[92] Socinum sectæ ejus principes nuper Volkelius, nunc Ruarus non probant, in eo quod circa Dei cognitionem petita e natura rerum argumenta abdicaverit. Grot. Epist. 964. See too Ruari Epist., p. 210.
Crellius. Ruarus. 40. Crellius was, perhaps, the most eminent of the Racovian school in this century.[93] Many of its members, like himself, were Germans, their sect having gained ground in some of the Lutheran states about this time, as it did also in the United Provinces. Grotius broke a lance with him in his treatise De Satisfactione Christi, to which he replied in another with the same title. Each retired from the field with the courtesies of chivalry towards his antagonist. The Dutch Arminians in general, though very erroneously, supposed to concur in all the leading tenets of the Racovian theologians, treated them with much respect.[94] Grotius was often reproached with the intimacies he kept up among these obnoxious sectaries; and many of his letters, as well as those of Curcellæus and other leading Arminians, bear witness to the personal regard they felt for them.[95] Several proofs of this will be also found in the epistles of Ruarus, a book which throws much light on the theological opinions of the age. Ruarus was a man of acuteness, learning, and piety, not wholly concurring with the Racovians, but not far removed from them.[96] The commentaries of Grotius on the Scriptures have been also charged with Socinianism; but he pleaded that his interpretations were those of the fathers.
[93] Dupin praises Volkelius highly, but says of Crellius: il avoit beaucoup étudié, mais il n’étoit pas un esprit fort élevé. Bibl. des Auteurs separés, ii. 614 v. 628. Simon, on the contrary, (ubi suprà) praises Crellius highly, and says no other commentator of his party is comparable to him.
[94] The Remonstrants refused to anathematize the Socinians, Episcopius says, on account of the apparent arguments in their favour, and the differences that have always existed on that head. Apologia Confessionis. Episc. Op. vol. i. His own tenets, were probably what some would call Arian; thus he says, personis his tribus divinitatem tribui, non collateraliter aut co-ordinatè, sed subordinatè. Inst. Theol. 1. iv., c. 2, 32. Grotius says, he finds the Catholics more tractable about the Trinity than the Calvinists.
[95] Grotius never shrunk from defending his intimacy with Ruarus and Crellius, and after praising the former, concludes, in one of his letters, with this liberal and honest sentiment. Ego vero ejus sum animi, ejusque instituti, ut mihi cum hominibus cunctis, præcipue cum Christianis quantumvis errantibus necessitudinis aliquid putem intercedere, idque me neque dictis neque factis pigeat demonstrare. Epist. 860. Hæretici nisi aliquid haberent veri ac nobiscum commune, jam hæretici non essent. 2da Series, p. 873. Nihil veri eo factum est deterius, quod in id Socinus incidit. p. 880. This, he thought, was the case in some questions, where Socinus, without designing it, had agreed with antiquity. Neque me pudeat consentire Socino, si quando is in veram veteremque sententiam incidit, ut sanè fecit in controversia de justitia per fidem, et aliis nonnullis. Id. p. 797. Socinus hoc non agens in atiquæ ecclesiæ sensus nonnunquam incidit, et eas partes, ut ingenio valebat, percoluit feliciter. Admiscuit alia quæ etiam vera dicenti auctoritatem detraxere. Epist. 966. Even during his controversy with Crellius he wrote to him in a very handsome manner. Bene autem in epistola tua, quæ mihi longè gratissimi advenit, de me judicas, non esse me eorum in numero, qui ob sententias salva pietate dissentientes, alieno a quoquam sim animo, aut boni alicujus amicitiam repudiare. Etiam in libro de vera religione, [Volkelii] quem jam percurri, relecturus et posthac, multa invenio summo cum judicio observata; illud vero sæculo gratulor, repertos homines, qui neutiquam in controversiis subtilibus tantum ponunt, quantum in vera vitæ emendatione, et quotidiano ad sanctitatem profectu. Epist. 280 (1631). He wrote with kindness and regret on the breaking up of the establishment at Racow in 1638. Ep. 1006: Grotius has been as obnoxious on the score of Socinianism as of Popery. His Commentaries on the Scriptures are taxed with it, and in fact he is not in good odour with any but the Arminian divines, nor do they, we see, wholly agree with him.
