THE CANONS OF DORT

THE CANONS OF DORT

 

 

The First Main Point of Doctrine

Divine Election and Reprobation

The Judgment Concerning Divine Predestination
Which the Synod Declares to Be in Agreement with the Word of God
and Accepted Till Now in the Reformed Churches,
Set Forth in Several Articles
 

Article 1: God's Right to Condemn All People
Since all people have sinned in Adam and have come under the sentence of the curse and eternal
death, God would have done no one an injustice if it had been the divine will to leave the entire human
race in sin and under the curse, and to condemn them on account of their sin. As the Apostle says:
"The whole world may be held accountable to God,”1 “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God,”2 and “The wages of sin is death.”3
Article 2: The Manifestation of God's Love
But this is how God showed love: “God gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may
not perish but may have eternal life.” 4
Article 3: The Preaching of the Gospel
In order that people may be brought to faith, God mercifully sends messengers of this very joyful news
to those whom God desires and where God desires it. By this ministry people are called to repentance
and faith in Christ crucified. For “how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how
are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone
to proclaim him?”5
Article 4: A Twofold Response to the Gospel
God's wrath remains on those who do not believe this gospel. But those who do accept it and embrace
Jesus the Savior with a true and living faith are delivered through him from God's wrath and from
destruction, and receive the gift of eternal life.
Article 5: The Sources of Unbelief and of Faith
The cause or blame for this unbelief, as well as for all other sins, is not at all in God, but in humanity.
Faith in Jesus Christ, however, and salvation through him is a free gift of God. As Scripture says, “For
by grace have you been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” 6
Likewise: “For God has graciously granted you the privilege . . . of believing in Christ . . .” 7
Article 6: God’s Eternal Decree
The fact that some receive from God the gift of faith within time, and that others do not, stems from
God's eternal decree. “Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things known from long ago.” 8
In accordance with this decree God graciously softens the hearts, however hard, of the chosen ones
and inclines them to believe, but by just judgment God leaves in their wickedness and hardness of
heart those who have not been chosen. And in this especially is disclosed to us God’s act—unfathomable,
and as merciful as it is just—of distinguishing between people equally lost. This is the wellknown
decision of election and reprobation revealed in God’s Word. The wicked, impure, and unstable
distort this decree to their own ruin, but it provides holy and godly souls with comfort beyond words.
Article 7: Election
Election is God’s unchangeable purpose by which God did the following:
Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of
God’s will, God chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the
entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and
ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but lay with them in
the common misery. God did this in Christ, whom God also appointed from eternity to be the
mediator, the head of all those chosen, and the foundation of their salvation.
And so God decreed to give to Christ those chosen for salvation, and to call and draw them
effectively into Christ’s fellowship through the Word and Spirit, that is to grant 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 demonstrate God’s mercy, to the praise
of the riches of God’s glorious grace.
As Scripture says, “God chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless
before him in love. He destined 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.” 9 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.” 10
Article 8: A Single Decree of Election
This election is not of many kinds, but one and the same for all who are saved in the Old and the New
Testament. For Scripture declares that there is a single good pleasure, purpose, and plan of God’s will,
by which God chose us from eternity both to grace and to glory, both to salvation and to the way of
salvation, which God prepared in advance for us to walk in.
Article 9: Election Not Based on Foreseen Faith
This same election took place, not on the basis of foreseen faith, of the obedience of faith, of holiness,
or of any other good quality and disposition, as though it were based on a prerequisite cause or condition
in the person to be chosen, but rather for the purpose of faith, of the obedience of faith, of holiness,
and so on.
Accordingly, election is the source of every saving good. Faith, holiness, and the other saving gifts, and
at last eternal life itself, flow forth from election as its fruits and effects. As the Apostle says, “just as he
chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be (not because we were) holy and blameless
before him in love.” 11
Article 10: Election Based on God’s Good Pleasure
But the cause of this undeserved election is exclusively the good pleasure of God. This does not
involve God’s choosing certain human qualities or actions from among all those possible as a condition
of salvation, but rather involves God’s adopting certain particular persons from among the common
mass of sinners as God’s own possession. As Scripture says, “Even before they had been born or had
done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose of election might continue, not by works but by his
