s equally
a martyrdom for the liberties of his country. We cannot enter
minutely into the train of circumstances which for several years
brought Maurice and Barneveldt into perpetual concussion with
each other. Long after the completion of the truce, which the
latter so mainly aided in accomplishing, every minor point in the
domestic affairs of the republic seemed merged in the conflict
between the stadtholder and the pensionary. Without attempting
to specify these, we may say, generally, that almost every one
redounded to the disgrace of the prince and the honor of the
patriot. But the main question of agitation was the fierce dispute
which soon broke out between two professors of theology of the
university of Leyden, Francis Gomar and James Arminius. We do
not regret on this occasion that our confined limits spare us the
task of recording in detail controversies on points of speculative
doctrine far beyond the reach of the human understanding, and
therefore presumptuous, and the decision of which cannot be regarded
as of vital importance by those who justly estimate the grand
principles of Christianity. The whole strength of the intellects
which had long been engaged in the conflict for national and
religious liberty, was now directed to metaphysical theology,
and wasted upon interminable disputes about predestination and
grace. Barneveldt enrolled himself among the partisans of Arminius;
Maurice became a Gomarist.

It was, however, scarcely to be wondered at that a country so
recently delivered from slavery both in church and state should
run into wild excesses of intolerance, before sectarian principles
were thoroughly understood and definitively fixed. Persecutions
of various kinds were indulged in against Papists, Anabaptists,
Socinians, and all the shades of doctrine into which Christianity
had split. Every minister who, in the milder spirit of Lutheranism,
strove to moderate the rage of Calvinistic enthusiasm, was openly
denounced by its partisans; and one, named Gaspard Koolhaas,
was actually excommunicated by a synod, and denounced in plain
terms to the devil. Arminius had been appointed professor at
Leyden in 1603, for the mildness of his doctrines, which were
joined to most affable manners, a happy temper, and a purity
of conduct which no calumny could successfully traduce.

His colleague Gomar, a native of Bruges, learned, violent, and
rigid in sectarian points, soon became jealous of the more popular