--It is
possible that they may recall to mind my labours for unity. Even those
writings, which I published since my calamity, have not been 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.
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