ting down the heresy of
Arminius, there would before long be a struggle such as would set
province against province, village against village, family against
family, throughout the land. He should be afraid to die in such doctrine.
He shuddered that any one should dare to come before God's tribunal with
such blasphemies. Meantime his great adversary, the learned and eloquent,
the musical, frolicsome, hospitable heresiarch was no more. Worn out with
controversy, but peaceful and happy in the convictions which were so
bitterly denounced by Gomarus and a large proportion of both preachers
and laymen in the Netherlands, and convinced that the schism which in his
view had been created by those who called themselves the orthodox would
weaken the cause of Protestantism throughout Europe, Arminius died at the
age of forty-nine.

The magistrates throughout Holland, with the exception of a few cities,
were Arminian, the preachers Gomarian; for Arminius ascribed to the civil
authority the right to decide upon church matters, while Gomarus
maintained that ecclesiastical affairs should be regulated in
ecclesiastical assemblies. The overseers of Leyden University appointed
Conrad Vorstius to be professor of theology in place of Arminius. The
selection filled to the brim the cup of bitterness, for no man was more
audaciously latitudinarian than he. He was even suspected of Socinianism.
There came a shriek from King James, fierce and shrill enough to rouse
Arminius from his grave. James foamed to the mouth at the insolence of
the overseers in appointing such a monster of infidelity to the
professorship. He ordered his books to be publicly burned in St. Paul's
Churchyard and at both Universities, and would have burned the Professor
himself with as much delight as Torquemada or Peter Titelman ever felt in
roasting their victims, had not the day for such festivities gone by. He
ordered the States of Holland on pain of for ever forfeiting his
friendship to exclude Vorstius at once from the theological chair and to
forbid him from "nestling anywhere in the country."

He declared his amazement that they should tolerate such a pest as Conrad
Vorstius. Had they not had enough of the seed sown by that foe of God,
Arminius? He ordered the States-General to chase the blasphemous monster
from the land, or else he would cut off all connection with their false
and heretic churches and make the other Reformed churches of Europe do
the same, nor shoul