that time therefore, if we may judge of men's meaning by their statements and declarations, the Arminians very much resembled the Lutherans. The Calvinists, however, maintain that the opinions of the Arminians are not to be learned from their declarations, but that their language must be interpreted by their secret sentiments: for they assert that the Arminians, under these specious representations, instilled the poison of Socinianism and Pelagianism into honest and unsuspicious minds. God is the judge of men's hearts: yet if it were allowable to estimate the import of these propositions by what the leading men of the sect have taught more recently, it would be very difficult wholly to disprove that judgment of the Calvinists. For whatever the Arminians may say, the doctrines taught since the synod of Dort by their principal doctors, respecting grace, and the points connected with it, approach much nearer to the sentiments of those called Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians than to those professed by the Lutherans.

§ 5. The Arminians, supported by the friendship of the magistrates, viewed their cause as by no as by no means desperate, when suddenly an unexpected storm laid it entirely prostrate. There arose first concealed ill-will, and afterwards hostility, between the principal administrators of the new Belgic republic. On the one hand were John van Oldenbarneveldt, a very distinguished man, Hugo Grotius, and Rembold Hoogerbeets; and on the other, the Stadtholder, Maurice prince of Orange. According to some authors, Maurice wished to be created Count of Holland; a design which his father William had before entertained': according to others, he only wished to obtain

That Maurice aimed at the dignity of Count of Holland, is stated by Lewis Aubrey, from the representations of his father Benjamin Aubrey, the French ambassador to Holland, in his Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de Hollande et des autres Provinces Unies, sect. ii. p. 216, ed. Paris, 1697, 8vo. According to Aubrey, Oldenbarneveldt disapproved and resisted this design of the prince; and Maurice revenged this temerity by the capital punishment of this great patriot. The truth of this statement is opposed at great length by Mich. le Vasor, in his Histoire de Louis XIII. tom. ii. pt. ii. p. 123, &c. But John le Clerc, in his Biblioth. Choisie, tom. ii. p. 134, &c., and in his Historia Provin

ciarum Belgii Fœderati, takes great pains to substantiate the truth of this statement of Aubrey, or rather of his father: and he also shows that Maurice's father had the same designs. It is not necessary we should decide this dispute. It is sufficient for our purpose, that Maurice was viewed, by Oldenbarneveldt and his friends, as wishing to subvert the liberties of his country, and to obtain supreme power (which no one denies); and that this was the cause of Oldenbarneveldt's eagerness to weaken the influence of Maurice, and to check the progress of his power; whence arose the indignation of Maurice, and the calamities of the Arminians, who adhered to Oldenbarneveldt and Grotius.

more authority and power than appeared consistent with the liberties of the state: at least (as no one denies), he was thought by the leading men to be seeking supreme dominion, which would overthrow liberty. The heads of the Batavian republic, whom we have mentioned, and who were also the patrons of the Arminians, resisted these designs. The Remonstrants were strenuous on the side of their friends, because all their hopes of safety centered in them: and on the other hand their adversaries accommodated themselves to the views and wishes of the prince, and inflamed his already irritated mind, by various new suspicions. He therefore, kindling with indignation, resolved on the destruction of those who guided the commonwealth by their counsels, and of the Arminians who were their supporters; and at the same time joined himself to the party of the Calvinists. Those leading men in the republic above mentioned, were therefore thrown into prison. Oldenbarneveldt, a man of great respectability, and venerable both for his gray hairs and for his long and faithful public services, was consigned to a capital punishment. Grotius and Hoogerbeets were condemned to perpetual imprisonment, under I know

