atreds and
loathing on the question of predestination.

As a rule the population, especially of the humbler classes, and a great
majority of the preachers were Contra-Remonstrant; the magistrates, the
burgher patricians, were Remonstrant. In Holland the controlling
influence was Remonstrant; but Amsterdam and four or five other cities of
that province held to the opposite doctrine. These cities formed
therefore a small minority in the States Assembly of Holland sustained by
a large majority in the States-General. The Province of Utrecht was
almost unanimously Remonstrant. The five other provinces were decidedly
Contra-Remonstrant.

It is obvious therefore that the influence of Barneveld, hitherto so
all-controlling in the States-General, and which rested on the complete
submission of the States of Holland to his will, was tottering. The
battle-line between Church and State was now drawn up; and it was at the
same time a battle between the union and the principles of state
sovereignty.

It had long since been declared through the mouth of the Advocate, but in
a solemn state manifesto, that My Lords the States-General were the
foster-fathers and the natural protectors of the Church, to whom supreme
authority in church matters belonged.

The Contra-Remonstrants, on the other hand, maintained that all the
various churches made up one indivisible church, seated above the States,
whether Provincial or General, and governed by the Holy Ghost acting
directly upon the congregations.

As the schism grew deeper and the States-General receded from the
position which they had taken up under the lead of the Advocate, the
scene was changed. A majority of the Provinces being Contra-Remonstrant,
and therefore in favour of a National Synod, the States-General as a body
were of necessity for the Synod.

It was felt by the clergy that, if many churches existed, they would all
remain subject to the civil authority. The power of the priesthood would
thus sink before that of the burgher aristocracy. There must be one
church--the Church of Geneva and Heidelberg--if that theocracy which the
Gomarites meant to establish was not to vanish as a dream. It was founded
on Divine Right, and knew no chief magistrate but the Holy Ghost. A few
years before the States-General had agreed to a National Synod, but with
a condition that there should be revision of the Netherland Confession
and the Heidelberg Catechism.

Against this the orthodox infa