§1
At length they have attempted a synod; but in it nothing was conducted, not only according to the ancients, but not even according to those things which they themselves had said. I showed, however, that this assembly is not a council in chapter 56 of the Coronis.
It is certain that God constituted the ecclesiastical state with such providence and αὐταρχείᾳ [sovereignty] that in it he established an infallible norm for recognizing truth and detecting errors, and gave a judge for terminating suits and controversies. For that city is in no way worthy of the name of a state in which the inhabitants join issue concerning a right in such a manner that, after many expenses and long lawsuits, they remain uncertain concerning their cause; in which there is no one who pronounces judgment in such a manner that one party can know itself victorious and the other defeated. But all the assemblies of the Innovators are such states: without a norm, without a judge of the truth. Therefore they are not Churches of Christ.
They all vaunted Scripture, but they all employed it for themselves against the opposing party. And now the Gomarists, or the Rigid, in Holland confess that the matter cannot be composed from the Scriptures alone. For Scripture has not hitherto pronounced judgment among the litigants in such a manner that either party has confessed itself to have lost its cause.
It remains for them to sanction concord by a synod. But they themselves sufficiently confess that not even this way is suitable for removing controversies and hatreds. For although Dudley Carleton, ambassador of the King of Britain to the Estates, counsels a synod in the name of his king and shows that there is no judge except a synod, he nevertheless did not persuade the Arminians.
I indeed demonstrated in the thesis that a synod cannot exist, in the book On the Synod of the Evangelicals, Syncretism, and the Peace of Germany. Nevertheless, the Rigid pretend that they possess hope; for that reason they have summoned from Germany, Britain, and Switzerland demagogues of their own stamp, in order to overwhelm the Arminians.
But the Arminians object in reply that it cannot exist and is not useful. I shall readily show that their opinion is most true and demonstrate it by many arguments; and you, reader, will seek several more from our Father Maximilian Sandaeus.
§2
The first argument is this. They have no one who may legitimately convoke a synod; therefore there can be no legitimate synod. For unless an assembly has been gathered by the authority and power of a magistrate, it is a crowd, in which there can be neither order, nor jurisdiction, nor any authority. The consequence, therefore, is clear. The Belgian Provinces themselves confess the antecedent; for neither any king nor the States General can proclaim a synod, while the provinces are unwilling. Therefore there will be no synod. No king can do so, because the Estates acknowledge none. The Estates themselves cannot do so; for the several provinces possess that liberty of religion by which the right of determining belongs to them, not to the States General. The man who wrote accurately on the same matter proves this and demonstrated the error of the British ambassador in §51:
“Because, according to the liberty and the privileges of the fatherland and of the Provinces, absolutely no province can by any power or right make laws for another, or all the provinces for one, in matters of religion, nor overwhelm one another by votes, even if a single province should dissent from all the others; rather, it is necessary that each individually consent freely to that which is being transacted. For no one—unless he is altogether a stranger to Belgian affairs—is ignorant that each one of the Provinces possesses absolute jurisdiction, and that one is no more subject to another than to the Emperor or to any foreign king, and this in all matters to which they are not bound by force of the pacification, or final union. By that pacification, indeed, they in no way renounced their dominion and absolute jurisdiction; rather, each retained its own, both in the government of the state and in the administration of justice, and especially in the care of religion. Indeed, it is so far from the case that by these compacts and agreements the Provinces renounced their Privileges and the absolute Dominion consequent upon them, or wished to prejudice or be an impediment to one another in their respective special and particular privileges, immunities, exemptions, rights, statutes, laudable and approved customs, and other rights, that, on the contrary, they united precisely for this reason: that they might mutually aid, strengthen, and defend one another in every way they could against all, whoever they might be, who should attempt in any manner to violate those aforementioned privileges and rights of theirs in fact. On what foundation, therefore, is the authority of some provinces now diminished under the pretext of religion—a thing which was itself formerly attempted by the Spaniards? Under what appearance of reason or equity, after the other provinces, is Holland—the most powerful of the provinces, which during the war sustained greater burdens than the rest and defended them by contributing great sums of money—subjected to the dominion, and as it were the guardianship, of others, and that by those who have received the greatest advantages from her? It was rightly said by Lipsius that factions generally sprout from ambition, when one man endeavors to dislodge another from his place and invade his seat. God knows, and I leave it to the conscience of each person, whether our calamity does not derive its origin from the same source.”
