He would not have even atheists punished, though they should be expelled from the country, and he came forward as an earnest opponent of the prosecution of witches and of the use of torture. In theology he was not a naturalist or a deist, but a believer in the necessity of revealed religion for salvation. He came strongly under the influence of the pietists, particularly of Spener, and there was a mystic vein in his thought; but other elements of his nature were too powerful to allow him to attach himself wholly to that party.