own creed to his subjects. In the royal conscience were included the
million consciences of his subjects. The inevitable result in a country
like the Netherlands, without a personal sovereign, was a struggle
between the new church and the civil government for mastery. And at this
period, and always in Barneveld's opinion, the question of dogma was
subordinate to that of church government. That there should be no
authority over the King had been settled in England.

Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and afterwards James, having become popes in
their own realm, had no great hostility to, but rather an affection for,
ancient dogma and splendid ceremonial. But in the Seven Provinces, even
as in France, Germany, and Switzerland, the reform where it had been
effected at all had been more thorough, and there was little left of
Popish pomp or aristocratic hierarchy. Nothing could be severer than the
simplicity of the Reformed Church, nothing more imperious than its dogma,
nothing more infallible than its creed. It was the true religion, and
there was none other. But to whom belonged the ecclesiastical edifices,
the splendid old minsters in the cities--raised by the people's confiding
piety and the purchased remission of their sins in a bygone age--and the
humbler but beautiful parish churches in every town and village? To the
State; said Barneveld, speaking for government; to the community
represented by the states of the provinces, the magistracies of the
cities and municipalities. To the Church itself, the one true church
represented by its elders, and deacons, and preachers, was the reply.

And to whom belonged the right of prescribing laws and ordinances of
public worship, of appointing preachers, church servants, schoolmasters,
sextons? To the Holy Ghost inspiring the Class and the Synod, said the
Church.