Part 11 (1/2)

The questions involved were political, local, personal, and above all religious Here is the picture which Motley draws of the religious quarrel as it divided the people:--

”In burghers' es, -s-rooe, in the tennis court, on the s, or bridals; wherever and whenever human creatures le of Re of red-hot theological rhetoric, the pelting of hostile texts The blacksmith's iron cooled on the anvil, the tinker dropped a kettle half en fisherot the cracks in his pinkie, while each paused to hold high converse with friend or foe on fate, free- will, or absolute foreknowledge; losing hi ainst province, city against city, fa, denunciation, heart-burnings, rounds of the quarrel which set these seventeenth-century Dutch each other's throats were to be looked for in the ”Five Points” of the Arainst the ”Seven Points” of the Gomarites, or Contra-Remonstrants The most important of the differences which were to be settled by fratricide see to the Five Points, ”God has froh his grace believe in Jesus Christ,”

etc According to the Seven Points, ”God in his election has not looked at the belief and the repentance of the elect,” etc According to the Five Points, all good deeds race in Christ, but it does not work irresistibly The language of the Seven Points implies that the elect cannot resist God's eternal and unchangeable design to give them faith and steadfastness, and that they can never wholly and for always lose the true faith The language of the Five Points is unsettled as to the last proposition, but it was afterwards maintained by the Reh his own fault, fall away from God and lose faith

It ious questions had an immediate connection with politics Independently of the conflict of jurisdiction, in which they involved the parties to the two different creeds, it was believed or pretended that the new doctrines of the Rens which threatened the independence of the country ”There are two factions in the land,” said Maurice, ”that of Orange and that of Spain, and the two chiefs of the Spanish faction are those political and priestly Araert and Oldenbarneveld”

The heads of the two religious and political parties were in such hereditary, long-continued, and intined the other's death-warrant, that it was i that of the other For his biographer John of Barneveld is the true patriot, the ious and political freedom For him Maurice is the ambitious soldier who hated his political rival, and never rested until this rival was brought to the scaffold

The questions which agitated o are not dead yet in the country where they produced such estrangeer could take the hostile criticism from one party or the other It may be and has been conceded that Mr Motley writes as a partisan,--a partisan of freedoion, as he understands freedoonism of one class of critics But these critics are themselves partisans, and theonists M

Groen van Prinsterer, ”the learned and distinguished” editor of the ”Archives et Correspondance” of the Orange and Nassau family, published a considerable volume, before referred to, in which ly controverted But he hi in accord with ”that eminent scholar,” M Bakhuyzen van den Brink, whose nah to need no comment, or with M Fruin, of whose iest terround upon which he is attacked is thus stated in his oords:--

”People have often pretended to find in s the deplorable influence of an extreme Calvinisionists I ah to any irounds for this accusation against Mr Motley's critic And on a careful examination of the formidable volume, it becomes obvious that Mr Motley has presented a view of the events and the personages of the storround yet to be fought over by those who come after him The dispute is not and cannot be settled

The end of all religious discussion has co or acting under iuidance ”It is God's affair, and his honor is touched,” says William Lewis to Prince Maurice Mr Motley's critic is not less confident in claihty as on the side of his own views Let hiround of departure:--

”To show the difference, let me rather say the contrast, between the point of view of Mr Motley and elical belief I a (reveil) Faithful to the device of the Reformers: Justification by faith alone, and the Word of God endures eternally

I consider history frone, Chalmers, Guizot I desire to be disciple and witness of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ”

He is therefore of necessity antagonistic to a writer whom he describes in such words as these:--

”Mr Motley is liberal and rationalist

”He beco the principle of the Reformation, the passionate opponent of the Puritans and of Maurice, the ardent apologist of Barnevelt and the Arminians

”It is understood, and he ue and undecided doctrine of the Unitarians”

What M Groen's idea of Unitarians is ets from a letter of De Tocqueville

”They are pure deists; they talk about the Bible, because they do not wish to shock too severely public opinion, which is prevailingly Christian They have a service on Sundays; I have been there At it they read verses frolish poets on the existence of God and the immortality of the soul They deliver a discourse on some point of morality, and all is said”

In point of fact the wave of protest which stormed the dikes of Dutch orthodoxy in the seventeenth century stole gently through the bars of New England Puritanise nued the fixedness of the divine decrees, and the resistless certainty from all eternity of election and of reprobation, there were not wanting, even ay, some who hadthe self-direction of the active powers of ainst Calvinism”

Protestantis with currents it cannot resist, wakes up once or oftener in every century, to find itself in a new locality Then it rubs its eyes and wonders whether it has found its harbor or only lost its anchor There is no end to its disputes, for it has nothing but a fallible vote as authority for its oracles, and these appeal only to fallible interpreters

It is as hard to contend in arguarchy of heaven,”

as Motley calls the Calvinistic party, as it was formerly to strive with theed the party which framed the declaration of the Synod of Dort; the party which under the forreat states and so well To this chosen body belonged the late venerable and truly excellent as well as learned M Groen van Prinsterer, and he exercised the usual right of exaed position the views of a ”liberal” and ”rationalist” writer who goes toon Sunday to hear verses fro of the ”intimate correspondence,” which he considers Mr Motley has not duly taken into account, and of the other letters to be found printed in his somentary volume