corrupt church of Rome soon after the church of England had cast off the
papal yoke; and they were generously aided in their endeavours to
recover their civil and religious liberties by our good Queen Elizabeth
and her wise counsellors. The first Christian teachers among them were
Lutherans; but in process of time, the celebrity of Geneva as a place of
public instruction for ministers of religion induced the majority of the
candidates for the ministry to repair to that university; and, as might
naturally be expected, they imported into the Low Countries the peculiar
views of Calvin and Beza on the subject of predestination. It is justly
observed by Le Vassor, “Some learned Hollanders had boldly defended this
doctrine, before Arminius became a minister at Amsterdam and a professor
at Leyden, and likewise before Gomarus had risen up against him. Their
writings are still extant; although it is true that certain ministers,
who were too hasty, exerted themselves to bring those authors and their
productions into disrepute; but the states of Holland uniformly checked
this impetuous zeal. The professors of Leyden were allowed a perfect
liberty of teaching conformably to the sentiments of Melancthon; and
when Arminius was called to that university, his opinions were generally
known; for he had declared them in the church of Amsterdam, from the
consistory of which he received very honourable testimonials. Gomarus,
and many others of the same opinion, having entered into conversation
with Arminius, made no scruple of acknowledging immediately that the
difference of sentiments which existed between them did not at all
concern the foundations of the Reformation. True it is, that Gomarus did
not remain long on good terms with Arminius. Whether he had taken
umbrage at the reputation of his new colleague, or the enemies of
Arminius had found means to provoke the anger of Gomarus by some artful
insinuation or other; he violently set his face against a man whom, some
time before, he looked upon as orthodox.” The struggles of the party of
Arminius in Holland, after the death of that great man, to obtain a
toleration for their opinions, are matters of history. The political
circumstances of that country and of Europe in general were at that
period very peculiar, and exercised great influence in the convening and
conducting of that famous ecclesiastical assembly, the synod of Dort;
but in a sketch like this, they can only be briefly mentioned. Frederic,
the elector Palatine, married Elizabeth, the only daughter of our King
James the First; he was nephew to Maurice the prince of Orange: and he
sent his Heidelberg divines to the synod to assist his uncle in the
condemnation of the Remonstrant party, as the Arminians were generally
called, and to gratify his polemical father-in-law in the overthrow of
the heretical Vorstius. In return, he naturally expected both of his
relations to aid him in his grand enterprise of seizing on the crown of
Bohemia; in which, soon after the banishment of the Remonstrants, he
completely succeeded,--though he subsequently lost that crown and all
his hereditary possessions, and embroiled nearly the whole of Protestant
Europe in the famous thirty years’ war.
The Remonstrants, according to Nichols, in the ample notes to his
translation of the “Works of Arminius,” had long wished to have their
“Five Points” of doctrine brought for adjudication either before a
_provincial_ synod, to prepare matters for a _national_ one; or to have
them brought at once before a _general council_ of Protestant divines.
But the Calvinists would listen to neither of these equitable proposals.
If a _provincial synod_ were convened, especially in that province
(Holland) which most needed such a remedy, these men well knew, from
trial, how difficult it would be to combat and refute the strong and
popular arguments of the Remonstrants, when both parties were placed
nearly on an equality in the same assembly; and if a _general council_
of Protestants was summoned together, they were certain that the
principles of Arminius would, without demur, be recognized as integral
parts of Scripture verity, and consequently entitled not only to
toleration, (which was all that the Remonstrants had desired,) but to
the especial patronage of the civil authorities. The latter result was
anticipated, from the immense preponderance which the Lutheran divines,
from all the small states of Germany, and from other parts of the north
of Europe, would have had in such a council. Numerous state papers on
this subject were written by the public functionaries of the different
provinces in the year 1617; among which those of the composition of the
learned Grotius, who conducted the arguments in favour of a _general
council_, are very conspicuous for the superior ability which they
display. A _national synod_ was therefore the sole remedy which the
wisdom, or rather the worldly prudence, of the Calvinists could discover
for removing the maladies under which the churches of Holland were at
that time labouring. In showing cause for their preference, they were
placed in an awkward dilemma; for they perceived, that the strongest
reasons to be adduced for the adoption of this measure would extend too
far, and might, in the hands of their able antagonists, be made to apply
with greater cogency to the convening of a general council.
