Carl Bangs writes that Arminius
was ordained on Saturday evening August 27, 1588, in
the Old Church, which was the center of church life in Amsterdam. .
. . The long process of preparation was now at an
end, and he was about to enter into the full exercise of his pastoral ministry
in Amsterdam, a ministry that would run for fifteen years.
Arminius joined a staff of five other ministers, and
Bangs gives us a profile of each of them.
One of them was Johannes Cuchlinus.
He was the first pastor from the time of the
Alteration [of Amsterdam, the Alterie,
when in 1578 Reformed Services first began in that city], and he was the only
German minister. Three of his wives had
died, and in 1587, he married an Amsterdam widow. In another nine years he would marry his
fifth and last wife, the sister of Arminius’ father, thus becoming Arminius
uncle by marriage. He was a Calvinist,
but not of the new sort that would make so much trouble in later decades. The Belgic Confession and Heidelberg
Catechism defined his faith, and he was not one to speculate on the order of decrees. He was only forty-two years
old, but in that time forty-two was a ripe old age, and Cuchlinus functioned as
the senior minister of Amsterdam.
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