call)* she (Rebecca) was told, ‘The elder shall serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘I have loved Jacob,
but I have hated Esau.’” 12 Also, “. . . as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers.”13
Article 11: Election Unchangeable
Just as God is most wise, unchangeable, all-knowing, and almighty, so the election made by God can
neither be suspended nor altered, revoked, or annulled; neither can God’s chosen ones be cast off, nor
their number reduced.
Article 12: The Assurance of Election
Assurance of their eternal and unchangeable election to salvation is given to the chosen in due time,
though by various stages and in differing measure. Such assurance comes not by inquisitive searching
into the hidden and deep things of God, but by noticing within themselves, with spiritual joy and holy
delight, the unmistakable fruits of election pointed out in God’s Word—fruits such as a true faith in
Christ, a childlike fear of God, a godly sorrow for their sins, a hunger and thirst for righteousness, and
so on.
Article 13: The Fruit of This Assurance
In their awareness and assurance of this election, God’s children daily find greater cause to humble
themselves before God, to adore the fathomless depth of divine mercies, to cleanse themselves, and
to give fervent love in return to the One who first so greatly loved them. This is far from saying that this
teaching concerning election, and reflection upon it, make God’s children lax in observing his commandments
or carnally self-assured. By God’s just judgment this does usually happen to those who
casually take for granted the grace of election or engage in idle and brazen talk about it but are unwilling
to walk in the ways of the chosen.
Article 14: Teaching Election Properly
By God’s wise plan, this teaching concerning divine election has been proclaimed through the
prophets. It was proclaimed also through Christ and the Apostles. Subsequently the proclamation was
committed to writing in the Holy Scriptures. So also today in God’s church, for which it was specifically
intended, this teaching must be set forthwith a spirit of discretion, in a godly and holy manner, at the
appropriate time and place, without inquisitive searching into the ways of the Most High. This must be
done for the glory of God’s most holy name, and for the lively comfort of God’s people.
Article 15: Reprobation
Moreover, Holy Scripture most especially highlights this eternal and undeserved grace of our election
and brings it out more clearly for us, in that it further bears witness that not all people have been chosen,
but that some have not been chosen or have been passed by in God’s eternal election—those,
that is, concerning whom God, on the basis of God’s entirely free, most just, irreproachable, and
unchangeable good pleasure, made the following decree:
to leave them in the common misery into which, by their own fault, they have plunged themselves;
not to grant them saving faith and the grace of conversion, but finally to condemn and
eternally punish those who have been left in their own ways and under God’s just judgment, not
only for their unbelief but also for all their other sins, in order to display divine justice.
And this is the decree of reprobation, which does not at all make God the author of sin (a blasphemous
thought!) but rather its fearful, irreproachable, just judge and avenger.
Article 16: Responses to the Teaching of Reprobation
Those who do not yet actively experience within themselves a living faith in Christ or an assured confidence
of heart, peace of conscience, a zeal for childlike obedience, and a glorying in God through
Christ, but who nevertheless use the means by which God has promised to work these things in us—
such people ought not to be alarmed at the mention of reprobation, nor to count themselves among
the reprobate; rather they ought to continue diligently in the use of the means, to desire fervently a
time of more abundant grace, and to wait for it in reverence and humility. On the other hand, those who
seriously desire to turn to God, to be pleasing to God alone, and to be delivered from the body of
death, but are not yet able to make such progress along the way of godliness and faith as they would
like—such people ought much less to stand in fear of the teaching concerning reprobation, since our
merciful God has promised not to snuff out a smoldering wick and that a bruised reed will not be broken.
However, those who have forgotten God and their Savior Jesus Christ and have abandoned themselves
wholly to the cares of the world and the pleasures of the flesh—such people have every reason
to stand in fear of this teaching, as long as they do not seriously turn to God.
Article 17: The Salvation of the Infants of Believers
Since we must make judgments about God’s will from the Word, which testifies that the children of
believers are holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they together with their
parents are included, godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children
whom God calls out of this life in infancy.
Article 18: The Proper Attitude toward Election and Reprobation
To those who complain about this grace of an undeserved election and about the severity of a just
reprobation, we reply with the words of the Apostle, “Who indeed are you, a human being, to argue
with God?”14 and with the words of our Savior, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what
belongs to me?”15 We, however, with reverent adoration of these secret things, cry out with the Apostle:
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments,
and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?’ For from him and through him and to
him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.” 16

