COORNHERT AND THE COLLEGIANTS--A MOVEMENT
FOR SPIRITUAL RELIGION IN HOLLAND
The struggle for political liberty in the Netherlands forms one of the
most dramatic and impressive chapters in modern history, but the story of
the long struggle in these same Provinces for the right to believe and to
think according to the dictates of conscience is hardly less dramatic and
impressive. Everybody knows that during the early years of the
seventeenth century Holland was the one country in Europe which furnished
cities of refuge for the persecuted and hunted exponents of unpopular
faiths, and that the little band of Pilgrims who brought their precious
seed to the new world had first preserved and nurtured it in a safe
asylum among the Dutch; but the slow spiritual travail that won this soul
freedom, and the brave work of spreading, on that soil, a religion of
personal insight and individual experience are not so well known.[1] The
growth and development of this great movement, with its numerous
ramifications and differentiations, obviously cannot be told here, but
one or two specimen lines of the movement will be briefly studied for the
light they throw upon this general type of religion under consideration,
and for their specific influence {105} upon corresponding spiritual
movements in England and America.
The silent propagation and germination of religious ideas in lands far
away from their original habitat, their sudden appearance in a new spot
like an outbreak of contagion, are always mysterious and fascinating
subjects of research. Some chance talk with a disciple plants the seed,
or some stray book comes to the hand of a baffled seeker at the moment
when his soul is in a suggestible state, and lo! a new vision is created
and a new apostle of the movement is prepared, often so inwardly and
mysteriously that to himself he seems to be "an apostle not of men nor by
man." One of the earliest Dutch exponents and interpreters of this type
of spiritual religion which we have been studying as a by-product of the
Reformation in Germany, and one who became an apostle of it because at a
critical period of his life the seeds of it had fallen into his awakened
mind, was Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert.[2]
He was born in Amsterdam in 1522. He perfected himself as expert in
copper-plate engraving and etching, and intended to pursue a quiet career
in his adopted city of Haarlem, but he found himself disturbed with
"intimations clear of wider scope." A keen desire to go back to the
original sources of religious truth and to read the New Testament and the
Fathers in their own tongue induced him to learn Greek and Latin after he
was thirty years of age. He possessed excellent gifts and natural
abilities of mind, and he soon had an enviable reputation for skill and
learning. Like Sebastian Franck, whom he resembled in many points, he
was profoundly interested in history and in the stages of man's
historical development, and, like the former, he undertook the
translation of great masterpieces which expressed the ideas that
peculiarly suited his own temper of mind, such as Boethius' _Consolation
of Philosophy_; Cicero, _On Duties_; and Erasmus' _Paraphrases of the New
Testament_. He was throughout {106} his life deeply influenced by
Erasmus, and his writings show everywhere a very strong humanistic
colouring. It was no accident that one of his most important literary
works was on Ethics ("Sittenkunst"), for his primary interest centred in
man and in the art of living well ("Die Kunst wohl zu leben").[3]
As he developed into independent manhood, he threw himself with great
zeal into the cause of political freedom for the city of Haarlem, on
account of which he suffered a severe imprisonment in the Hague in 1560,
and at a later time was compelled to flee into temporary exile. He
attracted the attention of William of Orange, who discovered his
abilities and made him Secretary to the States-General in 1572, prized
him highly for his character and abilities, commissioned him to write
important state papers, and intrusted very weighty affairs to him.
