United States or United States Virgin Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The high spirit of Arminius was goaded almost into frenzy by these bereavements. The fate of his wife, thus torn from him, and of his babe doomed to bondage even before its birth, inflamed the eloquent invectives with which he roused his countrymen against the home traitors, and against their invaders, who thus made war upon women and children.
It was not until the appointment of Jacob Arminius to the professorship of theology at Leyden, in the place of Francis Junius, in the year 1603, that a danger of schism in the Church, seemed impending. Then rose the great Gomarus in his wrath, and with all the powers of splendid eloquence, profound learning, and the intense bigotry of conviction, denounced the horrible heresy.
He ordered the States of Holland on pain of for ever forfeiting his friendship to exclude Vorstius at once from the theological chair and to forbid him from "nestling anywhere in the country." He declared his amazement that they should tolerate such a pest as Conrad Vorstius. Had they not had enough of the seed sown by that foe of God, Arminius?
He was accused of having permitted Arminius to infuse new opinions into the University of Leyden, and of having subsequently defended the appointment of Vorstius to the same place. He had opposed the National Synod. He had made drafts of letters for the King of Great Britain to sign, recommending mutual toleration on the five disputed points regarding predestination.
The original influence of Arminius had however been so great that when the preachers of Holland had been severally called on by a synod to sign the Heidelberg Catechism, many of them refused. Here was open heresy and revolt. It was time for the true church to vindicate its authority.
To other nations who know not the Roman domination, executions and tributes are also unknown; evils which we too have cast off, in spite of that Augustus now dead and enrolled with the Deities; in spite too of Tiberius, his chosen successor: let us not after this dread a mutinous army, and a boy without experience, their commander; but if you love your country, your kindred, your ancient liberty and laws, better than tyrants and new colonies, let Arminius rather lead you to liberty and glory, than the wicked Segestes to the infamy of bondage."
This was done; and the brothers, who apparently had not seen each other for some years, began a conversation from the opposite sides of the stream, in which Arminius questioned his brother respecting the loss of his eye, and what battle it had been lost in, and what reward he had received for his wound.
Men who with William the Silent and Barneveld had indulged in the vision of religious equality as a possible result of so much fighting against the Holy Inquisition were perhaps to be disappointed. Preachers under the influence of the gentle Arminius having dared to refuse signing the Creed were to be dealt with. It was time to pass from censure to action. Heresy must be trampled down.
Be it said however, that less than a month later the Cæsar decided that he himself had been the person most wronged by Arminius, and that the bulk of the profits derived from the sale of the late censor's goods must therefore find its way into the imperial coffers.
Into the original conquerors of a country a miscellaneous assortment of other races always gets absorbed, as the Franks by the Gauls, the Turkish Bulgarians by the Slavs. The Hungarians absorbed into themselves Italians, Germans, and Czechs, and the modern Hungarian is, according to Arminius Vambery, a typical product of the fusion of Europe and Asia, Turanian and Aryan.
Word Of The Day