The history of hermeneutics in all times shows that there is but one step from the literal to the allegorical. So with the Voetians. They indicated a disposition to yield, and at length became more fanciful and allegorical than their adversaries had been. They sought the interior sense of the text, but would be limited by no rules. They spiritualized the entire contents of the Bible. He who could draw most profit and instruction from a word was the best teacher, for a scribe must bring forth from his "heart" both new things and old. Not reason, nor logic, but experience and feeling must explain every word of God. The Bible literally became all things to all men. The "inner light" was its great interpreter. Many people despised scientific students of the truths of revelation, calling them "slaves of the letter,"—a term which, singularly enough, is still in common use among the uneducated members of the church of Holland. The Bible, taken in its real character, was banished and an artificial volume placed in its stead. Practical mysticism was now fairly inaugurated. Even conventicles spread throughout the country, and ignorant men who knew how "to speak to the hearts of the people" were infinitely preferred to any educated minister.
The strife ran very high. While there was an assimilation of the Voetians to the Cocceians in the application of the allegorical principle of interpretation, there was a moral retrogression of the latter which greatly reduced their strength. This arose from the defective views of Cocceius on the sanctity of the Sabbath. His disciples carried his unfortunate opinion far enough to gain the favor of the worldly and immoral classes. The freest customs and gayest fashions were imported from France, and Cocceian ministers made it their boast that they designed to keep up with the times. More spiritual adherents became disaffected by the growing impiety. Koelman, a layman, and Lodensteyn, a clergyman, gave the alarm that the kingdom of Christ had become secularized and corrupt. The latter would not baptize the children of unbelievers nor hold any communion with them. De Labadie, formerly a Jesuit but afterward a French minister, blew the clarion of reform. The watchword on all sides was, "Separate ye my people." Nothing but the stringency of his rules and the counter-efforts of the government prevented the pious masses from joining the reformer. Mystical sects, influenced by Jacob Boehme and Spinoza, appeared here and there. Chiliastic ideas spread abroad in proportion as men despaired of the speedy regeneration of the church through natural instrumentalities. All was commotion and disruption, and, for a time, everything seemed to be on the downward course to ruin.
But the imminence of the danger brought a speedy and violent reaction. The persecution of the French Huguenots drove them across the boundary line. The Dutch true to their traditional hospitality, received them with open arms. The guests returned their welcome by diffusing new spiritual life through the hospitable country. The Cocceians laid off their worldly habits. Days of fasting and prayer were appointed by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, while an increasing love for the church, as bequeathed by the fathers, was overspreading the land. The attachment to what was old and time-honored became a glowing enthusiasm. Sharp distinctions between parties disappeared. Men who had formerly been violently arrayed against each other now expressed a disposition to unite in one common effort to restore the church to her former purity. Brokel, Imytegeld, Groenewegen, Lampe, and Vitringa, representing different and opposing forces, united in a harmonious effort to reform the heritage of Christ. Their labors were fruitful, for the people greatly honored them and earnestly followed their good advice. The theological candidate had previously been asked two questions, which had an important bearing upon his subsequent life. One was, "Do you fear God?" The other was, "To what party do you belong?" The latter inquiry was now abolished. In every university the long-prevalent partisanship subsided. But under the improved state of religion, a Voetian was invariably placed in the chair of dogmatic theology, a Cocceian in that of exegesis, and a follower of Lampe in charge of practical theology. The pulpits were likewise supplied with an equal number of ministers from the ruling parties.
After 1738 the religious progress of the church of Holland became more tardy. Attention to spiritual life decreased, while more care was bestowed upon the improvement of theological training. The department receiving greatest favor was the linguistic study of the sacred text. Professor Schultens was the first to apply himself to the Hebrew cognate languages, especially to the Arabic. The critical works of Mill and of Bengel found their way, in 1707 and 1734, into the Dutch universities. John Alberti, inaugurated professor at Leyden in 1740, made the Arabic his special branch, and in five years' time that study became so popular that Valkenaer found it necessary to warn young men against yielding too freely to its fascinations. The direction of theological taste to another department of inquiry increased the indifference to party distinctions. Henceforth the terms Voetian and Cocceian became more unfrequent and unimportant.
