As to the Calvinism of North America, compare Bancroft's American Revolution, vol. i. pp. 165, 173, 174, vol. ii. pp. 329, 363, vol. iii. p. 213; Lyell's Second Visit to the United States, 1849, vol. i. p. 51; and Combe's Notes on the United States, vol. i. pp. 35, 99, 223, vol. iii. pp. 88, 118, 210, 226.
[986] It is sometimes said that this was advocated by Bancroft as early as 1588; but this assertion appears to be erroneous, and Mr. Hallam can find no instance before the reign of James I. Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 390. The dogma, though new in the Church of England, was of great antiquity. See, on its origin among the early Christians, Klimrath, Hist. du Droit, vol. i. p. 253.
[987] The spread of Arminianism was frequently noticed in Parliament during the reign of Charles I. Parl. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 444, 452, 455, 470, 484, 487, 491, 660, 947, 1368. On the decline of Calvinism at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge early in the seventeenth century, see a curious letter from Beale, in Boyle's Works, vol. v. p. 483; and on this movement in the church after Elizabeth, compare Yonge's Diary, p. 93, edit. Camden Soc. 1848; Orme's Life of Owen, p. 32; Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. i. pp. 154–156, vol. ii. pp. 208, 213, 214; Hutchinson's Mem. pp. 66, 77; Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 466; Des Maizeaux's Life of Chillingworth, p. 112.
[988] Respecting the Calvinism of the opponents of the king, see Clarendon's Rebellion, pp. 36, 37; Bulstrode's Memoirs, pp. 8, 9; Burton's Diary, vol. iii. p. 206; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 68; and on its influence in the House of Commons in 1628, Carwithen's Hist. of the Church of England, vol. ii. p. 64.
[989] M Heber (Life of Jeremy Taylor, p. cxx.) says, that Calvinism is ‘a system of all others the least attractive to the feelings of a Roman Catholic.’ Philip II., the great Catholic champion, especially hated the Calvinists, and in one of his edicts called their sect ‘détestable,’ De Thou, Hist. vol. x. p. 705: compare vol. xi. p. 458. To give an earlier instance; when the Roman inquisition was revived in 1542, it was ordered that heretics, and in particular Calvinists, should not be tolerated: ‘besonders Calvinisten.’ Ranke, Die Päpste, vol. i. p. 211.
[990] By way of illustrating this, I may mention, that an intelligent observer, who travelled all through Germany, remarked, in 1780, that the Calvinists, though richer than their opponents, had less taste for the arts. Riesbeck's Travels through Germany, London, 1787, vol. ii. p. 240. An interesting passage; in which, however, the author has shown himself unable to generalize the facts which he indicates.
[991] The Arminians have had among them many men of great learning, particularly of patristic learning; but the most profound thinkers have been on the other side, as in the instances of Augustin, Pascal, and Jonathan Edwards. To these Calvinistic metaphysicians the Arminian party can oppose no one of equal ability; and it is remarkable, that the Jesuits, by far the most zealous Arminians in the Romish Church, have always been celebrated for their erudition, but have paid so little attention to the study of the mind, that, as Sir James Mackintosh says (Dissert. on Ethical Philos. p. 185), Buffier is ‘the only Jesuit whose name has a place in the history of abstract philosophy.’ And it is interesting to observe, that this superiority of thought on the part of the Calvinists, accompanied by an inferiority of learning, existed from the beginning; for Neander (History of the Church, vol. iv. p. 299) remarks, that Pelagius ‘was not possessed of the profound speculative spirit which we find in Augustin,’ but that ‘in learning he was Augustin's superior.’
[992] ‘A philosophical necessity, grounded on the idea of God's foreknowledge, has been supported by theologians of the Calvinistic school, more or less rigidly, throughout the whole of the present century.’ Morell's Speculative Philosophy of Europe, 1846, vol. i. p. 366. Indeed, this tendency is so natural, that we find the doctrine of necessity, or something extremely like it, laid down by Augustin. See the interesting extracts in Neander's History of the Church, vol. vi. pp. 424, 425; where, however, a loophole is left to let in the idea of interference, or at all events of superintendence.
[993] ‘The five principal tenets of Jansenism, which amount in fact to the doctrine of Calvin.’ Palmer on the Church, vol. i. p. 320; and see the remarks of Mackintosh in his Memoirs, vol. i. p. 411. According to the Jesuits, ‘Paulus genuit Augustinum, Augustinus Calvinum, Calvinus Jansenium, Jansenius Sancryanum, Sancryanus Arnaldum et fratres ejus.’ Des Réaux, Historiettes, vol. iv. pp. 71, 72. Compare Huetius de Rebus ad eum pertinentibus, p. 64: ‘Jansenium dogmata sua ex Calvinianis fontibus derivasse.’
[994] Jansenius was born in a village near Leerdam, and was educated, if I mistake not, in Utrecht.