to my son-in-law and brother. We
are not a little amazed that a few extraordinary Puritans, mostly
Flemings and Frisians, who but a short time ago had neither property nor
kindred in the country, and have now very little of either, and who have
given but slender proofs of constancy or service to the fatherland, could
through pretended zeal gain credit over there against men well proved in
all respects. We wonder the more because they are endeavouring, in
ecclesiastical matters at least, to usurp an extraordinary authority,
against which his Majesty, with very weighty reasons, has so many times
declared his opinion founded upon God's Word and upon all laws and
principles of justice."

It was Barneveld's practice on this as on subsequent occasions very
courteously to confute the King out of his own writings and speeches, and
by so doing to be unconsciously accumulating an undying hatred against
himself in the royal breast. Certainly nothing could be easier than to
show that James, while encouraging in so reckless a manner the
emancipation of the ministers of an advanced sect in the Reformed Church
from control of government, and their usurpation of supreme authority
which had been destroyed in England, was outdoing himself in dogmatism
and inconsistency. A king-highpriest, who dictated his supreme will to
bishops and ministers as well as to courts and parliaments, was
ludicrously employed in a foreign country in enforcing the superiority of
the Church to the State.

"You will give good assurances," said the Advocate, "upon my word, that
the conservation of the true Reformed religion is as warmly cherished
here, especially by me, as at any time during the war."

He next alluded to the charges then considered very grave against certain
writings of Vorstius, and with equal fairness to his accusers as he had
been to the Professor gave a pledge that the subject should be examined.

"If the man in question," he said, "be the author, as perhaps falsely
imputed, of the work 'De Filiatione Christi' or things of that sort, you
may be sure that he shall have no furtherance here." He complained,
however, that before proof the cause was much prejudiced by the
circulation through the press of letters on the subject from important
personages in England. His own efforts to do justice in the matter were
traversed by such machinations. If the Professor proved to be guilty of
publications fairly to be deemed atheistical and blasphemous,