John R. de Witt
1
THE ARMINIAN CONFLICT
AND THE SYNOD OF DORT
John R. de Witt
Christians here and there throughout the world in 1968 have celebrated the 350th anniversary of the convocation of the Synod of Dort. To most people even the name of Dort is probably not familiar, except as connected with a once important seaport and the oldest of the cities of Holland. And in the minds of those who know anything at all about the synod, very often all that remains is something of the odium so long attached to it by reason of the slanders of its enemies. Even so evangelical a writer as Thomas Haweis (1732–1820) could speak of the “rigour and asperity” with which the Arminians were treated, and complain of “the unchristian persecution which followed and drove these men from their churches and their country, into exile and poverty.”1 It is not difficult to imagine what other less friendly critics have said. John Goodwin, for example, the enemy not only of Dort but also of the Westminster Assembly, compared the synod with Herod “when for his Oath’s sake, contrary to his mind and desire otherwise, He caused John the Baptist’s head to be given unto Herodias in a platter.”2 On the other hand, however, no less an observer than Richard Baxter commented, on the Westminster Assembly: “The Divines there Congregate were Men of Eminent Learning and Godliness, and Ministerial Abilities and Fidelity: and . . . as far as I am able to judge by the Information of all History of that kind, and by any other Evidences left us, the Christian World, since the days of the Apostles, had never a Synod of more Excellent Divines (taking one thing with another) than this Synod and the Synod of Dort were.”3 And William Cunningham goes so far as to say: “The Synod of Dort, representing as it did almost all the Reformed Churches, and containing a great proportion of theologians of the highest talents, learning, and character, is entitled to a larger measure of respect and deference than any other council recorded in the history of the church.”4 That is very high praise indeed!
But, it may be asked, of what concern is such a synod to us? Several answers may be given. The Synod of Dort has a peculiar historical interest for Britain in that, while it was chiefly a Dutch gathering, yet King James I was in fact partly responsible for its very existence! In the years before 1618–19 he joined his powerful influence to that of men in the Netherlands who were demanding the convocation of a national synod to settle the theological controversies which were disturbing the peace and endangering the newly won freedom of the United Provinces from the Spanish tyranny. The Elector of the Palatinate was James’s son-in-law and added his own weight to that of the English king in calling of a synod. And most important of all, when the time came for the synod to meet, James appointed five delegates, all of the episcopal party, who with the other foreign divines that were to attend would have the prerogative of full participation in its deliberations and the right to vote. These were George Carleton, then bishop of Llandaff and afterwards of Chichester; Joseph Hall, afterwards successively bishop of Exeter and Norwich; John Davenant, afterwards bishop of Salisbury; Samuel Ward, the celebrated scholar and master of Sidney College, Cambridge; and Walter Balcanqual, a Scot, but chaplain to the king and afterwards dean of Rochester. Hall became ill after a few weeks and was unable to continue his duties, but was replaced by Thomas Goad, chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is worthy of remark that these men all represented the prelatical and not the Puritan party in the Church of England. That Bishop Carleton was prepared to sit as an ordinary (albeit influential and respected) member of a synod convened in the Reformed manner and presided over by a mere presbyter says much about the view of episcopal government which then prevailed in England, a view soon to be altered radically under the direction of men like William Laud with their inflated and un-Protestant notions of the divine right of episcopacy. It is also significant that these Englishmen, a prelate and two prelates-to-be, all signed the Canons of the Synod of Dort. One would have expected such a profession of Calvinism from the heirs of Cartwright and Perkins: the world knows that they were one with their continental counterparts. But that such churchmen could do so is abundant proof that Calvinism remained the predominant theology in the English Church throughout the reign of James I. It was only under his son Charles I that that sad decay began in earnest which was later to bear such bitter and tragic consequences.5
But the Synod of Dort retains great importance for religious reasons as well. The history of the Reformed Churches in the seventeenth century and their development since that time can scarcely be understood without reference to the Arminian controversy and its resolution at Dort. This is, of course, especially the case with those Churches which descend from the Dutch Reformation. But it is only slightly less so with others. The Westminster Assembly itself was at certain points clearly influenced by its great continental predecessor, even in terms of internal organization. And quasi-ecumenical as it was, the Synod of Dort has exercised far more influence than one may think would have been the case with a struggle which was in the first instance an internal, national question affecting only the United Provinces.
