The dispute still continuing with much bitterness, in 1611 the States of Holland ordered the principal Ministers of the two parties to appear before them:  Twelve accordingly attended, six Arminians and six Gomarists, and disputed in presence of the States on Predestination, the Death of Christ, the necessity and nature of Grace and Perseverance.  The States heard them, but would determine nothing, only recommended to them to live in peace.  But the consequence of this conference was like that of all other disputes, especially in matters of religion, mens minds were the more inflamed and provoked.

Arminius died on the 19th of October, 1609, some time before this conference; and Grotius made his elogium in verse.  He had hitherto applied little to these matters, and even, writing to Rutgersius, December 24, 1609, he ingenuously owns, he did not understand a great part of them, because they were foreign to his profession.  He had no inclination to offend Gomar in commending Arminius:  he speaks with great moderation of their disputes, and doth not even affirm that the sentiments of Arminius were the only true ones:  but entering afterwards into a more strict examination of those points, he was convinced that the idea we ought to have of God’s goodness and justice, and even the earliest tradition of the church, favoured Arminius’s system, and contradicted that of Gomar:  and in these sentiments he persevered till his death.

II.  The partisans of Arminius, desirous to efface the bad impressions which Gomar’s discourses and those of his adherents had made on the minds of the public, met privately, and drew up a Remonstrance, dated January 14, 1610, which they addressed to the States of Holland, setting forth, that they did not believe, like their adversaries.

1.  “That God, by an eternal and irreversible decree, had predestinated men, whom he did not consider as created, and still less as culpable, some to everlasting life, and others to everlasting death, without regard to their good or evil actions, from his mere good pleasure, for the praise of his Mercy, or his Justice, or, as others say, to manifest his saving grace, his wisdom, and his absolute power:  And that God has also, by an eternal and immutable decree, preordained the proper methods of executing his will, by which those who are predestinated to salvation are saved in a necessary and inevitable manner, so that it is impossible they should perish; and such as are predestinated to eternal death (who are the greater part of mankind) are necessarily and inevitably damned, so that they cannot be saved.