nor gratuitous preference, by which God prepares for certain chosen
persons, and for them alone, the infallible means of bringing them to
glory; but that God offers to all men, and especially to those to whom
the gospel is preached, sufficient means to convert themselves; which
some make use of; and others not, without employing any other for the
Elect, than for the Reprobate: so that election is always conditional,
and a man may come short of it by failing in the condition: from whence
they conclude, first, that justifying grace may be lost totally, that
is, without any degree of it being left; and lost finally, that is,
without its ever being recovered: secondly, that there can be no
assurance of salvation.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] Hist. des Variations, Lib. xiv. 12. 30.


III. This remonstrance not satisfying the Gomarists, they opposed to it
a contra-remonstrance, which gained them the name of
Contra-Remonstrants. As these disputes gave the States a good deal of
uneasiness, they enjoined the Divines to deliver their thoughts of the
most proper means to put an end to them. The Remonstrants proposed a
Toleration; the Contra-Remonstrants, a national Synod, in which they
were sure of a majority. Both these opinions were laid before the
States, who declared for a toleration: this was the cause gained to the
Arminians; but the Gomarists were favoured by the People, and grew very
factious. The Grand-Pensionary, imagining that by making themselves
masters of the election of the ministers, the States would insensibly
appease these troubles, proposed the revival of an obsolete regulation,
made in the year 1591, by which the magistrates and consistory were each