, an illustrious professor of divinity in the universities of Utrecht
, an illustrious professor of divinity in the universities of Utrecht and Leyden, was born
at Haerlem in 1617, and studied there till he was sixteen,
when he was sent to Leyden, and afterwards in 1635, went
to study at Utrecht. In 1632, he was admitted a minister,
went to pertform the functions of his office secretly at Cologne, and was never discouraged by the dangers to which
he was exposed, in a city where most of the inhabitants were
zealous papists. He returned to Holland in 1643, and that
year was made D. D. The proofs he gave of his great
learning were such> that he was chosen in 1644 to fill the
chair of divinity professor at Utrecht; and the next year
was made minister in ordinary of the church in that C;ty.
However difficult the functions of these two employments
were, yet he acquitted himself in them with great diligence
almost ten years. As a pastor, he often visited the members of his church: he encouraged the pious, instructed
the ignorant, reproved the wicked, refuted the heretics,
comforted the afflicted, refreshed the sick, strengthened
the weak, cheered the drooping, assisted the poor. As a
professor, he took as much care of the students in divinity,
as if they had been his own children: he used to read not
only public lectures, but even private ones, for them; and
to hold ordinary and extraordinary disputations. He was
chosen to exercise the same employments at Leyden
which he had at Utrecht, and accepted them in 1654. He
died in 1666; and though he was but forty-nine years of
age, yet considering his labours, it is rather a matter of
wonder that he lived so long, than that he died so soon.
He published a great number of works, didactical, polemical, practical, historical, and oratorical. The principal
are, “A Refutation of Socinianism,
” from Conviction of the Jews,
”
of the Gentiles,
” 1669, 4to “A System
of Practical Divinity,
” 4to “Theological Institutions,
”
&c. all in Latin. He understood many languages, both
ancient and modern the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic,
Syriac, Rabbinical, Dutch, German, English, French, Italian, and some little of Arabic and Spanish. He never
departed one inch from the most strict orthodoxy; and
was not less commendable for his integrity, than for his
parts and learning. Bayle, who had little in common with
so sound a divine, exhibits him as the complete model of
a good pastor and divinity-professor. He married at
Utrecht in 1650; and left two sons.