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    meats for the government of that Church , it has been decreed : That at the examinations of the candidates for the ministry , no mention is to be made of the five points wherein the Arminians or Remonstrants disagree with

    the Calvinists ; and that the subscription of ministers to the confession of faith , is to be made with this new and cautious condition , that they will teach and preach according to it , so far as they judge it to agree with the word of God . The same Synod invited all

    the Protestant Dissenters , i . e . the Anticalvinists , to partake with their churches of the Lord's Supper . One Review , formerly characterized as ultra-orthodox , disclaims for the present clergy of Holland , any attachment to the canons of the Synod of Dort , of

    the year 1618 , and asserts , in several places , that it considers all the different doctrines among the Protestants , as speculative opinions , having no connexion with the positive doctrines of Christianity . A sermon has been published , pronounced by a Professor of Theology at Ley den , in which the

    doctrine of predestination is described as a frightful doctrine , —dishonourable to God , —and absurd , —representing the Deity as practising a contemptible deception upon his creatures , inviting and calling them to repentance , and salvation , after having predetermined the everlasting misery of the greatest part of them . The Reviewers ,

    astonished at this open attack on a doctrine preached formerly by themselves , pronounce the terms here used to be too harsh , and insulting to a doctrine which , during two centuries , has made an interesting part of the popular belief . They agree , however , that the

    word election is to be understood , as used concerning that which is chosen or preferred on account of some better quality and disposition , as Paul is named a chosen vessel , &c . They propose to explain the word in this sense , without mentioning or reproaching the former doctrine , and trust , that in so doing , the former erroneous explication will be forgotten , and the truth insensibl y prevail . Here we see in the Church of Holland another proof of the inexpediency and injurious tendency of human forms of bejief , forced wnder the imme of creeds on Christian

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    ministers . It is certainly not by a suddenly received light , that , the . clergy in Holland have discovered , that , as fax as regards the doctrine of p redes tinar ; tion at least , the creed till of late unconditionally subscribed by them , and

    forced upon others , is not in accordance with the Bible . The growing disbelief in the doctrine has at length encouraged , perhaps forced them , to make this confession ; they dare not , however , now do this from the pulpit , where they , as their brethren the

    Calvimsts in this country , were formerly always insisting upon it . Their now determined silence on this point cannot however fail to be observed by a people , who , like that of Scotland , have always put a high value on the articles of their creed , and make them

    a subject for the exercise of their ingenuity ; the fanatical Calvinists will cry out against them , and they are thus in danger of losing their influence and usefulness with their congregations . And when these congregations reflect , that their ministers have preached to them at least one doctrine which

    they did not themselves believe ; that the Creed and the Catechism remain the same , and their children are still obliged to learn and taught to believe them ; is there not danger that this may lead the half-informed , the great

    majority in all communities , to become sceptics , and entertain doubts on the essential parts of the Christian religion ? I do not blame the present clergy of Holland . Those who have gone before them have done the mischief . Creeds and Catechisms cannot

    be altered in any country in Europe without convulsion , and unsettling the rninds of the great bulk of the people , because they have been accustomed and taught to look on them as no less sacred than the Bible . The safest way then certainly , is that now adopted by necessity . It is safest to introduce , as

    is now attempted to be done , not by authority of the Synod or the churches , but by other means , different catechisms to take insensibly the place of the present one . What the former orthodox party consider now as positive doctrines of Christianity , appear to me to be few . In the great number of sermons published the last three vears , and mentioned in the Reviews ,

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    Notices of Foreign Ltiter . atutk * 419

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1821, page 419, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2502/page/39/