In his youth he had been an extensive traveller and had seen with his own
eyes the methods which the Spanish Inquisition employed to compel
uniformity of faith and, with his whole moral being revolting from these
unspiritual methods, he dedicated himself to the cause of liberty of
religious thought, and for this he wrote and spoke and wrought with a
fearlessness and bravery not often surpassed.[4] With this passion of
his for intellectual and spiritual freedom was joined a deeply grounded
disapproval of the fundamental ideas of Calvinism, as he found it
expounded by the preachers and theologians of the Reformed Church in
Holland. As a Humanist, he was convinced of man's freedom of will, and
he was equally convinced that however man had been marred by a _fall_
from his highest possibilities, he was still possessed of native gifts
and graces, and bore deep within himself an unlost central being, which
in all his wanderings joined him indissolubly to God. On the great
theological {107} issues of the day he "disputed," with penetrating
insight, against the leading theologians of the Netherlands, and he
always proved to be a formidable antagonist who could not be put down or
kept refuted. Jacobus Arminius, at the turning of his career, was
selected by the Consistory to make once for all a refutation of
Coornhert's dangerous writings. He, however, became so impressed, as he
studied the works which he was to refute, that he shifted his own
fundamental points of belief, accepted many of Coornhert's views, and
became himself a greater "heretic" and a more dangerous opponent of
Calvinism than the man whom he was chosen to annihilate.[5]
Sometime in his religious development--it is impossible to settle
precisely when or where--he read the writings of the spiritual Reformers,
and received from them formative influences which turned him powerfully
to the cultivation of inward religion for his own soul and to the
expression and interpretation of a universal Christianity--a Christianity
of the inward Word and of an invisible Church. The lines of similarity
between many of his views and those of Franck are so marked that no one
can doubt that he read the books and meditated upon the bold teachings of
this solitary apostle of the invisible Church. In fact he frequently
mentions Franck by name in his writings and quotes his views. It is
certain, too, that he admired, loved, and translated the writings of
Sebastian Castellio, the French Humanist, first an admirer and then
opponent of Calvin, pioneer defender of freedom of thought, and exponent
of inward and spiritual religion of the type of the German Spiritual
Reformers,[6] and it is unmistakable that we have, in this Dutch
self-taught scholar, a virile interpreter of this same type of
Christianity, marked with his own peculiar variation, and penetrated with
the living convictions of his personal faith and first-hand experience.
While putting emphasis on personal experience and on inward insight he
nevertheless, like Franck, was suspicious {108} and wary of mystical
"enthusiasm" and of "private openings." He criticized the "revelations"
of David Joris and Henry Nicholas, and in place of their caprice he
endeavoured to find the way to a religion grounded in the nature of
things and of universal value. He was deeply read in the Mystics and
constantly used their terminology, but he often gave new meaning to their
words and pursued quite a different goal from that which absorbs the true
mystic.
Coornhert makes a sharp distinction between lower knowledge and higher
knowledge--knowledge proper. Lower knowledge does not get beyond images
and copies of true reality. It is sufficient for man's practical
guidance in the affairs of this world of space and time, but it becomes
only a "dead knowledge" when it is applied to matters of eternal moment.
The higher knowledge, on the other hand, is knowledge won through direct
experience and practice of the will. This higher knowledge is possible
for man because through Reason he partakes of the Word of God which is
Reason itself revealed and uttered, and therefore he may know God and
know of his own salvation with a certainty that far transcends the lower
knowledge which he possesses of external things, or of mere historical
happenings.[7]
This Word of God is eternal, and is the source of all spiritual light and
truth that have come to the race in all ages. Through it the patriarchs
discovered how to live well, even in a world of sin, and through this
same Word the prophets saw the line of march for their people, and by the
power and inspiration of this Word the written word was given as a
temporary guidance, as a pedagogical help, as a lantern on men's paths,
until the morning Star, Jesus Christ, the living Word, should rise and
shine in men's hearts. The living Word is, thus, vastly different from
the written word. One is essence, the other only image or shadow; one is
eternal, the other is temporal; one is uncreated, the other is made; one
is the Light itself, the other is the lantern through which the {109}
Light shines; one is Life itself, the other is only the witness of this
Life--the finger which points toward it.[8]
True religion is distinguished from all false or lower forms of religion
in this, that true religion is always inward and spiritual, is directly
initiated within the soul, is independent of form and letter, is
concerned solely with the eternal and invisible, and verifies itself by
producing within man a nature like that of God as He is seen in Christ.
The "law" of true religion is a new and divinely formed disposition
toward goodness--a law written in the heart; its temple is not of stone
or wood, but is a living and spiritual temple, its worship consists
entirely of spiritual activities, _i.e._ the offering of genuine praise
from appreciative hearts, the sacrifice of the self to God, and the
partaking of divine food and drink through living communion with Christ
the Life. Religion, of this true and saving sort, never comes through
hearsay knowledge, or along the channels of tradition, or by a head
knowledge of texts of the written word. It comes only with inward
experience of the Word of God, and it grows and deepens as the will of
man lives by the Will of God, and as the kingdom of God comes, not in
some far-away Jerusalem, or in some remote realm above the sky, but _in a
man's own heart_.
This true and saving religion is begun, and completed, within the soul by
a process which Coornhert names by the great historic word, _faith_.
