represented by Episcopius, adding that, as they sat next to him, they were more likely to know what he said on the occasion than any other persons." But though this declaration was made on the part of these twelve ministers, the president indirectly gave them the lie, saying that he had done Episcopius no injustice in the representation he had made concerning his conduct in this business, his answer being as he had given it; as all those persons who had any remembrance of it could testify. On this statement our professor instantly asked it as a favour, that the members of the synod who had any remembrance of his expressions would say how they under. stood his answer to the president. This unexpected request, the offspring of conscious innocence, occasioned great confusion in the synod. Bogerman's friends saw that he was placed in an awkward dilemma, inasmuch as it was possible that some might give a different version of Episcopius' answer to that positively asserted by the president, and, consequently, though he himself might es cape suspicion of telling a falsehood, yet so gravely to charge such a crime upon another, without the most indisputable evidence, was seen to be a species of conduct highly indecorous, and ill becoming the dignity of the president of such an assembly. The irritability, however, of Bogerman's feelings at the moment prevented him from discerning this, and, therefore, in a state of furious excite. ment, he began to interrogate several of the members of the synod as to the answer of Episcopius; when some of his more astute friends among the lay commissioners hinted to their president that he should interpose to prevent him from proceeding. Mr. Nichols, in his remarks on the conduct of these lay gentlemen, very charitably attri. butes this interference to "some portion of honesty and fair dealing in them." How far this opinion may be cor rect, we shall not pretend to say, only we would just remind the reader that as these gentlemen lent themselves to the measures of Bogerman, to endeavour to entrap Episcopius in a falsehood, we must leave him, with this fact before him, to draw his own conclusion as to what "portion of honesty and fair dealing" governed them, in helping the ecclesiastical president out of the scrape into which the request of Episcopius had brought him.

On a review of this business, it appears to us that it was due to the character of twelve clergymen, some of whom had been in the ministry for nearly thirty years, and whose conduct had hitherto been unstained, that their testimony on this affair should have been received, had they not had the evidence of others in favour of their statement. And when the reader learns that, in consequence of this calumny on Episcopius being pertinaciously maintained, they drew up and presented, at a subsequent meeting of the synod, the following statement, requesting to be allowed to make oath to its truth, he will think that they were unjustly treated in being forced still to hear the charge frequently repeated by the president and Festus.

"We, the undesigned, pastors and ministers of the word of God, being cited by the deputies of the illustrious the States-General to this national synod, do solemnly testify in all fidelity and truth, that the oration delivered as an introduction into the synod by Dr. Simon Episcopius, our beloved brother in Christ, and professor of theology, had our most perfect approval; and we do aver that when a copy of it was demanded by the venerable president, he did expressly state to him the following words: 'I have no other copy fairly written;' and in no other way could we understand his answer. And in the farther conversation he held with the president on the subject, we believe he could not be understood to mean that he had no other copy, but that he had no other written out sufficiently fair to be presented to the synod. And we are fully prepared to confirm the above statement with an oath in the most solemn manner. Done at Dort, December 12, 1618. Signed, Edwardus Poppius, J. Arnoldus Corvinus, Bernardus Duinglo, Carolus Niellius, Henricus Leo, Philippus Pynacker, Assuerus Matthisius, Thomas Goswinius, Dominicus Sapma, Theophilus Ryckewaert, Benerus Vesekius, Henricus Hollingerus."

To give weight to the above, a similar testimony was drawn up and offered to be sworn to by Hollingerus and Sapma separately, on account of their being seated so near to Episcopius that one of them almost touched him during the conversation he had with the president; and, consequently, could not be mistaken in what he said

These testimonies, however, the president refused to receive.*

In closing this account, we had designed to have made some strong remarks on the conduct of the president and the other members of the synod, who supported him in the charge thus advanced against Episcopius. But, on more

maturely thinking on the business, we deem it better to leave the reader to form his own judgment of their conduct. Nevertheless, we can but advert to the reasoning of Episcopius himself on the subject, in one of the subsequent sittings of the synod, when he showed that he could have no motive for saying that he had no other copy. Had the one delivered to Heinsius contained, as it was slanderously asserted, statements of a treasonable character, then, indeed, we should discover an occasion for his denying his possession of such a document. But when col

