such Dishes are were now plentifully set before them, than they had done in former times; which they either were not to be had, or not to be fed upon without fear of surfeit, without ••••edanger of dilgorging what before they had eaten.
But so it 〈…〉〈…〉 that while matters went thus fairly forwards, [unspec VIII] Condradus Vorstius, suspected for a Sain••setenian, or Socinian Heretick; and one who had derogated in his writings from the Pur••y, the Immensity, the Omniscience, and immutability of Almighty God, was chosen by the Curators of Leiden, Anno 1611. to succeed Arminius in that place. Wherewith King James being made acquainted inflamed as well with a pious ••••al to the honour of God, as a just fear lest the Contagion of his Errors might cross the Seas and infect his own Sujects also, he first sollicited the States not to suffer such a man to be placed amongst them, and afterwards to send him back, when they had received him. But finding no success in either, and having sent many sruitless Mes∣sages and Letters to the States about it, he published his Declaration against the said Vorstius, and therein used many harsh and bitter Expressions against Arminius and his followers (of which see Cap. 6. Num. 37. as if they had been guilty of the same im∣pieties. This put the Calvinists again upon such a Gog that none of their Adversaries in either of the Universities (of what eminent parts and name soever) could escape their hands. During which heats, the reverend Dr. Houson, who had been Vice-Chancellor of the University ten years before, was called in question and suspended by Dr. Reb. Abbot, then Dr. of the Chair and Vice-Chancellour also, Propter conciones publicas, minus Orthodoxas & plenas offensionis: for preaching certain Sermons less Or∣thodox and fuller of offence than they should have been. He was sufficiently known for an Anticalvinist; and had preached somewhat tending to the disparagement of the Genevian Annotations on the Holy Scriptures (censured more bitterly by none than King James himself) which brought him under this displeasure. And about two years after, Anno 1614. the said Dr. Abbot fell violently soul on Dr. William Laud, then President of St. John's Colledg, whom in his Sermon at St. Peters on Easter Sunday, he publickly exposed to contempt and scorn under the notion of a Papist, as Barrets d••ctri••es had been formerly condemned at Cambridge by the name of Popery, for which consult the Anti-Armin. p. 66.
But there was something more peculiar in the case of Mr. Edward Sympson than in that of the two great Doctors before remembred; [unspec IX] King James himself being both the Informer and the Prosecutor against this man, as it is thus related by the Church Historian viz. It happened in the year 1616. that Mr. Edward Sympson, (a very good Scholar) fellow of trinity Colledg,
preached a Sermon before King James at Royston, taking for his Text John 3.6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh: Hence he en∣deavoured to prove that the committing of any great sin doth extinguish Grace and Gods Spirit for the time in the man.
He added also that S.
Paul in the seventh Chap∣ter to the
Remans spake not of himself as an Apostle and
Regenerate, but
sub statu legis: Hereat his Majesty took (and publickly expressed) great distaste; because
Arminius had lately been blamed for extracting the like Exposition out of the works of
Faustus Socinus. Whereupon he sent to the two Professors in
Cambridg for their Judgment herein, who proved and subscribed the place
ad Rom. 7. to be understood of a
Regene∣rate man, according to St.
Augustines latter Opinion in his Retractations; and the Preacher was enjoined a publick Recantation before the King, which accordingly was performed by him. In which it is first to be observed, that no offence was taken at the first part of his Sermon, in which he went no further than Dr.
Overald had gone before, as in our last Chap.
Num. 6. Secondly, That the latter part thereof might have given as little, if his Exposition on the 13. Chap of St.
Pauls Epistle to the
Romans, had not been fathered on
Arminius, against whom the King had openly declared in his book against
Vorstius, and likewise upon his followers in the
Belgick Provinces himself as a dangerous party, which he then laboured to suppress as before was noted. And therefore, thirdly, I observe that the two Professors in
Cambridg did neither more wholly or originally of their own authority, but as they were set on by the King, who could nor otherwise be satisfied than by some such censure on
Arminius, and conse∣quently for his sake on the Preacher too. For that King
James condemned not the
Arminian doctrines in themselves, though he had taken some displeasure against their persons, as is said before, appears not only by rejecting the
Lambeth Articles, and his dislike of the
Calvinian doctrine of
Predestination, in the conference at
Hampton Court, but also by instructing his Divines commissionated for the Synod of
Dort, not to op∣pose the Article of
Ʋniversal Redemption, which they accordingly performed. Nor