THE SYNOD OF DORT.
At last, after a great deal of controversy and complicated preparations, the National Synod of Dort [983] was convened by the States-General, Nov. 13, 1618, and lasted till May 9, 1619. It consisted of eighty-four members and eighteen secular commissioners. Of these fifty-eight were Dutchmen, the rest foreigners. The foreign Reformed Churches were invited to send at least three or four divines each, with the right to vote.
James I. of England sent Drs. George Carleton, Bishop of Llandaff (afterwards of Chichester); John Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury; Samuel Ward, Professor of Cambridge; the celebrated Joseph Hall, afterwards Bishop of Exeter and Norwich (who, however, had to leave before the close, and was replaced by Thomas Goad), and Walter Balcanquall, a Scotchman, and chaplain of the King. The Palatinate was represented by Drs. Abraham Scultetus, Henry Alting, Professors at Heidelberg, and Paulus Tossanus; Hesse, by Drs. George Cruciger, Paul Stein, Daniel Angelocrator, and Rudolph Goclenius; Switzerland, by Dr. John Jacob Breitinger, Antistes of Zurich, Sebastian Beck and Wolfgang Meyer of Basle, Marcus Rutimeyer of Berne, John Conrad Koch of Schaffhausen, John Deodatus and Theodor Tronchin of Geneva; Bremen, by Matthias Martinius, Henry Isselburg, and Ludwig Crocius. The Elector of Brandenburg chose delegates, but excused their absence on account of age. The national Synod of France elected four delegates--among them the celebrated theologians Chamier and Du Moulin--but the King forbade them to leave the country. King James instructed the English delegates to 'mitigate the heat on both sides,' and to advise the Dutch ministers [984] 'not to deliver in the pulpit to the people those things for ordinary doctrines which are the highest points of schools and not fit for vulgar capacity, but disputable on both sides.'
The Synod was opened and closed with great solemnity, and held one hundred and fifty-four formal sessions, besides a larger number of conferences. [985] The expenses were borne by the States-General on a very liberal scale, and exceeded 100,000 guilders. [986] The sessions were public, and crowded by spectators. John Bogerman, pastor at Leuwarden, was elected President; Festus Hommius, pastor in Leyden, first Secretary--both strict Calvinists. The former had translated Beza's tract on the punishment of heretics into Dutch; the latter prepared a new Latin version of the Belgic Confession. The whole Dutch delegation was orthodox. Only three delegates from the provincial Synod of Utrecht were Remonstrants, but these had to yield their seats to the three orthodox members elected by the minority in that province. Gomarus represented supralapsarian Calvinism, but the great majority were infralapsarians or sublapsarians.
Thus the fate of the Arminians was decided beforehand. Episcopius and his friends--thirteen in all--were summoned before the Synod simply as defendants, and protested against unconditional submission.
Orthodox Calvinism achieved a complete triumph. The Five Articles of the Remonstrance were unanimously rejected, and five Calvinistic canons adopted, together with the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism. A thorough and most excellent revision of the Dutch Bible from the Hebrew and Greek was also ordered, besides other decisions which lie beyond our purpose.
The victory of orthodoxy was obscured by the succeeding deposition of about two hundred Arminian clergymen, and by the preceding though independent arrest of the political leaders of the Remonstrants, at the instigation of Maurice. Grotius was condemned by the States-General to perpetual imprisonment, but escaped through the ingenuity of his wife (1621). Van Olden Barneveldt was unjustly condemned to death for alleged high-treason, and beheaded at the Hague (May 14, 1619). His sons took revenge in a fruitless attempt against the life of Prince Maurice.
The canons of Dort were fully indorsed by the Reformed Church in France, and made binding upon the ministers at the Twenty-third National Synod at Alais, Oct. 1, 1620, and again at the Twenty-fourth Synod at Charenton, Sept., 1623. In other Reformed Churches they were received with respect, but not clothed with proper symbolical authority. In England there arose considerable opposition. [987] The only Church outside of Holland where they are still recognized as a public standard of doctrine is the Reformed Dutch Church in America.
The Synod of Dort is the only Synod of a quasi-oecumenical character in the history of the Reformed Churches. In this respect it is even more important than the Westminster Assembly of Divines, which was confined to England and Scotland, although it produced superior doctrinal standards. The judgments of the Synod of Dort differ according to the doctrinal stand-point. It was undoubtedly an imposing assembly; and, for learning and piety, as respectable as any ever held since the days of the Apostles. Breitinger, a great light of the Swiss Churches, was astonished at the amount of knowledge and talent displayed by the Dutch delegates, and says that if ever the Holy Spirit were present in a Council, he was present at Dort. Scultetus, of the Palatinate, thanked God that he was a member of that Synod, and placed it high above similar assemblies. Meyer, a delegate of Basle, whenever afterwards he spoke of this Synod, uncovered his head and exclaimed 'Sacrosancta Synodus! Even Paolo Sarpi, the liberal Catholic historian, in a letter to Heinsius, spoke very highly of it. A century later, the celebrated Dutch divine, Campegius Vitringa, said: 'So much learning was never before assembled in one place, not even at Trent.' [988]
On the other hand, the Remonstrants, who had no fair hearing, abhorred the Synod of Dort on account of its Calvinism and intolerance. The Lutherans were averse to it under the false impression that the condemnation of Arminianism was aimed at their own creed. Some secular historians denounce it as a Calvinistic tribunal of inquisition. [989]
The Canons of Dort have for Calvinism the same significance which the Formula of Concord has for Lutheranism. Both betray a very high order of theological ability and care. Both are consistent and necessary developments. Both exerted a powerful conservative influence on these Churches. Both prepared the way for a dry scholasticism which runs into subtle abstractions, and resolves the living soul of divinity into a skeleton of formulas and distinctions. Both consolidated orthodoxy at the expense of freedom, sanctioned a narrow confessionalism, and widened the breach between the two branches of the Reformation.