Let's resume then, and you might like to look at the very nice picture, which I found on the internet. No copyright problems, as far as I'm aware, of the Synod of Dort meeting there. And as you look at that picture, you'll see the middle table. That's where the Arminians apparently were sitting. So it must have been quite daunting. And a question I get asked is, what building Did the Sinov meet him? Can we go and see it? And apparently, the Sinov met in a building that belonged to the city militia of Dort and this building apparently no longer exists. So, if you go to Dort and someone shows you, this is where the Sinov met, you may be being taken for a ride. Anyway, let's resume. So in that first talk then, we looked at how and why the Synod of Dort was called in 1618. When it met, it was made up of 56 pastors and elders and five professors with 18 political commissioners to report back to the federal government. Reformed theologians from across Europe were also invited to attend. So this was to be more than a merely Dutch synod. This was to be an international body representing reformed opinion worldwide. 26 delegates came from various German territories, from Switzerland, from Great Britain. The British delegates were sent by King James I, himself a devout Calvinist in matters of theology. And among the six British delegates, five Englishmen and one Scot, was the illustrious English reformed theologian John Davenant, whom you may have heard of, Bishop of Salisbury from 1621. Now there was another great Englishman present at the Synod, although not as a delegate of King James. And this was the early Congregationalist theologian William Ames. He was living in exile from England, owing to his strong Puritanism. But the Dutch Reformed thought so highly of Ames, they paid him to attend the Synod as an advisor to its chairman. The French Reformed Church also tried to send four delegates to the Synod, but their Roman Catholic King Louis XIII would not allow them to attend. Now the Synod of Dort proved to be a landmark event in the history of the Reformed faith. Its membership was overwhelmingly opposed to Arminian theology. When a large Arminian delegation arrived at Dort, only a few named by the Synod were allowed to appear, and not as delegates, but as plaintiffs on trial for doctrinal error. They were led by Simon Episcopius, the theologian of Leyden University. Episcopius made a speech before the Synod, pleading for a spirit of Christian love and free discussion. Perhaps understandably, the Dutch Reformed were not particularly willing to listen, given the way many of them had been persecuted by the magistrates under Oldenbarnevelt's Arminian government. Episcopius and his friends were therefore dismissed, while the Synod hammered out its theological response to Arminian theology. Now since the Arminians had expressed their theology in five points in their remonstrance of 1610, the Synod responded by working through these points in a series of canons or rules or standards, offering a reformed view on each point. Here's the origin of the so-called five points of Calvinism. We should be clear that these are not a summary of the whole of reformed theology. They're simply Reformed theology's response to the five points of the Arminian Remonstrance on certain matters concerning salvation. The Reformed faith is far wider and richer than the five points. Anyway, we can summarize the Synod's teaching thus. Predestination is God's eternal purpose to give saving faith to some sinners out of the mass of fallen humanity. It is unconditional, not based on God's foreknowledge of anything in those chosen. Two, the atoning death of Jesus Christ is indeed sufficient to save the whole world of humanity. However, by God's sovereign will, it is actually effective in saving the elect by enlivening them to a true, justifying, sanctifying, persevering faith. Three, the synod agreed with the third point of the remonstrance, the spiritual deadness of the fallen human will apart from divine grace. However, four, The Synod cast aside the Arminian view that grace can always be resisted by the human will. On the contrary, the grace that regenerates the sinner is a sovereign, triumphant, efficacious grace. Five, this grace also ensures that the elect will persevere to the end and enter glory at last. True saving faith once given can never be wholly lost. and we are able to reach an assurance that we have this faith and will therefore persevere. The Synod concluded its business on May the 9th, 1619. Its canons now became binding on the Dutch Reformed Church. They were also widely regarded as authoritative throughout the Reformed world, especially in continental Europe. For some reason, the canons of Dort did not become so widely known or acknowledged in the English-speaking world, which we may think was a pity. But even English-speaking Reformed believers, who knew their theology, would speak in high terms of the Synod of Dort and its canons. Richard Baxter, for example, that chief among the Puritans, thought that the Synod of Dort and the Westminster Assembly were the two most glorious Christian councils of all time, judged by the sheer ability and godliness of the men who took part. You might like to hear Baxter's words. As far as I am able to judge by the information of all history of that kind and by any other evidences left us, the Christian world since the days of the apostles has never had a synod of more excellent divines taking one thing with another than this of Westminster and the synod of Dort. Here then in the canons of Dort was the only international confession of faith to which reformed Protestantism ever gave birth. Now let's look at the relevance of the Synod to us today. First, a very general point. Note the international flavor of the Synod. Dutch, German, Swiss, English, and Scottish people were present. And had it not been for Louis XIII, the French would have been present as well. Does that not say something to us? The Church of Christ, by its very nature, is made up of redeemed sinners from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Revelation 