But it was at the Hague that the schism in religion and politics first fatally widened itself.  Henry Rosaeus, an eloquent divine, disgusted with his colleague Uytenbogaert, refused all communion with him, and was in consequence suspended.  Excluded from the Great Church, where he had formerly ministered, he preached every Sunday at Ryswyk, two or three miles distant.  Seven hundred Contra-Remonstrants of the Hague followed their beloved pastor, and, as the roads to Ryswyk were muddy and sloppy in winter, acquired the unsavoury nickname of the “Mud Beggars.”  The vulgarity of heart which suggested the appellation does not inspire to-day great sympathy with the Remonstrant party, even if one were inclined to admit, what is not the fact, that they represented the cause of religious equality.  For even the illustrious Grotius was at that very moment repudiating the notion that there could be two religions in one state.  “Difference in public worship,” he said, “was in kingdoms pernicious, but in free commonwealths in the highest degree destructive.”

It was the struggle between Church and State for supremacy over the whole body politic.  “The Reformation,” said Grotius, “was not brought about by synods, but by kings, princes, and magistrates.”  It was the same eternal story, the same terrible two-edged weapon, “Cujus reggio ejus religio,” found in the arsenal of the first Reformers, and in every politico-religious arsenal of history.

“By an eternal decree of God,” said Gomarus in accordance with Calvin, “it has been fixed who are to be saved and who damned.  By His decree some are drawn to faith and godliness, and, being drawn, can never fall away.  God leaves all the rest in the general corruption of human nature and their own misdeeds.”

“God has from eternity made this distinction in the fallen human race,” said Arminius, “that He pardons those who desist from their sins and put their faith in Christ, and will give them eternal life, but will punish those who remain impenitent.  Moreover, it is pleasanter to God that all men should repent, and, coming to knowledge of truth, remain therein, but He compels none.”

This was the vital difference of dogma.  And it was because they could hold no communion with those who believed in the efficacy of repentance that Rosaeus and his followers had seceded to Ryswyk, and the Reformed Church had been torn into two very unequal parts.  But it is difficult to believe that out of this arid field of controversy so plentiful a harvest of hatred and civil convulsion could have ripened.  More practical than the insoluble problems, whether repentance could effect salvation, and whether dead infants were hopelessly damned, was the question who should rule both Church and State.

There could be but one church.  On that Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants were agreed.  But should the five Points or the Seven Points obtain the mastery?  Should that framework of hammered iron, the Confession and Catechism, be maintained in all its rigidity around the sheepfold, or should the disciples of the arch-heretic Arminius, the salvation-mongers, be permitted to prowl within it?