ions on the
one side and the other at least until with full knowledge of the subject
the States might otherwise ordain. They had been the more moved to this
because his Majesty having carefully examined the opinions of the learned
hereon each side had found both consistent with Christian belief and the
salvation of souls."

It was certainly not the highest expression of religious toleration for
the civil authority to forbid the clergymen of the country from
discussing in their pulpits the knottiest and most mysterious points of
the schoolmen lest the "common people" should be puzzled. Nevertheless,
where the close union of Church and State and the necessity of one church
were deemed matters of course, it was much to secure subordination of the
priesthood to the magistracy, while to enjoin on preachers abstention
from a single exciting cause of quarrel, on the ground that there was
more than one path to salvation, and that mutual toleration was better
than mutual persecution, was; in that age, a stride towards religious
equality. It was at least an advance on Carleton's dogma, that there was
but one unique and solitary truth, and that to declare heretics not
punishable with death was an insult to the government of the Republic.

The States-General answered the Ambassador's plea, made in the name of
his master, for immediate and unguaranteed evacuation of the debatable
land by the arguments already so often stated in the Advocate's
instructions to Caron. They had been put to great trouble and expense
already in their campaigning and subsequent fortification of important
places in the duchies. They had seen the bitter spirit manifested by the
Spaniards in the demolition of the churches and houses of Mulheim and
other places. "While the affair remained in its present terms of utter
uncertainty their Mightinesses," said the States-General, "find it most
objectionable to forsake the places which they have been fortifying and
to leave the duchies and all their fellow-religionists, besides the
rights of the possessory princes a prey to those who have been hankering
for the territories for long years, and who would unquestionably be able
to make themselves absolute masters of all within a very few days."

A few months later Carleton came before the States-General again and
delivered another elaborate oration, duly furnished to him by the King,
upon the necessity of the National Synod, the comparative merits of
Arminianism and