Proceedings of a conference held Apr. 6-7, 2006 in Dordrecht, Netherlands.

The Synod of Dordt (1618-1619), the international assembly which ended the yearslong dispute between Arminians and Calvinists, was a defining event in the history of the Dutch Republic. This collected volume presents new facts and analyses concerning the Synod, its context, and its legacy. It includes contributions on the Synod’s international character (Genevan delegation, James Ussher), biased historiography ( John Hales and Walter alquanquall), scholasticism ( Johannes Maccovius), philosophical ramifications, and Arminian theology. New, manuscript-based details about the formation of the Canons of Dordt are presented. Other papers examine the Canons' ascendency to confessional status, intentional pastoral style, and view on the salvation of infants. Finally, its reception in the Dutch context as reflected in prints and printed works is mapped out.

In 1679 Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716) was banished from the province of Holland. Why was this humanist scholar exiled from one of the most tolerant parts of Europe in the seventeenth century? To answer this question, this book places Beverland’s writings on sex, sin, and scholarship in their historical context for the first time. Beverland argued that sexual lust was the original sin and highlighted the importance of sex in human nature, ancient history, and his own society. His audacious works hit a raw nerve: Dutch theologians accused him of atheism, he was abandoned by his humanist colleagues, and he was banished by the University of Leiden. By positioning Beverland’s extraordinary scholarship in the context of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, this book examines how his radical studies challenged the intellectual, ecclesiastical, and political elite, providing a fresh perspective upon the Dutch Republic in the last decades of its Golden Age.

InBremen als Brennpunkt reformierter Irenik zeigt Leo van Santen anhand der Biografie von Ludwig Crocius (1586-1655), wie dessen irenische Theologie zur Verständigung von Reformierten und Lutheranern nicht so sehr dogmatisch bedingt war, als vielmehr vom Bremer Stadtrat veranlasst wurde, der an guten Beziehungen mit dem lutherischen Umland Interesse hatte. Mit seiner Irenik kollidierte Crocius jedoch, zunächst 1618-1619 als Bremer Delegierter während der Dordrechter Synode, mit der von den calvinistischen Niederlanden geforderten strengen Orthodoxie, die 1636 einen Kirchenstreit verursachte. Die von Santen erstmals ausgewerteten Korrespondenzen, die Crocius aus diesem Anlass und als Prorektor des Gymnasium Illustre zur Empfehlung von Studenten mit bedeutenden Reformierten wie Vossius in den Niederlanden führte, bezeugen Bremens bislang wenig wahrgenommene vollwertige Stellung im frühneuzeitlichen europäischen Reformiertentum. In Bremen als Brennpunkt reformierter Irenik, Leo van Santen demonstrates how Ludovicus Crocius’s irenical theology, meant to mediate between the Reformed and the Lutheran Churches, was instigated by the Bremen municipal authorities who had an interest in good relations with the Lutheran surrounding area. Van Santen bases himself on the life of Crocius (1586-1655). With his irenicism, however, in 1618-1619 as Bremen delegate at the Synod of Dordt, Crocius for the first time collided with the strict orthodoxy insisted upon by the Dutch Calvinists, which led to an ecclesiastical conflict in 1636. The correspondence that Crocius, as pro-rector of the Gymnasium Illustre, conducted on this subject with Reformed scholars such as Vossius in the Dutch Republic, testify to Bremen’s hitherto insufficiently recognized position in Europe’s early modern Reformed world.

This volume is the first to adopt systematically a comparative approach to the role of ancient texts and traditions in early modern scholarship, science, medicine, and theology. It offers a new method for understanding early modern knowledge.

At the Synod of Dordrecht (1618–19), the deep questions of justification and faith, election and rejection, time and eternity, grace and free will, the individual and the body of Christ, Israel and the church, the acquisition of salvation through Christ and its application by His Spirit, baptism and regeneration, and especially the precise relationship between these, were at stake. These deep questions are addressed in this study. Lines are drawn to the historical, theological and political context of the time of the synod. Patristics and the Middle Ages are not absent, nor are the metaphysical questions related to these theological issues. Also the church polity of Dordt is discussed, especially the roots, influences and structures of its church order. This volume ends with a hermeneutical reflection on the way we confess the electing God today.

Shedding critical new light on the diverse forms of Puritan belief and practice in England, Scotland, and New England, Hall provides a multifaceted account of a cultural movement that judged the Protestant reforms of Elizabeth's reign to be unfinished.