The provinces themselves profess, moreover, that not all are willing; and they cannot be compelled, because their liberty has been guaranteed by oath.
§3
The second argument. The other party, namely the Remonstrants, attribute too much to the magistrate. Carleton accuses them of assigning this authority to the secular power: “To confer this authority upon the secular power, by giving Caesar what is Caesar’s, is to decline too much toward the other side and to take from God what is God’s.” For the Remonstrants, most harshly harassed by the Classes and by their Rigid brethren, fled to the aid of the Magistrate, which the ambassador reproaches them for doing. Therefore they wish the magistrate, not a synod, to be judge; and for that reason a synod, which would be without authority, cannot exist. It must therefore first be determined whether the faculty of deciding belongs to the Magistrate or to the synod. This controversy cannot be terminated among them, either by a synod or by the Magistrate, because the parties are not suitable judges. Therefore they cannot judge for themselves against their adversaries; for the Dutch ministers are not the entire Church, nor is the power of the Estates universal over all the ministers. Finally, therefore, the preachers will lose their cause, and the right will belong to those who possess greater power.
For the Most Serene King of Great Britain decided the matter against his own servant, as is evident from the Summary of the Conference held in the chamber of His Majesty in the year 1603 and published by William Barlow, Doctor of Theology and Dean of Chester, and afterward printed at Leiden in the Belgian language, pages 38 and 30. For when Reynolds happened to make mention of instituting a synod in which a bishop with his elders would determine disputed points which previously could not be decided, His Royal Majesty was moved, judging that they intended the Scottish eldership—if the word may be pardoned—or were attempting that which accords as well with monarchy, as the King himself says, as God with the devil.
“There,” he says, “Peter and Paul, Thomas and Matthias, will assemble, and at their own discretion will subject me and my council, and all our proceedings, to their censure. There Peter will rise and say, ‘Thus it shall be’; and Paul will answer, ‘We do not wish it thus, but it shall be in this manner.’ And therefore I repeat what I said before: Le Roy s’avisera [the King himself will deliberate]. Pray, wait another seven years before you seek such a thing from me; and if you then find me asthmatic and exceedingly fat and stopped up by windy pipes, perhaps I shall grant an audience. For I am certain that, if this manner of governing should prevail, my mouth will then be stopped up.”
Hence it is also evident that His Royal Majesty had recourse not to a synod but to his Privy Chamber at Hampton Court.
Since this dispute, therefore, is litigated on both sides with great exertions, it will be ἀόριστος [without limit], and it will furnish laughter to the enemy and compassion to Catholics.
§4
The third argument. To this pertains the difficulty of the Provincial Synods of Gelderland, Zutphen, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland, Overijssel, and Groningen—and perhaps specifically of Amsterdam. Their ministers were instigators and approvers of the public plundering of the Arminians that took place; that cruelty must be cloaked by an elaborate disputation, lest it be disapproved by the others. But the preparatory synods will impede the general synod of all the provinces: first, because they will think differently; next, because the synods themselves are divided among themselves. The provincial Synod of Holland will be able to define nothing, because the Arminians judge nothing right except what they themselves think, and the Gomarists will delegate no one except a Rigid. Thus one party will protest against the other, and finally no one will expose himself so foolishly to the hatreds of his adversaries as to surrender himself to danger, without hope, with a half-complete—that is, most contentious—commission.
§5
The fourth argument. Contrary to the opinion of the Calvinists, that synodal session and disputation presupposes an enormous miracle, without which it cannot exist. But assemblies and disputations of the Church by no means rest upon miracles. For why do they not seek an angel from heaven instead of contriving a synod which cannot exist without a miracle? The miracle, however, consists in this: that they think men most hostile to one another, exasperated by long-lasting and pertinacious hatreds, full of anger, shame, rivalry, and lies, will by a sudden metamorphosis become gentle and placid; and, although the presence of hostile men inflames and arms them, they imagine that, as soon as these men have beheld one another, they will put off every vice. As if Atreus, when he stood stupefied at the sight of his brother, had laid aside his savagery; or as if Thyestes had not preferred flights through the forests to royal riches because his brother also had to be seen.
