The articles of the Synod of Dort

Contents

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PREFACE - 79

L PREFACE TO THE REFORMED CHURCHES; in which the rise and progress of those controversies in Belgium, for the removal of which this Synod was especially held, are briefly and faithfully related - 83 Introduction to this Preface and the History contained

Chapter I. On the doctrine of divine Predestination, in

eighteen articles, (with Notes and References) - 260 These eighteen articles, as abbreviated by Tilenus, and

reported by Heylin, in one article, (with a remark) 271 Rejection of Errors, by which the Belgic churches have for some time been disturbed, (with Notes and References) - - 273

Chapter II. On the doctrine of the Death of Christ, and through it of the Redemption of Man, in nine articles,

(with Notes, &c.) 282

Abbreviation (in one article) by Tilenus and Heylm - 286

CONTENTS.

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Rejection of Errors on the Second Chapter, in seven articles (with Notes, &c.) 286

Chapters III and IV. On the doctrine of Man's corruption, and on the method of his conversion to God; in seventeen articles, (with Notes, &c.) - - - 292

Abbreviation by Tilenus and Heylin, in two articles 304

Rejection of Errors on the third and fourth chapters, in nine articles (with Notes, &c.) - - - 305 Chapter V. Of Doctrine. — Concerning the Perseverance of the saints, in fifteen articles, (with Notes, &c.) - 314

Abbreviation by Tilenus and Heylin in one article, with their conclusion, and a remark upon it - - 322

Rejection of Errors on the fifth chapter, concerning the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, in nine articles, (with Notes, &c.) 323

f Conclusion, (with Notes, &c.) .... 330

The decision of the Synod, concerning the Remonstrants - - - - - - 335

Remarks on this decision - - - - 342

IV. THE APPROBATION of the most illustrious and

VERY POWERFUL LORDS THE STATES-GENERAL - 358

Concluding remarks on this approbation - - 362

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

The convocation and proceedings of the Synod of Dort, may be considered as among the most interesting events of the seventeenth century. The Westminster Assembly of Divines was, indeed, more immediately interesting to British and American Presbyterians; and the works of that celebrated Assembly, as monuments of judgment, taste, and sound theology, have certainly never been equalled by those of any other uninspired ecclesiastical body that ever convened. Yet the Synod of Dort had, undoubtedly, a species of importance peculiar to itself, and altogether pre-eminent. It was not merely a meeting of the select divines of a single nation, but a convention of the Calvinistic world, to bear testimony against a rising and obtrusive error; to settle a question in which all the Reformed Churches of Europe had an immediate and deep interest. The question was, whether the opinions of Arminius, which were then agitating so 2 many minds, could be reconciled with the Confession of the Belgic Churches?

The opinions denominated Arminian had been substantially taught long before Arminius appeared. The doctrine of Cassian, of Marseilles, in the fifth century, commonly styled Semi Pelagianism, was almost exactly the same system. Bolsec, too, in Geneva, about the year 1552, according to some, had also taught very much the same doctrine, though justly regarded as infamous on account of his shameful moral delinquencies. And about fifteen or twenty years before Arminius arose, Corvinus, in Holland, had appeared as the advocate of opinions of similar import. But having less talent than Arminius, and being less countenanced by eminent men, his error made little noise, and was suffered quietly to sink into insignificance, until a stronger and more popular man arose to give it new consequence, and a new impulse.

James Arminius, or Harmensen, was born at Oudwater, in south Holland, in the year 1560. His father died when he was an infant; and he was indebted to the charity of several benevolent individuals for the whole of his education. At one time he was

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employed as a servant at a public inn,* and in this situation was so much noticed for his activity, intelligence, wit and obliging deportment, that numbers became interested in his being enabled to pursue the cultivation of his mind. Accordingly, by one of his patrons, he was placed, for a time, in the University of Utrecht; on his decease, by another, in the University of Marpurg, in Hesse; and finally, by a third, in that of Leyden. In 1582, in the twenty-second year of his age, the magistrates of Amsterdam had received such impressions of his promising talents, and of his diligent application to study, that they sent him, at the public expense, to Geneva, which was then considered as the great centre of theological instruction for the Reformed Churches. In that far-famed institution Theodore Beza then presided, with equal honour to himself, and acceptance to the students. Here Arminius, as before, manifested much intellectual activity and ardour of inquiry ; but indulging a spirit of self-sufficiency and insubordination, in opposing some of the philosophical opinions held and taught by the leading pro-

* Life of Wallaeus, one of the members of the Synod of Dort.