The designs which Prince Maurice had long cherished against the ancient
liberties and internal jurisdiction of the states, (each of which
possessed by the act of union the complete management of its own
affairs,) were then in a course of execution. By the forcible and
illegal removal of the old burgomasters and governors, and the
appointment of new ones; by the preponderance which these newly elected
individuals gave to their own party in their election of persons to fill
the higher offices of state in the various towns which had been
ill-affected toward Calvinism and arbitrary power; and by the untrue and
scandalous reports which were invented and industriously propagated
respecting the alleged secret intentions of Barnevelt and the Arminians
to deliver up their country to the Spaniards; the prince was enabled to
succeed in his ambitious enterprises. To the party, therefore, that had
forwarded his views he willingly gave all the weight of his influence,
and that of the States General, the majority of whom, in virtue of the
late unlawful changes effected in the provinces, were favourable, not
only to Calvinism, but to any measure which the prince might think fit
to propose. It was in allusion to the revolution, thus craftily
completed, that Bogerman, as president of the synod of Dort, told
Episcopius, in a sarcastic style, as Hales tells us, “You may remember
what you told the foreign divines in your letter to them, that there had
of late been a great metamorphosis in the state; you are no longer
judges and men in power, but persons under citation.” In such a state of
affairs, an ordinance of government was easily obtained for convening a
national synod, which was to consist of native divines appointed by the
different classes and presbyteries, of civil deputies chosen out of each
province by the states, and of foreign divines deputed by such churches
as had adopted both the platform and the doctrine of Geneva. The temper
and intolerant conduct of the various ecclesiastical meetings with whom
rested the inland appointments, had been but too apparent; and time had
not mollified their intolerant principles; for, under the new order of
things, and with the sanction of the fresh race of magistrates, they
were emboldened to effect a schism in many of the chief towns, and
forcibly to exclude the Arminian ministers from the churches which they
occupied. In other towns, in which these bold practices could not be
attempted with any probability of success, they employed the
ecclesiastical arms of the classes, provincial synods, and other packed
vestry-meetings, the members of which (consisting generally of
Calvinists) summoned before them all the chief Arminian pastors in the
various districts, accused them of holding heterodox opinions on the
subject of predestination, and suspended or expelled them from the
ministry. This work of expulsion and suspension was carried on by the
dominant party, even during the time in which the fate of Arminianism
was in a course of determination by the synod of Dort: so that, had that
far-famed and reverend assembly decided in favour of a toleration of the
Arminian doctrines, the minor church meetings had left few ministers of
that persecuted denomination to profit from such a decision. The
Calvinistic account of this summary and iniquitous process is thus
given, in the preface to the acts of the National Synod: “And since
there were several pastors in that province, [Guelderland,] some of whom
had been suspected of many other errors beside the Five Points of the
Remonstrants, others of them had illegally intruded into the office of
the ministry, while others were men of profligate habits; certain
persons of this description being cited before the [provincial] synod
[of Guelderland and Zutphen, held at Arnheim, in July, 1618,] were
suspended from the ministry for some of the before-mentioned reasons,
and by no means on account of the opinion contained in the Five Points
of the Remonstrants, which was reserved for the cognizance of the
national synod. The trial of the rest of these men being dismissed in
the name of the synod, was committed to a deputation from their body, to
whom the states added certain of their own delegates. When they had
fully investigated the cases of these men in their classes, they
suspended some of them from the ministry, and entirely removed others.”
In the very able memorial which the Remonstrants, on their arrival at
the synod, presented to the foreign members, it is justly observed,
respecting those who were accused of having taught, beside the Five
Points, those doctrines which were contrary to the fundamentals of
faith: “Such particular cases do not in any manner affect the common
cause of the Remonstrants, but concern those alone who may be found
guilty of them. Nor are we adverse to the issuing of ecclesiastical
censures against such persons, provided they be lawfully put upon their
trials, and fairly heard in defence of themselves against such charges.”
