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 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.