A native of Oude-water, in Holland, 1560, founder of the sect of the Arminians. As he lost his father early, he was supported at the university of Utrecht, and of Marpurg, by the liberality of his friends; but when he returned home, in the midst of the ravages caused by the Spanish arms, instead of being received by his mother, he found that she, as well as her daughters, and all her family, had been sacrificed to the wantonness of the ferocious enemy. His distress was for a while inconsolable; but the thirst after distinction called [pg 374] him to the newly-founded university of Leyden, where his industry acquired him the protection of the magistrates of Amsterdam, at whose expense he travelled to Geneva and Italy, to hear the lectures of Theodore Beza and James Zabarella. On his return to Holland, he was ordained minister of Amsterdam, 1588. As professor of divinity at Leyden, to which office he was called 1603, he distinguished himself by three valuable orations on the object of theology, on the author and end of it, and on the certainty of it; and he afterwards explained the prophet Jonah. In his public and private life, Arminius has been admired for his moderation; and though many gross insinuations have been thrown against him, yet his memory has been fully vindicated by the ablest pens, and he seemed entitled to the motto which he assumed,—A good conscience is a paradise. A life of perpetual labor and vexation of mind at last brought on a sickness of which he died, October 19, 1619. His writings were all on controversial and theological subjects, and were published in one volume, quarto, Frankfort, 1661.