Faith is the soul's free assent to the living Word of God as, through
amazing grace, it offers itself to man in the desperate straits of his
life. Man is so made that he perpetually seeks some desired satisfaction
and, in his restless search for this unattained good, he tries many false
and specious trails, is endlessly baffled and deceived, and finally
discovers, if he is fortunate enough to come to himself, that he is like
a shipwrecked man on a single plank with sea everywhere about him and no
haven in sight. In this strait the Light, which he has not noted before,
breaks in on his darkness, and the way of Grace is presented to him in
{110} Christ. He feels himself called to a strange way of finding his
desired satisfaction--no longer the way of flesh and worldly wisdom, but
the way of the cross, of suffering, and of sacrifice. Reason,
enlightened by the Word of God, prompts him to assent; the Scriptures,
laden with promises, bear their affirmative testimony, and thus he makes
his venture of faith, takes the risk of the voluntary sacrifice of his
own pleasant desires, his preference for ways of ease and comfort, his
self-will, and makes the bold experiment of trusting the Word of God, as
it reveals itself to him, and of following Christ. He finds that his
faith verifies itself at every step, his experiment carries him on into
an experience, his venture brings him to the reality he is seeking.
Every stage of this pragmatic faith, which in a word is _obedience to the
Light_, makes the fact and the meaning of sin clearer, at the same time
makes the knowledge of God more real and the nature of goodness more
plain, and it leads away from a superstition of fear to a religion of
love and of joy.[9]
All other religions, besides this true and inward religion of the spirit,
called by Coornhert "outer or external religions," are considered of
value only as preparatory stages toward the one true religion which
establishes the kingdom of God in man's heart. With this fundamental
view, he quite naturally regards all external forms and ceremonies as
temporary, and he holds that all of them, even the highest of them, are
nothing else than visible signs, figures, shadows, symbols, pointing to
invisible, spiritual, eternal realities, which in their nature are far
different from the signs and symbols. The signs and symbols can in no
way effect salvation; they can at best only suggest to the quickened soul
the true realities, to know which is salvation. The real and availing
circumcision, as the spiritual prophets and apostles always knew, was a
circumcision of the heart, and not of the flesh, and so, too, the true
and availing baptism is a baptism into the life, death, and resurrection
of Christ, {111} and cleanses the soul of its sins and produces "a good
conscience toward God"--the old sinful man is buried and a new and
Christlike man is raised. The same transforming effects attach to the
real communion in which the finite human spirit feeds upon its true
divine food and drink--the Life of Christ given for us. The real Sabbath
is not a sacred day, kept in a ceremonial and legal sense, but rather an
inward quiet, a prevailing peace of soul, a rest in the life of God from
stress and strain and passion. The Church has been pitiably torn and
mutilated by disputes over the genuine form of administering these outer
ceremonies, supposing them to be in themselves sacraments of life. As
soon as they are recognized to be what they really are, only temporary
signs and symbols, then the main emphasis can be put where it properly
belongs, and where Christ himself always put it, on love and on the
practice of love. No ceremony, even though instituted by Christ himself
and practised with absolute correctness, can make a bad heart good, but
love--love which suffers long and is kind--flows only from a renewed and
transformed heart which already partakes of the same nature as that which
was incarnate in Christ. Imprisonment, isolation, exile, excommunication
may deprive one of the outward ceremonies, but neither death nor life,
nor any outward circumstance in the universe, need separate the soul from
the love of God in Christ, or deprive it of the privilege of loving![10]
Coornhert criticizes the great Reformers for having put far too weighty
emphasis on externals, and he especially criticizes Calvin for having
given undue prominence to "pure doctrine" and to the right use of
sacraments. It is impossible, he insists, to establish authoritatively
from Scripture this so-called "pure doctrine." In fact, many parts of
Scripture are against the doctrine of predestination, and Scripture is
always against the doctrine of perseverance in sin. All speculations
about the Trinity, or about the dual nature of Christ, transcend our
knowledge and should be rejected. Furthermore {112} there is no
authoritative Scripture or revelation for the new forms of the sacrament
that have been introduced by the Reformers and are being made essential
to salvation. The true Reformation, he thinks, should be devoted to the
construction of the invisible Church, which has existed in all ages of
the world, but which is kept from realizing its full scope and power
because the attention of men is too greatly absorbed with signs and
symbols and outward things.[11]
For similar reasons he disapproved of the Anabaptists, even in their
purified form as worked out under the guidance of Menno Simons. They
still held, as did the reformed churches, that the true Church is a
visible church which every one to be a Christian must join, though this
true Church, as they conceive it, consists only of "saints." They claim
the authoritative right to ban all persons who, according to their
opinion, are not "saints." This right Coornhert denies. He further
disapproves of their literal interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount,
and of the obstacles which they put in the way of the free exercise of
prophecy on the part of the members of the community. He insists that a
person may be a Christian and yet belong to no visible church, if
