Ondersoek en antwoord [...] op 't request door de gedeputeerden der Noordhollandsche synode tot Edam

been able to access it at the time when it was submitted, and before the end of my affairs by the Classis a regional governing body of the Dutch Reformed Church: that one first ought to consider whether one had to regard this request as coming from my Judges in that matter, who were requesting the execution—which was not in their power—from the highest Power; or as coming from parties who, as accusers, demanded justice. If the first: then I would have wanted them to be asked whether they thought that the high Government should place itself, in the Catholic fashion, as blind executors of ecclesiastical decrees, Councils, and Synods. And that regarding the book of one who is himself also a Minister original: "Predikant" and a subject of this State; as well as a citizen of such a city as Amsterdam, which also has a voice in the Assembly of the States, and usually the commission along with Leiden and Alkmaar over ecclesiastical matters. But since the whole world now holds and knows the Synod, Classen, and Church Council in this matter to be my party meaning my legal opponents: so it must stand firm that they must also prove everything they say, and allow that I may be heard original: "in contradictorio" a legal hearing where both sides present their arguments. It is a common appointement or apostille formal marginal response or order on all such hateful Petitions, that they shall be placed in the hands of the opposing party, or at the mildest, the person required to respond, in order to be able to give his well-considered opinion on it within a certain appointed time. Now it has not yet come that far: according to the own report of the Deputies in the Acts of the Synod, nothing has been done so far by the Lords States regarding that Petition. Therefore, they now place it in the hands of the whole world themselves; and so I finally come to the point that I had very much longed for, with everyone else arriving there too. Therefore, it is now my duty to speak my well-considered opinion also before everyone in public: as I shall now betake myself to that task, and follow it from point to point to the end; inserting the actual words of the Petition and attached documents in between, in order to understand it the better.

To that end, it will also serve to note distinctly in this: I. What accusations they bring against me concerning that book? II. What proof of those accusations? III. What motives for their request? And IV. What it finally amounts to?

A small, decorative, ornamental initial letter V appears at the start of the paragraph.

The Deputies of the North Holland Synod, in consequence of the Resolution of the