Notwithstanding the severity of the persecutions which they endured, the Protestants of the Netherlands organised themselves into churches, and as early as 1563 the delegates from the various churches met in a synod to settle the doctrine and discipline which was to bind them together. This was not done without internal difficulties. The people of the Netherlands had received the Evangelical faith from various sources, and the converts tenaciously clung to the creed and ecclesiastical system with which they were first acquainted. The earliest Reformation preachers in the Low Countries were followers of Luther, and many of them had been trained at Wittenberg. Lutherans were numerous among the lesser nobility and the more substantial burghers. Somewhat later the opinions of Zwingli also found their way into the Netherlands, and were adopted by many very sincere believers. The French-speaking provinces in the south had been evangelised for the most part by missioners trained under Calvin at Geneva, and they brought his theology with them. Thus Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin had all attached followers in the Low Countries. The differences found expression, not so much in matters of doctrine as in preferences for different forms of Church government; and although they were almost overcome, they reappeared later in the contest which emerged in the beginning of the seventeenth century about the relation which ought to subsist between the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities. In the end, the teaching of Geneva displaced both Lutheranism and Zwinglianism, and the Reformed in the Netherlands became Calvinist in doctrine and discipline. Accordingly, most of the churches were early organised on the principles of the churches in France, with a minister and a consistory of elders and deacons; and when delegates from the churches met to deliberate upon an organisation which would bind all together, the system which was adopted was the Presbyterian or Conciliar. The meeting was at Emden (1569), as it was too dangerous to assemble within the jurisdiction of the Government of the Netherlands. It was resolved that the Church should be ruled by _consistories, classes_, and _synods_. This Conciliar organisation, thus adopted at Emden in 1569, might not have met with unanimous support had not the Reformed been exposed to the full fury of Alva's persecution. The consistorial system of the Lutheran Church, and the position which Zwingli assigned to the magistracy, are possible only when the civil government is favourably disposed towards the Church within the land which it rules; but Presbyterianism, as France, Scotland, and the Netherlands have proved, is the best suited for "a Church under the Cross." Nor need this be wondered at, for the Presbyterian or Conciliar is the revival of the government of the Church of the early centuries while still under the ban of the Roman Empire.[270]