On the Petition etc.

things to the light, but sought to obscure them. Meanwhile, his first two volumes remain in the world without anyone moving to refute them, even though he may have offended us. The only exception was an old, venerable man who risked his reputation to publicly contradict something in which he or his kin were involved for his own sake. See there how the honor of the Reformed Churches is well preserved: all those movements came from that one proposal.

Similarly, it happened in the year 1680 that someone whose advice carried much weight proposed in the Consistory that a certain book named Critical History of the Old Testament original: "Histoire Critique du vieux Testament" had been forbidden in France by royal decree and burned by the hands of the executioner, and that its author, R. Simon Richard Simon, had been banished from the country for the belittling of the Holy Scripture contained therein. He noted that this book was certainly being printed here by L. Elseviere and that its appearance would indirectly lead to an indelible stain on the Reformed Dutch Church if a book were printed and sold among us without punishment that was not even tolerated by the Roman Catholics, against whom we otherwise wage such a battle for the authority of the Holy Scripture. No one knew of that book, so the man was believed. A zeal for the Holy Scripture, directed against the Pausdom Papacy, caused people to go to the City Hall to stop that printing.

L. Elseviere, being summoned, said he knew nothing of such a book as was described. Having no proof, the Consistory decided to wait until it was published and then make a further complaint. Finally, a book in French appeared from the bookstore of L. Elseviere named Critical History of the Old Testament, which meant a linguistic or philological history of the Old Testament, without the name of the printer or author. Meanwhile, there also appeared Letter to a friend regarding the Critical History, etc. original: "Lettre à un amy sur l'Histoire critiq; &c.". That is, a Letter to a friend about that History, which was known to be by Mr. Ezechiel Spanheim. In it, the book was criticized in many parts, especially regarding the author's actual views, but otherwise, it was generally highly praised. I was commissioned, along with one of my oldest colleagues, to read the book and report to the Consistory what we had found.

My colleague did this for me and in my absence, without us being together or comparing our judgments. Some extracts read from that author sounded not at all good, and to that extent, the book was indeed worthy of loathing. But the report I gave then was that I pointed out those submitted extracts in the book: the words were there, but when read in the entire context, as they were connected with what preceded and followed, then the meaning was acceptable, so that there was little or nothing to say against it. I further stated that I knew well that the book was not burned in France, but only forbidden; the author was also not banished from the country, as he had become a Curé Parish Priest somewhere.

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