nd regulate clerical
disputes, and to place it at the disposition of ecclesiastics and of a
National Synod.

"It is thought too that the soldiers will be forbidden to assist the
civil supreme power and the government of cities in defending themselves
from acts of violence which under pretext of religion will be attempted
against the law and the commands of the magistrates.

"This seems to conflict with the common law of the respective provinces,
each of which from all times had right of sovereignty and supreme
authority within its territory and specifically reserved it in all
treaties and especially in that of the Nearer Union . . . . The provinces
have always regulated clerical matters each for itself. The Province of
Utrecht, which under the pretext of religion is now most troubled, made
stipulations to this effect, when it took his Excellency for governor,
even more stringent than any others. As for Holland, she never imagined
that one could ever raise a question on the subject . . . . All good men
ought to do their best to prevent the enemies to the welfare of these
Provinces from making profit out of our troubles."

The whole matter he regarded as a struggle between the clergy and the
civil power for mastery over the state, as an attempt to subject
provincial autonomy to the central government purely in the interest of
the priesthood of a particular sect. The remedy he fondly hoped for was
moderation and union within the Church itself. He could never imagine the
necessity for this ferocious animosity not only between Christians but
between two branches of the Reformed Church. He could never be made to
believe that the Five Points of the Remonstrance had dug an abyss too
deep and wide ever to be bridged between brethren lately of one faith as
of one fatherland. He was unceasing in his prayers and appeals for
"mutual toleration on the subject of predestination." Perhaps the
bitterness, almost amounting to frenzy, with which abstruse points of
casuistry were then debated, and which converted differences of opinion
upon metaphysical divinity into deadly hatred and thirst for blood, is
already obsolete or on the road to become so. If so, then was Barneveld
in advance of his age, and it would have been better for the peace of the
world and the progress of Christianity if more of his contemporaries had
placed themselves on his level.

He was no theologian, but he believed himself to be a Christian, and he
certainly wa