ded with
difficulties; but so is every great, and useful, and glorious
undertaking; and in such a salutary work we may confide in the
Almighty's aid."

After this manner did Grotius write to the Swedish Plenipotentiary, in
the end of the year 1614, handling with greater delicacy, as he wrote to
Protestants, the nice article of the Pope's Supremacy, in favour of
which he had spoken more strongly in the pieces he had just published.

We learn from his first letters, that he communicated his pacific ideas
to his father, and that he was early sensible of the great difficulties
attending a reunion. He writes to his brother, Oct. 27, 1623[655],
"What my father writes, of restoring things to the condition they were
in before the Council of Trent, would be a great step; but
transubstantiation, and the adoration ordained by the Lateran Council,
and the invocation of Saints, which is received in all the liturgies,
will be great stumbling-blocks to tender consciences."

Some years after, he imagined that the shortest way to a coalition of
Christians would be to reduce the articles of faith to a small number.
"It were well, says he[656], if Christians would reflect how few the
points are, and how clearly expressed in Scripture, which constitute the
Rule of Faith laid down by St. Irenaeus and Tertullian; and as it is not
allowed to doubt of these, the liberty left to men in others might
contribute to the peace of the Church."

Afterwards he went much farther. "I could wish, he says to his
brother[657], Nov. 14. 1643, that Utengobard, when his health will
permit, would write something, if he has not done it already, on the
necessity of restoring the unity of the Church; and by what means it may
be done. Many think that the true way would be to distinguish between
what is necessary, and what is not; and to leave men at full liberty in
the latter: but it is as difficult to know what is necessary, as to know
what is true. The Scriptures, they say, are the rule: but interpreters
vary on the passages referred to. I know not, therefore, whether it
would not be best to adhere to the sentiments of the Catholic Church
concerning faith and good works: for I think they hold all that is
necessary to be believed in order to salvation. As to other articles
which have been determined by Councils, or received by the first
Christians, we must adopt the moderate interpretation, and such we shall
find on every point. If any one cannot prevail with