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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75582	The just mans defence, or, The royal conquest being the declaration of the judgement of James Arminius, Doctor of Divinity in the University of Leyden, concerning the principall points of religion, before the States of Holland and VVestfriezland / translated for the vindication of truth, by Tobias Conyers, sometimes of Peter-house in Cambridge.; Declaratio sententiae de predestinatione. English	Arminius, Jacobus, 1560-1609.; Conyers, Tobias, 1628-1687.	1657 (1657)	Wing A3700A; ESTC R208013	52,267	187

and others be explained by beleevers and unbelievers my judgement is dilucidly comprehended in it which moved me being to dispute publikely in the Colledge to order the questions In Collegio publicoprivato Academiae to be stated in the words of the Confession It agrees with the Catechism Quest 20. 54. 7. It very well sutes the Nature of God viz. his wisdome goodness and righteousness is the principal matter and clearest demonstration of them 8. It 's at very good agreement with the Nature of Man whether considered in the state of Innocency Apostacy or restauration 9. It holds good correspondency with the Act of Creati●n confirming it to be the communication of good according to the intent of God and the event of the thing that it had its rise from Divine goodness its continuation and preservation from Divine Love and that it is the perfect and proper work of God wherein he pleased himself and procured all things which were necessary ad non peccandum to a not sinning 10. It consents with the Nature of eternal life and those titles wherewith it is dignified in Scripture 11. With the Property of eternal death and those names put upon it by the Holy Ghost 12. It makes sinne to be truly disobedience and the meritorious cause of condemnation and so concords with Apostacy and Transgression 13. It harmonizeth with the Nature of Grace by ascribing all things competible thereunto reconciling it to his justice and the nature and liberty of Mans will 14. It 's a most advantagious declarative of the glory of Gods Justice and Mercy representing him the cause of all good and our salvation and Man the cause of fin and his own ruin 15. It contributes to the honor of Iesus Christ appointing him the foundation of Predestination the procuring and communicatory cause of salvation 16. It greatly promotes the salvation of men being the power and means unto everlasting life procreating in them sorrow for sin a sollicitous care of conversion faith in Christ study of good works zeal in prayer causing us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling and as far as is necessary hinders desperation 17. It confirms and establisheth that Order and Method the Preaching of the Gospel requires First exacting Faith and Repentance then promising Remission of Sin the grace of the Spirit and eternal life 18. It strengthens the dispensation of the Gospel and renders it fruitful in the promulgation thereof administry of the Sacraments and Publike Prayers 19. It is the foundation of Christianity in that in it the double Love of God are haply joyned together and at good agreement one with another namely his Love of Righteousness with his love of men Lastly This doctrine hath always been allowed of by the major part of Christians and to this day stands approved by them neither can it administer an occasion of its abhorrency or ground of contention in the Christian Church It s much to be wished that men would proceed no further in this matter neither be inquisitive into the unsearchable judgements of God any more then as revealed in the Scriptures And this is that most Noble and Potent States I have to declare to your Highness's concerning this Doctrine so much ventilated in the Church of Christ And if I should not be burdensome I have other things to offer to your Highness's conducing to the declaration of my ●udgement and leading to the self-same end for which I am commanded hither by your Highness's The Providence of God the Free-will of Man Perseverance of Saints Assurance of Salvation are points of so great affinity with this Doctrine of Predestination and have so much dependance upon it that with your good leave I shall deliver my self upon them THe Providence of GOD I judge to be that careful continual and ever-present eye of God by which the care of the whole Universe and all particular Creatures not one exempted is upon him to the conservation and government of them in their essence qualities actions and passions as it best becomes him and sutes them to the glory of his Name and salvation of Believers Herein I substract nothing from Divine Providence competible to it but yeeld it the conservation regulation gubernation and direction of all things even to the abolition of Chance and Fortune yea I subject to the great Providence the Will of Man and the very acts of the rational creature so that nothing is done without its will though contrary thereunto This difference betwixt good and bad actions onely observed in that we affirm God both to will and do good acts but freely to permit the bad being willing to concede the attribution of all acts excogitable concerning evil to the providence of God so wee take heed lest thence God be determin'd The Author of Sin which I evidently enough testified in a Dispute once and again under me at Leyden concerning the righteousness and efficacious Providence of God in evill in which I endeavoured to ascribe unto Providence all those acts concerning sin attributed to God in Scripture making such progress herein that occasion was taken by some of impeaching me with making GOD the Author of Sin which was often produced against me at Amsterdam according