This, therefore, I assert: that without a manifest miracle there will be no disputation free from anger, quarrel, hatred, curses, contention, envy, and lies. For if hitherto, as they testify concerning one another, they have filled everything with lies, why should they now suddenly fear to deceive, which they have hitherto learned to do? They act, therefore, just as if someone were to send mountain brigands into some tender region and, when an opportunity had been given them, suppose that they would immediately become good colonists and men.
§6
The fifth argument. There is no rule and norm to which they can direct their disputations and faith. Therefore they will sail rashly in the vast ocean of controversies, and they must be borne wherever the impulse of some opinion drives them. There is no Scripture, no tradition, no authority of Councils, of Fathers, or of the Church. The first of these must be proved, for they spontaneously confess the others.
That Scripture cannot be their norm and judge is so easily apparent that they themselves cannot deny it, as was shown above concerning those of Dordrecht. Next, each person interprets Scripture according to the analogy of his own opinion; from this it arises that, in reading it, each confirms his preconceived opinions.
§7
The sixth argument. A twofold condition can be imagined for those who will be sent from the provinces to the synod: for either they will arrive with free mandates, so that they may determine in the synod what seems good to them; or they will arrive having been sworn to the opinion of their own provinces. If liberty is granted, the delegates themselves will nevertheless not easily change their opinion. Or if they do change it, by their own transgression they will not thereby draw their entire province with them. Indeed, greater discord will arise from this matter. For it can happen that delegates from Arminian cities will cross on foot into the opinion of the Gomarists, and deputies from Gomarist cities will embrace Arminian opinions. If this should happen, all dissensions would be doubled, and various disturbances of the states would arise.
§8
The seventh argument. By what law will the ministers, magistrates, and people of the provinces live during the synod? Will they teach all their customary assertions with confidence? Or will everything depend upon the future decree of the judgment? If they continue to teach, the synodal definition will profit nothing on either side, since it belongs to a few, and to men whom it is very easy to err. If they are ordered to doubt, they will mingle heaven and earth, since hitherto they have defended their dogmas so confidently and so furiously. Thus, if those who were deputed should alter anything in the faith, their return to their own people will by no means be permitted.
§9
The eighth argument. The regard for honor and reputation which exists in the state will greatly impede a recantation and retraction of opinions. For since they have represented one another not only as heretics but also as infamous men, liars, and calumniators, they cannot return to favor unless they acknowledge themselves to have been such. Friends and enemies, and children and children’s children, will perpetually reproach them with this matter.
§10
The ninth argument. There will be no order at all in the synod. For either magistrates or preachers will preside. Not the magistrates: formerly the preachers did not acknowledge the magistracy. “In the year 1586,” says Oldenbarnevelt in his Apology, “many preachers no longer acknowledged the Estates. Without the knowledge of the Estates, they sought from the Earl of Leicester the convocation of a synod which they called national.” Next, the ambassador Carleton denies that this ought to be done. Not the preachers: for the Estates formerly opposed their decrees, and yet were compelled to dissemble. Thus Oldenbarnevelt, page 7:
“The decrees of the pretended National Synod are published. The States General raised a difficulty in approving them without the consent of the Estates of the respective provinces, by whom they themselves had been delegated. By doing this, they contracted the utmost odium and gave very great offense. Action was taken against them by writings, endeavors, and public sermons in the churches. The Estates of Holland yielded somewhat to the time, judging it a good thing if they accepted the decrees for a time, provided that meanwhile the Estates, Nobles, and cities each retained its own right of appointing and removing ministers of the Church.”
But if they nevertheless assemble, will they give their votes with equal right and merit? Who will reconcile men equal in number and hatred?
§11
The tenth argument. What number of synodal delegates will be established? Let there indeed be two hundred. If, matching equals in opposition, you place a hundred Arminians against as many Gomarists and next confer an equal right of voting upon both parties, you will experience a hundred opinions contrary to the other hundred. If you assign more to one sect, the others will complain of inequity; for those who are fewer in number will say that they are overwhelmed by the multitude. They will vaunt that their votes, although fewer, are nevertheless sounder.
§12
The eleventh argument. Many of the deputies have explained their opinion in public writings and have condemned others. They will not refute their own decrees; for they would have to confess not merely that they had erred, which is human, but also that they had lied, which belongs to impostors.
