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This chapter summarizes the preceding discusses and presents some concluding thoughts from the author. The final result of the Dutch Reformation was that peculiar combination of severe Calvinism and religious freedom that characterized the Dutch Republic. Within the Dutch Reformed Church, confessionalism triumphed; in Dutch society as a whole, confessionalization failed. Indeed, one can speak of a trade-off between the two. The more confessional the church became, the less compatible it was with the broader social vision of Dutch regents. Ironically, had Dutch Calvinists been more willing to dilute their confessionalism, they might eventually have come closer to realizing their Dutch New Israel. For in so doing they would certainly have gained more support than they did, both from the regents and from the majority of ordinary lay folk.

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the Calvinist–Libertine conflict, which revolved around two points: the character of the Dutch Reformed Church as a religious community and the relation between that church and the rest of Dutch society. To oversimplify a bit, one can say that the Calvinists prevailed on the first point, the Libertines on the second. The Dutch Reformed Church became a thoroughly Calvinist, thoroughly disciplined entity; Dutch society as a whole did not. The chapter then sets out the purpose of this book, which is to present a more comprehensive, integrated interpretation of the Calvinist–Libertine conflict in the Netherlands; and it does so by placing the conflict in an international context. Rather than viewing it as an isolated phenomenon unique to the Dutch, as has so often been done, it argues that it was in fact a local manifestation of a much broader struggle between the champions and opponents of confessionalism. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

This prologue recounts the course of the early Reformation in Utrecht and the beginnings of the Calvinist–Libertine conflict there. It then focuses on the religious issues that divided Calvinists and Libertines from one another, not only in Utrecht but throughout the Netherlands.

This chapter sets the Calvinist–Libertine conflict in a specific social context. It examines Utrecht's social structures and analyses the composition of the two religious parties there. From this analysis emerges an explanation as to why the Calvinist–Libertine conflict attained such unequalled vehemence in Utrecht.