Arminianism came to be much more important after its apparent defeat at Dort in 1619 than it had been before, and broadened into a movement of international proportions which affected theological and philosophical thought throughout Western Europe, not only in Holland, but in England, France, Switzerland, and Germany. It was a precursor of liberalism and the Enlightenment, a close ally of Socinianism (Unitarianism), and an introducer of innovations which had a grave and widespread effect. One thinks in this connection of Grotius and his governmental theory of the atonement, for example; and of the Arminianism of the Church of England which contrived at last to defeat Puritanism and stamp out the original Reformed position of the English Reformation.
The definition of doctrinal differences which occurred at the Synod of Dort has ever since been decisive for evangelical Protestantism. “The Arminian controversy,” wrote Philip Schaff, “is the most important which took place within the Reformed Church.”6 Great numbers of men who perhaps know nothing whatever of the Synod of Dort as such, yet nevertheless continue to think in terms of the categories of its doctrinal pronouncements and are guided by them, either positively (as in the case of the Puritans, men like Jonathan Edwards, C. H. Spurgeon, and others) or negatively (as in the case of John Wesley, Charles G. Finney, and many prominent modern evangelists). Indeed, it is difficult to see how, in terms of the doctrines of grace and the whole of the locus soteriology, these categories can be avoided. But more on this head presently.
James Arminius
To understand what took place in the Low Countries during the first two decades of the seventeenth century it is necessary to go back to Arminius himself and the proximate origins of the struggle associated with his name. We need not here inquire at any length whether there was Arminianism before Arminius. The errors identified as Arminianism are far older than the man himself and can be traced in ancient as well as modern Church history. To be sure, certain figures in sixteenth century Holland can be signalized as furnishing something of the background against which Arminius is to be seen: i.e., Erasmus, Coornhert, Duifhuis, Coolhaes, and others. But we have to do here with a specific movement in the Reformed churches.
James Arminius—latinized from Jacob Hermanson—was born at Oudewater (South Holland) in 1560. His father, a cutler, died while he was still very young, and his upbringing was undertaken by Theodorus Aemilius, a former Roman priest now converted to Protestantism. Upon his death in 1574, the youth was befriended by one Snellius, a native of Oudewater but professor of mathematics at Marburg. Through Petrus Bertius Sr. and Taffin the court preacher he was registered in 1576 as the twelfth student at the newly established University of Leiden. At the expense of one of the guilds of Amsterdam he was later sent to complete his studies at Geneva, where he sat under Beza, the successor to Calvin, and also at Basel. In 1588 he became one of the ministers of Amsterdam where his work at first met with considerable acceptance. It was not long, however, before the trouble started. Curiously enough, the doctrinal peculiarities of Arminius, those points at which he deviated from the confessional position of the Church, were first detected during the course of his preaching. He was engaged in a systematic exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, and while some were surprised by his explanation of earlier passages, it was especially in connection with Romans 7:14ff. that his teaching roused a storm of protest. Here he suggested that the apostle was speaking, not of the regenerate—as most Reformed exegetes had understood it—but of the unregenerate man, one who is under the law, but knows its weakness and inability to save, and therefore seeks a redeemer: he is not yet a Christian, but stands upon the very threshold of faith. The congregation was in an uproar. Arminius was accused of contravening the confessions and adopting the Socinian interpretation. His senior colleague, Petrus Plancius, a fiery Calvinist and also a famous geographer and patron of Dutch exploratory expeditions, immediately registered protests against him which were investigated by the consistory. Rumor spread throughout the country. In subsequent discussions it became clear that Arminius had difficulties with the Belgic Confession, and especially with article 16 (“Of Eternal Election”). Martinus Lydius, professor at Franeker, Johannes Uytenbogaert, the court preacher, and Jean Taffin, now minister of the Walloon congregation in Amsterdam, intervened as mediators in the dispute, which resulted in Arminius pledging himself to adhere henceforth (as he claimed to have done before) to the words of the confessions. Again, in connection with his sermons on the ninth and thirteenth chapters of Romans exception was taken to his preaching—with respect to the doctrine of election, and also the place of the civil magistrate in the government of the Church; but so careful was he in his manner of expression that his opponents, who were watchful enough, found themselves unable to prove their suspicions against him.
