the contrary, it was intended [_porrigendum_] to be held out for the acceptance of the whole human race; because through Christ alone the entire family of man was to be reconciled to God, as will be seen, and most amply demonstrated, in these pages of the New Testament.” “To this inheritance of our heavenly Father’s kingdom we are all called without respect of persons,--whether we be men or women, high or low, masters or servants, teachers or disciples, [_doctores_] divines or laics, Jews or Greeks, Frenchmen or [_Romani_] Italians. From this inheritance no one is excluded, if he only so receive Christ as he is offered by the Father for the salvation of all men, and embrace him when received.” Great research has been displayed by the Calvinists at different periods, in endeavouring to discover, in the public formularies of the church, or in the private productions of our reformers, some trace of affinity between them and the writings of Calvin. Only two cases of such affinity have yet been found; and, unfortunately for the validity of all pretensions of this kind, neither of them contains a single peculiarity of Calvinism, but, on the contrary, both are of the moderate and _evangelical_ class of the Melancthonian school. One of the passages thus discovered is here subjoined from Cranmer’s “_Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament_,” &c; and bears all the marks of verisimilitude to the second of the preceding paragraphs from Calvin, though written fifteen years after it:--“Almighty God, without respect of person, accepteth the oblation and sacrifice of priest and lay person, of king and subject, of master and servant, of man and woman, of young and old, yea, of English, French, Scot, Greek, Latin, Jew, and Gentile; of every man according to his faithful and obedient heart unto him, and that through the sacrifice propitiatory of Jesus Christ.” Had either this or the other passage contained the least tinge of what is now considered as belonging exclusively to the system of Calvin, the English admirers of that great man would have had some grounds for the assertions which have been too confidently made, because so easily refuted.

13. Having given this summary of the sentiments of Calvin himself, and of the ancient or strict Calvinists, it is proper to observe, that there are, and always have been, many who generally embrace the Calvinistic system, but object to some particular _parts_, and to the strong language in which some of the propositions are expressed. These are called _moderate_ or _modern_ Calvinists, who differ from Calvin, and the synod of Dort, chiefly on two points,--the doctrine of reprobation, and the extent of the death of Christ. The theory of Baxter has already been noticed. This and all other mitigated schemes rest on two principles, the sufficiency of the atonement for all mankind, and the sufficiency of grace for those who do not believe. Still something more is held to be necessary than this sufficiency of grace in order to actual salvation; namely, an acceptance by man, which can only be made under that degree of effectual supernatural aid which is dispensed only to a certain number of persons, who are thus distinguished as the “elect of God.” The main characteristic of all these theories, from the first to the last, from the highest to the lowest, is, that a part of mankind are shut out from the mercies of God, on some ground irrespective of their refusal of a sincere offer to them of salvation through Christ, made with a communicated power of embracing it. Some power they allow to the reprobate, as natural power, and degrees of superadded moral power; but in no case the power to believe unto salvation; and thus, as one well observes, “When they have cut some fair trenches, as if they would bring the water of life unto the dwellings of the reprobate, on a sudden they open a sluice which carries it off again.” The whole labour of these theories is to find out some plausible reason for the infliction of punishment on them that perish, independent of the only cause assigned by the word of God--their rejection of a mercy free for all, and made attainable by all. See BAXTERIANISM.

