en diverted
from the same peaceful object." If ever any Protestant divines deserved
the reproach cast by Mr. Gibbon,[029] on the first reformers in general,
"of being ambitious to succeed the tyrants whom they had dethroned,"
they were the members of the Synod of Dort.

The Synod was closed on the 29th of May.

The sentence passed by it on the Remonstrants was approved by the States
General on the 3d July 1619. On the same day, the Arminian ministers,
who had been detained at Dort, were, by a sentence of the States
General, banished or imprisoned, deprived of their employments, and the
effects of some were confiscated. Similar severities were exercised on
the Arminians in most of the territories subject to the States General.
To avoid the persecution, some fled to Antwerp, some to France, the
greater part to Holstein. There, under the wise protection of the
reigning duke, they settled, and afterwards built a town, which from him
they called Friedericstadt.

They continued to assert the irregularity of the Synod: the Bishop of
Meaux shrewdly observed, that "they employed against the authority of
the Synod, the same arguments as the Protestants use against the
authority of the Council of Trent."

[Sidenote: CHAP VI. 1618.]

[Sidenote: The Synod of Dort.]

For the publication of _Acts of the Council_, divines were chosen
out of various districts of the United Provinces: their edition of the
Acts was published at Dort in the year 1620, in folio, in the types of
the Elzevirs; and was soon afterwards republished with greater
correctness, in the same year, at Hanover, in quarto, with an addition
of a copious index.--An Epistle of their High Mightinesses the States
General, addressed to the Monarchs, Kings, Princes, Counts, Cities and
Magistrates of the Christian world, and vouching for the authority and
authenticity of the Acts,[030] is prefixed to this edition. The
Remonstrants published an edition of the Acts in 1620, in 4to.: it is
said,[031] that from a fear of their adversaries, it was printed on
ship-board.

Here, the history of the Arminians, so far as it is connected with that
part of the Life of Grotius to which our subject has hitherto led us,
seems to close. We shall hereafter be called upon to resume it.

CHAPTER VII.

TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT OF GROTIUS. HIS ESCAPE FROM PRISON.

1618-1621.

While the Synod of Dort continued its sittings, Prince Maurice and his
party were actively employe