to their suggestion from those Theses but how justly it is sufficiently manifest from my answer to the one and thirty Articles mentioned above falsly imposed upon me this being one of them Touching mans will I am of that opinion that he was in dowed with knowledg holiness and other ablities by his Creation whereby he was able to understand estimate consider will and performe true good even as far as the commandment obliged him yet not this without the auxiliaries of Divine grace In the state of Apostacy and sin he is disabled of himselfe and by himself to think will or do any thing truly good and stands in need of the renovating and regenerating power of God in Christ by his Spirit in his intellect affections will and all other faculties to impower him hereunto but participating hereof as freed from sin he is able to think will and do good yet still as under the Supplies of the grace of God Concerning the grace of God I believe it to be that gratuitous and undeserved assio● whereby God is well affected towards a miserable sinner by which first he gave his Son that whosoever believe's in him might have eternall life and then in and for Christ justifies him and adopts him into the right of his sons unto Salvation 2. It is the infusion of Spiritual gifts into the understanding will and affections of man appertaining to his regeneration and renovation viz. Faith hope Charity c. without which gratious donatives man is not meet to think will or do any thing that good is 3. Grace is that continued assistance that non-intermissive helpe of the Holy Ghost by which the Spirit doth instantly perswade excite man before Regenerate unto goodnesse infusing Salutiferous cogitations

5 Gen. 2. 17. that thou shalt dye If any of these be taken away from him the force and weight of that monition exciting him to obedience falls to the ground 1. It opposeth the Image of God in man consisting in sanctity and knowledge of him according to which man was apt able obliged to know love worship and serve God but by this Predestination intervening or rather prevening man was fore-ordained That he should be vitious and sinful i. e. That he should not know God love worship or serve him neither perform that which according to the Image of God in his aptitude potencie and obligement he stood bound to do which tant amounts this That God created man after his own Image in holiness and righteousness but fore-ordained and decreed That man should become impure injust i. e. be made conformable to the Satanical Image 2. This doctrine combats the liberty of mans will with which he was invested by his creation in that it impedes and hinders the use and exercise thereof by binding up and determining the same to one part in the doing this or that so that one of these two God which be far from us to think must be guilty of either for that he created man with freedom of will or hindred him in the exercise thereof being thus created the first chargeth him with incogitancy the last with mutability and both with being iniurious to man and himselfe 3. It 's prejudiciall to man in regard of that propensity and capacity implanted in him by his creation for the enioyment of everlasting life in as much as by this predestinatory decree it is fore-appointed that the greater part of men shall not partake of eternall bliss but fall into everlasting condemnation and that before the ordinance was passed in heaven for their creation they are deprived of satisfying their innate inclinations those concreated tendencies to life ingrafted in them by the hand of their Creator and that not by their own preceding sinne and merit but simply and alone by this Predestination Ninethly This Predestination 9. Arg. is diametrically repugnant to the act of Creation For 1. Creation is the communication Creation is made a means to put in to Execution the Decrees of good according to the intrinsecal propriety of its nature but such a Creation as hath this intent and meaning that it may be a way by which Reprobation formerly made might attain its end is not the communication of good all good is to be estimated and judged of according to the mind of the giver or the end to or for which it was given The intent of the Donor here had been damnation which must have the creature for its subject the end or event of this Creation the eternal perdition thereof in which case Creation had not been the communication of any good but a preparatory to the greatest evil and that both according to the intent of the Creator and the event of the thing according to that of our Saviour It had been Matth. 26. 24. better for that man that he had never been born 2. Reprobation savours of hatred ariseth from thence but Creation cannot proceed of hatred therefore it is no way or means appertaining to the execution thereof 3. Creation is a perfect act of God a declarative of his Wisdom Goodness and Omnipotencie therefore not subordinate to the end of any precedaneous Work or action of God but rather is to be looked upon as an act appointed necessarily antecedaneous and preceding all other actions which he either could decree or undertake for without the pre-conception of it he could not ordain the actual undertaking of any other business without its execution he could not absolve and finish any other Work 4. All the actions of God tending to the damnation of his creatures are aliens and forraigners in that God consents unto them for some other extraneous cause but Creation is the most proper act of God to which he could not be moved by any external cause being that first act of God without which indeed there is nothing else but God every thing that now is having its being by this action 5. If Creation be the way or means by which God will execute the Decree of his