Canons of Dort. Third and Fourth Heads.

The Synod of Dort, 1618-1619, was a Dutch Synod with eight foreign countries and their Reformed representatives invited, including Anglican Churchmen: George Carleton, Joseph Hall, Thomas Goad, John Davenant, and Lancelot Andrewes. The Arminians were led by their champion Simon Episcopius and the famous jurist Hugo Grotius. The Arminians asserted conditional election based on forseen faith, universal atonement, resistable grace, and final losses and lapsibility of the elect. After long patience and much expostulation the Arminians, the Synod drew up its canons. Bishop George Carleton (Lllandaff, Chichester), though asserting episcopancy (as if that were the issue) concurred with the canons. Bishop Joseph Hall (Exeter, Norwich) agreed with them and tried to press for their adoption in the Church of England. Subsequently, Archbishop Laud sent spies to Norwich because of Hall's "low church views" and "Calvinism." Also, King James 1 favored the Dordrectian canons. Thomas Goad, previously a Calvinist, returned to England an Arminian and lost some preferrments as a result. Bishop John Davenant (Salisbury) turned out to be an Amyraldian, but that was still too much for Mr. Laud; Davenant opposed and debated Arminians. Bishop Lancelot Andrewes (Chichester, Ely, Winchester), overseer of the KJV-project, had earlier gained preferrments under Sir Francis Walsingham, the staunch Calvinistic spymaster for Queen Elizabeth (an eye-witness to Antichrist's pogrom in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in France...Walsingham barely escaped Paris). Andrewes praised Calvin, although his Eucharistic views were two steps backwards from the English Reformers. Here are the Canons, the Third and Fourth Heads.

Canons of Dordt, week 33

August 14, 2009

The Third and Fourth Heads of Doctrine: Human Corruption, Conversion to God, and the Way It Occurs

Having set forth the orthodox teaching, the Synod rejects the errors of those

I Who teach that, properly speaking, it cannot be said that original sin in itself is enough to condemn the whole human race or to warrant temporal and eternal punishments.

For they contradict the apostle when he says: Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death passed on to all men because all sinned (Rom. 5:12); also: The guilt followed one sin and brought condemnation (Rom. 5:16); likewise: The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).

Having set forth the orthodox teaching, the Synod rejects the errors of those

II Who teach that the spiritual gifts or the good dispositions and virtues such as goodness, holiness, and righteousness could not have resided in man’s will when he was first created, and therefore could not have been separated from the will at the fall.

For this conflicts with the apostle’s description of the image of God in Ephesians 4:24, where he portrays the image in terms of righteousness and holiness, which definitely reside in the will.