THEIR CREDIT WITH THE DUTCH.

39

III.

ries did feign of Moses and the Israelites when they CHAP. went out of Egypt,) than it was their own free choice and motion, I will therefore mention a particular or two to show the contrary, and that good acceptation they had in the place.

And first, although it was low with many of them, yet their word would be taken amongst the Dutch when they wanted money, because they had found by experience how careful they were to keep their word,2 and saw them so painful and diligent in their callings, that they strove to get their custom, and to employ them above others in their work, for their honesty and diligence.

Again; the magistrates of the city, about the time of their coming away, or a little before, in the public 1619. place of justice, gave this commendable testimony of them, in reproof of the Walloons, who were of the French church in the city. "These English," said they, "have lived amongst us now this twelve years, and yet we never had any suit or accusation come

It was a vulgar slander against the Jews, that they were expelled from Egypt on account of their having the leprosy. Tacitus says "A pestilential disease, disfiguring the race of men, and inaking the body an object of loathsome deformity, spread all over Egypt. Bocchoris, at that time the reigning monarch, consulted the oracle of Jupiter Hammon, and received for answer, that the kingdom must be purified, by exterminating the infected multitude, as a race of men detested by the gods. After diligent search, the wretched sufferers were collected together, and in a wild and barren desert abandoned to their misery. In that distress, while the vulgar herd was sunk in

40

THE ARMINIAN CONTROVERSY.

CHAP. against any of them. But your strifes and quarrels III. are continual," &c.

1612.

In these times, also, were the great troubles raised by the Arminians; who, as they greatly molested the whole State, so this city in particular, in which was the chief university; so as there were daily and hot disputes in the schools thereabouts. And as the students and other learned were divided in their opinions herein, so were the two professors or divinity readers themselves, the one daily teaching for it, and the other against it; which grew to that pass, that few of the disciples of the one would hear the other teach. Mr. Robinson, although he taught thrice a week himself, and wrote sundry books, besides, his manifold pains otherwise, yet he went constantly to hear their

The words any of are inserted from Hutchinson, ii. 454. Morton himself has it so in the Memorial, p. 21.

The fullest and best account of Arminianism, "that grand chokeweed of true Christianity," as Cotton Mather spitefully calls it, (Magnalia, i. 46), is contained in Brandt's History of the Reforma tion in the Low Countries.-James Arminius, (Hermann), born at Oudewater, in South Holland, in 1560, after having been fifteen years a minister at Amsterdam, was chosen professor of divinity at Leyden in 1603, and died Oct. 9, 1609, in his 49th year. The best Life of him is by Brandt. See also his Life by Nichols; Brandt's Hist. Ref. ii. 25-63; and Bayle, Dict. Hist. et Crit.

The following are the titles of the books which Robinson published after his arrival in Holland, and before the embarkation of the Pilgrims for America. 1. A Justification of Separation from the Church of England; against Mr.

3

But

Richard Bernard his invective, intituled The Separatists' Scheme. By John Robinson. 1610. 2. Of Religious Communion, private and public. With the silencing of the clamors raised by Mr. Thomas Helwisse against our retaining the baptism received in England, and admistering of baptism unto infants. As also a survey of the confession of faith published in certain Conclusions by the remainders of Mr. Smith's company. By John Robinson. 1614. 3. Apologia Justa et Necessaria quorundam Christianorum, æque contumeliosè ac communiter dictorum Brownistarum, sive Barrowistarum. Per Johannem Robinsonum, AngloLeidensem, suo et ecclesiæ nomine, cui præfigitur. 1619. This work was translated into English, and printed in 1644. The place where these books were printed is not mentioned on the title-page of either of them. It probably was Leyden, and Elder Brewster may have been the printer.

ROBINSON DISPUTES WITH EPISCOPIUS.