Reprobation then he wills more the act of REPROBATION then that of creation pleaseth himself That wch a man wils as the means must needs be less considerable by him then that which he wills as the end Arminius meaneth Elect and reprobate persons being both in Adam according to this Doctrine more in the act of condemning some of his harmless creatures then in the act of their Creation Lastly Creation cannot be a way or means to Reprobation according to the absolute purpose of God when that being finished man might still remain in obedience to Gods command and not sinne to which God had afforded sufficient strength on the one part and placed answerable impediments on the other which is in open hostility with this Doctrine of Predestination Tenthly This Predestination 10. Arg. sutes not the nature of eternal life and those Titles wherewith it is dignified in Scripture it s called the Inheritance of the sons of God but those are the onely sons Tit. 3. 7. of GOD according to Joh. 1. 12. the Doctrine of the Gospel who believe in the name of Jesus Matth. 5. 12. Christ it 's further termed The reward of obedience and of the labour of love the recompence of those Heb. 6. 10. who have fought a good fight and Rev. 2. 10. run well a crown of righteousness 2 Tim. 4. 7. c. Therefore God hath not designed eternal life to any out of his absolute decree without any respect or consideration had of faith and obedience Eleventhly This doctrine disagrees with the nature of eternall 11. Arg. death and those names put upon it by the Holy Ghost it 's stiled The wages of sin the punishment of Rom. 6. 23 eternal destruction which is reserved 2 Thes 1. 8 9. for them that know not God neither obey the Gospel of Christ eternal Matth. 25. 41. Fire prepared for the Devil and Heb. 10. 27 his Angels Fire which shall consume the Adversaries of God Therefore everlasting death is prepared for none out of the absolute decree of God without any sight or intuition of sin and disobedience Twelfthly This doctrine jarrs 12. Arg. with the nature and property of Sin and that two ways 1. Sin is known by the names of disobedience and rebellion in Scripture which finds no place in that person upon whom an unavoydable necessity of sinning by vertue of the preceding decree of God is incumbent 2. Sin is the meritorious cause of condemnation Now the meritorious cause is that which moves the will of God to reprobate according to justice it induceth God to whom sin is hateful to reject and reprobate therefore sin can be no middle

destruction of some men no consideration had in his decree of their disobedience which detract's from his love to the Creature that which appertains to it and represent's a Creature-hatred in God without any cause or necessity drawn from his love of justice and hatred of obliquity wherein true it is not that sin is the primary object of Divine displeasure and the sole meritorious cause thereof Of how great importance this is to the razing the foundation of Religion we may aptly see in this similitude suppose a child speaking My father is so great a lover of justice and equity that if I should be found in waies of disobedience before him he would disinherit me though his beloved son therefore the duty of obedience is highly incumbent upon me if I think to be his heir Another saith My father hath fixed his love so much upon me that he is absolutely resolved to make me his heire what need is there of obedience for in his immutable Will I am destinated to the inheritance and rather then he will suffer me to come short thereof he will draw me to obey him by force irresistible which is in a direct line of opposition to the words of the Baptist Matt. 3. 9. And thinke not to say within your selves Wee have ABRAHAM to our Father for I say unto you God is able of these Stones to raise up Children unto ABRAHAM The Christian Religion is also built upon this double Love as upon its foundation though a little otherwaies considered then before according to the change of mans state who being created in the Image and favour of God became peccant through his own default and an enemy to his Maker The love of Righteousness upon which our Religion leaneth is chiefly that which once he declared only in Christ that nothing should expiate sin but the blood and death of his Son neither would he admit him our Advocate and Intercessor but as besprinkled with his blood A declarative of this he makes daily in the preaching of the Gospel that he will not communicate Christ and his benefits to any but those that turn unto and believe in him The Love to miserable sinners upon which also the Christian Religion is bottom'd is first that by which he hath given Christ his Son for them and appointed him the Saviour of them that believe as also that by which he requires obedience not according to the rigour and severity of his utmost right and authority but with grace and clemency and the promise of remission of sin if so be lapsed man repent This Fundamental the doctrine of Predestination encounters two ways First by affirming Gods love to be so great to some Sinners that he would precisely save them before he had given satisfaction to his love of Justice in Christ Jesus and that in his fore-knowledge according to his purpose nay it overturns the foundation of Christianity by representing God willing to have his justice satisfied because hee would precisely save these men which is to subordinate his love of Justice testified in Christ to his love of sinful men whom he would resolutely save Secondly by making God absolutely willing to damn some sinners without any consideration of their impenitency when a plenary satisfaction to his love of Justice and hatred of Sin had been given in Christ Jesus so that nothing stood in the way of his mercy to be shewn unto Sinners be they what they will but the condition of repentance except some have a minde to say what is contained in this doctrine of Predestination that God will proceed in greater severity with the major part of men then hee did with Lucifer and his apostate Angels and that it is his will that Christ and the Gospel profit them no more then the infernal spirits that the gate of mercy is equally shut against them both when these sinned in their own persons out of malice by a voluntary act the other in their Parent Adam having no actuall being of themselves To the better understanding A more exact declaration of the precedent things how this twofold love is the foundation of Religion and that in the mutual respect one to another let 's ponder more accurately that of the Apostle to the Hebrews Heb. 11. 