The Second Main Point of Doctrine
Christ’s Death and Human Redemption through It
 

Article 1: The Punishment Which God’s Justice Requires
God is not only supremely merciful, but also supremely just. God’s justice requires (as divinely
revealed in the Word) that the sins we have committed against God’s infinite majesty be punished with
both temporal and eternal punishments, of soul as well as body.We cannot escape these punishments
unless satisfaction is given to God’s justice.
Article 2: The Satisfaction Made by Christ
Since, however, we ourselves cannot give this satisfaction or deliver ourselves from God’s anger, God
in boundless mercy has given us as a guarantee the only begotten Son, who was made to be sin and
a curse for us, in our place, on the cross, in order that he might give satisfaction for us.
Article 3: The Infinite Value of Christ’s Death
This death of God’s Son is the only and entirely complete sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; it is of infinite
value and worth, more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world.
Article 4: Reasons for This Infinite Value
This death is of such great value and worth for the reason that the person who suffered it is, in order
for Christ to be our Savior, not only a true and perfectly holy human, but also the only begotten Son of
God, of the same eternal and infinite essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Another reason is
that this death was accompanied by the experience of God’s wrath and curse, which we by our sins
had fully deserved.
Article 5: The Mandate to Proclaim the Gospel to All
Moreover, it is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but
have eternal life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be
announced and declared without differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people, to whom
God in good pleasure sends the gospel.
Article 6: Unbelief, a Human Responsibility
However, though many who have been called through the gospel do not repent or believe in Christ but
perish in unbelief, this is not because the sacrifice of Christ offered on the cross is deficient or insufficient,
but because they themselves are at fault.
Article 7: Faith, a Gift of God
But all who genuinely believe and are delivered and saved by Christ’s death from their sins and from
destruction receive this favor solely from God’s grace—which God owes to no one—given to them in
Christ from eternity.
Article 8: The Saving Effectiveness of Christ’s Death
For it was the entirely free plan and very gracious will and intention of God the Father that the enlivening
and saving effectiveness of the Son’s costly death should work itself out in all his chosen ones, in
order that he might grant justifying faith to them only and thereby lead them without fail to salvation. In
other words, it was God’s will that Christ through the blood of the cross (by which Christ confirmed the
new covenant) should effectively redeem from every people, tribe, nation, and language all those and
only those who were chosen from eternity to salvation and given to him by the Father; that God should
grant them faith (which, like the Holy Spirit’s other saving gifts, Christ acquired for them by his death).
It was God’s will that Christ should cleanse them by his blood from all their sins, both original and actual,
whether committed before or after their coming to faith; that he should faithfully preserve them to
the very end; and that he should finally present them to himself, a glorious people, without spot or
wrinkle.
Article 9: The Fulfillment of God’s Plan
This plan, arising out of God’s eternal love for the chosen ones, from the beginning of the world to the
present time has been powerfully carried out and will also be carried out in the future, the gates of hell
seeking vainly to prevail against it. As a result, the chosen are gathered into one, all in their own time,
and there is always a church of believers founded on the blood of Christ, who is the Savior of the
church, and as the bridegroom of the bride laid down his life on the cross that the church might steadfastly
love, faithfully worship, and praise him here and in all eternity.

