The religious quarrel of the Dutchmen in the seventeenth century reminds
us in some points of the strife between two parties in our own New
England, sometimes arraying the "church" on one side against the
"parish," or the general body of worshippers, on the other. The
portraits of Gomarus, the great orthodox champion, and Arminius, the head
and front of the "liberal theology" of his day, as given in the little
old quarto of Meursius, recall two ministerial types of countenance
familiar to those who remember the earlier years of our century.

Under the name of "Remonstrants" and "Contra-Remonstrants,"--Arminians
and old-fashioned Calvinists, as we should say,--the adherents of the two
Leyden professors disputed the right to the possession of the churches,
and the claim to be considered as representing the national religion. Of
the seven United Provinces, two, Holland and Utrecht, were prevailingly
Arminian, and the other five Calvinistic. Barneveld, who, under the
title of Advocate, represented the province of Holland, the most
important of them all, claimed for each province a right to determine its
own state religion. Maurice the Stadholder, son of William the Silent,
the military chief of the republic, claimed the right for the States-
General. 'Cujus regio ejus religio' was then the accepted public
doctrine of Protestant nations. Thus the provincial and the general
governments were brought into conflict by their creeds, and the question
whether the republic was a confederation or a nation, the same question
which has been practically raised, and for the time at least settled, in
our own republic, was in some way to be decided. After various
disturbances and acts of violence by both parties, Maurice, representing
the States-General, pronounced for the Calvinists or Contra-Remonstrants,
and took possession of one of the great churches, as an assertion of his
authority. Barneveld, representing the Arminian or Remonstrant
provinces, levied a body of mercenary soldiers in several of the cities.