At an earlier period James I also had condemned Arminianism [A.D. 1619.] as promoting tendencies towards Catholicism. But the theories of this sovereign were always thrust into the background by his interests; and when the decrees of this synod, in which some English theologians had also taken part, though to a very slight extent, roused controversies in England which threatened to disturb the repose and even the system of the Church of England, it no longer commanded his sympathies. He forbade the theological question to be discussed publicly in the pulpits; just as in the articles of the English Church it had already been handled with great caution. Still more repugnant to him was the article in the conclusions of the Synod of Dort, in which equal authority was ascribed to all ministers of God’s Word, whatever position they might hold[65]. The English members of the Synod, who looked upon this as an indirect condemnation of the constitution of the Church of England, protested against it, of course without obtaining a hearing. But how obnoxious must this article have been to the sovereign, who designed to found his state upon the alliance of the Protestant mitre with the sceptre! His Presbyterian opponents now acquired the support of an assembly which, by its very strictness on other points, gained for itself great authority in the Reformed Church. What was termed Puritanism was, strictly speaking, the combination of the dogmatic decrees of the Synod of Dort with resistance to episcopacy. So far as we know, the Archbishop of Spalatro, Marcus Antonius de Dominis, who at that time had taken refuge in England, was the first who used the word in this sense[66]. There could be no more hearty admirer of the Anglican Church than this foreign Archbishop. His works on this controversy, which although voluminous are written with learning and candour, have contributed to maintain the [A.D. 1633.] reputation of the constitution of the English Church in the eyes of the literary and theological world[67].