§13
The twelfth argument. Very many states and cities have harassed men of the opposing religion with prison, exile, and fines. The people of Amsterdam saw the Arminians publicly despoiled after a mob had gathered. For these things the acknowledgment of error is not sufficient; rather, compensation for losses and insults is necessary, which the preachers—by whose turbulent sermons the fatherland was shaken—will have to furnish and pay.
§14
The thirteenth argument. Their Church is invisible, and all who constitute it are invisible; therefore their synod too must be invisible. As the Church is, so is the synod. For what if no one in that synod possesses the Spirit of God and faith? Therefore a synod cannot exist. For who
will convoke a Church which he cannot see, hear, or recognize? A synod is a part of the Church, and indeed its most noble part—not a formal but an integral part. Thus a visible part will belong to a whole which is hidden and invisible. Therefore their synod cannot be called the Church.
§15
The fourteenth argument. From this it follows that no one’s conscience is bound by the decree of a council, for it is not known whether that council is a part of the invisible Church, and consequently whether the judgment they pronounce belongs to the Church or to unbelievers and heathens.
§16
The fifteenth argument. A very great impediment will be placed before the synod by the multitude and variety of foreigners. For if Frenchmen, Germans, and Englishmen are to be endowed with the right of voting, in the judgment of the Arminians this cannot be done otherwise than by aiding the parties’ opinions with an equal number on each side. This will not only fail to quiet the dispute but will also disperse it into foreign regions, although both France and England already possess enough controversies.
§17
The sixteenth argument. The theologians of foreign nations are bound to the opinions of their own assemblies, princes, and kings, and will be able neither to think nor to speak otherwise than those by whom they are sent. Nor, if they act otherwise, will they ever be received again by their assemblies and princes. For if the Prince of Orange was already making ordinances concerning these matters long ago, what will kings do now? Concerning order, says Barnevelt on page 43:
“From the year 1574 onward, questions were raised in these provinces, my lord the Prince of Orange, of pious memory, and the Lords Estates asserting that it belonged to their office to establish ecclesiastical laws and ordinances, since lawful supremacy resided with them, in conformity with the practice received in all Kingdoms, Provinces, States, and Cities which undertook the Reformation against the idolatry, heresy, and tyranny of the Papacy.”
Therefore nothing can be expected from the other parties except rigid Zwinglianism, Socinianism, or Lutheranism. For why should the Arminians not summon Lutherans and Catholics to their aid if the Gomarists draw in Zwinglians?
§18
The seventeenth argument. Those who seek a synod have not even established a place equitably.
They named Dordrecht. In this matter not a few disadvantages will occur. First, that city is remote from the Frisians and the people of Overijssel, so that they will come with greater difficulty and remain only with weariness. Second, it is an island, and therefore departure is less free and less subject to one’s discretion. Third, Dordrecht exercises an ancient rivalry with Holland, which it has frequently opposed; thus those whom its inhabitants persecute not only from the common hatred of the nation but also on account of religion can expect nothing moderate in that city. Fourth, I do not think they will be safe. For although the people of Dordrecht have not yet stirred up a popular tumult against the Arminians, nor plundered those wretched men after the manner of the people of Amsterdam, there have nevertheless been ministers among them who wrote most bitterly against them in public and brought it about that the Arminians of Dordrecht preferred to hide rather than be despoiled. Fifth, perhaps the ancient calamities of floods will strike fear into some; for when it was torn away from the mainland, one hundred thousand perished. That was the crime of one man. Sixth, that city is more suited to testing wine than to judging dogmas; and therefore the ancestors established there τὸ δοκίμιον ἐν οἴνῳ, not τῶν πνευμάτων, although they did not hold even that privilege without a dispute, for they maintained that right through many contests against the people of Gelderland and Overijssel. Seventh, the proximity of Brabant and the Spaniards is also suspect; stirred by these disputes, it will sound the trumpet for a war of the Fifth and Sixth Gospel. Eighth, Dordrecht is full of Frenchmen and other foreigners, and therefore the city resounds with great noise; the Arminians will not be able to be safe. But if no snares are being prepared, why is Leiden, Haarlem, or indeed The Hague itself not conceded?
Is the purpose that captives may be handed over to the Spaniards?
