The King in this last missive had proceeded to unsay the advice which he had formerly bestowed upon the States, by complaining that his earlier letters had been misinterpreted.  They had been made use of, he said, to authorize the very error against which they had been directed.  They had been held to intend the very contrary of what they did mean.  He felt himself bound in conscience therefore, finding these differences ready to be “hatched into schisms,” to warn the States once more against pests so pernicious.

Although the royal language was somewhat vague so far as enunciation of doctrine, a point on which he had once confessed himself fallible, was concerned, there was nothing vague in his recommendation of a National Synod.  To this the opposition of Barneveld was determined not upon religious but upon constitutional grounds.  The confederacy did not constitute a nation, and therefore there could not be a national synod nor a national religion.

Carleton came before the States-General soon afterwards with a prepared oration, wearisome as a fast-day sermon after the third turn of the hour-glass, pragmatical as a schoolmaster’s harangue to fractious little boys.

He divided his lecture into two heads—­the peace of the Church, and the peace of the Provinces—­starting with the first.  “A Jove principium,” he said, “I will begin with that which is both beginning and end.  It is the truth of God’s word and its maintenance that is the bond of our common cause.  Reasons of state invite us as friends and neighbours by the preservation of our lives and property, but the interest of religion binds us as Christians and brethren to the mutual defence of the liberty of our consciences.”

He then proceeded to point out the only means by which liberty of conscience could be preserved.  It was by suppressing all forms of religion but one, and by silencing all religious discussion.  Peter Titelman and Philip II. could not have devised a more pithy formula.  All that was wanting was the axe and faggot to reduce uniformity to practice.  Then liberty of conscience would be complete.

“One must distinguish,” said the Ambassador, “between just liberty and unbridled license, and conclude that there is but one truth single and unique.  Those who go about turning their brains into limbecks for distilling new notions in religious matters only distract the union of the Church which makes profession of this unique truth.  If it be permitted to one man to publish the writings and fantasies of a sick spirit and for another moved by Christian zeal to reduce this wanderer ‘ad sanam mentem;’ why then ‘patet locus adversus utrumque,’ and the common enemy (the Devil) slips into the fortress.”  He then proceeded to illustrate this theory on liberty of conscience by allusions to Conrad Vorstius.

This infamous sectary had in fact reached such a pitch of audacity, said the Ambassador, as not only to inveigh against the eternal power of God but to indulge in irony against the honour of his Majesty King James.