He became a pastor at Bordeaux, a professor at Montauban, and founder of the theological school of Saumur. He was a prudent innovator who tried to discover joints in the armour of Calvinism through which he could quietly inject a gentler and more wholesome spirit. He tried to modify the strict doctrine of predestination by teaching that God calls all men to salvation while He does not give to all the gift of faith, and his doctrine of the Church would not exclude an Anglican or even deny to a sincere Papist the possibility of salvation. After his death he was accused of heresy, but the French Huguenots as a body regarded Cameron with sincere esteem.1

Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614), one of the most learned men in France, is a man who should never be forgotten by the Church of England. The world has seldom known a more eager student, a more sincere seeker after truth, one more glad to be alone with God and with his books'. We who are surrounded by a knowledge of the antique world accumulated by the labour of more than four hundred years cannot realize the difficulties, but we can respect the toil, of one who at Geneva, Montpellier, and Paris sought diligently for truth and wisdom. Regretting every moment snatched from study, he could hold his own with the French king, Henry IV, with Cardinal Du Perron, or with the theologians of Holland. His religion was not confined to his study. When in Paris he would go ten miles to worship at a Protestant temple, even when he had to walk both ways in bad weather. And it was this man who by slowly formed convictions crossed over to the position of the Church of England. Writing to his friend Daniel Tilenus, professor at Sedan, he explains that he had read Bellarmin, and that on Scripture, the authority of the old interpreters, human traditions, on the power of the Pope, on images, on

、 1 For Cameron, see G. Bonet-Maury, ' Jean Cameron' in Études de Théologie et d'Histoire (Fischbacher, Paris, 1901).

indulgences, he could by certain reasons demonstrate all Bellarmin's positions to be false. But when he came to the chapter on the sacraments (though there were also some things which could no less be refuted) it was clear to him that on certain points the whole of antiquity with one consent was on the side of their opponents; 'for', he says, unless I am mistaken, I can most certainly prove that those of our writers who have attempted to show that the Fathers held our views have egregiously wasted their time and been blind in broad daylight '.1

After a transient wish to go to the Greek Church at Venice, he determined to see the Church of England. He came and he was convinced. He had to lose many old friends, both Calvinist and Roman Catholic. But he won good new friends, including the saintly Bishop Andrewes. His remarks on Oxford, and his comparison of our university with that of Paris, are judiciously in favour of Oxford, though he says 'we are occupied in perpetual feastings'. He was well received, and at Magdalen College he was splendidly entertained. He was not destined to live long in his new home. He had worked too hard, and he suffered from an excruciating disease which brought him to the grave in 1614, while still engaged in writing a reply to the Roman Catholic protagonist Baronius. On his death-bed he received the holy communion at the hands of Bishop Andrewes and asked that the Nunc dimittis should be read to him. He is a man in whom it is difficult to find a fault, except that he never took a holiday.

The tendency to break away from Calvinism is once more illustrated by the career of Gerhard Johann Voss (15771649), a scholar of Dutch family who was born at Heidelberg, but studied under Gomarus at Leiden, where he became the lifelong friend of the celebrated Grotius. From

1 Isaaci Casauboni Epistolae, Ep. 1043 (Fritsch et Böhm, Roterodami, 1709).

1614 to 1619 he was director of the theological college at Leiden, and had already gained a high reputation as a scholar when he was compelled to escape expulsion by resignation. He had published a history of the Pelagian controversies, in which he maintained that absolute predestination was not a doctrine of the primitive Church, a view which modern writers regard as unassailable. The book excited keen interest in England, and Voss accepted from Archbishop Laud a prebend in Canterbury without residence, and was given a doctor's degree at Oxford. He died at Amsterdam, where he had been appointed professor of history in the Athenaeum.

In no country was the tendency to desert from Calvinism more pronounced than in Holland. Officially Holland became 'Reformed', that is, Calvinist, but it was in Holland that Calvinism had to fight against one of its most powerful opponents, Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609). He had been a student at the university of Geneva under Beza and became a professor at Leiden. He was widely travelled, open minded, and a faithful pastor. He taught that election and reprobation are conditional, and depend upon the perseverance, foreseen by God, of some men in good, of others in evil. He denied that grace is irresistible, and would not admit that the merits of Christ are only for the elect. He did not deny election, but would admit nothing as true if it made God the author of evil.

