ad previously been treated mystically. Even before the
Reformation, the Dutch theologians were preeminently 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 reechoed 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 a 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