14. After all, however, it is pleasant to find these indications of a growing consciousness, on the part of modern predestinarians, that the common notions and common language of mankind on these deep subjects are not far from the truth. And though some too fastidious Arminians may complain, that, in this desire to enlist the views and words of common sense on the side of Calvinism, many of those by whom they are employed attach to them a meaning very different from that which ordinary usage warrants; yet even this tendency to approximate to right views should be regarded as favourable to the progress of truth, and the evidently improved feeling which has suggested such approximation ought to be met in a conciliating spirit. But this is a fault which must always be an appendage to such a system, however it may be modified; and does not exclusively apply to its modern supporters. The following remarks by Archbishop Laurence on the ambiguity of language not unfrequently discernible in the writings of Calvin himself, are worthy of consideration:--“In whatsoever sense he wished these words to be understood, it must be admitted that he sometimes adapted the style of others, who had a very different object in view, to his own peculiar opinions. And hence, from the want of a due discrimination, the sentiments of his contemporaries, opposite in their natural tendency, are often improperly forced into the vortex of Calvinism. Systematizing was his darling propensity, and the ambition of being distinguished as a leader in reform his predominant passion: in the arrangements of the former, he never felt a doubt, or found a difficulty; and in the pursuits of the latter he displayed an equal degree of perseverance and ardour. Thus, in the doctrine of the eucharist, it is well known that he laboured to acquire celebrity, and conciliate followers, by maintaining a kind of middle sacramental presence between the corporeal of the Lutherans, and the mere spiritual of the Zuinglians; expressing himself in language which, partly derived from one, and partly from the other, verged toward neither extreme; but which, by his singular talent at perspicuous combination, he applied, and not without success, to his own particular purpose. Nor was he less solicitous to press into his service a foreign phraseology upon the subject more immediately before me; a subject on his theory of which he not a little prided himself, and seemed contented to stake his reputation. He perceived that the Lutherans, strongly reprobating every discussion upon the decrees of a Deity unrevealed to us, founded predestination solely on a Scriptural basis; contending for a divine will which is seriously, not fictitiously, disposed to save all men, and predetermined to save all who become and continue sincere Christians. Zuingle, indeed, had reasoned from a different principle; and, although persuaded that God’s mercies in Christ were liberally bestowed on all without distinction, on infants who commit not actual crime, and on the Heathen as well as the Christian world, he nevertheless was a necessitarian in the strictest sense of the expression; referring events of every kind to an uncontrollable and absolute predetermination. Zuingle, however, died in 1531, before the youth of Calvin permitted him to assume the character of a reformer; who found Bullinger then at the head of the Zuinglian church, not only applauding, but adopting, the moderation of the Lutherans; and, to use the phrase of Turretin, plainly _Melancthonizing_. But the doctrine alluded to, it may be imagined, was of a species too limited and unphilosophical for one of his enterprising turn of mind, who never met with an obstacle which he attempted not instantly to surmount. Disregarding, therefore, the sober restrictions of the times, he gave loose to the most unbounded speculation: yet, anxious by all means to win over all to his opinion, he studiously laboured to preserve, on some popular points, a verbal conformity with the Lutherans. With them, in words, he taught the universality of God’s good will; but it was a universality which he extended only to the _offer_ of salvation; conceiving the reprobate to be precluded from the reception of that offer by the secret decree of an immutable Deity. The striking feature of _their_ system was an election in Christ, by which they meant an election as Christians. This also, in words, he inculcated: his idea, however, of an election in Christ was totally different from theirs; for he held it to be the previous election of certain favourites by an irrespective will of God, whom, and whom alone, Christ was subsequently appointed to save. But his ingenuity was such, in adapting the terms borrowed from another source to his own theory, that some erroneously conceive them to have been thus originally used by the Lutherans themselves. Hence, therefore, much confusion has arisen in the attempt of properly discriminating between the various sentiments of Protestants upon this question, at the period under consideration: all have been regarded as formed upon the model which Calvin exhibited; at least by writers who have contemplated him as the greatest reformer of his age, but who have forgotten that, although they chose to esteem him the greatest, they could not represent him as the first in point of time; and that his title to preëminence, in the common estimation of his contemporaries, was then far from being acknowledged.”

15. On one topic, however, Calvin and the older divines of that school were very explicit. They tell us plainly, that they found all the Christian fathers, both of the Greek and the Latin church down to the age of St. Augustine, quite unmanageable for their purpose; and therefore occasionally bestow upon them and their productions epithets not the most courteous. Yet some modern writers, not possessing half the splendid qualifications of those veterans in learning, make a gorgeous display of the little that they know concerning antiquity; and wish to lead their readers to suppose, that the whole stream of early Christianity has flowed down only in their channel. Every one must have remarked how much like Calvin all those fathers speak whose works are quoted by Toplady in his “Historic Defence.” Nor can the two Milners, in their “History of the Church,” entirely escape censure on this account,--though both were excellent men, and better scholars than Toplady. But from the manner in which they “show up” only those ancient Christian authors, some of whose sentiments _seem_ to be nearly in unison with their own, they induce the unlearned or half informed to draw the erroneous conclusion,--that the peculiarities of Calvinism are not the inventions of a comparatively recent æra, and that they have always formed a prominent part of the profession of faith of every Christian community since the days of the Apostles.