It is significant, surely, that the man’s views were first revealed in this way: not in writing, nor in conversations with his colleagues, but in his public ministry. There is, one may think, a close relationship between theology and preaching. Theology after all is not something studied in isolation from life; it is not restricted to an ivory tower where a man may be cut off from the Church and the body of Christian people. If theology is sound and biblical, therefore, then preaching will bear the same character; but if there is departure from the truth in the study, in a similar way preaching cannot but be affected. So close is it to the very heartbeat of the Church, so much a part of its most intimate life, that any real assessment of preaching is at once an assessment of the spiritual health of the Church. One wonders, however, whether there have been, or are, many Planciuses to raise protest against unsound doctrine; and still more—and it must be remembered that the Reformation was still young in Holland at this time—whether there are many congregations so alert to what is taught from the pulpit, and at the same time so concerned that it be in accordance with the Word of God, as to be dismayed and alarmed when a minister hints at doctrinal innovations and evidences departures from the truth. A survey of the history of many among even the most prominent evangelical congregations will indicate that people are perfectly capable of sitting under a Calvinist and an outspoken Arminian in direct succession the one to the other, and yet not noticing anything at all, or if they do, not caring about the difference. It ought to be remembered that Arminius himself was anything but an outspoken Arminian, but with Plancius to hear him and the people instructed under his ministry, the very smell of error was more than enough. For the remainder of his time in Amsterdam Arminius lived in relative peace, and did a good deal of constructive work there, but he was never trusted.
In 1602 the plague raged in Leiden, and Franciscus Junius, the celebrated professor of theology at the university there, fell a victim to it. The following year Arminius was appointed to succeed him, much to the distress of many in the Church. At Leiden a conflict soon broke out between him and his senior colleague Franciscus Gomarus, a strong Calvinist and one of the most notable divines of the age, a conflict in which it was evident that Arminius took serious exception to certain of the doctrinal positions in the Reformed confessions. Though now, as before in Amsterdam, he pledged not to contradict these confessions in his teaching and largely adhered to this in his public lectures, he gave certain select students private instruction in the course of which he much more freely voiced his dissatisfactions and doubts. There is no question but that Arminius was a man of deep learning and large gifts. He was a conscientious and faithful student of the Scriptures, and no doubt sincere in his investigations and inquirings after truth. These things are not, however, equivalent to orthodoxy in doctrine—no matter how admirable in themselves; and his success in winning over young men to his own point of view soon became apparent when these appeared before the classes (presbyteries) for entrance into the ministry. Throughout the few short years left him, Arminius was the storm-center of a theological quarrel which began to affect the whole country. The ruling oligarchy under the leadership of John van Olden Barneveldt supported the Arminians; the great mass of the Protestant population and the ministers demanded adherence to the doctrinal position of the Church. But in this period there remained something vague and intangible about the dispute; the issues at stake were not sharply defined. Arminius refused to give precise, public form to his opinions. Clearly, however, the nature of the Church’s relationship to its professed doctrinal position was at the bottom of the trouble.
Arminius is always carefully described, even by his critics, as a grave, sober, consistent Christian against whose life no finger of blame could be pointed. Unquestionably, in private life he was exactly that. But it is an extraordinary view of character and Christian morality that can, on the basis of certain personal traits and virtues, overlook glaring public faults, and, still more, ignore any connection between a man’s inner life and his professional, ministerial vows. If it be true—as it certainly seems to have been—that the man pledged himself to adhere in his teaching to the doctrine of the Church (to which he was bound in any case, as one of its ministers), and then set out in private ways to undermine and alter it, he was guilty of a very serious fault indeed. One may object that a man’s duty to truth transcends his duty to the Church, or, at any rate, to the teaching of the Church; and that therefore, if a choice must be made, it should be in the interests of truth rather than of dogma and confession. But it is a very rash thing to fly in the face of the confessions of the Church. There are occasions, to be sure, when a man must take his stand upon Scripture and in defiance of false doctrine and the churchmen who uphold it. But if such an occasion arises, he should clearly do that publicly, openly, and by renouncing his obligations and vows; not by duplicity and disingenuousness, in effect circumventing them. In any case, Arminius was not Luther, and the Reformed Church was not Rome.
Vows and subscription to confessions always entail difficulties while men are men. But to deny their legitimacy, and the concomitant necessary to enforce them, is at the same time to plead for a toleration of widely variant opinions and to introduce ecclesiastical lawlessness. And while this may be advisable, and even necessary, in the state, yet it can hardly be so in the Church where men are not simply concerned with the relationships and points of view that characterize all human society, but with divinely revealed truth. Humility there must always be, and awe and reverence before the incomprehensible God. But to acknowledge that is not at the same time to relativize doctrinal truth, or to reject the requirement—clearly laid down in the Scriptures—for the exercise of discipline. Arminius and his successors were oath-breakers; and to avoid the consequences of this offence, they in effect withdrew themselves from the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts, while claiming to continue as good and faithful members of the Church, and placed themselves under the protection of the secular power. There is a remarkable, if perverse, consistency about human nature in respect to these things. Seldom is a man honest enough to withdraw from his office and membership in the Church if his views become incompatible with the constitution of that Church. Instead, he takes it upon himself, by means of a strange line of casuistical reasoning, to convert the Church to his own understanding of truth. Those commonly accepted prerogatives of merely human agencies by which men bound together for a common cause assume power to eject one who no longer accepts that cause seem ordinarily in the view of heretics presumptuous and not binding for the Church. Simple honesty of purpose and ordinary frankness are apparently too much to ask of churchmen who have subscribed to one thing, persist in adhering to another, see nothing inconsistent in their conduct, and seek to infect others with their own delusions.