6. He that cometh unto God must believe that he is that he is a rewarder of all those that diligently seek him In these words two fundamentals are laid against the two fiery darts of Satan Security and Despair the pernicious Pests of Religion either of them sufficient to the eversion and extirpation thereof The first flatters a man into the perswasion that though he serve not God yet shall he not perish but obtaine salvation The other renders him confident that though hee do worship and serve him yet shall he not get any remuneration of him either of these exclude all true divine worship An Antidote against both the Apostolicall words affords He that believes God wil give eternal life to those onely that seek him and upon all others inflict everlasting death cannot easily be secure he that credits God to be a rewarder of those that seek him will not readily despair The ground of the first perswasion is Gods love of Righteousness more dear to him then Man himself which shakes off security The foundation of the other by which man believes stedfastly God to be a rewarder of the true seekers of him is that his so great love to the Creature Man that nothing impedes his bestowing salvation on him but the love which hee bears to his own Justice which is so far from being an hindrance that it doth rather promote and advance it Upon this account Man in his disquisition and search of God is not dubious of divine remuneration and thus diffidence or desperation is put to flight If so that this double love and the mutual relation as hath been clear'd be Religions foundation without which it cannot subsist then the doctrine repugnant to this love both absolute and relative everts and overthrows the same Twentiethly This Doctrine 20 Arg. of Predestination as well in former times as these wherein wee live stands rejected by the greater part of the Professors of Christianity To pass in silence the Ages foregoing things themselves witness it hath been reputed erroneous by the Church of Rome the Anabaptisticall and Lutheran Churches Luther and Melanchthon though in the beginning of the reformation they approved it yet afterwards deserted it This the later writings of Melanchthon apparently testifie of him The same being witnessed of the other by the Lutherans themselves who earnestly contend rather for their Masters more full declaring of his judgement in this then desertion of the former opinion Philip Melan●hth●n believed this opinion of Predestination not much different from the Stoical Fate as his papers testifie especially his Epistle to Casper Peucerus Lelius certifies the contests are grown so high at Geneva about the Stoical Fate that one

is imprisoned because he differs from Zeno. O miserable times the doctrine of the Gospell obscured with strange and forraign disputes The dissent of the Danish Churches in general is evident from the writings of Nicholas Hemminge in his Treatife of Universal grace where he thus states the Controversie with his Adversaries Whether the Elect believe or Believers are elected Those who assert the first he judges them to agree with the doctrine of the Manichees and Stoicks those of the later perswasion with Moses and the Prophets Christ and his Apostles Further Many in our owne Countrey do so ill resent this doctrine as they have openly profess'd they neither can nor will have communion with our Church Some that have joyned themselves yet with this protestation that they could not close with this opinion and not a few upon the score of Predestination onely have fallen away from our Churches who have been of the same minde with us others threatning to leave us unless they were satisfied the Church was not of this judgement Certainly there is no doctrinal point the Papists Anabaptists and Lutherans do more sharply oppose and by whose means procure greater envy to our Church casting an Odium upon all the Doctrines thereof as if there were no blasphemy against God so dreadful either utterable or imaginable which according to this opinion of our Teachers might not upon good consequence bee deduced from this Predestination Lastly There was rarely ever any difficulty or controversie in these our Churches all along since the times of Reformation which hath not had its rise from this Doctrine or been in some conjunction with it For the truth of this wee may recollect the contests at Leyden in the matter of Coolhasius those at Gouda in the business of Herman Herberts those at Horn about Cornelius Wigyer and Medenblick in the cause of Taco Sibrand And this was not the least motive inducing me to a diligent animadvertency of this point endeavouring that no damage accrue thereby unto our Churches the Papacy hence geting ground whose ruin as of the Kingdome of Antichrist all pious Teachers ought to wish studiously seek and as much as in them lies pursue And this in brief is that I have meditated upon this Doctrine of Predestination as