[96] Ruarus nearly agreed with Grotius as to the atonement; at least the latter thought so. De satisfactione ita mihi respondit, ut nihil admodum controversiæ relinqueretur. Grot. Epist. 2da series, p. 881. See also Ruari Epistolæ, p. 148, 282. He paid also more respect to the second century than some of his brethren, p. 100, 439, and even struggles to agree with the Ante-Nicene fathers, though he cannot come up to them, p. 275, 296. But in answer to some of his correspondents who magnified primitive authority, he well replies: Deinde quæro quis illos fixit veritati terminos? quis duo illa prima sæcula ab omni errore absolvit? Annon ecclesiastica historia satis testatur, nonnullas opiniones portentosas jam tum inter eos qui nomen Christi dederant, invaluisse? Quin ut verum fatear, res ipsa docet nonnullos posterioris sevi acutius in enodandis Scripturis versatos; et ut de nostra ætate dicam, valde me pœniteret Calvini vestri ac Bezæ si nihilo solidius sacras literas interpretarentur, quam video illos ipsos, quos tu mihi obducis, fecisse, p. 183. He lamented the fatal swerving from protestantism into which reverence for antiquity was leading his friend Grotius: fortassis et antiquitatis veneratio, quæ gravibus quibusdam Pontificiorum erroribus præluxit, ultra lineam eum perduxit, p. 277 (1642); and in answer to Mersenne, who seems to have had some hopes of his conversion, and recommended to him the controversy of Grotius with Rivet, he plainly replies that the former had extenuated some things in the church of Rome which ought to be altered, p. 258. This he frequently laments in the course of his letters, but treats him with gentleness in comparison with some of the sterner Socinians. It is remarkable that even he and Crellius seem to have excluded the members of the church of Rome, except the “vulgus ineruditum et Cassandri gregales,” from salvation; and this while almost all churches were anathematizing themselves in the same way. Ruar. Epist., p. 9 and p. 167.
This book contains two centuries of epistles, the second of which is said to be very scarce, and I doubt whether many have read the first, which must excuse my quotations. The learning, sense, and integrity of Ruarus, as well as the high respect which Calixtus, Curcellæus, and other great men felt for him, render the book of some interest. He tells us that while he was in England, about 1617, a professorship at Cambridge was offered to him, worth 100l. per annum, besides as much more from private pupils, p. 71. But he probably mistook the civil speeches of individuals for an offer: he was not eminent enough for such a proposal on the part of the university; and at least he must have been silent about his Socinianism. The morality of the early Socinians was very strict and even ascetic, proofs of which appear in these letters, p. 306 et alibi.
Erastianism. 41. Two questions of great importance which had been raised in the preceding century, became still more interesting in the present, on account of the more frequent occasion that the force of circumstances gave for their investigation, and the greater names that were engaged in it. Both of these arose out of the national establishment of churches, and their consequent relation to the commonwealth. One regarded the power of the magistrate over the church he recognized; the other involved the right of his subjects to dissent from it by non-conformity, or by a different mode of worship.
Maintained by Hooker. 42. Erastus, by proposing to substitute for the ancient discipline of ecclesiastical censures, and especially for excommunication, a perpetual superintendence of the civil power over the faith and practice of the church, had given name to a scheme generally denominated Erastianism, though in some respects far broader than anything he seems to have suggested. It was more elaborately maintained by Hooker in his Ecclesiastical Polity, and had been, in fact, that on which the English reformation under Henry was originally founded. But as it was manifestly opposed to the ultra-montane pretensions of the See of Rome, and even to the more moderate theories of the catholic church, being, of course, destructive of her independence, so did it stand in equal contradiction to the Presbyterian scheme of Scotland and of the United Provinces. |And Grotius.| In the latter country, the states of Holland had been favourable to the Arminians, so far at least as to repress any violence against them; the clergy were exasperated and intolerant; and this raised the question of civil supremacy, in which Grotius, by one of his early works entitled Pietas Ordinum Hollandiæ, published in 1613, sustained the right of the magistrate to inhibit dangerous controversies.
His Treatise on ecclesiastical power of the state. 43. He returned, after the lapse of some years, to the same theme in a larger and more comprehensive work, De Imperio Summarum Potestatum circa Sacra. It is written upon the Anglican principles of regal supremacy, which had, however, become far less popular with the rulers of our church, than in the days of Cranmer, Whitgift, and Hooker. After stating the question, and proving the ecclesiastical power of the magistrate by natural law, Scripture, established usage, agreement of Heathen and Christian writers, and the reason of the thing, he distinguishes control over sacred offices from their exercise, and proceeds to inquire whether the magistrate may take the latter on himself; which, though practised in the early ages of the world, he finds inconvenient at present, the manners required for the regal and sacerdotal character being wholly different.[97]