Growth of the Conflict
Arminius died in 1609, in the midst of controversy, but his mantle was soon taken up by Johannes Uytenbogaert, the court preacher, and a little later also by Simon Episcopius, who had studied under Arminius and in 1612 became a professor of theology at Leiden. In 1610 the Arminians, under Uytenbogaert’s leadership, met at Gouda and prepared a Remonstrance (hence they were afterwards called the Remonstrants) in which they first rejected certain positions held by the Calvinists, formulated in such a way as to offer what was rather a caricature than an accurate representation of the Reformed doctrine; and then went on to state in five propositions (the Five Arminian Articles) their own view: i.e., election conditioned on foreseen faith; universal atonement (that Christ “died for all men and for every man, so that he merited reconciliation and forgiveness of sins for all through the death of the cross; yet so that no one actually enjoys this forgiveness of sins except the believer”); the need for regeneration if man is to be saved (here they seemed to be orthodox enough, but, as it later appeared, this was understood in such a way as seriously to underestimate the depravity of human nature); the resistibility of grace (“but with respect to the mode of this grace, it is not irresistible”); and the uncertainty of the perseverance of believers (in respect of this article the Arminians shortly came openly to deny such final perseverance).7 In the following year the Calvinists responded with a Contra-Remonstrance (hence the name “Contra-Remonstrants”) in seven articles restating the teaching of the Reformed confessions in respect to the doctrines of grace. A conference was held at The Hague in 1611 but led to no agreement (the Collatio Hagiensis).
Subsequent years saw an exacerbation of the controversy which raged throughout the country and was marked by increasing demands on the part of the Calvinists for the convening of a general synod to settle the differences. Though the constitution of the Church called for a synod at least every three years, none had been permitted to meet since 1586.
Prince Maurice, son of William the Silent and Stadholder, remained neutral until 1616 when, under the influence of his cousin the devout Calvinist Count William Louis, Stadholder of Friesland, and at the urging of Sir Dudley Carleton, the English ambassador, he began openly to take the part of the Calvinists; and by the summer of 1617 he was worshipping publicly with the Reformed congregation in The Hague. In that same year he executed a successful coup d’etat against Barneveldt, and determined at long last upon the calling of a synod of the Dutch Church. It was, however, to be a synod unique in the history of Protestantism, for at the urging of James I and others, foreign theologians were to be invited to participate. Invitations were sent out to all the Reformed Churches of Europe, and delegates actually came from England, the Palatinate, Hesse, Zürich, Berne, Basel, Schaffhausen, Geneva, Bremen, and Emden. France was not represented. The men designated to attend—who included Pierre du Moulin and Andre Rivet, two of the most celebrated theologians in Protestantism—were forbidden by the French king to leave the country. Even so, however, the French Reformed Church enthusiastically approved the Canons of Dort and made them binding on their ministers at two separate general synods, in 1620 and again in 1623.8 But where was Scotland? Surely the Church of John Knox belonged in any international synod of the Reformed Churches? Strangely enough, the same king who so enthusiastically supported Calvinism at home and on the continent of Europe (at least by his words; he was less helpful when it came to tangible military assistance) and was willing that his prelates should take part in a Presbyterian assembly in the Low Countries, was in these very years engaged in subjecting the Church of his northern kingdom to a heartily despised and desperately unwanted hierarchical yoke. The Church of Scotland was not therefore free to take part.9
The Synod of Dort
The divines who met at Dort in 1618 constituted an extraordinary gathering of men. Its ranks included fifty-six ministers and ruling elders from the Dutch Churches, five professors of theology, and twenty-six foreign divines, as well as eighteen political commissioners (not members of the synod) who were to supervise the proceedings and report to the States General. In order to assess the caliber of the assembly one has only to run over some of the names of men who took part in it. Gomarus was there, professor successively at Leiden, Middleburg, Saumur, and now at Groningen; and Lubbertus, of Franeker; Bogerman, the great minister of Leeuwarden who had studied at several continental universities and then at Oxford and Cambridge (under Reynolds and Perkins); Diodati, the learned Italian who taught at Geneva in the school of Calvin; the young Voetius, who had yet to begin his stupendous academic career at Utrecht which was to extend to 1676 and make him perhaps the most influential Reformed theologian in Europe; and Sceltetus, Polyander, Lydius, Alting, Hommius, Triglandius, Meyer, Carleton, Davenant, and Hall. One could go on and on. It is interesting to note that William Ames, the great Puritan who in 1610 had been constrained to flee from King James’s England for the sake of his principles, was assigned to Bogerman, the president, as his private secretary. Ames was to have considerable influence behind the scenes.
