Grotius looked upon almost all the Reformed as factious men[565].  He had no esteem for Calvin; speaking of Cassander, he says he was a very excellent, and at the same time a very able man, and therefore most worthy of Calvin’s hatred:  he advised James Laurentius to read, instead of Calvin’s Institutions, Vincent de Lerins.  “I hear[566], says he to him, that you are less seditious than most of your order (that is, the Protestant Clergy) and that you only suffer yourself to be drawn away by others:  wherefore I will give you one good counsel:  read the Scriptures in the original, the confessions of faith of the ancient Christians, instead of the Belgic Confession, the Catechisms of Cyril in the room of Ursinus’s Catechism, and the acts of the General Councils, and not those of the Synod of Dort:  you will then easily perceive that Grotius is not become a Papist, but Laurentius turned a Calvinist.”  Laurentius wrote against him:  but Grotius took his revenge[567] by silence.  He did not approve of the separation of the Protestants; he thought these new Churches, these new Rites had not at all contributed to the promoting of piety.  “It is just, said he[568], to reform our manners:  but would it not have been better for us, after reforming ourselves, to have prayed to God for the reformation of others; and for the Princes and Bishops, who desired a reformation to have endeavoured to procure it by general councils, without breaking the unity.”  A Minister called D’Or, turning Roman Catholic[569], Grotius discovered little concern at it, and speaks of it with great calmness in a letter to his brother.  “What D’Or has just done, says he, the learned Pithou did before him:  Casaubon was resolved to do the same had he remained longer in France, as he assured several persons, and among others Descordes.  I would fain, continued he, have the abuses that have crept into the church remedied, and will always say so; but is it just, or are there any examples, that it should be done by schism?  This ought to be the more weighed, as we easily perceive that those who have formed new parties had not always the Spirit of God; that they have propagated new abuses, and that this licence to separate themselves has given rise to different parties which will never be united.”  He speaks in another place of Casaubon’s sentiments[570], and pretends that this learned man thought the Roman Catholics of France better informed than those of other countries, and came nearer to truth than the Ministers of Charenton.

He explained himself very frequently and very sharply against the schism of the Protestants.  “Viretus, and the rest, says he[571], ought not to have erected new churches:  yet they have done it before they were excommunicated:  even an unjust excommunication would not have entitled them to erect altar against altar.”  He recites several passages from the Fathers on this subject, by which he pretends to confute the first reformers[572].  He came