it hath in all faithfulness been propounded by mee from the Authours thereof not affixing the least syllable to them which I cannot clearly prove from their own writings Others of our Teachers do hold forth the Doctrine of Predestination with some diffrence from the former and that two several wayes which I will briefly run through The Judgement of some of them is this First That God hath purposed in himself by an Eternal and Immutable Decree out of the lump of mankinde to make the lesser part for his good pleasure partakers of grace and glory to the praise of his renowned Mercy but by his preterition to leave the greater part in the state of Nature impotent to supernatural things and not communicate to them that saving and spiritual grace by which their nature yet whole and integrate might be establish'd or corrupted and depraved restored to the demonstration of his Liberty but afterward being made peccant and culpable to punish them with eternal death for the illustration of his Justice Secondly Predestination which word with these men is taken in the strict sense for Election and opposed to Reprobation is considerable in respect of the end and the means leading thereunto In respect of the end which is salvation and a manifesto of his glorious grace Man 's consider'd absolutely and indifferently in his own nature in reference to the means he is looked upon as of himself and in himself perishing and as guilty in Adam Thirdly In the Decree touching the end these gradations are observable Gods prescience by which he foreknew the predestinate then his prefinition by which he preordain'd the salvation of those whom he foreknew First By electing them from eternity then by preparing grace for them in this life and glory in the life to come Fourthly Means appertaining to the execution of this Predestination are to be Christ himself then efficacious calling to faith in him whence ariseth Justification and then the gift of perseverance to the end Fifthly Reprobation as we are capable of understanding it consists of two acts Preterition and Predamnation the first antecedaneous to all things causes which are either in them or exist by them i. e. beholding man absolutely and indifferently under no consideration of sin Sixthly To execute this act of Preterition two means to be fore-appointed Dereliction in the state of Nature uncapable of supernatural performances and Non-communication of grace whereby their nature uncorrupted might be confirm'd or depraved might be restored Seventhly Predamnation likewise to precede all things yet not without the prescience of the causes of damnation God in his foreknowledge beholding man as an offender and guilty of death in Adam therefore liable to perish out of the necessity imposed upon him by Divine Justice Eighthly The means ordained to put into execution this Predamnation 1. Just desertion and that 's either of Exploration wherein God conferres not his grace or of Punishment when God deprives man of all his salutiferous gifts and delivers him up into the power of Satan 2. Means hardening and those things that accompany it to the real damnation of the Reprobate Others declare their Opinion thus The second Opinion concerning Predestination First That God willing to decree from eternity the Election of particular persons Reprobation of others looked upon mankind not onely as made but as fallen and corrupted and therefore guilty of Malediction from which he determined freely by his grace to save some for a declarative of his Mercy and leave others under the curse in just Judgement for a manifesto of his Justice and this without any consideration had of Repentance and Faith in the one or Infidelity and Impenitence in the other Secondly The special means See the stating of the first opinion particularly belonging to the execution of this Decree of Election and Reprobation are to be the same with those laid down in the stating of the first Opinion excepting those in common appertaining jointly to both for the judgement of these men we now represent makes not the fall of man as a means preordain'd to the accomplishment of the preceding Decree of Predestination but onely as a proaeresis or an occasion administred for the framing hereof Both of these Opinions according Arminius examines these Opinions to their outward shape do in this only differ from the first that they neither place Creation nor the fall as a middle cause fore-appointed of God to execute this preceding Decree of Predestination though the two later themselves agree not concerning the Fall The first of them propounds Election in respect of the end and preterition the first part of Reprobation as preceding the fall the second as both of them

follow if such Explications as these were once permitted in the Church of God It admits of no excuse that the Son of God should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither is it proper to say that the Essence of God is common to the three persons when it 's said to be communicated one from another From what I say it 's openly manifest how much we can tolerate in him whom we suspect not of Heresie and on the contrary how greedily we snatch up any thing to burden him whom we have in suspition the first is conspicuous for the later this example is the least Concerning man's justification before God I am not conscious to my self of teaching or thinking any thing which is not the unanimous sense of the reform'd and Protestant Churches and at very good accord with their judgements herein Some controversie of this nature indeed there was afoot betwixt Piscator the Nassovian Professor of Divinity and the French Churches stated thus Whether the obedience and righteousness of Christ imputed to Believers and in which they are righteous