The Third and Fourth Main Points of Doctrine
Human Corruption, Conversion to God, and the Way It Occurs

Article 1: The Effect of the Fall on Human Nature
Human beings were originally created in the image of God and were furnished in their mind with a true
and sound knowledge of the Creator and things spiritual, in the human will and heart with righteousness,
and in all the emotions with purity; indeed, the whole human being was holy. However, rebelling
against God at the devil’s instigation and by free will, they deprived themselves of these outstanding
gifts. Rather, in their place the humans brought upon themselves blindness, terrible darkness, futility,
and distortion of judgment in their mind; perversity, defiance, and hardness in the hearts and wills; and
finally impurity in all the emotions.
Article 2: The Spread of Corruption
Human beings brought forth children of the same nature as themselves after the fall. That is to say,
being corrupt they brought forth corrupt children. The corruption spread, by God’s just judgment, from
Adam and Eve to all their descendants—except for Christ alone—not by way of imitation (as in former
times the Pelagians would have it) but by way of the propagation of their perverted nature.
Article 3: Total Inability
Therefore, all people are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath, unfit for any saving good,
inclined to evil, dead in their sins, and slaves to sin. Without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit
they are neither willing nor able to return to God, to reform their distorted nature, or even to prepare
themselves for such reform.
Article 4: The Inadequacy of the Light of Nature
There is, to be sure, a certain light of nature remaining in people after the fall, by virtue of which they
retain some notions about God, natural things, and the difference between what is decent and indecent,
and demonstrate a certain eagerness for virtue and for good outward behavior. But this light of
nature is far from enabling them to come to a saving knowledge of God and conversion to God—so far,
in fact, that they do not use it rightly even in matters of nature and society. Instead, in various ways
they completely distort this light, whatever its precise character, and suppress it in unrighteousness. In
doing so they render themselves without excuse before God.
Article 5: The Inadequacy of the Law
In this respect, what is true of the light of nature is true also of the Ten Commandments given by God
through Moses specifically to the Jews. For humanity cannot obtain saving grace through the
Decalogue, because, although it does expose the magnitude of human sin and increasingly convict
people of their guilt, yet it does not offer a remedy or enable people to escape from human misery,
and, indeed, weakened as it is by the flesh, leaves the offender under the curse.
Article 6: The Saving Power of the Gospel
What, therefore, neither the light of nature nor the law can do, God accomplishes by the power of the
Holy Spirit, through the Word or the ministry of reconciliation. This is the gospel about the Messiah,
through which it has pleased God to save believers, in both the Old and the New Testaments.
Article 7: God’s Freedom in Revealing the Gospel
In the Old Testament, God revealed this secret of the divine will to a small number; in the New
Testament (now without any distinction between peoples) God discloses it to a large number. The reason
for this difference must not be ascribed to the greater worth of one nation over another, or to a
better use of the light of nature, but to the free good pleasure and undeserved love of God. Therefore,
those who receive so much grace, beyond and in spite of all they deserve, ought to acknowledge it
with humble and thankful hearts. On the other hand, with the Apostle they ought to adore (but certainly
not inquisitively to search into) the severity and justice of God’s judgments on the others, who do not
receive this grace.
Article 8: The Serious Call of the Gospel
Nevertheless, all who are called through the gospel are called seriously. For seriously and most genuinely
God makes known in the Word what is pleasing to God: that those who are called should come
to God. Seriously God also promises rest for their souls and eternal life to all who come and believe.
Article 9: Human Responsibility for Rejecting the Gospel
The fact that many who are called through the ministry of the gospel do not come and are not brought
to conversion must not be blamed on the gospel, nor on Christ, who is offered through the gospel, nor
on God, who calls them through the gospel and even bestows various gifts on them, but on the people
themselves who are called. Some in self-assurance do not even entertain the Word of life; others do
entertain it but do not take it to heart, and for that reason, after the fleeting joy of a temporary faith,
they relapse; others choke the seed of the Word with the thorns of life’s cares and with the pleasures
of the world and bring forth no fruits. This our Savior teaches in the parable of the sower.17
Article 10: Conversion as the Work of God
The fact that others who are called through the ministry of the gospel do come and are brought to conversion
must not be credited to humankind, as though one distinguishes one’s self by free choice from
others who are furnished with equal or sufficient grace for faith and conversion (as the proud heresy of
Pelagius maintains). No, it must be credited to God: just as from eternity God chose God’s own in
Christ, so within time God effectively calls them, grants them faith and repentance, and, having rescued
them from the dominion of darkness, brings them into the kingdom of the Son, in order that they
may declare the wonderful deeds of the One who called them out of darkness into this marvelous light,
and may boast not in themselves, but in the Lord, as apostolic words frequently testify in Scripture.
Article 11: The Holy Spirit’s Work in Conversion
Moreover, when God carries out this good pleasure in the elect, or works true conversion in them, God