41

III.

readings, and heard as well one as the other. By CHAP. which means he was so well grounded in the controversy, and saw the force of all their arguments, and knew the shifts of the adversary; and being himself very able, 'none was fitter to buckle with them than himself, as appeared by sundry disputes; so as he began to be terrible to the Arminians; which made Episcopius,' the Arminian professor, to put forth his best strength, and set out sundry theses, which by 1613. public dispute he would defend against all men. Now Polyander,' the other professor, and the chief preachers of the city, desired Mr. Robinson to dispute against him. But he was loth, being a stranger. Yet the other did importune him, and told him that such was the ability and nimbleness of wit of the adversary, that the truth would suffer if he did not help them; so as he condescended, and prepared himself against the time. And when the time came, the Lord did so help him to defend the truth and foil his adversary, as he put him to an apparent nonplus in this great and public audience. And the like he did two or three times upon such like occasions; the which, as it caused many to praise God that the truth had so famous a victory, so it procured him much honor and respect. from those learned men and others which loved the truth.2

1 Simon Episcopius (Bisschop) and John Polyander were chosen professors of divinity in the university at Leyden in 1612. See Brandt, ii. 111; Limborch's Historia Vita Simonis Episcopii, p. 41; Calder's Memoirs of Episcopius, p. 128, and Bayle, Dict. Hist. et Crit.

Winslow, in his Brief Narra

tive, says, "our pastor, Mr. Robin-
son, in the time when Arminianism
prevailed so much, at the request of
the most orthodox divines, as Poly-
ander, Festus Hommius, &c. dis-
puted daily against Episcopius (in
the Academy at Leyden) and others,
the grand champions of that error,
and had as good respect amongst

42

CHAP.

to

THE DUTCH ESTEEM THE PILGRIMS.

Yea, so far were they from being weary of him and III. his people, or desiring their absence, as that it was said 1608 by some, of no mean note, that were it not for giving 1620. offence to the State of England,' they would have preferred him otherwise, if he would, and allowed them some public favor. Yea, when there was speech of their removal into these parts, sundry of note and eminency of that nation would have had them come under them; and for that end made them large offers.2

Now although I might allege many particulars and examples of the like kind to show the untruth and unlikelihood of this slander, yet these shall suffice,

that country. See Winwood's Memorials, iii. 293-6, 304, 310, 357. Sir Dudley Carleton's Letters, pp. 352, 373, 388, 435; Brandt, ii. 85, 97.

them as any of their own divines." Leyden for his heresies, and labored
I find, however, no account of this to procure his banishment; and pre-
disputation in Brandt or in any of vented Ames from being elected to
the biographers of Episcopius. Yet the same office. He seems to have
John Hoornbeek, a professor at kept an ambassador at the Hague
Leyden, says in his Summa Contro- chiefly to inform him of the pro-
versiarum Religionis, p. 741, (pub-gress of the theological disputes in
lished in 1658,)" Vir ille (Johannes
Robinsonus) gratus nostris, dum
vixit, fuit, et theologis Leidensibus
familiaris ac honoratus. Scripsit
præterea varia contra Arminianos:
frequens quippe et acer erat Epis-
copii in Academià adversarius et
opponens." Belknap judiciously
remarks concerning this disputa-
tion, "It is usual, on such occa-
sions, for the partisans on both
sides to claim the victory for their
respective champions. Whether it
were so at this time cannot be de-
termined, as we have no account
of the controversy from the Ar-
minian party." Amer. Biog. ii.
160.

King James at this time exercised an unwarrantable influence in the Low Countries, both in civil and ecclesiastical affairs. He drove Vorstius from his professorship at

2 Henry Hudson, in the employment of the Dutch East India Company, discovered the river called by his name, in 1609. On this ground the Dutch claimed the adjoining territory; a few huts were erected at New York and Albany in 1613 and 1615; but no colony was settled in the New Netherlands till 1623. The Dutch West India Company was incorporated in 1621 for this object; but individuals had for some years before been meditating colonization on the Hudson; and the offers to the Pilgrims probably came from them. See Bancroft's United States, ii. 265, 272, 273, 275, 277.

THE PILGRIMS IN HOLLAND.

seeing it was believed of few, being only raised by the CHAP. malice of some who labored their disgrace.1