* In the Dutch copies of Brandt, a plate is given representing the synod; and, from the distance which the cited are shown to have been stationed from the president, it appears extremely unjust on the part of the latter, to attempt to fix a charge of falsehood upon Episcopius, seeing it was very possible on account of this distance for him to have misunderstood his words; and it was no less unjustifiable in him in refusing to admit the testimony of the two ministers, who are represented by this plate as being so near to him as to have rendered it impossible for them to have misunder. stood him; and whose office and character ought to have been a sufficient warrant for admitting their testimony. This, however, being refused, Episcopius, after having had this calumny again and again cast upon him by the president, made his last and solemn de. claration concerning it in the following words: "That he had been much wronged by being charged with prevaricating; that hə had said, indeed, that he had no other copy, but it was not all he had said, for he had subjoined which was fairly written; and that his words had been misunderstood, or but half heard," adding that he had no reason for lying and prevarication. After this statement, he then in the most solemn manner added: "But if any man was inclined to think otherwise, he said he could only answer that, relying upon the testimony of his conscience, and those who sat near him, whose credibility could not be questioned, he should recommend his innocency to God, and possess his soul in peace and quietness; nay, that he should be glad with all his heart that he was obliged to undergo a censure for a crime from which he knew himself to be free, and concerning which he was fully satisfied in his mind, and so should continue till God, the Searcher of hearts, should judge between him and those who thought so hardly of him." He concluded with an earnest request that this asseveration might be recorded among the acts of the synod.

lated by his enemies, as it undoubtedly was, with the copy delivered to the president, and found to contain nothing dissimilar to the former, we see at once a reason why he, with such readiness, even before he was asked by the lay commissioners, adverted to the circumstance of his possessing the rough draft of the one then in possession of the officers of the synod. Consequently, this circumstance, in connection with others, will bring him before the reader's mind perfectly free from the guilt of the charge thus so dishonourably brought against him. And with every allowance for the conduct of Bogerman, as being under strong excitement, generated by a period of fierce religious strife, in which the mind may be held in that state of awful delusion that sees no defect in the most dishonourable mode of proceeding, while its subject is inflated with the idea that he is standing forth as the defender of orthodoxy against the abettors of heresy and the enemies of God's truth; nevertheless, the reader must admit his character and conduct to be those of a person who was incapable of acting in an impartial and honourable manner toward the Remonstrants.

CHAPTER XI.

THAT We might not interrupt our narrative of the proceedings of the synod, arising out of Episcopius' oration, we passed over a circumstance which took place on the 7th and 8th of December, that of the president refusing to allow the oath administered to the members of the synod, to be taken by the deputies from the province of Utrecht. This arose from a design to exclude them from this assembly, unless they ranged themselves with the cited Remonstrants. The reason assigned by the presi dent was, that they were parties with the Remonstrants, and were instructed by their credentials to defend their doctrines. To this they answered, "that the ContraRemonstrants were equally parties, and engaged to defend their doctrines; and, consequently, if the fact alleged against them proved them to be disqualified to act as judges on the points in debate, it equally applied to those

on the opposite side." The president replied, "The cases are not parallel, because our doctrines are not to be judged by the synod, but those of the Remonstrants." This circumstance at once showed the latter what they were to expect, as to the mode in which this assembly would allow the points in dispute to be treated a line of conduct against which the Remonstrants, as it will hereafter be seen, courageously and perseveringly protested. The Utrecht deputies, finding that they should be expelled, unless they consented to take their place beside the cited Remonstrants, consented so to do, believing that they might thus better serve their common cause, than by allowing themselves to be ejected; and, therefore, took their place beside them. This conduct on the part of the synod requires no comment.

On the 10th of December, a most stirring scene occurred. The president having required the Remonstrants to present their opinions on the five points, Episcopius rose, and asked permission to read a document he held in his hand. To this request Bogerman gave a denial, but the president of the lay commissioners consented, and it was accordingly read. It was divided into two sections; the first contained a bold disavowal of the authority of the synod, asserting that the members of it were neither lawful nor equitable judges in the matters between them and the Contra-Remonstrants, from the fact of the latter, with the exception of the foreign divines, being their avowed enemies. The allegation they advanced, they said, was grounded on the fact of their being guilty of schism, in having separated from the national Church, in consequence of the Remonstrants being members of it, declaring that they were heretical, profane, and atheistical, and, consequently, could not hold communion with them. These facts they declared they were ready to prove, and conceived that they justified them in refusing to acknow. ledge as equitable a tribunal constituted of such persons. The second part consisted of twelve rules, by which they said the synod, to act with justice, ought to be guided. These they supported by quotations from writers of the Calvinistic school, who had maintained the same propositions when their doctrines were to be judged by the Lutherans, under circumstances almost similar to those of