The Counter-Remonstrance of 1611 was the Dutch Reformed Churches' response to the controversial Remonstrants' Five Articles of Remonstrance, which challenged the Calvinist theology and the Reformed Confessions that the Remonstrants had sworn to uphold. The Counter-Remonstrance was written primarily by Festus Hommius and defended the Belgic Confession against theological criticisms from the followers of the late Jacob Arminius, although Arminius himself claimed adherence to the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism till his death. Prior to the Canons of Dort, the Counter-Remonstrance of 1611 was the earliest and clearest representation of what is in modern times commonly referred to as the "five points of Calvinism."

Dutch theologian James Arminius (1560–1609) died without much fanfare in 1609. He left behind a mixed legacy - a brilliantly gifted scholar whose career was marred with accusations that he had departed from the standard Calvinist interpretation of Romans 9, among other passages. Despite some strong criticism from some of his peers, Arminius insisted that he held the doctrines outlined in the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism until his death. If was after his death that a controversy erupted in 1610, when a critical document (called a Remonstance) from forty-three of his like-minded colleagues appeared, declaring themselves "the Remonstrants."

James T. Dennison summarized the events, "On March 10, 1611, at The Hague, the famous Collatio Hagensis (Conference of the Hague) convened with six members of the Remonstrant party and six members of the opposition. Festus Hommius (1576–1642), pastor at Leiden, delivered his answer to the 1610 affirmation in 'counter-remonstrance.'"

The Remonstrants' Five Articles of Remonstrance was met with a response written primarily by Festus Hommius, called The Counter-Remonstrance of 1611. The Counter-Remonstrance of 1611 defended the Belgic Confession against theological criticisms from the followers of late Jacob Arminius, although Arminius himself claimed adherence to the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism till his death.

1. As in Adam the whole human race, created in the image of God, has with Adam fallen into sin and thus become so corrupt that all men are conceived and born in sin and thus are by nature children of wrath, lying dead in their trespasses so that there is within them no more power to convert themselves truly unto God and to believe in Christ than a corpse has power to raise itself from the dead; so God draws out of this condemnation and delivers a certain number of men who in his eternal and immutable counsel He has chosen out of mere grace, according to the good pleasure of his will, unto salvation in Christ, passing by the others in his just judgment and leaving them in their sins.

2. that not only adults who believe in Christ and accordingly walk worthy of the gospel are to be reckoned as God's elect children, but also the children of the covenant so long as they do not in their conduct manifest the contrary; and that therefore believing parents, when their children die in infancy, have no reason to doubt the salvation of these their children.

3. that God in his election has not looked to the faith or conversion of his elect, nor to the right use of his gifts, as the grounds of election; but that on the contrary He in his eternal and immutable counsel has purposed and decreed to bestow faith and perseverance in godliness and thus to save those whom He according to his good pleasure has chosen to salvation.

4. that to this end He has first of all presented and given to them his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, whom He delivered up to the death of the cross in order to save his elect, so that, although the suffering of Christ as that of the only-begotten and unique Son of God is sufficient unto the atonement of the sins of all men, nevertheless the same, according to the counsel and decree of God, has its efficacy unto reconciliation and forgiveness of sins only in the elect and true believer.