§19
The eighteenth argument. The excessive contention for proclaiming a synod is pressed with great prejudice to the provinces which think otherwise. For why do a part of the Hollanders and Zeelanders prescribe law? Why do magistrates reduce the Arminians to order? Why do they disarm the other provinces as though conquered and enslaved by secret contrivances and then oppress them with garrisons? The cause of all these things is religion, for whose liberty the Arminians think that they fought and now pay the gravest exactions—not so that they may consult their consciences, but so that they may subscribe to the most abominable insanities of the Borborites and Manichaeans. Thus, after so many insults, are they also to be condemned by a public decree of the synod, although they are the more learned and honorable part of Holland and Belgium? Who can doubt that patience so unworthily injured will pass into fury and that arms will then be ready at hand?
§20
The nineteenth argument. Gomarism cannot be introduced without arms. The cities, therefore, must be strengthened by a garrison so that they may comply with the opinions of the Rigid; or, if they refuse to believe, they must be encircled by a siege. And in this manner, when swords have been turned against one another’s entrails, they will hand over the half-dead fatherland to those from whose rule, by fleeing, they fell into the most wretched servitude under the appearance of liberty. For what appearance will that fatherland possess in which one sect rules and the rest are oppressed? Or how will those fight for altars and hearths, for religion, who are compelled to serve on account of religion? Who, for this cause alone—that they do not believe in Rigid Zwinglianism—are cast down from their dignity with the mark of infamy and plead their cause in chains among enemies?
Some hope now remains, and therefore extreme measures have not yet been attempted. But if synodal violence drives to despair those who refuse to be more insane than the Borborites and Manichaeans, they will not be able to restrain themselves from preferring anything whatever to acceding to those horrid opinions. But if at the same time the truce is dissolved, with what concord will they be able to resist?
§21
The twentieth argument. The Arminians have already predicted beforehand what the decree of the synod will be, and the preparatory synods now show it: namely, that the Arminians are to be condemned and the Gomarists approved. Thus there is no need for so laborious and expensive a convocation when the execution of the synodal judgment is already in force before the synod. For to this end the Arminians have been accused in the fatherland and before the tribunal of Great Britain; garrisons have been imposed upon Arminian cities; Arminian magistrates reduced to order; preachers restrained and driven away; and churches restored to the Gomarists. Since these measures vehemently offend their spirits, if those same things are approved by the public judgment of a National Synod, all who lose their cause will learn by this matter that the people of Amsterdam and the other Rigid seek dominion.
The synod, therefore, will stir up disturbances and tumults. For it will render unequal those who are equal by right and who hitherto were equal in appearance, which
has never been done among a free people without a great commotion and never will be.
§22
The twenty-first argument. Vengeance will be sought by the Rigid; for those who judge themselves gravely injured and fear that they will be affected by greater disadvantages rage more savagely when they have obtained power and authority. But the Rigid complain in court concerning the greatest injuries of the Mild and compose entire books about them. Therefore no one can hope that, in an anger which they judge most just, they will be so slow as not to employ the aid of the synod, when before the synod they have done everything hostile. The Hague Letter, which sets forth the condition of Holland, was printed at Cologne. Its beginning is: “On the fourteenth day of June, Count William arrived here from Friesland on the second passage.”
Nor can it be hoped that the victorious Rigid will be gentler than the Mild were. For they are by nature fiercer, and by the decrees of their sect they are incited to cruelty, which they even attribute to God. Pain and anger are added, because they judge that they have suffered injury. Finally, those through whom they conquered—that is, the rigid ministers—will have to be obeyed.
§23
The twenty-second argument. Not even consideration of expense permits a synod. First, there must be many participants, otherwise authority will be absent; for since all have hitherto been equal, the conventicle of a few will not be able to prejudge the rest. Next, the leaders of the preachers are summoned from France, England, and Germany, for without them they judge the decrees insufficiently firm; therefore the expenses must increase with the numerous army of guests. Third, the ministers will not assemble alone; they must draw along their households and wives. For since they lack the gift of chastity, why should they be driven to synodal celibacy? Thus in the first session they will enact a decree concerning bringing or retaining their households. Fourth, the synod will be long-lasting, for they enumerate more than fifty disputed articles; and since hitherto they have not defined even one in a decade, they will expend many years upon so many.
