Presbyterianism.  The minister and ruling or lay elders of
the local church formed its consistory, corresponding to the
Scottish or American kirk session.  The next higher power,
administrative or judicial, resided in the classis, consisting
of all the ministers in a given district and one elder from
each parish therein, and corresponding to the presbytery.  It
had power to license and ordain, install and remove ministers.
Above this body stood the provincial synod, and above that
the (occasional)national synods.  In 1624 the synod of North
Holland decreed that supervision over the churches in the
East Indies should belong to the churches and classes within
whose bounds were located the various "chambers" of the East
India Company.  The same rule was applied in the case of the
West India Company's settlements.  Under this rule the first
minister sent out to New Netherland was placed under the
jurisdiction of the Classis of Amsterdam, since the colony
was under the charge of the Amsterdam Chamber.  Many extracts
from the minutes of that classis, and what remains of its
correspondence with the ministers in New Netherland, are
printed in the volumes published by the State of New York