Arminius and his coworkers accepted what the early Protestant movement had
regarded as essential, that religion should be always obedient to the
rational spirit, that nature should be the test in regard to all which
affects human conduct, and that the critical spirit ought to be applied to
dogma and Bible. Arminius reasserted this freedom of the human spirit, and
vindicated the right of the individual mind to seek God and his truth
wherever they may be found.

As Protestantism became firmly established in England, and the nation
accepted its mental and moral attitude without reserve, what is known as
Arminianism came to be more and more prevalent. This was not a body of
doctrines, and it was in no sense a sectarian movement: it was rather a
mental temper of openness and freedom. In a word, Arminianism became a
method of religious inquiry that appealed to reason, nature, and the needs
of man. It put new emphasis on the intellectual side of religion, and it
developed as a moral protest against the harsher features of Calvinism. It
gave to human feelings the right to express themselves as elements in the
problem of man's relations to God, and vindicated for God the right to be
deemed as sympathetic and loving as the men who worship him.

While the Arminians accepted the Bible as an authoritative standard as
fully as did the Calvinists, they were more critical in its study: they
applied literary and historical standards in its interpretation, and they
submitted it to the vindication of reason. They sought to escape from the
tyranny of the Bible, and yet to make it a living force in the world of
conduct and character. They not only declared anew the right of private
judgment, but they wished to make the Bible the source of inward spiritual
illumination,--not a standard and a test, but an awakener of the divine
life in the soul. They sought for what is really essential in religious
truth, limited the number of dogmas that may be regarded as requisite to