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.
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