37. The Arminian doctrine spread, as is well known, in despite of obloquy and persecution, over much of the protestant region of Europe. The Lutheran churches were already come into it; and in England there was a predisposing bias in the rulers of the church towards the authority of the primitive fathers, all of whom, before the age of Augustin, and especially the Greek, are acknowledged to have been on that side, which promoted the growth of this Batavian theology.[89] Even in France, it was not without considerable influence. Cameron, a divine of Saumur, one of the chief protestant seminaries, devised a scheme of syncretism, which, notwithstanding much opposition, gained ground in those churches. It was supported by some highly distinguished for learning, Amyraut, Daillé, and Blondel. Of this scheme it is remarkable, that while in its literal purport it can only seem a modification of the Augustinian hypothesis, with an awkward and feeble admixture of the other, yet its tendency was to efface the former by degrees, and to slide into the Arminian hypothesis, which ultimately became almost general in the reformed church. [89] General Vossius, in his Historia Pelagiana, the first edition of which, in 1618, was considerably enlarged afterwards, admitted that the first four centuries did not countenance the predestinarian scheme of Augustin. This gave offence in Holland; his book was publicly censured, he was excommunicated and forbidden to teach in public or private. Vossius, like others, remembered that he had a large family, and made, after some years, a sort of retractation, which, of course, did not express his real opinion. Le Clerc seems to doubt whether he acted from this motive or from what he calls simplicity, an expression for weakness. Vossius was, like his contemporary Usher, a man of much more learning than strength of intellect. Bibliothèque Universelle, xvii. 312, 329. Niceron, vol. xiii. |Rise of Jansenism.|