12.

Have I had a greater friend than Abbrink? and has that friendship ever been broken? Not before, but since I was young, I gave him this last work out of old friendship, just as I did the previous ones I published. But look at what letters they both write, each in the name of his Kerkenraad Consistory. Of Brink, I would have much more to say, if he were worthy of it, who is not ashamed to confess that he was also my student: although I must be ashamed that it is true. But this shall yet find another place.

What then might be the reason that they have not acted as strictly in Amsterdam as those old friends want them to act with me? It is because they investigated the matter here, dealt with the Author himself, and saw what was to be done about it. The others have not seen that. I shall also show hereafter that they themselves do not understand the dispute, build on imagined grounds, and are like an old Dutch proverb for people who give advice from a safe distance without understanding the situation sailors on land. It is therefore less excusable that they flatter the Amsterdam Church as a Moeder in Israël Mother in Israel and her teachers as prominent defenders of the truth: yet they are so bold as to criticize their actions. Those nine from Rotterdam, if they were even unanimous, pretend to have greater wisdom, or at least more zeal for the truth, than the 48 Ministers together in the Classis of our city.

They have judged that I was to be tolerated with my opinion, so far as it truly differs from the common view, as expressed fully in the Acte van Satisfactie Act of Satisfaction. And the rest, which had appeared offensive in the beginning, as if I had imposed on the Gereformeerde Kerk Reformed Church the errors that I combat in my Book, for which it was also loathed as it stood: that was now understood according to that explanation which I set down in various places in the work itself, as well as especially in this Act of Satisfaction. More so, as I added to it a full offer of recantation and change upon reprinting of such places as might be noted: not according to the judgment of the whole Classis, but only according to the opinion of some, above all the aforementioned, not as false doctrine, but merely as accusations that seemed unlawful to them, provided that they be pointed out to me first.