church government which every citizen must obey, and to appoint preachers
and school-masters from whom alone old and young could receive
illumination and instruction religious or lay, a theocracy would be
established which no enlightened statesman could tolerate.

The States-General agreed to the synod, but imposed a condition that
there should be a revision of Creed and Catechism. This was thundered
down with one blast. The condition implied a possibility that the vile
heresy of Arminius might be correct. An unconditional synod was
demanded. The Heidelberg Creed and Netherland Catechism were sacred,
infallible, not to be touched. The answer of the government, through
the mouth of Barneveld, was that "to My Lords the States-General as the
foster-fathers and protectors of the churches every right belonged."

Thus far the States-General under the leadership of the Advocate were
unanimous. The victory remained with State against Church. But very
soon after the truce had been established, and men had liberty to devote
themselves to peaceful pursuits, the ecclesiastical trumpet again sounded
far and wide, and contending priests and laymen rushed madly to the fray.
The Remonstrance and Contra-Remonstrance, and the appointment of Conrad
Vorstius, a more abominable heretic than Arminius, to the vacant chair
of Arminius--a step which drove Gomarus and the Gomarites to frenzy,
although Gomarus and Vorstius remained private and intimate friends
to the last--are matters briefly to be mentioned on a later page.

Thus to the four chief actors in the politico-religious drama, soon to be
enacted as an interlude to an eighty years' war, were assigned parts at
first sight inconsistent with their private convictions. The King of
France, who had often abjured his religion, and was now the best of
Catholics, was denounced ferociously in every Catholic pulpit in