5.9. Whatever we may think about immigration policy, the church must, absolutely must, be a community that welcomes people of every ethnicity and nationality to hear the good news and then embraces into its innermost life any and all of them who profess faith in Christ. This is not an optional extra. If I may speak frankly, I have seen and heard things in our reformed churches, either personally or through credible report, which exposes an ugly vein of racism, of mindless fear and hatred towards the foreigner. When a body of immigrant Kurds or Iranians or whatever arrives nearby, The first and instinctive response of white-skinned British Reformed Christians can too often be, well, let's hope they get kicked out again as quickly as possible. Rather than, since our sovereign God has brought them here, how best can we make known the saving love of Christ to the souls of these men and women? Well, remember the Synod of Dort. It was international. It reached out to embrace Dutch, German, Swiss, French, English, and Scottish believers. It recognized that the church is a multinational, multi-ethnic body, and that we who are in Christ best meet our challenges together, not as narrow-minded racists who despise the nasty foreigners. Whatever we may think of political institutions on which I do not comment, internationalism must be the spiritual creed of the church if she is to be the church in spirit and in truth. Within these sacred walls, the only thing that counts is grace, not race. And it may also be worth remembering that when it comes to the doctrines of grace, two of its greatest champions, the Apostle Paul and Saint Augustine. Of these, one was a Middle Eastern Jew and the other was a North African. Now, to the teachings of this multinational, multiethnic synod and what those teachings say to us today. Let me suggest two lessons above all others regarding this teaching, one positive, the other negative. And we might perhaps think of these two lessons as what the Synod did teach by way of instruction and edification, and what the Synod did not teach by way of caution and warning. First of all then, by way of instruction and edification, what the Synod did teach. Its positive theme was the sovereignty of God's grace and salvation. This is not some abstract academic idea, although it can become this if we treat religion as primarily an intellectual system of the head rather than a spiritual reality of the heart. In the Bible and in St. Augustine, religion is primarily of the heart and therefore grace and the doctrine of grace is also primarily of the heart. I can bring out my meaning here by pointing to the close connection between grace and gratitude. Grace and gratitude. In English, and in New Testament Greek, the two words have the same basic root. They're simply variations on the same word. Hebrews 12, 25. Is it, let us have grace, or is it, let us have gratitude? It could be either. Same basic word, grace, gratitude. Grace in the giver corresponds directly to gratitude in the receiver. As Thomas Erskine of Linlathan said, in the Bible, religion is grace and ethics is gratitude. Thankfulness to God for every blessing received lies at the heart of our response to him. Every aspect of our being is to be drenched with the incense of gratitude. We could then with justification call the doctrine of grace the doctrine of gratitude. To whom am I grateful for every blessing, especially the blessing of my salvation? Am I grateful to the preacher? Did he save me? Do I in my Sunday worship sing hymns of praise to him and his mighty sermons? That would be man-centered idolatry of the most blasphemous type. I'm sure we must all have heard the anecdote of the drunkard staggering through the streets, yelling, screaming, and cursing, until he happens to see the local pastor. Don't you recognize me, pastor? The drunkard shouts. I'm one of your converts. You must be, answers the pastor, since you certainly don't look like one of God's. Or am I grateful to myself for my salvation? Praise be to me. As Archbishop William Temple once put it, must I say, thanks be to you, Father in heaven, for sending Jesus Christ to die for me. But as for my believing and trusting in him, I do not thank you. For this, I congratulate myself. Praise be to me. As Temple remarked, hardly a prayer for a true child of God. The doctrine of gratitude means that I give thanks to the triune God for the whole of my salvation. And since I'm not saved without the personal response of faith and repentance, I give thanks to him for these also. Thanks be to God that I have believed and repented. Thanks be to God that I am a Christian. It is this deep spiritual heart sense of gratitude to God for salvation that the saved owe all their salvation to God, which the Bible, Augustine, and the Synod of Dort are setting forth in their doctrine of grace. The doctrine of God's sovereign, triumphant, efficacious grace in salvation is the Synod of Dort's way of teaching with emphasis that it is to God, the triune redeemer, that believers owe their salvation. The Father in love eternally chose me to be his child. The Son in love took flesh, lived, died, and rose from the dead to bestow the gift of gifts upon me. And the Holy Spirit in love begot faith and repentance within me, uniting me with Christ that in him I might become a son of the Father. Thanks be to God. Absolute grace, absolute gratitude. Here's a taster from the canons of Dort. Election is God's unchangeable purpose, by which before the creation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the sovereign good pleasure of his will, God chose in Christ unto salvation a particular number of people out of the whole human race, which had fallen, by its own fault, from its first state of uprightness into sin and ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but were bound up together with them in a shared misery. God did this in Christ, whom God also appointed from eternity as the mediator, the head of the elect, and the foundation of their salvation. And thus God decreed to give to Christ those chosen for salvation and to call and draw