the whole
Christian world was interested in composing these dissensions, it was
proposed that a "synodal assembly of all Christendom," a Protestant
oecumenical council, should in some solemn manner be convoked.

These resolutions and propositions were all brought forward by the
Advocate, and the draughts of them in his handwriting remain. They are
the unimpeachable evidences of his earnest desire to put an end to these
unhappy disputes and disorders in the only way which he considered
constitutional.

Before the close of the year the States of Holland, in accordance with
the foregoing advice of the nobles, passed a resolution, the minutes of
which were drawn up by the hand of the Advocate, and in which they
persisted in their opposition to the National Synod. They declared by a
large majority of votes that the Assembly of the States-General without
the unanimous consent of the Provincial States were not competent
according to the Union of Utrecht--the fundamental law of the General
Assembly--to regulate religious affairs, but that this right belonged to
the separate provinces, each within its own domain.

They further resolved that as they were bound by solemn oath to maintain
the laws and liberties of Holland, they could not surrender this right to
the Generality, nor allow it to be usurped by any one, but in order to
settle the question of the Five Points, the only cause known to them of
the present disturbances, they were content under: their own authority to
convoke a provincial synod within three months, at their own cost, and to
invite the respective provinces, as many of them as thought good, to send
to this meeting a certain number of pious and learned theologians.

It is difficult to see why the course thus unanimously proposed by the
nobles of Holland, under guidance of Barneveld, and subsequently by a
majority of the States of that province, would not have been as expedient
as it was legal. But we are less concerned with that point now than with
the illustrations afforded by these long buried documents of the
patriotism and sagacity of a man than whom no human creature was ever
more foully slandered.

It will be constantly borne in mind that he regarded this religious
controversy purely from a political, legal, and constitutional--and not
from a theological-point of view. He believed that grave danger to the
Fatherland was lurking under this attempt, by the general government, to
usurp the power of dicta