The Synod of Dort was convened to settle a dispute that had divided the Dutch Reformed Church since the Remonstrance of 1610, a petition drawn up by followers of the recently deceased theologian Jacobus Arminius setting out five points on grace and salvation. The Remonstrants held that God's election of believers was conditional on foreseen faith, that Christ's atonement was offered for all people though effective only for believers, that fallen human nature retained some capacity to respond to grace, that grace could be resisted, and that a believer's perseverance in faith was not absolutely certain.
Meeting from November 1618 to May 1619, with delegates from Reformed churches in England, Switzerland, the Palatinate, Hesse and other territories sitting alongside the Dutch, the Synod examined and rejected all five articles. In their place its Canons set out what it held scripture to teach: that human corruption after the fall left no capacity in the will to move toward faith unaided, that God's election is unconditional rather than based on foreseen response, that Christ's death is sufficient for all but efficacious for the elect, that grace once given is not finally resisted, and that those truly regenerated persevere to the end. The Remonstrant delegation, led by Simon Episcopius, was treated through the proceedings as a party on trial rather than as synod members with a vote, and departed before the Canons were finalized.
The Synod's proceedings ran to more than one hundred and fifty formal sessions over six months, working through each of the five Remonstrant points in turn before compiling its own answer into the Canons proper, structured under five corresponding heads of doctrine so that each article of the Remonstrance received a direct reply.