Because the members of these Calvinistic provincial synods could not be
long absent from their respective congregations, such galloping
commissions as these, endowed with ample powers, were appointed to
traverse every province in which Arminianism had been planted; and they
soon showed to the world the most compendious method of rooting out
reputed heresies. Their track through the land resembled that of the
angel of destruction; it was marked by anguish, mourning, and
desolation. After this detail, established by the synodical documents
themselves, few words will suffice to point out the purely Calvinistic
constitution of the synod of Dort. When very few Remonstrant ministers
remained in the land, except such as were ejected from the church or
under suspension, it was no difficult matter to procure an assemblage of
men that were of one heart respecting the main object that was then
sought to be accomplished.
In the original order for holding the synod, and in the list appended to
it, as they were both passed by the States General, no mention was made
of inviting any other churches, except those of England, France, the
Palatinate, Hesse, and Switzerland, and it was a matter postponed for
farther deliberation, whether any invitation should be transmitted to
the churches of Bremen, Brandenburgh, Geneva, and Nassau. The clergy of
the principality of Anhalt were not invited to the synod, because their
opinions were understood to be similar to those of the Remonstrants, the
ancient confession adopted by their churches being decided on the
subject of conditional predestination. The divines of Bremen were viewed
as men inclined too much to moderate counsels, and on that account
improper representatives in an assembly that intended to carry every
proposition with the unanimity of force. The divines of Brandenburgh
were the last of those invited. Indeed no invitation was transmitted to
them, till the state and temper of their churches had been ascertained
with tolerable accuracy; and when it was generally thought that the
deputies from that electorate were tractable and would follow in the
train of the Contra-Remonstrants, it was determined to summon them to
the synod. It was for some time a matter of doubt with the leading men
of Holland, whether they ought to invite the divines of Geneva and
Nassau, two of the greatest nurseries of Calvinism, to be present at the
synod. The cause of this demur was, to avoid the appearance of
partiality, which they justly thought all the world would have imputed
to them had they convened an assembly consisting only of Calvinistic
doctors. To keep up this semblance of moderation, the synodical summons
was not transmitted to those divines when they were sent to the churches
of other states and countries. But when Prince Maurice’s schemes of
secular aggrandizement and political power had succeeded beyond his
utmost wishes, they no longer studied to “avoid the appearance of evil,”
but boldly summoned all those divines about whose presence at the synod
they had formerly hesitated. This was a most notable and certain method
of procuring a strict Calvinian uniformity in the members. On this
topic, Hales, in his letters from Dort, to the English ambassador at the
Hague, says, “For a general confession of faith, at least so far as
those churches stretch who have delegates here in the synod, I think his
project very possible, there being no point of faith in which they
differ.” Great interest was made at the court of France, to procure the
attendance of deputies from the reformed churches of that country; but
the king of France prohibited the Protestant clergy within his dominions
from becoming members of the synod, or assisting at its deliberations.
The letters of the States General, inviting the foreign divines to the
national synod, were issued on the 25th of June, 1618; and the members
were summoned to meet together in the city of Dort, on the first day of
November in the same year. The letters of invitation to the divines of
the united provinces were dated Sept. 20th, and the synod of Dort was
formally opened Nov. 13th. Whosoever casts his eye over the list of the
foreign divines that composed this last of Protestant councils, will
find scarcely one man who had not distinguished himself by his decided
opposition to the doctrine of conditional predestination, and who was
not consequently disqualified from acting the part of an impartial judge
of the existing religious differences, or that of a peace-maker. This
caused the famous Daniel Tilenus to observe, that “no persons were
summoned to Dort who were not well known to be zealous promoters of
Calvin’s predestination. In former ages, men were accustomed, first to
go to the councils, and then to declare their sentiments: just the
reverse of this is the practice in our days; for no one could be
admitted into the synod of Dort unless he had previously manifested the
bearing of his opinions.”