CERTAIN articles relating to the Christian Religion are now in a course of circulation. In a paper which was not long since delivered into my hands, the number of them is distinguished into two series, one consisting of twenty and the other of eleven articles. Some of them are attributed to me, others to Adrian Borrius, and several both to him and me. Those persons by whom they were first disseminated, attempt in them to render us suspected of having introduced into the church and the University of Leyden, novelties and heretical instructions, and to accuse us of error and heresy, that both the students of Divinity and the common people may stand on their guard against us, who have this black mark imprinted on us, lest they become infected with the same envenomed disorder, and that those persons who enjoy the supremacy both in Church and State, may seasonably interpose their authority, to prevent the evil from extending any further, or rather to extinguish it in its very commencement; which, if "they neglect to do, they will be instrumental in producing the greatest detriment to Divine Truth, and to the Political and Ecclesiastical concord of these Provinces."
The dispersion of some of these articles is not a very recent circumstance; for, above two years ago, seventeen out of these thirty-one came into my hands, expressed exactly in the same words as those that occur in the writing which is the subject of my present remarks. But I was silent, and concealed my regret; for I thought that those articles would, in their very infancy, die a natural death, since part of them were destitute of the truth of historical narration, by not being attributed to those who had been the authors of them; and part of them were void of all real theological sense, by the strange intermixture of truth and falsehood. But the issue did not answer my expectation. For they not only remained without diminution, but gained an increase, by the addition of other fourteen to the former seventeen articles, and by a far wider dispersion of the whole than had at first been made. This unexpected result had the effect of inducing me to think that I ought to oppose their progress by a moderate answer, lest my continued silence should be interpreted as tantamount to a confession. If this be the interpretation which, on many occasions is given to silence, it is an easy matter thus to construe it respecting any doctrine that is aspersed as. a heresy, "under which imputation," it is said in a vaunting tone, "St. Jerome would have no man to remain patient."
In this reply I will use candour and conscience. Whatever I know to be true, I will confess and defend. On whatever subjects I may feel hesitation, I will not conceal my ignorance; and whatever my mind dictates to be false, I will deny and refute. May the God of truth and peace direct my mind and my hand by his Holy Spirit! Amen.