The synod which the Church had so long demanded met at last on November 13, 1618. At 8:00 in the morning of that day the delegates made their way either to the Great Church where a solemn service of worship was conducted by ds. Balthazar Lydius (the pastor loci) in the Dutch language, or to the Augustinian Church where the local Walloon minister (ds. Jeremias de Pours) spoke in French. Lydius preached to a great multitude from Acts 15, and prayer was offered for the divine blessing upon the work about to begin, “so that the fallen walls and ramparts of Jerusalem might be built up again, and the country brought once more to its former rest, unity, and good estate.”10 Afterwards the foreign theologians returned to their lodgings, from which they were shortly led by various Dutch delegations to the hall where the sittings were to be held: the Gelderlanders accompanied the English, the South Hollanders, the representatives from the Palatinate, and so forth. The hall, the main chamber of the Kloveniersdoelen, or Arquebusiers’ Armoury, was an impressive room. The desks and benches had been covered over in green cloth; ink-wells, sand-pots, paper, and pens were provided for each member. Numerous candlesticks and three great chandeliers provided illumination—it is said that twenty-four pounds of tallow were consumed every evening for the lighting. There were also two large galleries for spectators, capable of accommodating four or five hundred people. Throughout the long winter a fire burned continually on the hearth, and in addition each member was furnished with a stoofie or foot-warmer, filled not with coals but with glowing lumps of clay so as to avoid gaseous fumes which would otherwise cause headaches.11
Again ds. Lydius addressed the delegates and led in prayer, after which Martinus Gregorii, president that week of the secular commissioners, rehearsed the reasons for which the synod had been called and then declared the synod in session. Lydius presided until the next day when officers were chosen. Johannes Bogerman of Leeuwarden was elected president (praeses); Rolandus and Faukelius assessors; Damman and Hommius scribes. Bogerman made an impressive figure: he was, we are told, extremely well-spoken, and a man of striking presence; his high, furrowed forehead, piercing eyes, well-formed nose, and magnificent beard which cascaded to his waist, were in perfect harmony with the grave seriousness of his countenance that bore traces of constant bodily suffering.12 When the moderamen (executive committee) had been chosen, the credentials borne by the Dutch delegates were presented, and the political commissioners indicated that those of the foreign divines had already been received and approved by the States General and the Prince of Orange. All the members were divided into eighteen separate committees: the representatives from the various provincial synods each formed one, the Walloons another, and the professors of theology still another; in addition, each foreign delegation constituted a separate committee. The procedure of the synod was such that on all questions coming before it these committees framed an individual judgment, which was then reported back to the synod as a whole and read out before it. The written opinions were then handed over to the officers who collated them and prepared a final judgment. This was in turn either regarded as resolved at once, or an approbatory vote was taken to that effect. Very probably the method was adopted from the States General, but everyone felt that it was not altogether convenient. Complaints induced a review as the sessions went on—the English especially were unhappy about the dilatoriness which was a necessary consequence of such a method. While all agreed as to the drawbacks this committee structure bore in its train, yet it was undeniably thorough and was therefore followed to the end. For the sake of the foreigners Latin was used throughout the sessions.
The principal item on the agenda of the synod was, of course, the Arminian controversy. After some days of discussion summonses were sent out to thirteen of the Remonstrant ministers: chief among these was Simon Episcopius who, now that Uytenbogaert had gone into voluntary exile, was the leader of his party. They were to appear within fourteen days of receiving written notice.13 Thereafter, while awaiting the arrival of the Remonstrants, the synod occupied itself with a number of important, but exclusively Dutch, concerns.
