Epistle to a Good Friend in Italy

The causes of his accusation were four, of which the twenty-two The text likely refers to 22 specific articles or points of accusation. were primarily scrutinized by His Royal Majesty, and they encompassed the heresies and errors that strove against the pure and infinite nature of God. The King proved to him, namely: 1. How the limitlessness and true Almighty Presence were only claimed by Vorstius in appearance, while in practice they were obscured, and how the forced truth was darkened with the vanity of painted words. 2. How the eternity of God was changed by him into a time, and how he recognized himself as a protector and patron of obscuration and doubt. 3. How he teaches that God is changeable and subject to change. 4. How he maliciously attempts to rob the eternal God of His omnipotence. 5. How he godlessly deprives God the Almighty of the knowledge of all things and the foreknowledge of future, contingent events. 6. How he holds that God is in some measure composed of creatures and has a body, as he is visible, and for that reason, His spiritual essence is called into doubt. 7. How he openly confesses that God is subject to contingent change. 8. How the promptings and affections of love and hatred can be peculiarly attributed to God's heart. 9. That God the Father has a separate and distinct essence. 10. How he introduces manifold doubts in his book about God and resolves them nowhere, from which deceit and falsehood are to be inferred, and now his cunning practices and schemes are manifest and in the light of day. The other twenty-three The text likely refers to the second set of articles regarding his theological associations. concerned the articles of faith, from which it was demonstrated how the Arian, Samosatene, and Socinian Vorstius played with such heretics and their headgear An idiomatic way of saying he "played the game" or "associated with them.". 1. While he, with the Heidelberg theologians, [and] the weighted Socini [refers to Faustus Socinus]...