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Letter to Hippolytus A Collibus: Chapter 8 - Certain Articles Diligently Examined & Weighed

By Jacobus Arminius


      CERTAIN ARTICLES TO BE DILIGENTLY EXAMINED AND WEIGHED. BECAUSE SOME CONTROVERSY HAS ARISEN CONCERNING THEM AMONG EVEN THOSE WHO PROFESS THE REFORMED RELIGION

      These articles are partly either denied or affirmed in a decisive manner, and partly either denied or affirmed in a doubting manner, each of which methods signified by certain indicative signs which are added to the different articles.

      I. ON THE SCRIPTURE AND HUMAN TRADITIONS

      1. The rule of theological verity is not two-fold, one primary and the other secondary; but it is one and simple, the Sacred Scriptures.

      2. The Scriptures are the rule of all divine verity, from themselves, in themselves, and through themselves; and it is a rash assertion, "that they are indeed the rule, but only when understood according to the meaning of the confession of the Dutch churches, or when explained by the interpretation of the Heidelberg Catechism."

      3. No writing composed by men -- by one man, by few men, or by many -- (with the exception of the Holy Scriptures,) is either axiopison "creditable of itself," or autopison "of itself deserving of implicit credence," and, therefore, is not exempted from an examination to be instituted by means of the Scriptures.

      4. It is a thoughtless assertion, "that the Confession and Catechism are called in question, when they are subjected to examination;" for they have never been placed beyond the hazard of being called in doubt, nor can they be so placed.

      5. It is tyrannical and popish to bind the consciences of men by human writings, and to hinder them from being submitted to a legitimate examination, under what pretext soever such tyrannical conduct is adopted.

      II. ON GOD CONSIDERED ACCORDING TO HIS NATURE

      1. GOD is good by a natural and internal necessity, not freely; which last word is stupidly explained by the terms "unconstrainedly" and "not slavishly."

      2. God foreknows future things through the infinity of his essence, and through the pre-eminent perfection of his understanding and prescience, not as he willed or decreed that they should necessarily be done, though he would not foreknow them except as they were future, and they would not be future unless God had decreed either to perform or to permit them.

      3. God loves righteousness and his creatures, yet he loves righteousness still more than the creatures, from which, two consequences follow:

      4. The First, that God does not hate his creature, except on account of sin.

      5. The Second, that God absolutely loves no creature to life eternal, except when considered as righteous, either by legal or evangelical righteousness.

      6. The will of God is both correctly and usefully distinguished into that which is antecedent, and that which is consequent.

      7. The distinction of the will of God into that which is secret or of his good pleasure, and that which is revealed or signified, cannot bear a rigid examination.

      8. Punitive justice and mercy neither are, nor can they be "the only moving" or final causes of the first decree, or of its first operation.

      9. God is blessed in himself and in the knowledge of his own perfection. He is, therefore, in want of nothing, neither does he require the demonstration of any of his properties by external operations: Yet if he do this, it is evident that he does it of His pure and free will; although, in this declaration [of any of His properties] a certain order must be observed according to the various egresses or "goings forth" of his goodness, and according to the prescript of his wisdom and justice.

      III. ON GOD, CONSIDERED ACCORDING TO THE RELATION BETWEEN THE PERSONS IN THE TRINITY

      1. The Son of God is not called by the ancient fathers "God from himself," and this is a dangerous expression. For, Autoqeov [as thus interpreted, God from himself,] properly signifies that the Son has not the divine essence from another -- But it is by a catachresis, or improperly, that the essence which the Son has is not from another; because the relation of the subject is thus changed: for "the Son," and "the divine essence," differ in relation.

      2. The divine essence is communicated to the Son by the Father, and this properly and truly. Wherefore it is unskillfully asserted "that the divine essence is indeed properly said to be common to the Son and to the Father, but is improperly said to be communicated:" For it is not common to both except in reference to its being communicated.

      3. The Son of God is correctly called Autoqeov "very God," as this word is received for that which is God himself, truly God. But he is erroneously designated by that epithet, so far as it signifies that he has an essence not communicated by the Father, yet has one in common with the Father.