before God were only the passive obedience of Christ according to the judgement of Piscator or both active and passive which in his whole life he yeelded to the Law of God and that holiness wherein hee was conceived as the Gallick Churches believed For my part I never durst sink into this question or assume the examination thereof being satisfied the Professors of the same Religion may dissent from one another herein salving the unity of Faith and Christian Peace the Adversaries one to another seeming to be of the same minde in mutual toleration and brotherly forbearance although in our Countrey some be of another judgement A Question is mov'd from the words of the Apostle Rom. 4. Faith was accounted for righteousnesse whether it be understood properly so that faith as an act done according to the Evangelical Precept be imputed before God to or for righteousness and that by grace in as much as it is not the righteousness of the Law or whether it be to be understood figuratively and improperly that the righteousness of Christ apprehended by Faith be imputed to us for righteousness or thus whether Righteousness into or for which faith is imputed bee the instrumental work thereof as some assert I have followed the first opinion in the Theses of Justification disputed under 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 me Non praecisè not rigidly yet simpli itèr plainly as elsewhere in a certain Epistle For this I am judged unsound in the doctrine of mans Justification but this wil be more clearly manifest in a mutual conference in its due season For the present briefly thus I believe the justification of sinners by the sole obedience of Christ and that his Righteousness is the onely meritorious cause for which the condonation of sin is granted to believers and reputed as just as if they had fulfilled the Law perfectly but inasmuch as God imputes this Righteousness of Christ to believers only I judg in this sense it may be well and properly said that faith is imputed for Righteousness by grace to him that believeth God having set forth his Son Tribunal Gratiae a Mercy-seat or propitiation by faith in his blood But however my judgement is the same with Calvins whom none of us reprehends as unsold in this point and am ready to subscribe to what he layes down in the third booke of his Institutions concerning it And these are the chief Articles most noble and potent States at the command of these Sessions I judged necessary to declare my sense of I have made some annotations upon the Confession of the Belgick Churches and Heydelberge Catechism but of these a debate will be most seasonable in our Synod which with your consent and evocation we hope for by the first opportunity only give me leave to add a word or two concerning a certaine Claufe under which the Noble and Potent States Generall consented to a Nationall Synod in this Province which was this that in it the Confession and Catechism of the Belgick Churches should be subjected to Examination This hath displeased many who judged it not onely unnecessary but very unmeet to be done and who should procure this from the Lords the States Generall but a person of quality and my selfe But neither of these upon any ground for the later we were so far from being the authors of it that eleven or twelve years ago at the great importunity of the Churches for a Nationall Synod the States of South-Holland and Westfriesland could not judg it otherwise requisite to yeeld thereunto by their decree then that in it the Confession of the Belgick Churches should be brought under Examination we not promoting any such thing at that time either by advice or endeavour yet really if we had we had done nothing but our duty and what was agreeable both to Equity and Reason and the necessity of our present Estate First that it might appeare to all the world we bear that honour to the word of God alone as becomes us that it onely is determined to be without nay above all dispute beyond al exception and worthy of all acceptation Secondly these book 's being the writings of men Errour may be contain'd in them whence it behoves us to be inquisitive yet lawfully in a Nationall Synod whether there be any thing that stands need of Correction and emendation in them 1 Whether they have an agreement of parts with the word of i. e. An exact agreement thoroughout God as well according to the words themselves and manner of speaking as the genuine sense thereof 2. Whether or no whatsoever is Comprehended in them be necessary to be believed unto salvation so consequently saving health ascribed to those things to which it is not Competible 3. Whether the Confession doth not containe and comprehend too many things as necessary to be believed unto salvation and that saving health according to that rule be refused to be given up to what it appertaines 4. Whether the words and form's of speaking made use of in them are not of ambiguous acception administring an occasion of contention for Example 14. Art●● Confes you have this passage Nothing is done without Gods ordination if by ordination be meant Gods appointing that something be done the Proposition is false in that it follows that God is the Author of sin but if the import of it be his Ordination to a good end it s rightly understood 5. Whether there may not be found things repugnant one to another Ex. Gr. A person much honoured in the Church writes to Piscator the Nassovian Professor wishes him to adhere to the Heydelberge Catechism in his Doctrine of Justification cites to this purpose three places which he thought at variance with the judgement of Piscator The Professor returns For his part he did stedfastly abide in the sense of the Catechism alledgeth for his proof eleven or twelve places thence Now