Similarly the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was received two or three times a year, on the ground that Christ had ordered it, but without any claim of efficacy. Church membership did not rest on any doctrinal basis of creed or confession, but on the general sense of the Church and the plain meaning of Scripture. Such statements as were put forth on these points were to inform those outside, for the purpose of avoiding misconceptions, and to clear the Church of Menno from the charges of antinomianism which attached to the name of Anabaptists.
I told you in my lecture on the Congregationalists of the establishment by English refugees of an Independent congregation in Amsterdam, and I called your attention to the fact that that body had great difficulty in maintaining itself as distinct from Presbyterianism. This, however, it contrived to do; but it was unable to save itself from a secession to the Anabaptists. The weakness of Congregationalism lay in the fact that it was too purely a protest. The more logical and consistent system of the Anabaptists contained all that the Congregationalists strove for, and went further. It is not surprising that it attracted some who were wearied by the contentions which arose amongst the Congregationalists at Amsterdam. One of them, John Smith, who had been Vicar of Gainsborough, was greatly affected by the theological speculations then rife in Holland. He deserted Calvinism for the more human theology of Arminius, and accepted the view that election was the gift of the Holy Spirit to faith, but that faith did not necessarily imply final perseverance. Moreover, he differed from