Let there therefore be five hundred Arminian ministers and as many Gomarists, and two hundred foreigners—in all, 1,200. Let there be eight hundred politicians and delegates of the Provinces, for they too will state their opinion, lest the ministers prevail. But I prefer to posit fewer; let there indeed be three hundred. Thus let the entire synodal number be 1,500. Add as many wives, servants and maidservants, sons and daughters, and you will easily find eight or nine thousand. Provision must be made for their lodging, food, and clothing. But let us contract the number so that the ministers with their households make only four thousand. Nevertheless, they will burden the fatherland with great expense, and it will be easier to feed ten thousand armed infantrymen than to furnish the delicacies of the ministers—especially the foreigners—and their wives. A soldier’s food passes by an easy route of supply; those doctors clothed in silk and accustomed to delights demand other dishes. Nor is it fitting for the synodal delegates and leading spearmen of all the ministers to be chastened by excessive frugality.
No one who has considered their accounts more deeply will doubt that this expense is burdensome to the federated provinces, for all things have hitherto been disordered. Barnevelt’s Apology teaches this. He reports that, when he himself was summoned to the office of advocate, the Colleges of the Great and Provincial Council, the prefects of accounts, and the magistrates of The Hague were so disposed toward the Estates that by voice and writings they called into doubt whether so much authority still remained to the Estates of Holland and West Friesland that they could execute the imposed taxes and contributions. He adds that for a loan it was necessary to pay twelve annually in place of interest and two for brokerage. The burdens were far greater than the revenues. How much greater they were he teaches on page 14:
“From the time when the King of France made peace with the British King and thereafter with the Spaniard and the Archdukes, during the last nine years of the war the burdens of debts and expenses had increased so that they exceeded the entire amount of taxes and contributions—even though these had been increased by no small amount—by twenty-six million florins. The last two years too had passed with very little glory and great loss, and indeed fear of greater danger remained—although two expeditions of the enemy had meanwhile been removed by vigilant zeal—because during the same time foreign subsidies were both less certain and joined with a greater burden to the fatherland than they had been before; and because, as such great burdens took increase, the condition of the whole fatherland appeared likely finally to be reduced to despair, just as the senators and prefects of accounts had warned three years earlier.”
Behold, so great were the burdens. Now in peace they have been increased by the cities sitting in deliberation concerning the convocation of a synod. While some threaten the liberty of others, others endeavor to protect and defend their own liberty and religion by civil arms. Meanwhile even those cities which now enroll soldiers lest they be compelled to consent to convoking a synod will be induced with much greater difficulty to furnish expenses. For they will permit the contentions of the preachers much more patiently than pay money. Lest a war of preachers be waged, war is waged in the state; and nevertheless there are those who think that the cities will not contribute money so that the preachers can contend, when they are endeavoring with all their resources to quiet their conflicts.
§24
The twenty-third argument. There are certain wounds which do not bear wind and air; likewise these evils of the state, when exposed, reject medicine. That true synod will not only make them notorious but also known by supreme right and publicly. When this has been done, shame concerning wickedness is lost. The most cunning old man Oldenbarnevelt rightly recognized this, for he always endeavored to conceal those discords. He says on page 27 of his Apology:
“I grieved from my heart over the dissensions which arose between the Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants. I always labored in every way lest they spread abroad or break out in public. I first procured that, under the presidency of different ecclesiastical persons, the cause of Arminius be examined within private walls. To this end the business was conducted in the house of the late Lord of Noordwijk as senior curator of the University of Leiden; and afterward the business was instituted in the supreme Council between Gomarus and Arminius, with ministers of different churches from each party presiding. I accepted or rejected neither of the opinions, since I understood—in conformity with the exceedingly wise instruction and repeated writing of the King of England—that each opinion could be tolerated without prejudice to truth, in Christian charity and union. I shall also take care not to indicate who are the authors of these tragedies.
“But I judge that the evil broke forth especially from a certain synodal Decree by which the professors of Theology at Leiden and all the Preachers were instructed to attend in the fear of God to those things contained in the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism, and, if they doubted anything anywhere, for each to send it, set down in writing, to their Classes. The cause of this decree was furnished by all the earlier ecclesiastical differences and controversies which had taken their origin from Caspar Coolhaes, H. Herberts, Taco
Sybrandts, Cornelius Wiggers, and several others concerning the understanding, sense, and varying interpretation of certain points contained in the two aforementioned writings—especially Divine Predestination—and because for this reason in 1597 Your Most Illustrious and Powerful Lordships understood that the Confession was to be reviewed and corrected in a synodal congregation. For after your Commissioners had informed you of the aforementioned synodal Decree, you judged that it was not expedient for the doubts of the Professors and Preachers to be handed over to their respective Classes, fearing lest in this way an enormous flame of dissension be kindled among the theologizers.”
