of the Hague had declared that no difference of opinion in the Church
existed sufficient to prevent fraternal harmony and happiness. But
Gomarus loudly declared that, if there were no means of putting down the
heresy of Arminius, there would before long be a struggle such as would
set province against province, village against village, family against
family, throughout the land. He should be afraid to die in such
doctrine. He shuddered that any one should dare to come before God's
tribunal with such blasphemies. Meantime his great adversary, the
learned and eloquent, the musical, frolicsome, hospitable heresiarch was
no more. Worn out with controversy, but peaceful and happy in the
convictions which were so bitterly denounced by Gomarus and a large
proportion of both preachers and laymen in the Netherlands, and convinced
that the schism which in his view had been created by those who called
themselves the orthodox would weaken the cause of Protestantism
throughout Europe, Arminius died at the age of forty-nine.

The magistrates throughout Holland, with the exception of a few cities,
were Arminian, the preachers Gomarian; for Arminius ascribed to the
civil authority the right to decide upon church matters, while Gomarus
maintained that ecclesiastical affairs should be regulated in
ecclesiastical assemblies. The overseers of Leyden University appointed
Conrad Vorstius to be professor of theology in place of Arminius. The
selection filled to the brim the cup of bitterness, for no man was more
audaciously latitudinarian than he. He was even suspected of
Socinianism. There came a shriek from King James, fierce and shrill
enough to rouse Arminius from his grave. James foamed to the mouth at
the insolence of the overseers in appointing such a monster of infidelity
to the professorship. He ordered his books to be publicly burned in St.
Paul's Churchyard and at both Universities, and would have burned the
Professor himself with as much delight as Torquemada or Peter Titelman