All men must admire the candid and liberal spirit which breathes in the subjoined high but just eulogium on Calvin, from the pen of the same amiable Archbishop: “Calvin himself was both a wise and a good man; inferior to none of his contemporaries in general ability, and superior to almost all in the art, as well as elegance, of composition, in the perspicuity and arrangement of his ideas, the structure of his periods, and the Latinity of his diction. Although attached to a theory, which he found it difficult in the extreme to free from the suspicion of blasphemy against God, as the author of sin, he certainly was no blasphemer; but, on the contrary, adopted that very theory from an anxiety not to commit, but, as he conceived, to avoid blasphemy,--that of ascribing to human, what he deemed alone imputable to divine, agency.”

CAMBYSES, the son of Cyrus, king of Persia. He succeeded his father, A. M. 3475, and is the Ahasuerus mentioned in Ezra iv, 6, to whom, as soon as he came to the crown, the Samaritans applied by petition, desiring that the rebuilding of Jerusalem might be stopped. What the motives were which they made use of to prevail upon this prince, we are ignorant; but it is certain, that though he was not persuaded to revoke his father’s decree, yet he put a stop to the works, so that for the remaining seven years and five months which he reigned, the building of the city and temple was suspended. See AHASUERUS.

CAMEL, גמל. This animal is called in ancient Arabic, _gimel_; and in modern, _diammel_; in Greek, κάμηλος. With very little variation, the name is retained in modern languages. The camel is very common in Arabia, Judea, and the neighbouring countries; and is often mentioned in Scripture, and reckoned among the most valuable property, 1 Chron. v, 21; Job i, 3, &c. “No creature,” says Volney, “seems so peculiarly fitted to the climate in which he exists as the camel. Designing this animal to dwell in a country where he can find little nourishment, nature has been sparing of her materials in the whole of his formation. She has not bestowed upon him the fleshiness of the ox, horse, or elephant; but limiting herself to what is strictly necessary, has given him a long head, without ears, at the end of a long neck without flesh; has taken from his legs and thighs every muscle not immediately requisite for motion; and, in short, bestowed upon his withered body only the vessels and tendons necessary to connect its frame together. She has furnished him with a strong jaw, that he may grind the hardest aliments; but, lest he should consume too much, has straitened his stomach, and obliged him to chew the cud; has lined his foot with a lump of flesh, which sliding in the mud, and being no way adapted to climbing, fits him only for a dry, level, and sandy soil, like that of Arabia. So great, in short, is the importance of the camel to the desert, that, were it deprived of that useful animal, it must infallibly lose every inhabitant.” The chief use of the camel has always been as a beast of burden, and for performing journeys across the deserts. They have sometimes been used in war, to carry the baggage of an oriented army, and mingle in the tumult of the battle. Many of the Amalekite warriors, who burnt Ziklag in the time of David, were mounted on camels; for the sacred historian remarks, that of the whole army not a man escaped the furious onset of that heroic and exasperated leader, “save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and fled,” 1 Sam. xxx, 17.

The passage of Scripture in which our Lord says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven,” Matt. xix, 24, has been the occasion of much criticism. Some assert that near Jerusalem was a low gate called “the needle’s eye,” through which a camel could not pass unless his load was taken off. Others conjecture that κάμιλος should be read κάβιλος, _a cable_. But there are no ancient manuscripts to support the reading. In the Jewish Talmud, there is, however, a similar proverb respecting an elephant: “Rabbi Shesheth answered Rabbi Amram, who had advanced an absurdity, ‘Perhaps thou art one of the Pambidithians, who can make an elephant pass through the eye of a needle;’” that is, says the Aruch, “who speak things impossible.” There is also a saying of the same kind in the Koran: “The impious, who in his arrogancy shall accuse our doctrine of falsity, shall find the gates of heaven shut; nor shall he enter there, till a camel shall pass through the eye of a needle. It is thus that we shall recompense the wicked,” Surat. vii, 37. Indeed, Grotius, Lightfoot, Wetstein, and Michaëlis join in opinion, that the comparison is so much in the figurative style of the oriental nations and of the rabbins, that the text is sufficiently authentic.

