“There are conclusions,” says Grotius,[028] in a letter written by him in the same year, “in the canons of the Synod of Dort, of which, if good Melancthon were again to make his appearance, he would express his disapprobation, and with which Bullinger would be no less grieved; there are others, which alienate all the Lutherans from the Calvinists; although amity and concord are desirable between them and us at this juncture.  There are some points in them, which forbid the Greek churches from uniting with us, though they are very favourable to us; but there are others of the Dort canons, which admit of no controversy.—­It is possible that they may recall to mind my labours for unity.  Even those writings, which I published since my calamity, have not been diverted from the same peaceful object.”  If ever any Protestant divines deserved the reproach cast by Mr. Gibbon,[029] on the first reformers in general, “of being ambitious to succeed the tyrants whom they had dethroned,” they were the members of the Synod of Dort.

The Synod was closed on the 29th of May.

The sentence passed by it on the Remonstrants was approved by the States General on the 3d July 1619.  On the same day, the Arminian ministers, who had been detained at Dort, were, by a sentence of the States General, banished or imprisoned, deprived of their employments, and the effects of some were confiscated.  Similar severities were exercised on the Arminians in most of the territories subject to the States General.  To avoid the persecution, some fled to Antwerp, some to France, the greater part to Holstein.  There, under the wise protection of the reigning duke, they settled, and afterwards built a town, which from him they called Friedericstadt.

They continued to assert the irregularity of the Synod:  the Bishop of Meaux shrewdly observed, that “they employed against the authority of the Synod, the same arguments as the Protestants use against the authority of the Council of Trent.”

[Sidenote:  CHAP VI. 1618.]

[Sidenote:  The Synod of Dort.]

For the publication of Acts of the Council, divines were chosen out of various districts of the United Provinces:  their edition of the Acts was published at Dort in the year 1620, in folio, in the types of the Elzevirs; and was soon afterwards republished with greater correctness, in the same year, at Hanover, in quarto, with an addition of a copious index.—­An Epistle of their High Mightinesses the States General, addressed to the Monarchs, Kings, Princes, Counts, Cities and Magistrates of the Christian world, and vouching for the authority and authenticity of the Acts,[030] is prefixed to this edition.  The Remonstrants published an edition of the Acts in 1620, in 4to.:  it is said,[031] that from a fear of their adversaries, it was printed on ship-board.

Here, the history of the Arminians, so far as it is connected with that part of the Life of Grotius to which our subject has hitherto led us, seems to close.  We shall hereafter be called upon to resume it.