Claim
⭐⭐ What the five articles actually say (González, in his third volume, translates the original article by article) — please read them side by side; two of them are very far from the usual account:
I · Predestination. ⚠ This article does not deny predestination; on the contrary, it affirms it, and does not even attack supralapsarianism. What it says is that God, by an eternal and unchangeable decree, “hath determined, out of the fallen, sinful race of men, to save in Christ, for Christ's sake, and through Christ, those who, through the grace of the Holy Ghost, shall believe”, and to leave “the incorrigible and unbelieving in sin and under wrath” — that is, it explains predestination as the result of God's foreknowing who will believe, rather than of God's own initiative.
II · The extent of the atonement. Jesus Christ “died for all men and for every man, so that he has obtained for them all, by his death on the cross, redemption and the forgiveness of sins”. ⚠ But they expressly deny universal salvation: “no one actually enjoys this forgiveness of sins except the believer.” The dispute was not over how many are saved, but over whether Christ's death was for all humankind.
III · Human corruption. ⚠ This article is often described as the Remonstrants denied total depravity — that is not accurate. The text says that man, “in the state of apostasy and sin, can of and by himself neither think, will, nor do any thing that is truly good”.
IV · Grace. “As respects the mode of the operation of this grace, it is not irresistible.” — ⭐ This article is the real watershed.
V · Perseverance. ⚠ They did not say this doctrine was wrong; they did not even attack it. What they did was refuse to teach the opposite without further evidence from Scripture.
Counterclaim
The Synod of Dort's answer to the five articles (the full text is in the entry on the Synod of Dort; only the main points are given here, so that readers who look at this page alone can still see both sides):
I · Election. Rejected. Election is wholly unconditional — it “was not founded upon foreseen faith”, and “The good pleasure of God is the sole cause of this gracious election”.
II · The extent of the atonement. Partly rejected. It grants that Christ's death “is of infinite worth and value, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world”, but holds that its effective redemption reaches only the elect.
III · Corruption. ⚠ On this article the two sides differed little, and it is Dort that left some room (“There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light”). The real difference is this: the Remonstrance refused to tie corruption to irresistible grace, while Dort made that tie — because only if grace is irresistible can it move the heart of a totally depraved sinner.
IV · Grace. ⭐ Rejected head-on; this is the watershed. Faith is God's gift “not on account of its being offered by God to man, to be accepted or rejected at his pleasure, but because it is in reality conferred, breathed, and infused into him”.
V · Perseverance. Dort made this article, González notes, a necessary mark of true Christian faith — ⚠ and it was exactly this step, he observes, that drove later Arminians to defend the possibility of falling from grace.