On December 6 Bogerman was able to inform the synod that the Remonstrants had arrived. “At length are we coming to the main Battel,” wrote John Hales, who was there to secure direct information for his curious master the English ambassador. “The Armies have been in sight one of another, and have had some parly.”14 The Arminians had been cited to appear before the synod to explain and defend their views and then to submit to its judgment as the ecclesiastical court having jurisdiction over them. This, however, was very little to their taste and quite out of accord with their own conception of the synod’s authority. Hence, there followed a long struggle in which Episcopius and his associates conducted themselves as a kind of counter-synod, equal to the Synod of Dort itself. When they entered the hall on December 6 and took their places at the table prepared for them, Episcopius sat at its head opposite Bogerman, and at his side was Bernardus Dwinglo who functioned as the Remonstrants’ scribe. On the following day an incident occurred which was to be typical of the sessions so long as the Arminians were present. Episcopius made a long oration, “überausz künstlich” (Mayer), learned and eloquent but, as many thought, highly impertinent, in which he cast aspersions not only upon the synod, but also upon the States General and by implication upon Prince Maurice himself. When a copy was demanded of him, he at first hesitated, saying he had no fair copy of it, but then acceded. It appeared later, however, that the speech as it was given in omitted the passages which had to do with the political authorities, and Episcopius was accused of lies and deceit, charges he vigorously denied. Whatever the truth may be, it is in any case impossible to exonerate him from disingenuous conduct. The battle continued throughout the ensuing weeks. The Remonstrants persisted in rejecting the authority of the synod to sit over them, regarded it as a party to the dispute and therefore incompetent to judge, demanded that reprobation first be handled rather than election so as to make as odious as possible the teaching of the Calvinists on this point; and when at last they brought in their judgments on the Five Articles of the Remonstrance, they phrased them in such a way as to be more negative than positive, so that the synod must still seek a clear statement of their views.15
One can appreciate the plight in which the Arminians found themselves. Their condemnation was a foregone conclusion. No one had any doubt about the way the synod would decide to the doctrinal points at issue. But they were not about to yield. Not all men of conviction, willing to pay any price for the sake of their principles, are to be found on the side of truth. And before a toleration was eventually granted many of these men would suffer exile and want. Their only alternative, therefore, was to obstruct progress as much as they were able, seek on every occasion to cast their enemies into a bad light, and at the same time attempt to put as good a face as possible upon their own positions.
After a month of fruitless efforts to get on with the business at hand, during which time Bogerman conducted himself with a patience and calm restraint that many found remarkable in the presence of what they could only regard as so much obstinacy, there was no choice but to dismiss the Remonstrants. Historians have often faulted the president for his conduct on that dramatic day, January 14, 1619, when he seems for a moment to have lost control of himself, but his exasperation is understandable. Referring to the deliberate misrepresentations and even falsehoods with which the Arminians had treated the synod, he cried: “You are sent away. Go! You began with lies, and you have ended with lies.” And then once more he shouted, “Ite! Go!”16
Thereafter work was continued, dealing now with the writings rather than the persons of the Remonstrants. The reading of the various judgments (of committees) concerning the Five Articles took place from March 7 to 21, and from March 25 to April 16 the Canons themselves were formulated in ninety-three separate articles. These in turn were signed by all the delegates on April 23, and solemnly promulgated in the Great Church on May 6 before a large congregation. Three days later, after more than six months of arduous labor, the foreign divines took leave of the synod, the Dutch members remaining for another twenty-six sessions, till May 29, largely devoted to the fixing of the text of the Belgic Confession, the formulation of a Church order, liturgy, and so forth.