meantime he is a true member of the invisible Communion. He himself
refrained from taking the communion supper, either with Papists,
Lutherans, or Calvinists, because he said they all set the sacrament
above the real characteristic mark of Christian membership, which is
love, and because there is no divine command, with distinct and
unambiguous authority, for the efficacious celebration of the sacrament,
which in any case could not be rightly kept so long as sectarian
hostility and lack of love prevail in the contending visible
churches.[12] Under these circumstances, Coornhert, who was intensely
concerned for the sincere, simple-minded souls, perplexed by the maze of
varying sects and parties, refused to found a new sect or to head a new
schismatic movement. On behalf of those who could not {113} conform, he
pleaded for freedom of conscience and for the right to live in the world
undisturbed as members of the invisible Church, using or omitting outward
ceremonies as conscience might direct, waiting meantime and seeking in
quiet faith for the coming of new and divinely commissioned apostles who
would _really reform_ the apostate Churches, unite all divided sects, and
gather in the world a true Church of Christ.[13]
Meantime, while waiting for this true apostolic Church to appear,
Coornhert approved of the formation of an _interim-Church_. This Church,
according to his programme, would accept as truth, and as true practice,
anything plainly and clearly taught in the canonical Scripture, but he
advised against using glosses and commentaries made by men, since that is
to turn from the sun to the stars and from the spring to the cistern.
This interim-Church was to have no authoritative teachers or preachers.
In place of official ministry, the members were to edify one another in
Christian love, with the reservation that they would welcome further
illumination out of the Scriptures wherever they have made a mistake or
gone wrong. All persons who confess God as Father, and Jesus Christ as
sent by God, and who in the power of faith abstain from sins, may belong
to this interim-Church. For the sake of those who are still weak and
spiritually immature, he allowed the use of ceremonies in the
interim-Church, but all ceremonies are held as having no essential
function for salvation, and the believer is at liberty to make use of
them or to abstain from using them as he prefers.[14]
II
Coornhert's proposed interim-Church, which at best was conceived as only
a temporary substitute for the true apostolic Church, for which every
spiritual Christian is a "waiter" or "seeker," found actual embodiment in
a very interesting movement of the early seventeenth {114} century, known
in Dutch history as the "Collegiants" or "Rynsburgers," which we shall
now proceed to study.[15] The Collegiants had their origin in one of the
stormiest of the many theological controversies which swept over the
Netherlands in this critical period of religious history, a controversy
arising over the views taught by Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609). The Dutch
Protestants who accepted his views presented a "Remonstrance" to the
States of Holland and Friesland in 1610, in which they formulated their
departure from strict, orthodox Calvinism. The "Remonstrance" contained
five main Articles: (1) that the divine decrees of predestination are
conditioned and not absolute; (2) that the atonement is in intention
universal; (3) that a man cannot of himself do anything good without
regeneration; (4) that though the Grace of God is a necessary condition
of human effort it does not act irresistibly in man; (5) that believers
are able to resist sin, but are not beyond the possibility of falling
from Grace. The opponents to these views, often called "Gomarists,"
issued a counter-blast from which they received the name
"counter-Remonstrants." The States-General passed an edict tolerating
both parties and forbidding further dispute, but the conflict of views
would not down. It spread like a prairie fire, became complicated with
political issues, had its martyrdoms, and produced far-reaching results
and consequences.[16] At the Synod of Dort, on April 24, 1619, the
Remonstrants were declared guilty of falsifying religion and of
destroying the unity of the Church, and were deposed from all their
ecclesiastical and academic offices and positions. Two hundred were
deposed from the ministerial office for life, and one hundred were
banished.
Among the number of deposed ministers was Christian {115} Sopingius, the
pastor of Warmund, and the "Remonstrants," who formed an important part
of his congregation, were left without the opportunity of hearing any
ministry of which they approved. In this strait Giesbert Van der Kodde,
an Elder in the Warmund church, took a bold step. He was the son of a
prosperous farmer who had given his children, John, William, Adrian, and
Giesbert, an unusually extended education. All the sons learned Latin,
Italian, French, and English, while William (known in the scholarly world
as Gulielmus Coddaeus) was a Hebrew and Oriental scholar of note, and at
the age of twenty-six was made Professor of Hebrew in the University of
Leyden. They owed the course of their religious development and their
particular bent of mind to the writings of men like Sebastian Castellio;
Coornhert, whose views have been given above; and Jacobus Acontius, the
Italian humanist, who laid down the principles that no majority can make
a binding law in matters of faith, that only God's Spirit in the hearts
of men can certify what is the truth, and that "Confessions of Faith"
have been the ruinous source of endless divisions in the Church. Deeply
imbued with the ideas of these spiritual reformers, and in sympathy as
they were with many of the views and practices of the Mennonites about
them, the Van der Kodde brothers decided, under the leadership of the
boldest and most conscientious of them, Giesbert, to come together
without any minister and hold a meeting of a free congregational type.