not only sees to it that the gospel is proclaimed to them outwardly, and enlightens their minds powerfully
by the Holy Spirit so that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God,
but, by the effective operation of the same regenerating Spirit, God also penetrates into the inmost
being of people, opens the closed heart, softens the hard heart, and circumcises the heart that is
uncircumcised. God infuses new qualities into the will, making the dead will alive, the evil one good,
the unwilling one willing, and the stubborn one compliant. God activates and strengthens the will so
that, like a good tree, it may be enabled to produce the fruits of good deeds.
Article 12: Regeneration a Supernatural Work
And this is the regeneration, the new creation, the raising from the dead, and the making alive so
clearly proclaimed in the Scriptures, which God works in us without our help. But this certainly does
not happen only by outward teaching, by moral persuasion, or by such a way of working that, after
God has done the divine work, it remains in our power whether or not to be reborn or converted.
Rather, it is an entirely supernatural work, one that is at the same time most powerful and most pleasing,
a marvelous, hidden, and inexpressible work, which is not less than or inferior in power to that of
creation or of raising the dead, as Scripture (inspired by the author of this work) teaches. As a result,
all those in whose hearts God works in this marvelous way are certainly, unfailingly, and effectively
reborn and do actually believe. And then the will, now renewed, is not only activated and motivated by
God, but in being activated by God is also itself active. For this reason, human beings themselves, by
that grace which they have received, are also rightly said to believe and to repent.
Article 13: The Incomprehensible Way of Regeneration
In this life believers cannot fully understand the way this work occurs; meanwhile, they rest content
with knowing and experiencing that, by this grace of God, they do believe with the heart and love their
Savior.
Article 14: The Way God Gives Faith
In this way, therefore, faith is a gift of God, not in the sense that it is offered by God for people to
choose, but that it is in actual fact bestowed on them, breathed and infused into them. Nor does God
bestow only the potential to believe and then await people’s assent—the act of believing—by their own
free choice. Rather, God, who works both willing and acting, indeed works all things in all people and
produces in them both the will to believe and the belief itself.
Article 15: Responses to God’s Grace
God does not owe this grace to anyone. For what could God owe to one who has nothing to give that
can be paid back? Indeed, what could God owe to one who has nothing of one’s own to give but sin
and falsehood? Therefore the person who receives this grace owes and gives eternal thanks to God
alone; the person who does not receive it either does not care at all about these spiritual things and is
self-satisfied in this condition, or else in self-assurance foolishly boasts about having something which
is lacking. Furthermore, following the example of the Apostles, we are to think and to speak in the
most favorable way about those who outwardly profess their faith and better their lives, for the inner
chambers of the heart are unknown to us. But for others who have not yet been called, we are to pray
to the God who calls things that do not exist as though they did. In no way, however, are we to pride
ourselves as better than they, as though we had distinguished ourselves from them.
Article 16: Regeneration’s Effect
However, just as by the fall humanity did not cease to be human, endowed with intellect and will, and
just as sin, which has spread through the whole human race, did not abolish the nature of the human
race but distorted and spiritually killed it, so also this divine grace of regeneration does not act in
people as if they were blocks and stones; nor does it abolish the will and its properties or coerce a
reluctant will by force, but spiritually revives, heals, reforms, and—in a manner at once pleasing and
powerful—bends it back. As a result, a ready and sincere obedience of the Spirit now begins to prevail,
where before the rebellion and resistance of the flesh were completely dominant. In this consists the
true and spiritual restoration and freedom of our will. Thus, if the marvelous Maker of every good thing
were not dealing with us, humanity would have no hope of getting up from its fall by its free choice, by
which it plunged itself into ruin when still standing upright.
Article 17: God’s Use of Means in Regeneration
Just as the almighty work by which God brings forth and sustains our natural life does not rule out but
requires the use of means, by which God, according to God’s own infinite wisdom and goodness, has
wished to exercise divine power, so also the aforementioned supernatural work by which God regenerates
us in no way rules out or cancels the use of the gospel, which God with great wisdom has
appointed to be the seed of regeneration and the food of the soul. For this reason, the Apostles and
the teachers who followed them taught the people in a godly manner about this grace of God, to give
God the glory and to humble all pride, and yet did not neglect meanwhile to keep the people, by
means of the holy admonitions of the gospel, under the administration of the Word, the sacraments,
and discipline. So even today it is out of the question that the teachers or those taught in the church
should presume to test God by separating what God in good pleasure has wished to be closely joined
together. For grace is bestowed through admonitions, and the more readily we perform our duty, the
more lustrous the benefit of God working in us usually is and the better God’s work advances. To God
alone, both for the means and for their saving fruit and effectiveness, all glory is owed forever. Amen.

