[4] In 1761 Willem te Water published Het hoog adelyk, en adelryk Zeelant.

However, the strongest influence on Jona were the philologist Petrus Wesseling (1692–1764), and Sebald Rau (1724–1818), who taught Oriental studies.

[9] Jona was taught directly by Wesseling, as were Adriaan Kluit (1735–1807), Meinard Tydeman (1741–1825), and Rijklof Michaël van Goens (1748–1810).

[10] Te Water finished his studies with a disputatio about the funeral and grave of Jesus.

In these comments Te Water included classical authors as well as sources in Syriac and Arabic.

While others sometimes had to wait for years before they got their first parish, Jona got a chance to prove himself in Haamstede, and was confirmed there in October 1761.

Later, Jona organized funding, so that Bellamy could go to the Grammar School and theological faculty of Utrecht.

In 1767 Jona published a work about the entry of Stadtholder William V as Marquess of Vlissingen, accompanied by a history of the city.

[16] In 1773 the psalms which had been to set to verse and tune by Pieter Datheen in 1566, were updated by a church commission appointed by the government.

His father had already started research into the subject by 1757, and left a manuscript, yet it is undoubtedly Jona's work.

Zeeland succeeded in keeping him in Vlissingen by offering him a paid position as provincial historian.

In October 1778 there was severe civil disobedience in Vlissingen, directed against the decision to allow the establishment of a Roman Catholic church in the city.

[21] In August 1779 Jona was appointed as professor of philosophy and national history at the Grammar School of Middelburg.

On 15 March 1780 he accepted in the Nieuwe Kerk, with the Oratio de praestantia et dignitate historiae Batavae or excellence and dignity of the national history.

[23] In March 1785, Jona took up a new job as professor of Theology and Church History at Leiden University for 2,750 guilders a year.

In 1793 his niece Paulina te Water (1770–1833) moved in to take care of Jona's wife, who was in bad health.

[24] The theological faculty at Leiden already had four professors when Jona arrived: The conservative Aegidius Gillissen (1712–1800), Brouërius Broes (1757–1799) was the most liberal, and Carolus Boers (1746–1814) and Ewald Hollebeek (1719-1796) were in between.

[25] In 1784–1785 the revolutionary movement of the patriottentijd started to become violent, and in September 1785 the stadtholder left Holland.

An affair that could have turned ugly was that Johann Christoph Schwab (1743–1821) won a prize awarded by Leiden University.

A famous (but unproven) anecdote is that Jona's almost completely deaf wife finally heard something, and said: 'Did you say something Te Water?'.

[33] In 1817 there was some consolation when Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen ordered Charles Howard Hodges to paint the portraits of the four oldest members of the Royal Institute.

[34] Dutch national history was Jona's passion, and in particular that of the early phases of the Eighty Years' War.

Wagenaar also used historical criticism, but in spite of his proposed impartiality, he always supported the point of view of the Dutch States Party.

The stadtholders were the kings of the old testament, and the historians were like the prophets, who had to guide their people back to the right religious track.

This school showed a tendency to become more critical on sources, while staunchly adhering to its view of the world.

[37] The Enlightened school of history, gave center stage to mankind, and its ambitions and emotions.

The enlightened historians wanted to reach a big audience and therefore wrote more readable books without annotations.

In the Dutch Republic the Enlightened historians differed from their European counterparts by concentrating on the institutional history of states.

However, Jona stressed the role of divine providence by recognizing the hand of God in the many details that led to the unlikely success of the Dutch rebellion.

He differed from Wagenaar by taking the side of William the Silent, and stressing the role of providence.