Frederik van Leenhof (1 September 1647 – 13 October 1715)[1][2] was a Dutch pastor and philosopher active in Zwolle, who caused an international controversy because of his Spinozist work Heaven on Earth (1703).

Royal standing armies of mercenaries are to be abolished, lest they be used to oppress the king's subjects; instead, the state should train its citizens and form a militia to be able to defend the common good.

Leenhof's book Heaven on Earth, published simultaneously in Zwolle and Amsterdam in June 1703, is written completely in Spinozist (pantheist) thought, although he always denied being an adherent of the then hugely controversial Spinoza.

Leenhof opined that every human being could realise heaven on Earth, by judging the world according to "God's order" (=nature), expressed in the laws of nature, and by reading the gospel.

[11] His book was hotly debated by the Zwolle government and the States of Overijssel for quite some time, whilst both Voetians and Cocceians demanded Leenhof to retract it, because it did not refer to God as the saviour, to the Christian faith or revelation.

It alleges many of the attacks on Leenhof's work are nothing more than attempts to compare it to anything Spinoza wrote and condemn it for that reason, whilst showing even declared anti-Spinozists have adopted some of his ideas.

Leenhof's greatest critic, Taco Hajo van den Honert, accused both him and his publisher Barend Hakvoord (also precentor at St. Michael's Church in Zwolle[12]) of having written it, which they denied.

[15] Meanwhile, the Zwolle consistory drafted, with Leenhof's help, the ten Articles of Satisfaction, published in August 1704, clarifying that his thought differed from Spinozism, that is to be utterly condemned for its incongruity with Christianity.

[18] In 1708, the Synod of Overijssel called for Leenhof to be fired and excommunicated from the Reformed Church, lest his views led his congregation and others astray, and discussed tighter controls against 'licentious books' in general.

Finally, the deadlock in the States of Overijssel was resolved in March 1709, when the majority ruled against the wish of Zwolle that Leenhof had to sign additional Articles of Satisfaction drafted by the synod to utterly repudiate Spinozism.

At a synod and States' commissioners' meeting in Deventer in June 1709, Leenhof defiantly denied having ever taught Spinozism, but only orthodoxy, and that he could not retract more than he had already done, and not recant his last three books.