The Fifth Main Point of Doctrine
The Perseverance of the Saints

Article 1: The Regenerate Not Entirely Free from Sin
Those people whom God calls into fellowship with God’s Son Jesus Christ our Lord according to the
divine purpose and regenerates by the Holy Spirit, God also wholly sets free from the dominion and
slavery of sin, though not wholly from the flesh and body of sin as long as they are in this life.
Article 2: The Believer’s Reaction to Sins of Weakness
Hence daily sins of weakness arise, and blemishes cling to even the best works of saints, giving them
continual cause to humble themselves before God, to flee for refuge to Christ crucified, to put the flesh
to death more and more by the Spirit of supplication and by holy exercises of godliness, and to strain
toward the goal of perfection, until they are freed from this body of death and reign with the Lamb of
God in heaven.
Article 3: God’s Preservation of the Converted
Because of these remnants of sin dwelling in them and also because of the temptations of the world
and Satan, those who have been converted could not remain standing in this grace if left to their own
resources. But God is faithful, mercifully strengthening them in the grace once conferred on them and
powerfully preserving them in it to the end.
Article 4: The Danger of True Believers’ Falling into Serious Sins
The power of God strengthening and preserving true believers in grace is more than a match for the
flesh.Yet those converted are not always so activated and motivated by God that in certain specific
actions they cannot by their own fault depart from the leading of grace, be led astray by the desires of
the flesh, and give in to them. For this reason they must constantly watch and pray that they may not
be led into temptations. When they fail to do this, not only is it possible for them to be carried away by
the flesh, the world, and Satan into sins, even serious and outrageous ones, but also by God’s just
permission they sometimes are carried away—witness the sad cases, described in Scripture, of David,
Peter, and other saints falling into sins.
Article 5: The Effects of Such Serious Sins
By such monstrous sins, however, they greatly offend God, deserve the sentence of death, grieve the
Holy Spirit, suspend the exercise of faith, severely wound the conscience, and sometimes lose the
awareness of grace for a time—until, after they have returned to the right way by genuine repentance,
God’s fatherly face again shines upon them.
Article 6: God’s Saving Intervention
For God, who is rich in mercy, according to the unchangeable purpose of election, does not take the
Holy Spirit from the chosen completely, even when they fall grievously. Neither does God let them fall
down so far that they forfeit the grace of adoption and the state of justification, or commit the sin which
leads to death (the sin against the Holy Spirit), and plunge themselves, entirely forsaken by God, into
eternal ruin.
Article 7: Renewal to Repentance
For, in the first place, God preserves in those saints when they fall the divine imperishable seed from
which they have been born again, lest it perish or be dislodged. Secondly, by the Word and Spirit, God
certainly and effectively renews them to repentance so that they have a heartfelt and godly sorrow for
the sins they have committed. They seek and obtain, through faith and with a contrite heart, forgiveness
in the blood of the Mediator. They experience again the grace of a reconciled God. Through faith
they adore God’s mercies, and from then on more eagerly they work out their own salvation with fear
and trembling.
Article 8: The Certainty of This Preservation
So it is not by their own merits or strength, but by God’s undeserved mercy, that they neither forfeit
faith and grace totally nor remain in their errors to the end and are lost. With respect to themselves this
not only easily could happen, but also undoubtedly would happen.Yet with respect to God it cannot
possibly happen, since the divine plan cannot be changed; God’s promise cannot fail; the calling
according to divine purpose cannot be revoked; the merit of Christ as well as his interceding and preserving
