made the first effective move against it. The triumvirate corresponded with William Wake, amongst other Protestant churchmen. Works Logomachy Adriaan Heereboord had argued in Cartesian style, against scholasticism for limitations to be put on disputation, which should be bounded by good faith in the participants. Werenfels went further, regarding "logomachy" as a malaise of the Republic of Letters. The "triumvirate" position on ecumenism was based on the use of fundamental articles through the forum of the Republic of Letters. The underlying causes of logomachy were taken by Werenfels to be prejudice and other failings of the disputants, and ambiguity in language. In his dissertation De logomachiis eruditorum (Amsterdam, 1688) Werenfels argued that controversies that divide Christians are often verbal disputes, arising from moral deficiencies, especially from pride. He proposed to do away with them by making a universal lexicon of all terms and concepts. In the Oratio de vero et falso theologorum zelo he admonished those who fight professedly for purity of doctrine, but in reality for their own system. He considers it the duty of the polemicist not to combat antiquated heresies and to warm up dead issues, but to overthrow the prevalent enemies of true Christian living. Theology In 1699 he published anonymously Judicium de argumento Cartesii pro existentia Dei. It was an acceptance in particular of the proof of existence of God from the third Meditation of Descartes; and in general of Cartesian philosophical premises. His conception of his duties as a theological professor was shown in his address, De scopo doctoris in academia sacras litteras docentis. He believed that it was more important to care for the piety of candidates for the ministry, than for their scholarship. It was his belief that a professor of practical theology is as necessary as a professor of practical medicine. He stood for the necessity of a special revelation of God, and defended the Biblical miracles as confirmations of the words of the evangelists. In his Cogitationes generales de ratione uniendi ecclesias protestantes, quae vulgo Lutheranarum et Reformatorum nominibus distingui solent, he sought a way of reconciling Lutherans and Calvinists. The De jure in conscientias ab homine non usurpando dated from 1702; it was written after Nicolaus Wil(c)kens had defended a thesis on religious freedom in the absence of consequences for public order, and defends freedom of conscience. The work met the approval of Benjamin Hoadly and Samuel Haliday, while