# Miller speaks from the grave



## Poimen (Apr 1, 2005)

The other day I was reading an introductory essay that Samuel Miller wrote for _The Articles of the Synod of Dort_. One point in particular hit me like a ton of bricks because it speaks volumes about where we are in the church today with the NPP and the FV:



> "œWhen heresy rises in an evangelical body, it is never frank and open. It always begins by skulking, and assuming a disguise. Its advocates, when together, boast of great improvements, and congratulate one another on having gone greatly beyond the "œold dead orthodoxy," and on having left behind many of its antiquated errors: but when taxed with deviations from the received faith, they complain of the unreasonableness of their accusers, as they "œdiffer from it _only in words_." This has been the standing course of errorists ever since the apostolic age. They are almost never honest and candid as a party, until they gain strength enough to be sure of some degree of popularity. Thus it was with Arius in the fourth century, with Pelagius in the fifth, with Arminius and his companions in the seventeenth, with Amyraut and his associates in France soon afterwards, and with the Unitarians in Massachusetts, toward the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. They denied their real tenets, evaded examination or inquiry, declaimed against their accusers as merciless bigots and heresy-hunters, and strove as long as they could to appear to agree with the most orthodox of their neighbours; until the time came when, partly from inability any longer to cover up their sentiments, and partly because they felt strong enough to come out, they at length avowed their real opinions."
> 
> -Samuel Miller, 1841



[Edited on 4-1-2005 by poimen]


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## Poimen (Apr 1, 2005)

One qualification: Miller is addressing Arminius' teaching.


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## Puritan Sailor (Apr 1, 2005)

He's right on. And it does apply to the NPP and FV teaching as well, since that is just redressed arminianism. But the pattern is striking and common among many deviants in reformed history.


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## lwadkins (Apr 1, 2005)

It's also what is going on in churches that dismantle everything of the "old dead orthodoxy" in order to become "relevant" to people of today.


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## wsw201 (Apr 2, 2005)

There is nothing new under the sun. Though Miller's comments were addressed to Arminians, it fits FV/NPP. In fact this MO will always be the case for false teachers.


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