At the fifth session the remonstrants petitioned the synod, that a competent number of their friends might have leave to appear before them, and that the citation might be sent to the whole body, and not to any single person, to the end that they might be at liberty to send such as they should judge best qualified to defend their cause; and particularly insisted, that Grovinckhovius and Goulart might be of the number. One would have thought that so equitable a request should have been readily granted. But they were told, that it could not be allowed that the remonstrants should pass for a distinct body, or make any deputation of persons in their common name to treat of their affairs; and agreeably to this declaration, the summons that were given out were not sent to the remonstrants as a body or part of the synod, but to such particular persons as the synod thought fit to choose out of them; which was little less than citing them as criminals before a body of men, which chiefly consisted of their professed adversaries.[318] When they first appeared in the synod, and Episcopius in the name of the rest of them talked of entering into a regular conference about the points in difference, they were immediately given to understand, that no conference was intended; but that their only business was to deliver their sentiments, and humbly to wait for the judgment of the council concerning them. ----- Footnote 318: Act Syn. Dord. Sess. 22. ----- Episcopius, in the name of his brethren, declared, that they did not own the synod for their lawful judges, because most of that body were their avowed enemies, and fomenters and promoters of the unhappy schism amongst them; upon which they were immediately reprimanded by the president, for impeaching and arraigning their authority, and presuming to prescribe laws to those whom the States-General had appointed for their judges. The Divines of Geneva added upon this head, “That if people obstinately refused to submit to the lawful determinations of the church, there then remained two methods to be used against them; the one, that the civil magistrate might stretch out his arm of compulsion; the other that the church might exert her power, in order to separate and cut off, by a public sentence, those who violated the laws of God.” After many debates on this head, between the synod and the remonstrants, who adhered to their resolution of not owning the synod for their judges, they were turned out of it, by Bogerman the president, with great insolence and fury; to the high dissatisfaction of many of the foreign Divines.