s fessors at Geneva, and delivering private lectures to turn away the minds of the students from the instructions of their teachers, he became a kind of malcontent, and was constrained to withdraw from that Institution. This circumstance somewhat impaired that confidence in his prudence which his patrons had before reposed. Still they were willing to overlook it. After travelling eight or ten months in Italy, he returned for a short time to Geneva, and soon afterwards to Holland, where he met with no small acceptance in his profession. Such was his popularity, that, in 15S8, he was elected one of the ministers of Amsterdam, and entered on a pastoral charge in that city, with every prospect of honour, comfort, and usefulness. But his restless, innovating spirit soon began, in his new situation, again to disclose itself. Not long after his settlement, the doctrine of Beza concerning Predestination was publicly opposed by some ministers of Delft, in a tract which they printed on this subject. When this publication appeared, Martin Lydius, professor of Divinity at Franequar, having a high opinion of the learning and talents of Arminius, judged him to be the most proper person he was acquainted with to answer it; and, accordingly, urged him to undertake the task. Arminius, in compliance with this request from his venerable friend, undertook to refute the heretical work; but during the examination of it, and while balancing the reasoning on both sides, he went over to the opinion which he had been employed to refute; and even carried it further than the ministers of Delft had done. This change of opinion, which took place about the year 1591, and which he was not long in causing to be understood, soon excited public attention. About the same time, in a course of public lectures, delivered in his own pulpit, on the Epistle to the Romans, he still further disclosed his erroneous views. He was soon accused of departing from the Belgic Confession, and many of his brethren began to look upon him and his opinions with deep apprehension. Such, however, were the vigilance and firmness manifested by the other members of his Classis, that they so far curbed and counteracted him as to prevent the agitation of the controversy, which it seems to have been his intention to excite.

Arminius, however, though deterred, at that early period, from public and open controversy, exerted himself in a more private way, with considerable effect. With some divines, whose friendship he had before conciliated, his talents, his learning, his smooth address, and his insinuating eloquence were successful in winning them to his opinions. The celebrated Uytenbogart and Borrius were among the number of his early converts and followers. He also took unwearied pains to gain over to his cause some of the leading laymen of the country, and soon enlisted several of them in his cause.

In the year 1602, when the illustrious Francis Junius, an eminent Reformer, and no less eminent as a Professor of Divinity in the University of Leyden, was removed by death, to the great grief of the Belgic churches, Uytenbogart, who was just mentioned as a particular friend and partizan of Arminius, proposed, and, with great zeal, recommended him to the Curators of the University, as a candidate for the vacant Professorship. The leading Belgic ministers, hearing of this recommendation, and deeply apprehensive of the consequences of electing such a man to so important a station, besought both Uytenbogart and the Curators of the University to desist from all attempts to place in such an office one who

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was the object of so much suspicion. But these entreaties were disregarded. The recommendation of him was prosecuted with undiminished zeal, and the Curators at length elected and formally called him to the vacant chair.

The call being laid, as usual, before the Classis of Amsterdam, that body declined to put it into his hands. They supposed that he was more likely to prove mischievous in the office to which he was called than in his pastoral charge, where he was more immediately under the supervision and restraint of his brethren in the ministry. But, at length, at the repeated and earnest entreaties of Uytenbogart, of the Curators, and of Arminius himself, he was permitted to accept the call, and was regularly dismissed from the Classis to enter on his new office. This dismission, however, was granted upon the express condition, that he should hold a conference with Gomarus, one of the theological Professors in the same University with that to which he was called; and should remove from himself all suspicion of heterodoxy by a full and candid declaration of his opinions in regard to the leading doctrines of the Gospel; and, moreover, the Classis exacted from him a solemn promise, that, if it should be found that he held any opinions different from the Belgic Confession, he would refrain from disseminating them. This conference was held in the presence of the Curators of the University, and the Deputies of the Synod, in the course of which Arminius solemnly disavowed Pelagian opinions; declared his full belief in all that Augustine had written against those opinions; and promised in the most explicit manner that he would teach nothing contrary to the received doctrines of the Church. Upon these declarations and promises he was placed in the Professorship.

