Journal: Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal
Volume: RPTJ 06:1 (Fall 2019)
Article: Four Centuries Ago: An Historical Survey of the Synod of Dort
Author: David G. Whitla

---

RPTJ 6:1 (Fall 2019) p. 4

Four Centuries Ago:
An Historical Survey of the Synod of Dort1

David G. Whitla

Professor of Church History

Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Introduction

The year 2019 marks the four-hundredth anniversary of the successful conclusion of one of the most significant – and arguably one of the most overlooked – ecclesiastical assemblies in Church History. The Synod of Dort (1618–19) and the canons it produced have been both praised and denounced by historians and theologians for the past 400 years. Generally speaking, these widely different opinions have represented the winning and losing side of the great Calvinist- Arminian dispute, which the Synod sought to resolve. English Puritan Richard Baxter’s oft-cited opinion is representative of the victors at Dort: writing in 1656, he concluded, “The Christian World since the days of the Apostles has never seen a Synod of more excellent Divines than … [the Westminster Assembly] and the Synod of Dort.”2 Nineteenth-century American liberal theologian Charles Briggs represents a very different appraisal of Dort and its divines: “The scholastic theologians of … Holland perverted [the] precious doctrinal achievements of Calvinism into hard, stern, and barren dogmas … They divided the Calvinistic camp into two parties, scholastic Calvinists and moderate Calvinists.”3 But a close examination of the synod’s history and its canons reveals that this was not an unnecessary dispute over words between allegedly “moderate” and “stricter” Calvinists. While there were nuances of opinion at this as in every assembly of Christ’s Church, the Synod of Dort was a field of battle between two very different understandings of the Gospel. As such, it was a debate worth having, and because it is a debate that is very much alive in Christendom, this is a Synod still worth listening to. This essay contextualizes the subsequent studies of the Canons of Dort by offering a brief historical introduction.

Reformation And Politics In The Infant Dutch Republic

We begin with the Reformation in the Netherlands and the emergence of the Dutch Republic. When the Reformation first came to the Dutch, the patchwork of provinces with their princes and nobles were under the dominion of the Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V – the same Charles who presided at Luther’s defense at the Diet of Worms in 1517. Lutheran and Anabaptist teachings made some inroads in the Low Countries the decade after the Emperor’s ban on the Reformer, but it was the Calvinist branch of the Reformation that took root fro...

visitor : : uid: ()