No doctrines could be more hateful to men who were convinced that their own election was a certainty. He was opposed by his colleague Francis Gomarus, and all Holland became involved in the dispute. In 1610 the followers of Arminius addressed to the Dutch Parliament a Remonstrance comprising five articles which protest against Calvinism and assert the universality of grace. Arminius, worn out by a controversy which he had not desired, had died in the previous year. The leader of the party was now Episcopius,

who was supported by Oldenbarnevelt, the distinguished statesman, and Hugo Grotius, the celebrated jurist. Maurice, Prince of Orange, at first took their side, and then basely deserted them. Oldenbarnevelt was executed. Grotius was immured in the fortress of Loevesteyn, and would have remained there indefinitely if it had not been for the heroic ingenuity of his wife who smuggled him away in a box intended for books and dirty linen.

To settle the dispute once for all, the Synod of Dort was summoned to meet in 1618. It was meant to be international, but the French Calvinists were refused permission to attend, and the German delegates included no representatives from Brandenburg. The decisions of the synod were almost a foregone conclusion. They were not quite so extravagant as the doctrines of Gomarus, but they repeated the five shibboleths of the Swiss Reformation-unconditional election—a limited atonement-the total depravity of man-the irresistible nature of grace-and the final perseverance of the elect who will never be cast away. The sessions at Dort, the most imposing in the history of the ' Reformed' religion, closed with a luxurious feast, and the Arminian teachers were banished from the greater part of Holland. The result was hailed with joy by the Calvinists of Great Britain, where, in the days of James I, to be called an Arminian was the equivalent of being called a 'Puseyite' sixty years ago. The synod also attempted to establish a uniform system of Church government throughout Holland. The attempt failed, and the different States of the Republic continued to act separately in their relations with the Church. This division of the Church into different compartments facilitated its subjection to the Government, and at The Hague the House of Orange ruled both Church and State on political principles more Machiavellian than Calvinist. Political considerations secured freedom for Lutherans, Arminian Remonstrants, and other Protestants, and the Roman Catholics steadily multiplied.

The general temper of the Dutch nation, thoughtful, cautious, and resolute, was very favourable to liberty. They were a rich mercantile people, and as the Spanish proverb has it,' Mr. Money is a good Catholic'. They liked comfort, good houses, and good pictures. The Protestant churches which they built were plain but dignified; even in their colonies such churches as those in Ceylon at Jaffna and Galle are far from being contemptible. Unlike so many of their Scottish co-religionists, who abhorred a 'kist of whistles', the Dutch liked fine organs, and the famous organ which the Calvinists set up in the cathedral church at Haarlem is as sweet as the cathedral's mediaeval bells. Amsterdam has been called the Venice of the North', and the resemblance is more than the mere outward resemblance of narrow streets and interlacing canals. Like Venice it was a home of art, though an art which was no more Catholic than it was Puritan. Like Venice it became a city of refuge. Hither came the Jews who fled from Spain and Portugal. Here they built their stately synagogue, printed their books, and for many generations spoke the antique Castilian dialect that may still be heard in Salonika.1 Here they excommunicated the great philosopher Spinoza, whose Pantheism was destined to do more injury to Protestantism than to Judaism. Hither to Amsterdam came Descartes, who had learnt much and observed much, resolved to forget everything and to reconstruct for himself the edifice of knowledge. And the élite of the Protestants expelled from France, men of refinement and learning, came to Holland before the seventeenth century was gone.

'The existing 'Portuguese synagogue' at Amsterdam was consecrated with much pomp, August the 2nd, 1675. It is a fine building in a Dutch version of the Palladian style. The sermons of the rabbis were not wanting in the imagination engendered by enthusiasm; one of these sages discovered the name of William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, in the Book of Isaiah. On the languages spoken by these Jews, see app. note 12, p. 266. The Jewish authorities promised Spinoza a yearly pension of 1,000 florins if he would outwardly conform to the rites of the synagogue. On his refusal he was excommunicated, 1656.