On first entering upon his Professorship he seemed to take much pains to remove from himself all suspicion of heterodoxy, by publicly maintaining theses in favour of the received doctrines; — doctrines which he afterwards zealously contradicted. And that he did this contrary to his own conviction at the time, was made abundantly evident afterwards by some of his own zealous friends. But after he had been in his new office a year or two, it was discovered that it was his constant practice to deliver one set of opinions in his professorial chair, and a very different set by means of private confidential manuscripts circulated among his pupils.* He was also accustomed, while he publicly recommended the characters and opinions of the most illustrious Reformed divines, artfully to insinuate such things as were adapted, indirectly, to bring them into discredit, and to weaken the arguments usually brought for their support. He also frequently intimated to his pupils, that he had many objections to the doctrines usually deemed orthodox, which he intended to make known at a suitable time. It was observed, too, that some pastors who were known to be on terms of great intimacy with him, were often giving intimations in private that they had adopted the new opinions, and not a few of his pupils began to manifest symptoms of being infected with the same errors.

The churches of Holland observing these and other things of a similar kind, became deeply apprehensive of the consequences; they, therefore, enjoined upon the Deputies, to whom the supervision of the church was more especially commited, to inquire into the matter, and to take the earliest and most

* This fact, so dishonourable to the integrity of Arminius, is so well attested by various Dutch writers of undoubted credit, that it cannot be reasonably called in question.

decisive measures to prevent the apprehended evil from taking deeper root. In consequence of this injunction, the Deputies of the churches of North and South Holland waited on Arminius, informed him of what they had heard, and urged him, in a friendly manner, if he had doubts or difficulties respecting any of the received doctrines of the Belgic churches, either to make known his mind in a frank and candid manner to his brethren in private; or to refer the whole affair, officially, to the consideration and decision of a Synod.

To this address of the Deputies Arminius replied, that he had never given any just cause for the reports of which they had heard; but that he did not think proper to enter into any conference with them, as the Deputies of the churches; that if, however, they chose, as private ministers, to enter into a conversation with him on the points in question, he was ready to comply with their wishes ; provided they would engage, on their part, that, if they found any thing erroneous in his opinions, they would not divulge it to the Synod which they represented! The Deputies, considering this proposal as unfair, as unworthy of a man of integrity, and as likely to lead to no useful result, very properly declined accepting it, and retired without doing any thing further.

In this posture of affairs, several of the magistrates of Leyden urged Arminius to hold a conference with his colleagues in the University, before the Classis, respecting those doctrines to which he had objections, that the extent of his objections might be known. But this he declined. In the same manner he treated one proposal after another, for private explanation; for calling a national Synod to consider the matter; or for any method whatever of bringing the affair to a regular ecclesiastical decision. Now a Classis, then a Synod, and at other times secular men attempted to move in the case; but Arminius was never ready, and always had insurmountable objections to every method proposed for explanation or adjustment. It was evident that he wished to gain time; to put off any decisive action in the case, until he should have such an opportunity of influencing the minds of the leading secular men of the country as eventually to prepare them to take side with himself. Thus he went on evading, postponing, concealing, shrinking from every inquiry, and endeavouring secretly ^to throw every possible degree of odium on the orthodox doctrines, hoping that, by suitable management, their advocates both in the church and among the civil rulers might be gradually diminished, so as to give him a good chance of a majority in any Synod which might be eventually called.

This is a painful narrative. It betrays a want of candour and integrity on the part of a man otherwise respectable, which it affords no gratification even to an adversary to record. It may be truly said, however, to be the stereotyped history of the commencement of every heresy which has arisen in the Christian church. When 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 " old 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 " differ 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. Arminius, in regard to talents, to learning, to eloquence, and to general exemplariness of moral deportment, is undoubtedly worthy of high praise: but if there be truth in history, his character as to integrity, candour, and fidelity to his official pledges and professions, is covered with stains which can never by any ingenuity be effaced.

At length, after various attempts to bring xlrminius to an avowal of his real opinions had failed, he was summoned by the States Genera], in 1609, to a conference at the Hague. He went, attended by several of his friends, and met Gomarus, accompanied with a corresponding number of orthodox divines. Here again the sinister designs and artful management of Arminius and his companions were manifested, but overruled ; and he was constrained, to a considerable extent, to explain and defend himself. But before this conference was terminated, the agitation of his mind seems to have preyed upon his bodily health. He was first taken apparently in a small degree unwell, and excused himself for a few days, to the States General; but at length grew worse; was greatly agitated in mind; and expired on the 19th day of October, 1609, in the forty-ninth year of his age. His mind, in his last illness, seems to have been by no means composed. " He was sometimes heard," says Bertius, his warm friend and panegyrist — " He was sometimes heard, in the course of his last illness, to groan and sigh, and to cry out, 6 Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife, and a man of con-

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

tention to the whole earth. I have lent to no man on usury, nor have men lent to me on usury; yet every one doth curse me!'"