CAMEL’s HAIR, mentioned Matt. iii, 4; Mark i, 6. John the Baptist, we are told, was habited in a raiment of camel’s hair; and Chardin assures us, that the modern dervises wear such garments; as they do also great leathern girdles. Camel’s hair is also made into those beautiful stuffs, called shawls; but certainly the coarser manufacture of this material was adopted by John, and we may receive a good idea of its texture, from what Braithwaite says of the Arabian tents: “They are made of camel’s hair, somewhat like our coarse hair cloths to lay over goods.” By this coarse vesture the Baptist was not merely distinguished, but contrasted with those in royal palaces, who wore “soft raiment,” such as shawls or other superfine manufactures, whether of the same material or not.

CAMERONIANS, a sect in Scotland, who separated from the Presbyterians in 1666, and continued to hold their religious assemblies in the fields. The Cameronians took their denomination from Richard Cameron, a famous field preacher, who, refusing to accept the indulgence to tender consciences granted by King Charles II, as such an acceptance seemed an acknowledgment of the king’s supremacy, and that he had before a right to silence them, separated from his brethren, and even headed a rebellion in which he was killed. His followers were never entirely reduced till the Revolution, when they voluntarily submitted to King William. The Cameronians adhered rigidly to the form of government established in 1648.

CAMERONISTS, or CAMERONITES, is the denomination of a party of Calvinists in France, who asserted, that the cause of men’s doing good or evil proceeds from the knowledge which God infuses into them; and that God does not move the will physically, but only morally, in virtue of its dependence on the judgment of the mind. They had this name from John Cameron, one of the most famous divines among the Protestants of France, in the seventeenth century, who was born at Glasgow, in Scotland, about the year 1580, and taught Greek there till he removed to Bourdeaux in 1600. Here he acquired such celebrity by the fluency with which he spoke Greek, that he was appointed to teach the learned languages at Bergerac. He afterward became professor of philosophy at Sedan; but returning to Bourdeaux in 1604, he devoted himself to the study of divinity. Upon being appointed tutor to the sons of the chancellor of Navarre, he accompanied them to Paris, Geneva, and Heidelberg. After having discharged the office of a minister at Bourdeaux, which he assumed in 1608, for ten years, he accepted the professorship of divinity at Saumur. Upon the dispersion of that academy by the public commotions in 1621, he removed to England, and taught divinity at his own house in London. King James inclined to favour him on account of his supposed attachment to the hierarchy, made him master of the college, and professor of divinity, at Glasgow; but after holding this office, which he found to be unpleasant to him, for a year, he returned to Saumur, where he read private lectures. From thence he removed, in 1624, to Montauban; where the disturbances excited by the emissaries of the duke de Rohan led him to remonstrate against the principles which produced them, with more zeal than prudence. This occasioned his being insulted by a private person in the streets, and severely beaten: and this treatment so much affected him, that he soon after died, in 1625, at the early age of forty-six years. Bayle represents him as “a man of great parts and judgment, of an excellent memory, very learned, a good philosopher, good humoured, liberal not only of his knowledge but his purse, a great talker, a long-winded preacher, little versed in the fathers, inflexible in his opinions, and inclined to turbulence.” He was one of those who attempted to reconcile the doctrine of predestination, as it had been taught at Geneva, and confirmed at Dort, with the sentiments of those who believe that God offers salvation to all mankind. His opinion was maintained and propagated by Moses Amyraut, and several others of the most learned among the reformed ministers, who thought Calvin’s doctrine too harsh. They were called _Hypothetical Universalists_. Cameron likewise maintained the possibility of salvation in the church of Rome. See AMYRAUT and BAXTERIANISM.

CAMP, or ENCAMPMENT, of the Israelites. The whole body of the people, consisting of six hundred thousand fighting men, beside women and children, was disposed under four battalions, so placed as to enclose the tabernacle, in the form of a square, and each under one general standard. (See _Armies_.) There were forty-one encampments, from their first in the month of March, at Rameses, in the land of Goshen, in Egypt, and in the wilderness, until they reached the land of Canaan. They are thus enumerated in Numbers xxxiii:--

1. Rameses 2. Succoth 3. Etham, on the edge of the wilderness 4. Pihahiroth 5. Marah 6. Elim 7. By the Red Sea 8. Wilderness of Sin 9. Dophkah 10. Alush 11. Rephidim 12. Wilderness of Sinai 13. Kibroth-hattaavah 14. Hazeroth 15. Rithmah 16. Rimmon-parez 17. Libnah 18. Rissah 19. Kehelatha 20. Shapher 21. Haradah

