651.

Whitlocke, p.

12.
It was not possible that this century, so fertile in religious sects and disputes, could escape the controversy concerning fatalism and free will, which, being strongly interwoven both with philosophy and theology had, in all ages, thrown every school and every church into such inextricable doubt and perplexity.

The first reformers in England, as in other European countries, had embraced the most rigid tenets of predestination and absolute decrees, and had composed upon that, system all the articles of their religious creed.

But these principles having met with opposition from Arminius and his sectaries, the controversy was soon brought into this island and began here to diffuse itself.