If the Arminian controversy began as a disagreement about predestination, the call to examine the orthodoxy of a professor added levels of complication, for it reawakened all of the unresolved disputes over the control of church affairs that had troubled the Dutch church in its early years: Who had the authority to examine and remove an unorthodox teacher? Who should assemble and set the agenda for a national synod? Arminius’s wife belonged to an influential Amsterdam regent family. When summoned before the Amsterdam consistory, Arminius refused to appear unless the burghermasters or their representatives attended as well, aligning himself with the view that civil authorities rightfully oversaw the church. In subsequent actions and petitions, he and his supporters defended the ability of city governments to control ecclesiastical appointments without interference from local classes or synods. They argued that the States should set the form and agenda for a national synod. The fullest and most extreme exposition of the political theories of the pro-Arminius party, Johannes Uytenbogaert’s On the Office and Authority of a Higher Christian Government in Church Affairs of 1610, was judged by the like-minded Hugo Grotius to stand directly in the tradition of Wolfgang Musculus. Against this, Arminius’s opponents insisted on the autonomy of the church and its competence in all matters regarding the setting and oversight of doctrine. (Philip Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed, p. 306)
Is it merely coincidental providential that Arminians also opposed two-kingdom teaching?
Old Life 