reproach that they were
seeking change in the Divine service and desirous of creating tumult and
schism.

This Remonstrance, set forth by the pen of the famous Uytenbogaert, whom
Gomarus called the Court Trumpeter, because for a long time he had been
Prince Maurice's favourite preacher, was placed in the hands of
Barneveld, for delivery to the States of Holland. Thenceforth the
Arminians were called Remonstrants.

The Hague Conference followed, six preachers on a side, and the States of
Holland exhorted to fraternal compromise. Until further notice, they
decreed that no man should be required to believe more than had been laid
down in the Five Points:

I. God has from eternity resolved to choose to eternal life those who
through his grace believe in Jesus Christ, and in faith and obedience so
continue to the end, and to condemn the unbelieving and unconverted to
eternal damnation.

II. Jesus Christ died for all; so, nevertheless, that no one actually
except believers is redeemed by His death.

III. Man has not the saving belief from himself, nor out of his free
will, but he needs thereto God's grace in Christ.

IV. This grace is the beginning, continuation, and completion of man's
salvation; all good deeds must be ascribed to it, but it does not work
irresistibly.

V. God's grace gives sufficient strength to the true believers to
overcome evil; but whether they cannot lose grace should be more closely
examined before it should be taught in full security.

Afterwards they expressed themselves more distinctly on this point, and
declared that a true believer, through his own fault, can fall away from
God and lose faith.

Before the conference, however, the Gomarite preachers had drawn up a
Contra-Remonstrance of Seven Points in opposition to the Remonstrants'
five.

They demanded the holding of a National Synod to settle the difference
between these Five and Seven Points, or the sending of them to foreign
universities for arbitration, a mutual promise being given by the
contending parties to abide by the decision.

Thus much it has been necessary to state concerning what in the
seventeenth century was called the platform of the two great parties: a
term which has been perpetuated in our own country, and is familiar to
all the world in the nineteenth.

These were the Seven Points:

I. God has chosen from eternity certain persons out of the human race,
which in and with Adam fell into sin and has no more po