cannot be nullified; and the sealing of the Holy Spirit can neither be invalidated nor wiped out.
Article 9: The Assurance of This Preservation
Concerning this preservation of those chosen to salvation and concerning the perseverance of true
believers in faith, believers themselves can and do become assured in accordance with the measure of
their faith. By this faith they firmly believe that they are and always will remain true and living members
of the church, and that they have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
Article 10: The Ground of This Assurance
Accordingly, this assurance does not derive from some private revelation beyond or outside the Word,
but from faith in the promises of God which are very plentifully revealed in the Word for our comfort,
from the testimony of “that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if
children, then heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,” 18 and finally from a serious and holy pursuit of a
clear conscience and of good works. Moreover, if God’s chosen ones in this world did not have this
well-founded comfort that the victory will be theirs and this reliable guarantee of eternal glory, they
would be of all people most miserable.
Article 11: Doubts Concerning This Assurance
Meanwhile, Scripture testifies that believers have to contend in this life with various doubts of the flesh,
and that under severe temptation they do not always experience this full assurance of faith and certainty
of perseverance. But the Source of all comfort, “will not let you be tested beyond your strength,
but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it,” 19 and by the
Holy Spirit revives in them the assurance of their perseverance.
Article 12: This Assurance as an Incentive to Godliness
This assurance of perseverance, however, so far from making true believers proud and carnally
secure, is rather the true root of humility, of childlike respect, of genuine godliness, of endurance in
every conflict, of fervent prayers, of steadfastness in crossbearing and in confessing the truth, and of
well-founded joy in God. Reflecting on this benefit provides an incentive to a serious and continual
practice of thanksgiving and good works, as is evident from the testimonies of Scripture and the examples
of the saints.
Article 13: Assurance No Inducement to Carelessness
Neither does the renewed confidence of perseverance produce immorality or lack of concern for godliness
in those put back on their feet after a lapse, but it produces a much greater concern to observe
carefully the ways of the Lord which were prepared in advance. They observe these ways in order that
by walking in them they may maintain the assurance of their perseverance, lest, by their abuse of
God’s goodness, the face of the gracious God (for the godly, looking upon God’s face is sweeter than
life, but its withdrawal is more bitter than death) turn away from them again, with the result that they fall
into greater anguish of spirit.
Article 14: God’s Use of Means in Perseverance
And as it has pleased God to begin this work of grace in us by the proclamation of the gospel, so God
preserves, continues, and completes the divine work by the hearing and reading of the gospel, by
meditation on it, by its exhortations, threats, and promises, and also by the use of the sacraments.
Article 15: Contrasting Reactions to the Teaching of Perseverance
This teaching about the perseverance of true believers and saints, and about their assurance of it—a
teaching which God has very richly revealed in the Word for the glory of God’s name and for the comfort
of the godly and which the Almighty impresses on the hearts of believers—is something which the
flesh does not understand, Satan hates, the world ridicules, the ignorant and the hypocrites abuse, and
the spirits of error attack. The bride of Christ, on the other hand, has always loved this teaching very
tenderly and defended it steadfastly as a priceless treasure; and God, against whom no plan can avail
and no strength can prevail, will ensure that the church will continue to do this. To this God alone,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be honor and glory forever. Amen.