There has been much talk about the “persecuting Synod of Dort” and a great deal of willful misrepresentation with respect to it. Thus in England a version of the Canons was in wide currency until 1804, a version which had the peculiar pedigree of having been produced by one Daniel Tilenus, himself an Arminian! This edition which paraded as a “favourable abridgment” was in fact a deliberate corruption of the Canons. For example, it states that God has elected to salvation “a very small number of men,” and predetermined the rest to condemnation “without any regard to their infidelity and impiety.” This was to do nothing other than reproduce the original Arminian caricature of the Calvinist position in the Remonstrate of 1610. The Canons in fact make no such statement at all about the smallness of the number of the elect except to reject explicitly the Arminian charge to this effect in the Conclusion, and insist upon establishing the connection between the decree of reprobation and the fact of human sin and disobedience: With respect to those passed by, “God . . . hath decreed to leave them in the common misery into which they have wilfully plunged themselves . . . not only on account of their unbelief, but also for all their other sins.”17
So far as persecution is concerned, it is quite true that two hundred Remonstrant ministers were deposed from their offices, of which total eighty were banished, nearly seventy agreed to be silenced and refrain from their ministry, and forty, upon conforming to the decisions of the synod, were restored to their offices. But one must remember that the Dutch Church was bound to two confessional statements: the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism. The Arminians were therefore, while pledged to these statements of the Reformed faith, advocating deviation from them. And it was they, nota bene, who in the years preceding the synod had proved themselves intolerant toward men concerned to uphold the doctrine of the Church. In many instances ministers deposed for heresy by the Church were maintained in office by the magistrates; and faithful ministers supported by the Church were ejected by them. Indeed, the Calvinists were deprived of the use of buildings set apart for their own worship, and constrained to meet where they could, not even then being left in peace. The charge of persecution comes ill from the lips of Remonstrants who, when they could, indulged in it themselves. The issue at Dort, however, was not a suppression of all religions other than the Reformed. Unlike the other countries of Europe, Holland was already the home of oppressed peoples: in 1609 the Pilgrim Fathers had settled in Leiden; and Lutherans, Anabaptists, and even Roman Catholics were tolerated, though not permitted to erect public places of worship. It must be granted that after the synod had met many Arminian ministers were deposed. It must also be granted that at the synod itself the Arminians were not treated as equals, but as those summoned to give an accounting of themselves and to be judged. But this has nothing whatever to do with toleration as such; it is rather a question of whether the Church has the right to enforce its own confessions of faith and insist upon its prerogative of depriving of their places those who deviate from those confessions and teach error instead of truth. The actions of the synod were disciplinary, directed against members and office-bearers of the Church who had involved themselves in heresy and sought to change the constitution of the Church to suit their own opinions. Only those men who themselves are wary of subscription to confessional statements, or who live as already perjured persons, having promised one thing only to believe another, will question the right of a church synod to act determinatively in such a case.
The Canons of Dort
For us the chief interest of the Synod of Dort is its five Canons, which have become known as the five points of Calvinism, or as the five doctrines of grace. It is impossible here to go deeply into the theology of these great truths, but we must, of course, say something about them. Arminianism represented a revival within the Reformed Churches of the semi-Pelagian doctrines which had so long plagued the history of Christian thought; and while Arminius himself was not unevangelical, yet the subsequent history of the movement clearly demonstrates that when the fall in its total consequences for the whole being of man is not taken sufficiently seriously, and when salvation is not understood to be utterly and completely of divine grace, then the result is inevitably rationalism or worse. The divines of Dort were not concerned first of all with scholastic questions which bore no relationship to life. To them the controversy was not in any sense an academic one. It was utterly practical. In their view, as in that of Athanasius in his struggle against Arianism more than a thousand years before, the ultimate issue was salvation itself. If the Arminians had their way, and their doctrines were introduced into the Church, the end result must be destructive of the Christian doctrines of grace and redemption. Hence, the Canons—the unconditional and gracious character of election; the atonement of Christ limited to the elect of God as to its design and extent; the total depravity of man and his utter inability to any saving good; the irresistibility of the divine grace; and the perseverance of the people of God—were all, in answer to the Articles of the Remonstrance, intended to establish clearly and unmistakably the absolutely gracious character of salvation: that “it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy” (Rom. 9:16). Arminianism meant synergism: that is, in however evangelical a form in some of its early proponents, it introduced a cooperative element into the effecting of salvation. And each of the doctrines delineated at Dort was directed against the notion of any cooperation, any grounding of God’s favor upon something acceptable in the creature, in the extending of grace to sinners.