The theological tendency toward the study of the languages of the Bible had the single unfortunate result of increasing that puerile literalism which had appeared in only sporadic forms during several preceding centuries. It was the element antagonistic to the allegorical and spiritual interpretation of the text.
Peter Abrest, the Dutch Ernesti, taught in Groningen in 1773. His work on Sacred Criticism as the best Safeguard of Theology, showed the value he attached to a thorough grammatical and historical study of the Scriptures. His labors were in harmony with the long-standing literal interpretation of the text, though he would elucidate scientifically what had previously been treated mystically. Even before the Reformation, the Dutch theologians were preëminently textual in their habits of study, and in subsequent times, they built up their systematic and polemical theology by the stress laid upon the "words" of the inspired volume.
Nowhere was the proverb "Every heretic has his letter"[90] so common and yet so true as in Holland. The old quartos we have received from the seventeenth and former half of the eighteenth centuries will ever remain marvels of literalism gone mad. They were gotten up like a geometry, with theorems and propositions, followed by a lengthy array of texts transcribed without one word of comment. The sermons published at that time were divided and subdivided, their appearance being similar to a page of a dictionary. They were interlarded with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew letters and figures of various sizes, all being literal quotations from the Bible, and proving nothing except that the preacher had made free use of his Concordance. The consequence of so much textual citation in books and sermons was the increased popularity of theology.
The systematic works of the seventeenth century were familiar to the masses. What was said of the theological disputes of the third century, that bakers' and shoemakers' shops reëchoed the words 'homoousian' and 'homoiousian' might be applied to the period of which we speak. Even now, there exists in Holland a remarkably popular acquaintance with theology. "I have seen," says a clergyman, "fishermen who could pass examination for licentiate's orders at one of your American schools, and beat the best of the candidates in the handy use of texts and definitions."[91] The descendants of the Dutch settlers in the United States are still familiar with Brokel; while if you ask any Hollander what he thinks of John á Marck's Marrow of Divinity, he will probably indicate very soon that he has committed nearly the whole of it to memory. Francken's Kernel of Divinity is equally well-known to the masses, for he belonged to the Voetian party. He was eminently practical and ascetical. He was not without a vein of mysticism, as may be inferred by the title of one of his works: "Earnest Request of the Bridegroom Jesus Christ to the Church of Laodicea to celebrate the Royal Marriage Feast with Him."
During the entire period, dating back to the Synod of Dort, there was an undercurrent of Rationalism, which, though sometimes daring to make its appearance, observed in general the strictest secrecy. Cartesianism made it bolder for a time, and in party struggles it ventured to take sides. But the keen eye which the church ever turned toward heresy made it timid. Yet it was a power which was only waiting for a strong ally in order to make open war upon the institutions which the heroes of Holland had wrested from Philip II. of Spain.
Balthazer Bekker, "a man who feared neither man nor devil," was the first Rationalist in the Dutch church. He was a disciple of Des Cartes, and an ardent lover of natural science, particularly of astronomy. He published a work on Comets, in which he combated the old notions, prevalent among his countrymen, that a comet was always the precursor of heresies and all manner of evils, and that it should be made the occasion for a general call to prayer and fasting. Bayle, of Rotterdam, a reputed atheist, harmonized with Bekker. Bekker separated between the sphere of reason and that of religion. Whenever they meet each other it should be as friends and co-workers. Religion has greater dignity, but that gives it no right to disregard the authority of reason. When the Scriptures speak in an unnatural way of natural things, it is high time for the operation of reason. This idea led to the accommodation-theory, which, applied to the doctrine of spirits in his book, The World Bewitched (1691), resulted in Bekker's excommunication. His Cartesianism, which had taught him to distinguish so rigidly between the two "substances," matter and spirit, as to deny all action of the one upon the other, led him to assert that spirits, whether good or bad, have no influence upon the bodies of men. The Jews ascribed all exertion of power to angels, through whom God worked mediately. Jesus adapted himself to these ideas of his times.