22. Makheloth 23. Tahath 24. Tarah 25. Mithcah 26. Hashmonah 27. Moseroth 28. Bene-jaakan 29. Hor-hagidgad 30. Jotbathah 31. Ebronah 32. Ebion-gaber 33. Kadesh 34. Mount Hor 35. Zalmonah 36. Punon 37. Oboth 38. Ije-abarim 39. Dibon-gad 40. Almon-diblathaim 41. Mountains of Abarim

In the second year after their exodus from Egypt they were numbered; and upon an exact poll, the number of their males amounted to six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty, from twenty years old and upward, Num. i, ii. This vast mass of people, encamped in beautiful order, must have presented a most impressive spectacle. That it failed not to produce effect upon the richly endowed and poetic mind of Balaam, appears from Num. xxiv, 2; “And Balaam lifted up his eyes and he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he took up his parable and said, How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside waters.” Grandeur, order, beauty, and freshness, were the ideas at once suggested to the mind of this unfaithful prophet, and called forth his unwilling admiration. Perhaps we may consider this spectacle as a type of the order, beauty, and glory of the true “church in the wilderness,” in those happy days when God “shall not behold iniquity in Jacob, nor perverseness in Israel;” when it shall be said, “The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them.”

CAMPHIRE. כפר. Greek, κύπρος. Latin _cyprus_. Canticles i, 14; iv, 13. Sir T. Browne supposes that the plant mentioned in the Canticles, rendered κύπρος in the Septuagint, and _cyprus_ in the Vulgate, is that described by Dioscorides and Pliny, which grows in Egypt, and near to Ascalon, producing an odorate bush of flowers, and yielding the celebrated _oleum cyprinum_. [A sweet oil made of the flowers of the privet tree.] This is one of the plants which is most grateful to the eye and the smell. The deep colour of its bark, the light green of its foliage, the softened mixture of white and yellow with which the flowers, collected into long clusters like the lilac, are coloured; the red tint of the ramifications which support them, form an agreeable combination. The flowers, whose shades are so delicate, diffuse around the sweetest odours, and embalm the gardens and apartments which they embellish. The women take pleasure in decking themselves with them. With the powder of the dried leaves they give an orange tincture to their nails, to the inside of their hands, and to the soles of their feet. The expression, עשתה את־צפרניה, rendered “pare their nails,” Deut. xxi, 12, may perhaps rather mean, “_adorn_ their nails;” and imply the antiquity of this practice. This is a universal custom in Egypt, and not to conform to it would be considered indecent. It seems to have been practised by the ancient Egyptians, for the nails of the mummies are most commonly of a reddish hue.

In the Song of Solomon, the bride is described as saying, “My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi,” chap. i, 24; and again, “Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits, camphire with spikenard,” chap. iv, 13.

CANA, a town of Galilee, where Jesus performed his first miracle, John ii, 1, 2, &c. It lay in the tribe of Zebulun, not far from Nazareth. Cana was visited by Dr. E. D. Clarke, who says, “It is worthy of note, that, walking among the ruins of a church, we saw large massy stone pots, answering the description given of the ancient vessels of the country; these were not preserved nor exhibited as reliques, but lying about, disregarded by the present inhabitants, as antiquities with whose original use they were unacquainted. From their appearance, and the number of them, it was quite evident that a practice of keeping water in large stone pots, each holding from eighteen to twenty-seven gallons, was once common in the country.”

CANAAN, the son of Ham. The Hebrews believe that Canaan, having first discovered Noah’s nakedness, told his father Ham; and that Noah, when he awoke, having understood what had passed, cursed Canaan, the first author of the offence. Others are of opinion that Ham was punished in his son Canaan, Gen. ix, 25. For though Canaan is mentioned, Ham is not exempted from the malediction; on the contrary, he suffers more from it, since parents are more affected with their children’s misfortunes than with their own; especially if the evils have been inflicted through some fault or folly of theirs. Some have thought that _Canaan_ may be put elliptically for _the father of Canaan_, that is, Ham, as it is rendered in the Arabic and Septuagint translations.