8 That the general course of events was such as is here stated, will not be denied at the present day, when the times of excitement have gone by, even by the patrons of Calvinistic sentiments, who are ingenuous. And they may grant this without injury to their cause. For if

their predecessors, (though I wish neither to deny nor to affirm the fact,) while guarding and defending their religious opinions, either from the customs of the age, or from the ebullitions of passion, were not so considerate and provident as they should have been, no candid and wise man will thence infer, that present parties are bad men, or their cause an iniquitous one. Because it is well known, that many bad things are often done by men by no means bad, and that a good cause is often defended in an unjustifiable manner. For illustration and confirmation of the facts here concisely stated, the best authorities, in addition to those already mentioned, are John le Clerc, in his Historia Provinciarum Belgii Fœderati, and his Bibliothèque Choisie, tom. ii. p. 134, &c. and Hugo Grotius, in his Apologeticum eorum, qui Hollandiae Westfrisiaque et vicinis quibusdam na

tionibus ex legibus præfuerunt ante mutationem quæ evenit A. D. 1618, Paris, 1640. 12mo, and often republished. The Life of John van Oldenbarneveldt, written in Dutch, was printed at the Hague, 1648,

4to. A history of the trial of the three celebrated Dutchmen above named, was elegantly compiled from authentic documents, by Gerhard Brandt, entitled, Historie van de Rechtspleginge gehouden in den Jaaren, 1618 et 1619, omtrent de drie gevangene Heeren Johan van Oldenbarneveld, Rombout Hoogerbeets, Hugo de Groot; of which I have before me the third edition, with notes, Rotterdam, 1723, 4to. This whole subject receives also much light from the history of the life and actions of Hugo Grotius, very carefully compiled, chiefly from unpublished papers, by Caspar Brandt and Adrian Cattenburg. This great and noble work was published in two large volumes, entitled, Historie van het Leven des Heeren Huig de Groot beschreven tot den Anfang van zyn Gesandschap wegens de Koninginne en Kroone van Zweden aan't Hof van Vranckryck, door Casp. Brandt, en vervolgt tot zyn Doodt door Adrian van Cattenburgh, Dordrecht en Amsterd.

not what pretence. The cause of the Arminians could not be brought before a civil tribunal, because their alleged offence was not against the laws but the religion of the country. To procure their condemnation, therefore, a more religious tribunal, or a council, must be called; agreeably to the practice of the Genevans, who think that all spiritual matters and controversies should be decided in ecclesiastical councils.

§ 6. Without delay, delegates were assembled, at the instance of Maurice1, at Dort, a city in Holland, from the United Provinces, and from Hesse, England, the Palatinate, Bremen, and Switzerland, who held, in the years 1618 and 1619, what is called the Synod of Dort. Before it appeared to defend their cause the leading men of the Arminian sect; at the head of whom, and their chief orator, was Simon Episcopius, a disciple of Arminius, and professor of theology at Leyden, a man distinguished, as his enemies admit, for acuteness, learning, and

1727, 2 vols. folio. Those who wish to get a near view and full knowledge of this great man, must by all means consult this great work; for all the other accounts of his life that are extant are insipid and unanimated, presenting only a shadow of this great hero. Nor is the most recent Life of Grotius, in French, by Burigny, (republished, from the Paris edition, in Holland, 1753, 2 vols. 8vo,) much better; at least it does not satisfy one who is desirous of a thorough knowledge of the transactions. ["There appeared in Holland a warm vindication of the memory of this great man, in a work published at Delft, in 1727, and entitled, Grotii Manes ab iniquis Obtrectationibus vindicati; accedit Scriptorum ejus tum editorum tum ineditorum, Conspectus tripler. See the following note." Macl.]

["Dr. Mosheim, however impartial, seems to have consulted more the authors of one side than of the other; probably because they are more numerous and more universally known. When he published this history, the world was not favoured with the Letters, Memoirs, and Negotiations of Sir Dudley Carleton, which Lord Royston (now Earl of Hardwick) drew forth some years ago from his inestimable treasure of historical manuscripts, and presented to the public, or rather at first to a select number of persons, to whom he distributed a small number of copies of these Negotiations, printed at his own expense. They were

soon translated both into Dutch and French; and though it cannot be affirmed that the spirit of party is nowhere discoverable in them, yet they contain anecdotes with respect both to Oldenbarneveldt and Grotius, that the Arminians and the other patrons of these two great men have been studious to conceal. These anecdotes, though they may not be at all sufficient to justify the severities exercised against these eminent men, would, however, have prevented Dr. Mosheim from saying, that he knew not under what pretext they were arrested." Macl.