them effectually into fellowship with Christ through the Word and Spirit. That is, to give them true faith, to justify them, to sanctify them, and finally, after powerfully preserving them in the fellowship of God's Son, to glorify them. God did all this in order to show forth his mercy to the praise of the riches of God's glorious grace. scripture says God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the beloved Ephesians 1 And elsewhere, those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified." Romans 8. As the canons here indicate, the Bible itself teaches this. If we take grace from the standpoint of gratitude, as I've been suggesting, then what does Paul say of the Roman Christians? God be thanked that though you were the slaves of sin, yet you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you, Romans 6, 17. God be thanked. We were slaves to sin, Paul says. We were in bondage to the powers of darkness, but God be thanked we obeyed from the heart when Christ was made known to us in the gospel. That's the true note of healthy Christian spirituality. God be thanked. God be thanked that I'm a Christian. God be thanked I know him in Christ. God be thanked that I now trust in him. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to thy name give glory because of thy mercy and thy faithfulness, Psalm 115. By the grace of God, I am what I am, 1 Corinthians 15 10. Some of the purest outpourings of the doctrine of grace and gratitude are found in the church's poetry and hymnology. Let me offer just a few examples. Here's Heinrich Souza, one of the best and most orthodox of the Catholic mystics of the Middle Ages. O Lord, the most fair, the most tender, My heart is adrift and alone, My heart is so weary, so thirsty, It thirsts for a joy unknown. From a child I followed it, chased it, Through wilderness, wood and hill, I never have seen it or found it, Yet must I follow it still. In the bygone years I sought it In the sweet fair things around, The more I sought and I thirsted, the less, O my Lord, I found. When closest it seemed to my grasping, it fled like a vanishing thought. I never have known what it is, Lord. Too well I know what it is not. It is I, it is I, the Eternal, who chose you my own to be, who chose you before the ages. chose you eternally I stood in the way before you in the ways that you would have gone for this is the mark of my chosen they shall be mine alone now fast forward to the 18th century here's Charles Wesley the Arminian Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth, followed thee. As Rabbi Duncan said, where's your Arminianism now, friend? And from the 19th century, here's Josiah Condor. "'Tis not that I did choose thee, for, Lord, that could not be. "'This heart would still refuse thee, hadst thou not chosen me. "'Thou from the sin that stained me hast cleansed and set me free. "'Of old thou hast ordained me that I should live to thee. "'To a sovereign mercy called me and taught my opening mind. "'The world had else enthralled me to heavenly glories blind. My heart owns none before thee, for thy rich grace I thirst. This knowing, if I love thee, thou must have loved me first. Here then is the doctrine of grace, or as it might just as well be called, the doctrine of gratitude. It was to safeguard these twin truths of scripture and experience that the Synod of Dort framed its canons. Since the human heart, even in Christians, is always prone to unthankfulness, the witness of the Synod is as timely today as it ever was. If we cannot or will not learn to be thankful to the Triune God for our salvation, a false note will be introduced into our beliefs and our spirituality, which may do serious harm to our whole vision of God. I would only add by way of reinforcement the point I made earlier. We must beware of turning the doctrine of grace into a cold abstract intellectual system rather than a living utterance of the twice-born thankful heart. When it is rooted in the heart, there's nothing more natural and joyous to God's child than the doctrine of grace. When, however, it loses that heart anchorage and becomes an intellectual system, there can be few things more withering. As the old Latin saying puts it, corruptio optimi pesima, the corruption of the best is the worst. Now on to what I've called the negative lesson, what the Synod of Dort did not teach. It did not in any way placed limitations or restrictions on what we would most likely call the free offer of the gospel. Now there are other ways of expressing this truth but I use this phrase merely as the most well-known. The canons of the synod cannot be read as inhibiting gospel preaching. That is, of the type of preaching where Christ is set before all sinners without distinction or exception as the Savior, and they are called upon to believe in him through the saving of their souls. Now if you wish to express this by some phrase other than the free offer of the gospel, then do so. I have no wish to fight over a word. Let's look at what the canons of Dort have to say about this. We turn to the third and fourth heads of doctrine. In other words, the Synod's response to points three and four of the Arminian Remonstrance of 1610. And we read as follows. Article 8. As many as are called by the gospel are sincerely called. For God has most earnestly and truly declared in his word what is acceptable to him, namely, that those who are called should come to him. He also seriously promises rest of soul and life eternal to all who come to him and believe. Article 9. It is not the fault of the gospel, nor of Christ offered therein, nor of God who calls people by the gospel and even gives them various gifts, that those who are called by the ministry of the word refuse to come and be converted. The fault lies in themselves, some of whom when called, regardless of their danger, reject the word of life. Others, though they receive it, do not allow it to make a lasting impact on their hearts. Therefore their joy, arising only from a temporary faith, soon vanishes and they fall away. While others choke the seed of the word by the thorns of life's cares