vine, disgusted with
his colleague Uytenbogaert, refused all communion with him, and was in
consequence suspended. Excluded from the Great Church, where he had
formerly ministered, he preached every Sunday at Ryswyk, two or three
miles distant. Seven hundred Contra-Remonstrants of the Hague followed
their beloved pastor, and, as the roads to Ryswyk were muddy and sloppy
in winter, acquired the unsavoury nickname of the "Mud Beggars." The
vulgarity of heart which suggested the appellation does not inspire
to-day great sympathy with the Remonstrant party, even if one were
inclined to admit, what is not the fact, that they represented the cause
of religious equality. For even the illustrious Grotius was at that very
moment repudiating the notion that there could be two religions in one
state. "Difference in public worship," he said, "was in kingdoms
pernicious, but in free commonwealths in the highest degree destructive."

It was the struggle between Church and State for supremacy over the whole
body politic. "The Reformation," said Grotius, "was not brought about by
synods, but by kings, princes, and magistrates." It was the same eternal
story, the same terrible two-edged weapon, "Cujus reggio ejus religio,"
found in the arsenal of the first Reformers, and in every
politico-religious arsenal of history.

"By an eternal decree of God," said Gomarus in accordance with Calvin,
"it has been fixed who are to be saved and who damned. By His decree some
are drawn to faith and godliness, and, being drawn, can never fall away.
God leaves all the rest in the general corruption of human nature and
their own misdeeds."

"God has from eternity made this distinction in the fallen human race,"
said Arminius, "that He pardons those who desist from their sins and put
their faith in Christ, and will give them eternal life, but will punish
those who remain impenitent. Moreover, it is pleasanter to God that all
men should repent, and, coming to knowledge of truth, remain therein, but
He compels none."

This was the vital difference of dogma. And it was because they could
hold no communion with those who believed in the efficacy of repentance
that Rosaeus and his followers had seceded to Ryswyk, and the Reformed
Church had been torn into two very unequal parts. But it is difficult to
believe that out of this arid field of controversy so plentiful a harvest
of hatred and civil convulsion could have ripened. More practical than
the insolubl