At first the meeting was probably held in Giesbert's house, and consisted
of readings from the Scripture, prayers, and the public utterance of
messages of edification by those who formed the group. A little later a
"Remonstrant" preacher was sent to care for the orphaned Church in
Warmund, but Giesbert had become satisfied with the new type of meeting,
and now expressed himself emphatically against listening to preachers who
lived without working and at the expense of the community, and who
hindered the free exercise of "prophecy." Many of the members of the
Church did not share these views, but {116} much preferred to have the
comfort of a minister, so that a "separation" occurred, and Giesbert,
with his brothers and fellow-believers, rented a house and perfected
their new type of congregational meeting. They soon moved their meeting
(called a "Collegium," _i.e._ gathering) to the neighbouring town of
Rynsburg, where it received additions to its adherents, largely drawn
from the Mennonites, many of whose ideas were strongly impressed upon the
little "Society,"--for example, opposition to taking oaths, refusal to
fight, or even to take measures of self-defence, and rejection of the
right of magistrates and other political officers to inflict punishment.
They also adopted, as the Mennonites did, the Sermon on the Mount as the
basis of their ethical standard, which they applied with literalness and
rigour. They insisted on simplicity of life, the denial of "worldly"
occupations or professions, plainness of garb, rejection of the world's
etiquette, absence of titles in addressing persons, and equality of men
and women, even in public ministry. They introduced the practice of
immersion ("Dompeldoop") as a mark of initiation into the Society, but
they considered true Christian baptism to be with the Spirit and not with
water, and they allowed their members a large range of liberty in the use
or disuse of water baptism, as well as in the form of receiving it. They
rejected the Supper as an ecclesiastical ceremony, but they highly prized
it as an occasion of fellowship and of group worship. Every person might
share the supper with them if he confessed his faith in Christ and were
not living in unrepented sin, though they were inclined to exclude
persons occupying offices which involved the violation of the Sermon on
the Mount. The one essential mark of fellowship was brother-love, which
was not to be confined to the narrow limits of the Society, but that
person was regarded the truest disciple of Christ who practised the
neighbour-spirit in the broadest and most effective manner. They cared
for their own sick and poor, and they had a wide sympathy for all
oppressed and suffering people. They pushed to the farthest limit {117}
their opposition to war and all other forms of destroying human life.
From the first there was a decided strain of "Enthusiasm" evident in the
movement, and a pronounced tendency to encourage a ministry of "prophetic
openings." One of the original members, John Van der Kodde, declared
that he should fear the loss of his salvation if he failed in a meeting
to give utterance to the Word of God revealed to him in his inner being.
They encouraged the custom of silent waiting in their gatherings as a
preparation for "openings." They proved from the fourteenth chapter of 1
Corinthians that free prophecy is the highest form of ministry, and they
held that God by His grace could pour out His Spirit upon men in the
seventeenth century as well as in the days of the Apostles and
Evangelists, who did their mighty work, not as Church officials, but as
recipients of gifts from God. They felt that prayer accompanied by
_tears_ was true prayer, "moved" from above. They, however, were persons
of scholarship and refinement, and not tumultuous or strongly emotional,
but, on the contrary, they highly valued dignity and propriety of
behaviour.
As the movement spread, _Collegia_, or societies, were formed in Leyden,
Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and in other localities, essentially like the
mother-society in Rynsburg, but with characteristic variations and with
particular lines of local developments. Once every year they had a large
yearly meeting in Rynsburg, to which the scattered members came from all
parts of Holland where there were societies. As time went on, two marked
lines of differentiation appeared in the movement, due to the trend of
the influence of important leaders, one group emphasizing especially the
_seeker-attitude_, and the other group receiving its formative influence
from Cartesian philosophy. Daniel Van Breen, Adam Boreel, and Michael
Comans were the early leaders and pillars of the Amsterdam _Collegium_,
which was begun in 1645, and some years later the group was greatly
strengthened by the "convincement" of the young Mennonite doctor and
{118} teacher, Galenus Abrahams, who soon became the most prominent
Collegiant leader in Holland.