Conclusion
Rejection of False Accusations

And so this is the clear, simple, and straightforward explanation of the orthodox teaching on the five
articles in dispute in the Netherlands [as well as the rejection of the errors]** by which the Dutch
churches have for some time been disturbed. This explanation [and rejection]** the Synod declares to
be derived from God’s Word and in agreement with the confessions of the Reformed churches. Hence,
it clearly appears that those who have brought the following charges have shown no truth, equity, and
charity at all. They wish to make the public believe:
• that the teaching of the Reformed churches on predestination and on the points associated
with it by its very nature and tendency draws the minds of people away from all godliness and
religion, is an opiate of the flesh and the devil, and is a stronghold where Satan lies in wait for
all people, wounds most of them, and fatally pierces many of them with the arrows of both
despair and self-assurance;
• that this teaching makes God the author of sin, unjust, a tyrant, and a hypocrite; and is nothing
but a refurbished Stoicism, Manicheism, Libertinism, and Mohammedanism;
• that this teaching makes people carnally secure, since it persuades them that nothing endangers
the salvation of the chosen, no matter how they live, so that they may commit the most
outrageous crimes with self-assurance; and that on the other hand nothing is of use to the
reprobate for salvation even if they have truly performed all the works of the saints;
• that this teaching means that God predestined and created, by the bare and unqualified
choice of the divine will, without the least regard or consideration of any sin, the greatest part
of the world to eternal condemnation; that in the same manner in which election is the source
and cause of faith and good works, reprobation is the cause of unbelief and ungodliness; that
many infant children of believers are snatched in their innocence from their mothers’ breasts
and cruelly cast into hell so that neither the blood of Christ nor their baptism nor the prayers
of the church at their baptism can be of any use to them; and very many other slanderous
accusations of this kind which the Reformed churches not only disavow but even denounce
with their whole heart.
Therefore this Synod of Dort in the name of the Lord pleads with all who devoutly call on the name of
our Savior Jesus Christ to form their judgment about the faith of the Reformed churches, not on the
basis of false accusations gathered from here or there, or even on the basis of the personal statements
of a number of ancient and modern authorities—statements which are also often either quoted
out of context or misquoted and twisted to convey a different meaning—but on the basis of the churches’
own official confessions and of the present explanation of the orthodox teaching which has been
endorsed by the unanimous consent of the members of the whole Synod, one and all.
Moreover, the Synod earnestly warns the false accusers themselves to consider how heavy a judgment
of God awaits those who give false testimony against so many churches and their confessions,
trouble the consciences of the weak, and seek to prejudice the minds of many against the fellowship of
true believers.
Finally, this Synod urges all fellow ministers in the gospel of Christ to deal with this teaching in a godly
and reverent manner, in the academic institutions as well as in the churches; to do so, both in their
speaking and writing, with a view to the glory of God’s name, holiness of life, and the comfort of anxious
souls; to think and also speak with Scripture according to the analogy of faith; and, finally, to
refrain from all those ways of speaking which go beyond the bounds set for us by the genuine sense of
the Holy Scriptures and which could give impertinent sophists a just occasion to scoff at the teaching
of the Reformed churches or even to bring false accusations against it.
May God’s Son Jesus Christ, who sits at the right hand of God and gives gifts to his people, sanctify
us in the truth, lead to the truth those who err, silence the mouths of those who lay false accusations
against sound teaching, and equip faithful ministers of God’s Word with a spirit of wisdom and discretion,
that all they say may be to the glory of God and the building up of their hearers. Amen.
NOTES:
* Dort did not cite the material in parenthesis.
** The “Rejection of Errors” sections of the Canons are omitted because they have been omitted in
previous Reformed Church in America translations of the Canons. This accounts also for the bracketed
words in the conclusion.
1 Rom. 3:19
2 Rom. 3:23
3 Rom. 6:23
4 John 3:16
5 Rom. 10:14-15
6 Eph. 2:8
7 Phil. 1:29
8 Acts 15:17c-18; Eph. 1:11
9 Eph. 1:4-6
10 Rom. 8:30
11 Eph. 1:4
12 Rom. 9:11-13
13 Acts 13:48
14 Rom. 9:20
15 Matt. 20:15
16 Rom. 11:33-36
17 Matt. 13
18 Rom. 8:16-17
19 1 Cor. 10:13