Attempts have been made to show that Arminius did, in fact, differ very little from the received doctrines of the Belgic churches; nay, that he, on the whole, coincided with sublapsarian Calvinists; and of course, was most unjustly accused of embracing the heresy since called by his name. It is evident that Dr. Mosheim, himself an Arminian, was not of this opinion. He plainly thought, that the friends of the Belgic Confession had much more reason to apprehend hostility on the part of Arminius and his followers, to the essential principles of their creed, than their published language would seem to intimate. And the Rev. Dr. Murdock, the latest and best translator of Mosheim has delivered the following opinion, which will probably commend itself to the judgment of all well-informed and impartial readers.

"It is a common opinion that the early Arminians, who flourished before the Synod of Dort, were much purer and more sound than the later ones, who lived and taught after that council; and that Arminius himself only rejected Calvin's doctrine of absolute decrees, and its necessary consequences, while, in every thing else, he agreed with the Reformer; but that his disciples, and especially Episcopius, boldly passed the limits which their master had wisely established, and went over to the camp of the Pelagians and Socinians. But it appears to me very clear, that Arminius himself revolved in his own mind, and taught to his disciples, that form of religion which his followers afterwards professed; and that the latter, especially Episcopius, only perfected what their master taught them, and casting off fear, explained it more clearly. I have as a witness, besides others of less authority, Arminius himself, who, in his will, drawn up a little before his death, explicitly declares that his aim was to bring all sects of Christians, with the exception of the Papists, into one community and brotherhood. The opinion that Arminius himself was very nearly orthodox, and not an Arminian, in the common acceptation of the term, has been recently advocated by Professor Stuart, of Andover, in an article expressly on the Creed of Arminius, in the Biblical Repository, No. II., Andover, 1831, see pp. 293 and 301. To such a conclusion the learned Professor is led, principally, by an artful and imposing statement made by Arminius to the magistrates of Holland, in the year 1608, one year before his death, on which Mr. Stuart puts the most favourable construction the words will bear. But from a careful comparison of this declaration of Arminius, with the original five articles of the Arminian creed, (which were drawn up almost in the very words of Arminius, so early as the year 1610, and exhibited by the Remonstrants in the conference at the Hague, in 1611; and were afterwards, together with a full explanation and vindication of each article, laid before the Synod of Dort, in 1617, changing, however, the dubitation of the fifth article into a positive denial of the saints perseverance,) it will, I think, appear manifest, that Arminius himself actually differed from the orthodox of that day, on all the five points; and that he agreed substantially with the Remonstrants on all those doctrines for which they were condemned in the Synod of Dort. And that such was the fact, appears to have been assumed without hesitation by the principal writers of that and the following age, both Remonstrants and Contra-remonstrants."*

* Murdochs Mosheim III., 508, 509. 3

It was fondly hoped by many that when Arminius died, the controversy to which his speculations had given rise, would have died and been buried with him. But this, unhappily, by no means, proved to be the case. It soon appeared that a number of Belgic divines of no small name had embraced his sentiments, and could by no means be persuaded to desist from propagating them ; and in 1610 they were organized into a body, or formal confederacy; and in this capacity presented to the States General an address which they styled a Remonstrance, from which the whole party afterwards obtained the name of Remonstrants. The particular object of this paper was to solicit the favour of the government, and to secure protection against the ecclesiastical censures to which they felt themselves exposed. This step amounted to a kind of schism, and greatly distressed the Belgic churches. Another event soon occurred which excited deeper and still more painful apprehension among the friends of orthodoxy. When the Curators of the University came to fill the professorial chair which had been rendered vacant by the death of Arminius, the Deputies of the Churches earnestly besought them to

