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Updated: June 7, 2025
After the Waartgelders had been disbanded, Utrecht revolutionized by main force, the National Synod decided upon, and the process of changing the municipal magistracies everywhere in the interest of Contra-Remonstrants begun, he continued to urge moderation and respect for law. Even now, although discouraged, he was not despondent, and was disposed to make the best even of the Synod.
A clergyman of their persuasion accidentally passing through the street was forcibly laid hands upon and obliged to preach to them, which he did with great unction. The magistracy, where now the Contra-Remonstrants had the control, forbade, under severe penalties, a repetition of such scenes.
As if because a man admitted the possibility of all his fellow-creatures being saved from damnation through repentance and the grace of God, he must inevitably be a traitor to his country and a pensionary of her deadliest foe. And where the Contra-Remonstrants held possession of the churches and the city governments, acts of tyranny which did not then seem ridiculous were of everyday occurrence.
"To prevent this inconvenience," he said, "the States were endeavouring to settle some certain form of government in the Church; which being composed of divers persecuted churches such as in the beginning of the wars had their refuge here, that which during the wars could not be so well done they now thought seasonable for a time of truce; and therefore would show their authority in preventing the schism of the Church which would follow the separation of those they call Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants."
This would be done with perfect ease if he would only be willing to favour a little the one party, that of the Contra-Remonstrants, and promise his Excellency "perfect and perpetual authority in the government with other compensations."
Had not the deeply injured and misunderstood Grotius already said, "If the trees we plant do not shade us, they will yet serve for our descendants?" Yet it is passing strange that the preacher of that sermon should be the recent champion of the Contra-Remonstrants in the great controversy; the man who had made himself so terrible to the pupils of the gentle and tolerant Arminius.
For the great captain of the country and of his time, the son of William the Silent, the martial stadholder, in the fulness of his fame and vigour of his years, had now openly taken his place as the chieftain of the Contra-Remonstrants.
Some towns, however, levied men in consequence of the States decree, whether they suspected their garrisons, or thought there was no other way to suppress the enterprises of the rioters. The Contra-Remonstrants seeing themselves powerfully protected by Prince Maurice, separated from the communion of the Arminians in 1617. Hist. l. 17.
Their disputes ought to end in a brotherly accord, as in Acts xv., much disputing, but all ended in accord, no putting to the vote.” And, p. 5, he will have things carried “with strength of argument and unanimous consent of the whole clergy.” Behold how he joineth issue with the remonstrants against the contra-remonstrants, to introduce not only an academical, but a sceptical and Pyrrhonian dubitation and uncertainty, so that there shall never be an end of controversy, nor any settlement of truth and of the ordinances of Jesus Christ, so long as there shall be but one tenacious disputer to hold up the ball of contention.
This motion was agreed to by the States, to the great mortification of the Contra-Remonstrants: they complained that the States had exceeded their power. Hence arose a grand contest who ought to be Judge in ecclesiastical matters. The Arminians said it belonged to the Civil Magistrate to decide them: the Gomarists maintained that the clergy alone had that power.
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