The posterity of Canaan was numerous. His eldest son, Sidon, founded the city of Sidon, and was father of the Sidonians and Phenicians. Canaan had ten other sons, who were fathers of as many tribes, dwelling in Palestine and Syria; namely, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgasites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hemathites. It is believed that Canaan lived and died in Palestine, which from him was called the land of Canaan. Notwithstanding the curse is directed against Canaan the son, and not against Ham the father, it is often supposed that all the posterity of Ham were placed under the malediction, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” But the true reason why Canaan only was mentioned probably is, that the curse was in fact restricted to the posterity of Canaan. It is true that many Africans, descendants of other branches of Ham’s family, have been largely and cruelly enslaved; but so have other tribes in different parts of the world. There is certainly no proof that the negro race were ever placed under this malediction. Had they been included in it, this would neither have justified their oppressors, nor proved that Christianity is not designed to remove the evil of slavery. But Canaan alone in his descendants, is cursed, and Ham only in that branch of his posterity. It follows that the subjugation of the Canaanitish races to Israel fulfils the prophecy. To them it was limited, and with them it expired. Part of the seven nations of the Canaanites were made slaves to the Israelites, when they took possession of their land; and the remainder by Solomon.

CANAAN, LAND OF. In the map it presents the appearance of a narrow slip of country, extending along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean; from which, to the river Jordan, the utmost width does not exceed fifty miles. This river was the eastern boundary of the land of Canaan, or Palestine, properly so called, which derived its name from the Philistines or Palestines originally inhabiting the coast. To three of the twelve tribes, however, Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, portions of territory were assigned on the eastern side of the river, which were afterward extended by the subjugation of the neighbouring nations. The territory of Tyre and Sidon was its ancient border on the north-west; the range of the Libanus and Antilibanus forms a natural boundary on the north and north-east; while in the south it is pressed upon by the Syrian and Arabian deserts. Within this circumscribed district, such were the physical advantages of the soil and climate, there existed, in the happiest periods of the Jewish nation, an immense population. The kingdom of David and Solomon, however, extended far beyond these narrow limits. In a north-eastern direction, it was bounded only by the river Euphrates, and included a considerable part of Syria. It is stated that Solomon had dominion over all the region on the western side of the Euphrates, from Thiphsah, or Thapsacus, on that river, in latitude 25° 20´, to Azzah, or Gaza. “Tadmore in the wilderness,” (Palmyra,) which the Jewish monarch is stated to have built, (that is, either founded or fortified,) is considerably to the north-east of Damascus, being only a day’s journey from the Euphrates; and Hamath, the Epiphania of the Greeks, (still called Hamah,) in the territory belonging to which city Solomon had several “store cities,” is seated on the Orontes, in latitude 34° 45´ N. On the east and south-east, the kingdom of Solomon was extended by the conquest of the country of Moab, that of the Ammonites, and Edom; and tracts which were either inhabited or pastured by the Israelites, lay still farther eastward. Maon, which belonged to the tribe of Judah, and was situated in or near the desert of Paran, is described by Abulfeda as the farthest city of Syria toward Arabia, being two days’ journey beyond Zoar. In the time of David, the people of Israel, women and children included, amounted, on the lowest computation, to five millions; beside the tributary Canaanites, and other conquered nations.

The vast resources of the country, and the power of the Jewish monarch, may be estimated not only by the consideration in which he was held by the contemporary sovereigns of Egypt, Tyre, and Assyria, but by the strength of the several kingdoms into which the dominions of David were subsequently divided. Damascus revolted during the reign of Solomon, and shook off the Jewish yoke. At his death, ten of the tribes revolted under Jeroboam, and the country became divided into the two rival kingdoms of Judah and Israel, having for their capitals Jerusalem and Samaria. The kingdom of Israel fell before the Assyrian conqueror, in the year B. C. 721, after it had subsisted about two hundred and fifty years. That of Judah survived about one hundred and thirty years, Judea being finally subdued and laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar, and the temple burned B. C. 588. Idumea was conquered a few years after. From this period till the æra of Alexander the Great, Palestine remained subject to the Chaldean, Median, and Persian dynasties. At his death, Judea fell under the dominion of the kings of Syria, and, with some short and troubled intervals, remained subject either to the kings of Syria or of Egypt, till John Hyrcanus shook off the Syrian yoke, and assumed the diadem, B. C. 130. The Asmonean dynasty, which united, in the person of the monarch, the functions of king and pontiff, though tributary to Roman conquerors, lasted one hundred and twenty-six years, till the kingdom was given by Anthony to Herod the Great, of an Idumean family, B. C. 39.