Dort did not tamper with the responsibility of man, nor did it cancel out the free offer of the gospel. “As many as are called by the gospel are unfeignedly called; for God hath most earnestly and truly declared in his Word what will be acceptable to him, namely, that all who are called should comply with the invitation. He, moreover, seriously promises eternal life and rest to as many as shall come to him, and believe on him.” And again: “It is not the fault of the gospel, nor of Christ offered therein, nor of God, who calls men by the gospel, and confers upon them various gifts, that those who are called by the ministry of the Word refuse to come and be converted. The fault lies in themselves.”18 And in no respect did Dort minimize or depreciate preaching and evangelism: “Moreover the promise of the gospel is, that whosoever believeth in Christ crucified shall not perish, but have everlasting life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and published to all persons promiscuously and without distinction, to whom God out of his good pleasure sends the gospel.”19 But it did assert the fundament of salvation to be that election which is “the unchangeable purpose of God, whereby, before the foundation of the world, he hath, out of mere grace, according to the sovereign good pleasure of his own will, chosen, from the whole human race, which had fallen through their own fault, from their primitive state of rectitude, into sin and destruction, a certain number of persons to redemption in Christ, whom he from eternity appointed the Mediator and head of the elect, and the foundation of salvation.”20
Arminianism and Calvinism represented far more, therefore, than a superficial difference of opinion as to certain relatively minor points of Christian doctrine. To be sure, an evangelical Arminian (Wesley, for example) may in respect of the heart of the gospel be very close to a Calvinist; and Arminius himself was far sounder than many later Arminian evangelicals. Thus, unlike Wesley, he did not commit himself to a denial of final perseverance, though his followers did do so, and he seems to have been bound also to that same conclusion by the force of the other theses which constituted his criticism of Reformed theology. Conditional predestination and resistible grace would appear of necessity to imply the possibility of a permanent fall from grace. Nor did Arminius, again unlike Wesley, teach any form of perfectionism. But, I say, there is much more here than a superficial difference between two groups of Christians who underneath share a common commitment to the historic Christian faith. You see, the great problem is that Arminianism involves a quite different conception both of God and of man from that of Calvinism or Augustinianism. A similarity of language at many points may seem to indicate that very little ground separated Gomarus from Arminius, and Episcopius from Bogerman, but the distinction between the two is far from inconsequential and insignificant. And it will not do to plaster it over as though of no importance. One must grant that some variances are permissible within the Christian Church. The Calvinists of the early seventeenth century in Holland themselves granted that very thing. At the Collatio Hagiensis (Conference at The Hague) it appeared that they were willing to tolerate the Arminians on the score of their objection to reprobation, as a truth very much less clearly illuminated by the Scriptures than election.21 But they could not acquiesce in the toleration of conditional election and resistible grace, for the simple reason that these departures from what they saw to be biblical truth were so serious as to imperil the life of the Church and the salvation of men. Not, of course, that reprobation, as it is to be found in the Word of God, can be lightly dismissed. But it was the dark, the shadow side of the other much more specifically revealed truth of election, unconditional, irresistible, eternal, by the mere grace of God. You see, when the Arminian teaching is granted, and election is thrown, for the cause of it, upon the shoulders of man, there is a serious diminishing of divine power and authority; there is an indirect challenging of the divine sovereignty; and there is at the same time a cheapening of the divine grace.
Now, it is certainly true that the whole of the Reformed faith is not comprehended in the five Canons of the Synod of Dort. It is far vaster than that, and encompasses the whole of truth within its scope. Calvinism is not satisfied with an adherence to the Scriptures in respect of the locus soteriology, as though that were all it had to say. Nothing is strange to it, and it demands that every sphere of life, every aspect of theology, every element of human experience, be subjected to the authority of the Word of God. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thought that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3–5). It is quite possible, furthermore, for a person to be a doctrinal Calvinist in respect of the five great truths taught in the Canons of Dort, and yet at the same time to be an Anabaptist in respect to religious experience. It will not do, therefore, to identify in any absolute way the doctrines of grace with the whole of Reformed theology. Having delivered that caveat, however, one must go on to say that in point of fact the five Canons of Dort, while they deal principally with soteriology, are much broader in their implications than that, and in those implications touch upon almost every other important point in the body of Christian truth. And not only is that the case, but one must also say further that the attack within the Church and without it upon the truth of the Word of God as defined by Augustine, Calvin, Dort, and Westminster, had generally centered upon those very aspects of divine revelation comprehended in the Canons of the Synod of Dort. Again and again throughout the history of this question, whether by Pelagius against Augustine, by Pighius and Castellio against Calvin, whether by Arminius against Gomarus and Beza, whether by Uytenbogaert and Episcopius against the Synod of Dort, whether by John Wesley against the whole evangelical tradition of Great Britain—and one could go on and on with a list of that kind—the attack has come at these very five points. And the essence of that attack, whether evangelical or rationalistic, has always been an unwillingness on the part of man either to accept himself for what he is, or the high God for what He has revealed Himself to be in the holy Scriptures. Arminianism essentially represents an attack upon the majesty of God, and puts in place of it the exaltation of man. It is a danger which constantly recurs, and must be faced, and must be opposed.
So you see, while the five Canons are not synonymous with Calvinism or the Reformed faith, yet they are an integral part of it. One cannot be Reformed unless he holds to them; nor can he tamper with any one of them and retain the scripturalness of his faith. They are like five great pillars of truth, upon which rests the salvation of men. Not, certainly, that a doctrine saves. Christ saves! And one does not assault or deny the Christianity of Arminius himself. But one must insist that it is in the truth that men are free; and that truth is in Christ: He is the truth. And still more, Christian experience, the apprehension of that truth which is Christ, is informed, summoned to life, governed, guided, directed, instructed, and in every way subject to the authority of the truths, the doctrines, the great facts about Himself and His plan of salvation, which God has given us in His Word.22