      4. "The Son of God, in regard to his essence, is from himself," is an ambiguous expression, and, on that account, dangerous. Neither is the ambiguity removed by saying "The Son, with respect to his absolute essence, or to his essence absolutely considered, is from himself." Besides, these modes of speaking are not only novel, but are also mere prattle.

      5. The divine persons are not trowoi uparxewv or modes of being or of existing, or modes of the divine essence; For they are things with the mode of being or existing.

      6. The divine persons are distinguished by a real distinction, not by the degree and mode of the thing.

      7. A. person is an individual subsistence itself, not a characteristic property, nor is it an individual principle; though it be not an individual, nor a person, without a characteristic property or without an individual principle.

      8. QUERIES. -- Is it not useful that the Trinity be considered, both as it exists in nature itself, according to the co-essential relation of the divine persons, and as it has been manifested in the economy of salvation, to be accomplished by God the Father, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit? And does not the former of these considerations appertain to religion universally, and to that which was prescribed to Adam, according to the law? But the latter consideration properly belongs to the gospel of Jesus Christ, yet not excluding that which I have mentioned as belonging to all religion universally, and therefore to that which is Christian.

      IV. ON THE DECREE OF GOD

      1. The decrees of God are the extrinsic acts of God, though they are internal, and, therefore, made by the free will of God, without any absolute necessity. Yet one decree seems to require the supposition of another, on account of a certain fitness of equity; as the decree concerning the creation of a rational creature, and the decree concerning the salvation or damnation [of that creature] on the condition of obedience or disobedience. The act of the creature also, when considered by God from eternity, may sometimes be the occasion, and sometimes the outwardly moving cause of making some decree; and this may be so fare that without such act [of the creature] the decree neither would nor could be made.

      2. QUERY. -- Can the act of the creature impose a necessity on God of making some decree, and indeed a decree of a particular kind and no other -- and this not only according to some act to be performed respecting the creature and his act, but also according to a certain mode by which that act must be accomplished?

      3. One and the same in number is the volition by which God decrees something and determines to do or to permit it, and by which he does or permits the very thing which he decreed.

      4. About an object which is one and the same, and uniformly considered, there cannot be two decrees of God, or two volitions, either in reality, or according to any semblance of a contrary volition -- as to will to save man under conditions, and yet to will precisely and absolutely to condemn him.

      5. A decree of itself imposes no necessity on any thing or event. But if any necessity exists through the decree of God, it exists through the intervention of the divine power, and indeed when he judges it proper to employ his irresistible power to effect what he has decreed.

      6. Therefore, it is not correctly said, The will of God is the necessity of things."

      7. Nor is this a just expression: "All things happen necessarily with respect to the divine decree."

      8. As many distinct decrees are conceived by us, and must necessarily be conceived; as there are objects about which God is occupied in decreeing, or as there are axioms by which those decrees are enunciated.

      9. Though all the decrees of God have been made from eternity, yet a certain order of priority and posteriority must be laid down, according to their nature, and the mutual relation between them.

Back to Jacobus Arminius index.

See Also:
   Chapter 1 - Address to the Reader
   Chapter 2 - A Letter Addressed to Hippolytus A Collibus
   Chapter 3 - The Divinity of the Son of God
   Chapter 4 - The Providence of God
   Chapter 5 - Divine Predestination
   Chapter 6 - Grace and Free Will
   Chapter 7 - Justification
   Chapter 8 - Certain Articles Diligently Examined & Weighed
   Chapter 9 - On Predestination to Salvation
   Chapter 10 - On the Creation
   Chapter 11 - On the Providence of God
   Chapter 12 - On Original Sin
   Chapter 13 - On Christ
   Chapter 14 - On Regeneration and the Regenerate
   Chapter 15 - On the Justification of Man
   Chapter 16 - On the Good Works of Believers
   Chapter 17 - On Magistracy
   Chapter 18 - A Letter on the Sin Against the Holy Ghost

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