peace, was commendable; that they might indeed expect a recompence from
the blessed Peace-maker, but they had great reason to apprehend the same
fate with those, who, attempting to part two combatants, receive blows
from both. "Perhaps, by writing to reconcile such as entertain very
opposite sentiments, I shall offend both parties: but if it should so
happen, I shall comfort myself with the example of him who said, If I
please men I am not the servant of Christ."

Grotius, content with gratifying his pacific desires, expected his
reward from posterity; which he clearly intimates in some verses written
by him on this subject

Accipe sed placidis, quae si non optima, certe,
Expressit nobis non mala pacis amor.
Et tibi dic, nostro labor hic si displicet aevo,
A grata pretium posteritate feret.

Rivetus, the Clergyman, treated Grotius with as much indignity, as if he
had attempted to destroy the foundations or Christianity. Grotius
answered him in a tract, entitled: _Animadversiones in animadversiones
Andreae Riveti_.

This work was followed by two others on the same subject: _Votum pro
pace ecclesiastica, contra examen Andreae Riveti_, and _Rivetiani
Apologetici Discussio_: this last did not appear till after the author's
death.

He wrote, in 1638, a small piece, entitled: _De Canae administratione ubi
Pastores non sunt, item an semper communicandum per symbola_. The design
of this pernicious work is to shew, that Laymen, in the absence of
Priests, and in cases of necessity, may do their office.

Rigaut had already maintained this error, and been smartly attacked by
M. De l'Aubepine, Bishop of Orleans: all the defenders of the hierarchy
were scandalized at it, and Father Petau, among the Roman Catholics, and
Dodwell, among the English Clergy, have refuted it.

In the tract, _An semper communicandum per symbola_, the Arminians
endeavour to maintain, that we are not obliged to communicate with such
as require subscriptions to which we cannot assent without acting
against our consciences. Grotius's design was to shew, that the
Arminians might dispense with communicating with the
Contra-Remonstrants, if these insisted on retractions.

Another theological work of Grotius (of whose publication we cannot fix
the time) is entitled: _Dissertatio historica ac politica de dogmatis &
ritibus & gubernatione Ecclesiae Christianae, de dogmatis quae reipublicae
noxia sunt, aut dicuntur._ In this piece he