Life in the dutch countryside, though peaceful, also has its down sides particularly for someone who thrives on intellectual exchange with others. When the weather is bad, Spinoza tells Oldenburg in November 1665, he is stranded in Voorburg, unable to get into The Hague to see people or send letters. He also invariably receives his own mail late. “I wrote this letter last week, but I could not send it because the wind prevented my going to The Hague. This is the disadvantage of living in the country. Rarely do I receive a letter at the proper time, for unless an opportunity should chance to arise for sending it in good time, one or two weeks go by before I receive it.” Still, in the house on the Kerkstraat, Spinoza was able to work uninterrupted and without the distractions of a major city.

The calm of Voorburg, however, was briefly but perhaps for Spinoza permanently disturbed just as he was nearing completion of the draft of the Ethics, and the incident may even have played a role in his decision to put the treatise aside. In 1665, he was apparently drawn into the local religious dispute that, in its theological and political dimensions, reflected the schisms characterizing Dutch society at large. Jacob van Oosterwijck, through either death or retirement, had just vacated his post as preacher in the local church, probably the same church for which the street Daniel Tydeman's house sat on was named.