From this it is most manifest that both the Estates and Barnevelt acted so as to cover those disgraceful matters. Therefore, for them now to be opened more deeply and displayed is contrary to the public advantage.
§25
The twenty-fourth argument. Not only controversies and errors but the crimes of the ministers themselves will be bandied about through the mouths of men. Let Grevinckhoven and Adrian Smout be an example: either they are such as they describe one another—that is, the wickedest of all bipeds—or they are not such, and thus each must be the worst of all calumniators. But whom will we be able to summon to the synod about whom more atrocious things are not said? What else will that synod be than τῶν κεχηνότων ἀγορά, that is, an assembly of men of whom the province should deservedly be ashamed?
§26
The twenty-fifth argument. The outcome of the synodal disputation is doubtful or certain. If what is to be defined has certainly been predefined, if the judgments of the judges have been anticipated, the Calvinist world is disturbed within itself in vain. If it is uncertain, why do they not fear that judgment may be pronounced against the Rigid, the people of Amsterdam, and the most excellent Prince of Orange? If that should occur, who does not perceive that his authority will be cast down and that the magnanimous man will by no means endure the insult?
§27
The twenty-sixth argument. When the synod has been happily completed, judgments, writings, and defamatory pamphlets against both the matter and the persons will immediately be brought forward. Everyone will disapprove something in it, many many things, and some everything. The anger of the parties will thus be inflamed. If free voices are suppressed, they will bite more venomously from concealment. The examples are in Germany, which after all the colloquies of the Lutherans among themselves and of those same men with the Calvinists was assailed by a new paroxysm and renewed the war.
§28
The twenty-seventh argument. According to their laws, the norm of disputing is the Bible, but none is authentic except the Hebrew in the Old Testament and the Greek in the New. The other versions possess human authority, as they think. Therefore only the Hebrew and Greek languages must be employed in that synod, and everything must be examined according to that norm. But whence among them are there so many Hebraists and Hellenists—so many, I say, most learned men to whom it is certainly established that they understand those languages so thoroughly that they know an error of interpretation to be absent from themselves?
§29
The twenty-eighth argument. Nevertheless, let us establish that in the Belgian nation there are so many most learned in Hebrew and Greek. Yet who will persuade us and others that they are true interpreters of an unknown text? For whatever is transacted, their words will not be authentic for us.
§30
The twenty-ninth argument. Indeed, some of them, such as Calvin and Vorstius, have discovered errors and lies in the Hebrew Bible itself, so that when this foundation is undermined, the whole mass will fall.
§31
The thirtieth argument. Men will come from France, such as Sharp, who denies that the laws of magistrates pertain to consciences. Men will come from England who will restore bishops—that is, as the Puritans judge, build the criminal ladder of Antichrist. The Belgians will call these things monsters.
§32
The thirty-first argument. If it pleases that synodal delegates be released from the oath by which they are bound to their opinions, the same right must be granted to all ministers; otherwise they will not be bound to obey the synod. It must be feared, however, that this matter may reach the soldiers and even the Magistrates.
§33
The thirty-second argument. Although the States General and the princes labor to constitute the synod, nothing will ever be accomplished when the preachers are unwilling. Our countrymen rightly say that it is difficult to hunt with unwilling dogs. But the synod is instituted against the will of all the Arminians—that is, one half, and indeed the more learned half. They will come unwillingly and therefore, delaying, will contrive everything so that they may depart with the matter unfinished. And how easy this is! They will dispute concerning the conditions and laws, make exceptions, and protest. If an answer to questions is sought, they will ask for delays again and again. Some will allege their health, others their occupations; many will say that on account of weddings they cannot dispute, as Grevinckhoven reports to have happened. The sum is this: there cannot be a synod where one half does not wish there to be a synod. Violence will perhaps be applied, and they will be compelled to attend. They will not be able to repel force, but that presence will be useless; for they cannot be driven to dispute and answer unless willing and eager. Therefore there can be no synod and no concord from it.