- Mosheim's Latin is, "criminum nescio quorum nomine;" which Schlegel here understands to mean, upon some unimportant charges. Tr.]

["Our author always forgets to mention the order issued out by the States General, for the convocation of this famous synod; and by his manner of expressing himself, and particularly by the phrase Mauritio auctore, would seem to insinuate that it was by the prince that this assembly was called together. -The legitimacy of the manner of convoking this synod was questioned by Oldenbarneveldt, who maintained that the States General had no sort of authority in matters of religion, not even the power of assembling a synod, affirming that this was an act of sovereignty that belonged to each province separately and respectively." See Carleton's Letters, &c. Macl.]

fluency. But scarcely had Episcopius saluted the judges in a grave and eloquent address, when difficulties arose to interrupt the whole impending discussion. The Arminians wished to commence the defence of their cause by attacking the sentiments of their adversaries the Calvinists: this the judges disapproved, deciding that the accused must first explain and prove their own doctrines, before they proceeded to confute those who differed from them. Perhaps the Arminians hoped that a full exposure of the odious consequences which they could attach to the Calvinistic doctrine, would enkindle in the minds of the people present a hatred of it; while the Calvinists feared, lest the mighty genius and fine eloquence of Episcopius might injure their cause in the view of the multitude. As the Arminians could by no means be persuaded to comply with the wishes of the synod, they were dismissed from the council, and complained that they had been treated unjustly. But the judges, after examining their published writings, pronouncd them, though absent and unheard, guilty of corrupting theology, and holding pestilential errors: and in conformity with this sentence, that they should be excluded from the communion of the church, and be deprived of authority to teach. That there was fault on both sides in this matter, no candid and good man will deny: but which party was more in the wrong, this is not the place to discuss.3

[Perhaps also another reason why both parties were so stiff on this point was, that the members of the synod were not themselves of one mind in regard to the doctrine of predestination; for some of them were Supralapsarians, and others Infralapsarians: and in general, the doctrine of reprobation presented so many difficult points, that the members of the synod deemed it advisable to prescribe to the Remonstrants the mode of confutation and defence, and thus to retain in their own hands the direction of the whole discussion: while the Remonstrants hoped, perhaps, that the diversity of opinion among the members of the synod would prove advantageous to them if they could have liberty to expatiate widely on the doctrine of reprobation, and divide somewhat the votes of the judges. This is no improbable conjecture of Van Wagenaer, in his Geschichte de Vereinigten Niederlande, vol. iv. p. 451. Schl.]

The

3 The writers on the council of Dort are enumerated by Jo. Alb. Fabricius, Biblioth. Græca, vol. xi. p. 723. most copious of them all is Gerhard Brandt, in his History of the Reformation in the Netherlands, vol. ii. and iii. But as he was himself an Arminian, with his narration should be compared the work of James Leydecker, in which the purity and integrity of the synod of Dort are vindicated, in answer to Brandt: Eere van de Nationale Synode van Dordrecht Voorgestaan en Bevestigd tegen de Beschuldingen van G. Brandt, vol. i. Amster. 1705, vol. ii. 1707, 4to. After formally comparing them, I did not find any very enormous errors in Brandt: nor do these two writers disagree so much about the facts, as about the causes and import of the facts. John Hales, an Englishman, who belonged to neither party, has related simply what he saw: and his Letters, written from the scene of this council I myself published some time ago, with

§ 7. We cannot here descant upon either the purity and virtues, or the iniquity and faults, of the fathers at Dort. In extolling the former, the Calvinists, and in exaggerating the latter, the Arminians- if I do not misjudge are over zealous and active.4 That among the judges of the Arminians, there were men who were not only learned, but also honest and religious, who acted in great sincerity, and who had no suspicion that they were doing any thing wrong, is not to be doubted at all. On the other hand, these facts are too clear and obvious to escape the sight of any one: - -I. That the destruction of the Arminian sect was determined upon before the council was called 5; and that