Alas! a generation of mankind before, men had stood banded together to resist, with all the might that comes from union, the fell spirit of the Holy Inquisition, which was dooming all who had wandered from the ancient fold or resisted foreign tyranny to the axe, the faggot, the living grave.  There had been small leisure then for men who fought for Fatherland, and for comparative liberty of conscience, to tear each others’ characters in pieces, and to indulge in mutual hatreds and loathing on the question of predestination.

As a rule the population, especially of the humbler classes, and a great majority of the preachers were Contra-Remonstrant; the magistrates, the burgher patricians, were Remonstrant.  In Holland the controlling influence was Remonstrant; but Amsterdam and four or five other cities of that province held to the opposite doctrine.  These cities formed therefore a small minority in the States Assembly of Holland sustained by a large majority in the States-General.  The Province of Utrecht was almost unanimously Remonstrant.  The five other provinces were decidedly Contra-Remonstrant.

It is obvious therefore that the influence of Barneveld, hitherto so all-controlling in the States-General, and which rested on the complete submission of the States of Holland to his will, was tottering.  The battle-line between Church and State was now drawn up; and it was at the same time a battle between the union and the principles of state sovereignty.

It had long since been declared through the mouth of the Advocate, but in a solemn state manifesto, that My Lords the States-General were the foster-fathers and the natural protectors of the Church, to whom supreme authority in church matters belonged.

The Contra-Remonstrants, on the other hand, maintained that all the various churches made up one indivisible church, seated above the States, whether Provincial or General, and governed by the Holy Ghost acting directly upon the congregations.

As the schism grew deeper and the States-General receded from the position which they had taken up under the lead of the Advocate, the scene was changed.  A majority of the Provinces being Contra-Remonstrant, and therefore in favour of a National Synod, the States-General as a body were of necessity for the Synod.

It was felt by the clergy that, if many churches existed, they would all remain subject to the civil authority.  The power of the priesthood would thus sink before that of the burgher aristocracy.  There must be one church—­the Church of Geneva and Heidelberg—­if that theocracy which the Gomarites meant to establish was not to vanish as a dream.  It was founded on Divine Right, and knew no chief magistrate but the Holy Ghost.  A few years before the States-General had agreed to a National Synod, but with a condition that there should be revision of the Netherland Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism.

Against this the orthodox infallibilists had protested and thundered, because it was an admission that the vile Arminian heresy might perhaps be declared correct.  It was now however a matter of certainty that the States-General would cease to oppose the unconditional Synod, because the majority sided with the priesthood.