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

select a man free from all suspicion of heterodoxy, as one of the best means of restoring peace to the University and the Church. But to no purpose. The Remonstrants had, by some means, so prepossessed the minds of the Curators, that Conrad Vorstius, a minister and professor at Steinfurt, in Germany, a man suspected of something much worse than even Arminianism, was selected to fill the office, and Uytenbogart, one of the most able and zealous of the Arminian party, was appointed to go to Steinfurt, to solicit his dismission and removal to Leyden. The orthodox ministers and churches protested against this choice. They compared it to " driving a nail into an inflamed and painful ulcer;" and earnestly besought the States General not to permit a step so directly calculated still further to disturb and corrupt the churches. Vorstius had, a short time before, published a book " Be Natura et Mtributis Dei" and had also edited, with some alterations, a book published by Socinus the younger, on the Scriptures, from both which it appeared that he leaned to Socinian opinions. Notwithstanding this, however, the Remonstrants were bent on his election, and it was with the utmost difficulty that their plan for placing him in the vacant chair was defeated. In short, their conduct in the case of Vorstius alone was quite sufficient to show, that the apprehensions of the orthodox concerning the corrupt character of their opinions, were by no means excessive or unjust. James I. king of England, having read the book of Vorstius, a book concerning the nature and attributes of God, and conceiving it to be replete with radical error, addressed a letter to the States General, exhorting them "not to admit such a man into the important office of teacher of theology; and, further, commanded his ambassador at the Hague to use his utmost influence to prevent the introduction into such a Professorship, of a man, as he expressed it — rendered infamous by so many and great errors, and who ought to be banished from their territories, rather than loaded with public honours." " In short," said the king, " since God has been pleased to dignify me with the title of 'Defender of the Faith/ if Vorstius is kept any longer, we shall be obliged not only to separate from those heretical churches, but also to consult all the other Reformed churches, in order to know which is the best way of extirpating and sending

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back to hell those cursed heresies which have recently sprung up; we shall be forced to forbid the young people of our kingdom to frequent such an infected University as that of Leyden." By these and various other sources of influence, the Remonstrants were scarcely prevented from putting Vorstius into the vacant Professorship. Still, though disappointed, they were not disheartened, or diminished in number. On the contrary, the election, soon afterwards, of Episcopius, a leading man of their party, to a Professorship in the University of Leyden, seemed to give them new strength and new hopes. It became also more and more evident that some men of no small influence in the civil government of the country, had become friendly to the Remonstrants, and strongly disposed to pursue a course which should secure at least impunity to them as a party. Hence the repeated manifestation of unwillingness on the part of the States General to promote the convening of a National Synod, or the adoption of any other plan for bringing the Remonstrants to discipline. It was evidently the favourable object of the Remonstrants and their friends, both in church and state, to do nothing; to secure the toleration of the growing errors; and to allow the Remonstrants as good a standing as the orthodox in the national church. Accordingly, when anxious efforts were made, in 1611, and again in 1613, to bring the affairs of the Church to an adjustment and pacification, the friends of truth were baffled and disappointed. Every effort to bring on a crisis, or, in any form, to call the Remonstrants to an account, was resisted and evaded; and the state of things was, every day, becoming more distressing and alarming. Confusion, and even persecution ensued. Some of the orthodox pastors were suspended, and others driven from their charges, because they could not conscientiously receive those who avowed Arminian opinions into the communion of the Church.

In this situation of things, when the very pillars of society seemed to be shaken; when the ruling powers of the State were seen to be more and more favourable to the erroneous party; and when every thing portended the approach of a tremendous crisis — it pleased God to employ an instrument for promoting the advancement of his cause who by no means loved that cause, and who yet was placed in circumstances which at once

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prompted and enabled him to favour it. James L, king of England, a man of verysmall mind, and of still less moral or religious principle, having been born and bred in a Calvinistic community, and coming to the throne of England when the leading clergy of that part of his dominions, as well as of the North, were almost unanimously Calvinistic, he fell in with the fashionable creed, and was disposed, as his manner was, in every thing, officiously to exert his royal power in its favour. He, therefore, in the year 1617, addressed a friendly, but admonitory letter to the States General, in which he earnestly recommended the calling a national synod, to vindicate the genuine doctrines of the Reformation, and to restore tranquillity to the agitated Belgic churches. About the same time, Maurice, the prince of Orange, and the Head of the United Provinces, took the same ground, and urged the same thing. When the Arminian party perceived that the popular current was beginning to run in this direction, and that there was some prospect of a national synod being called, they were filled with uneasiness, and strove by all the means in their power to prevent it. But their evasive and intriguing arts were now in vain:

and although they began to manifest a spirit more like revolt and sedition than before, yet now the state of the public mind was such, that their violence only served to show the greater necessity of some efficient measure for meeting and subduing their turbulence.

At length a decree was issued by the States General in 1618, ordering that a National Synod should convene in the following November, at Dort, a considerable city of South Holland. The method prescribed for the convocation of this synod, was, that a provincial synod should meet in each of the provinces, from which six persons should be delegated to attend the General Synod. And, in most cases, the plan adopted was to appoint four ministers, and two ruling elders from each of the provincial synods, together with at least one Professor from each of the universities.