and the pleasures of this world and produce no fruit. This our Savior teaches in the parable of the sower. The language of the canons here is very frank and fearless. The gospel sincerely calls all who come under its sound. What is acceptable to God is that those who hear the call should come to him. He seriously promises spiritual peace and everlasting life to all who will come, believingly. And if anyone refuses to come, the fault lies not in the gospel, nor in Christ offered therein, nor in God who calls, but only in the sinner." I think we see here the pastoral concern of the synod. It does not intend its doctrine of the sovereignty of grace to be a bucket of cold water on the flame of gospel preaching. It goes out of its way to guard against this type of hyper-Calvinism, so to call it, by affirming the sincerity and seriousness of God's calling Christ to the unsaved, that they should repent and believe. and by laying the blame for impenitence and unbelief wholly and solely at the door of the sinner. There's more. The canons also say this in their teaching on the atonement. The death of the Son of God is the only and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for sin and is of infinite worth and value, abundantly sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world. This death is of such infinite value and dignity because the person who submitted to it was not only true man and perfectly holy, but also the only begotten Son of God of the same eternal and infinite essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Which qualifications were necessary to make him a saviour for us? and moreover because his death was accompanied with a sense of the wrath and curse of God that we deserved for our sin. Moreover, the promise of the gospel is that whosoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have life eternal. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and published to all nations and to all persons indiscriminately and without distinction to whomsoever God of his good pleasure sends the gospel. Also, whereas many who are called by the gospel do not repent nor believe in Christ, but perish in unbelief, this is not owing to any defect or insufficiency in the sacrifice offered by Christ on the cross, but is wholly to be imputed to themselves. These are points three to six of the second head of doctrine on the atoning death of Christ. And once again we find here a determination by the Synod that its teaching on the sovereignty of grace will not and must not become a hindrance to the free and unfettered preaching of the gospel. Interestingly, the Synod connects this free preaching with the universal sufficiency of Christ's death. It seems to be picking up here on a distinction made by the Augustinian theologians of the Catholic Middle Ages, that Christ's atoning death is sufficient for all, but efficient or effective for the elect. Calvin had fully accepted this distinction. So then the synod emphasizes the universal sufficiency of the atonement. It is of infinite worth and value, abundantly sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world, and should anyone fail to benefit from the atonement and perish in unbelief, it is not because of any defect or insufficiency in the atonement itself. It must be attributed to the sinner and to his blameworthy failure to make use of what God has provided. Along with this, the Synod once again lays heavy stress on the duty of the Church to declare the precepts and promises of the Gospel to all people everywhere. The Gospel promises eternal life to anyone and everyone who will believe in Christ crucified. This promise, together with God's command to repent and believe, must be proclaimed to all the nations and to every individual indiscriminately and without distinction. The Synod and the Canons of Dort then give no grounds for thinking that belief in the sovereignty of divine grace should in any way dampen the preacher's enthusiasm for the free offer of the gospel. This is no manifesto for hyper-Calvinism. Always a danger, and still a danger today, when the doctrine of grace is taught. I remember an old friend of mine, Dr. Kurt Daniel, who did his PhD thesis on hyper-Calvinism, well worth reading. He once described in these words the sort of attitude that is too often fustered by hyper-Calvinism. that its devotees go down deep, stay down long, come up dry, and never go out to bring anyone in. Now, there's no excuse for such an outlook in the canons of Dort. It underlines evenly the sovereignty of grace and the free offer of the gospel. It's also quite striking, I think, that the synod does not try to set up some logically tight harmonization of sovereign grace and the free offer. It leaves room for mystery. I know that some people despise all mystery and want a perfectly worked out logical explanation of everything. Such an explanation, however I would humbly suggest, exists only in the infinite mind of God and not in our finite and sinful minds. C.H. Spurgeon has many words of wisdom to speak on this, referring to the topic we're looking at, he once said, I bless God that there are some things in the Bible which I never expect to understand while I live here. A religion which I could perfectly understand would be no religion to me. When I had mastered it, it would never master me. But to my mind, it is a most delightful thing for the believer to bow before inscrutable mysteries and to say, my God, I never thought that I was infinite. I never dreamt that I could take thy place and understand all things. I believe and I am content. We rejoice in the mystery of the Trinity, the mystery of the incarnation, the mystery of sovereign grace. Where reason fails with all her powers, there faith prevails and love adores. John Bunyan famously said, I preached what I felt, what I smartingly did feel. When the Christian smartingly feels the reality of divine grace, then with humility and joy, he confesses its reality in his doctrine. This confession the Synod of Dort made 400 years ago, the legacy bequeathed to reformed Christians is rich and I commend it to you today. Amen.