Adam Boreel gave the movement a strong impetus and did much toward
putting the teachings of Coornhert into practice. He was born at
Middleburg in 1603. He was a man of good scholarship, being especially
learned in Hebrew, and he was thoroughly impregnated with the views of
the spiritualistic Humanists of the former century, Franck, Castellio,
and Coornhert, as well as with the views of the mystics, and he was
himself a champion of individual religious freedom. He held that the
visible Church since the apostolic age has been astray and apostate, that
Confessions of faith, Church officers, and sacraments are without
"authority," that the uncontaminated teaching of the Holy Scripture is
the only safe norm of faith, and that until a true apostolic Church is
again established in the world by divine commission, each faithful,
believing Christian should maintain meantime the worship of God in his
own way and wait in faith for a fuller revelation.[17] His mystical
piety appears strongly in his hymns, which are preserved in his complete
works. One of these hymns of Boreel has been very freely translated into
English "by a Lover of the Life of our Lord Jesus," probably Henry More,
the Platonist. More says that he finds the hymn "running much upon the
mortification of our own wills and of our union and communion with God,"
and he loves it as a deep expression of his own faith that "no man can
really adhere to Christ, and unwaveringly, but by union to Him by His
Spirit." I give a few extracts from More's free Translation:
1. O Heavenly Light! my spirit to Thee draw,
With powerful touch my senses smite,
Thine arrows of Love into me throw
With flaming dart
Deep wound my heart,
And wounded seize for ever, as thy right.
{119}
3. Do thou my faculties all captivate
Unto thyself with strongest tye;
My will entirely regulate:
Make me thy slave,
Nought else I crave
For this I know is perfect Liberty.
5. O endless good!
Break like a flood
Into my soul, and water my dry earth,
6. That by this mighty power I being reft
Of everything that is not One,
To Thee alone I may be left
By a firm will
Fixt to Thee still
And inwardly united into one.
11. So that at last, I being quite released
From this strait-laced Egoity
My soul will vastly be increased
Into that All
Which One we call,
And One in itself alone doth All imply.
12. Here's Rest, here's Peace, here's Joy and Holy Love,
The heaven is here of true Content,
For those that seek the things above,
Here's the true light
Of Wisdom bright
And Prudence pure with no self-seeking blent.
15. Thus shall you be united with that One,
That One where's no Duality,
For from that perfect Good alone
Ever doth spring
Each pleasant thing
The hungry soul to feed and satisfy.[18]
Stoupe, in his _Religion of the Dutch_,[19] gives some interesting
contemporary light on this branch of Collegiants whom he calls
"Borellists," as follows: "The Borellists had their name from one
Borrell, the Ringleader of their {120} sect, a man very learned,
especially in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latine tongues. He was brother to
Monsieur Borrell, ambassador from the States-General to his most
Christian Majesty. These Borrellists do for the most part maintain the
opinions of the Mennonites though they come not to their assemblies.
They have made choice of a most austere kind of life, spending a
considerable part of their Estates in almsgiving and a careful discharge
of all the duties incumbent on a Christian. They have an aversion for
all Churches, as also for the use of the Sacraments, publick prayers, and
all other external functions of God's Service. They maintain that all
Churches which are in the world and have been since the death of the
apostles and their first subsequent successors have degenerated from the
pure doctrine which they preached to the world; for this reason, that
they have suffered the infallible Word of God contained in the Old and
New Testaments to be expounded and corrupted by Doctors who are not
infallible and would have their own confessions, their catechisms, and
their Liturgies and their sermons, which are the works of men, to pass
for what they really are not, to wit, for the pure Word of God. They
hold also that men are not to read anything but the Word of God alone
without any additional application of men."
Abrahams (b. 1622) intensified the _seeker_ aspect of the Amsterdam
group, emphasizing the view that the existing Church, even in its best
form, is only an interim-Church with no saving sacraments and no
compelling authority. His position is expressed in the highly important
"Nineteen Articles" which he, and his fellow-believer, David Spruyt, drew
up in 1658, and in the further Exposition _Nader Verklaringe_ of 1659.
These documents present the apostolic pattern or model as the ideal of
the visible Church for all ages. There neither is nor can be any other
true Church. It is essentially a Church managed, maintained, and
governed through "gifts" bestowed by the Holy Spirit, and in this Church
each spiritual member takes his part according to the measure of his
special "gift." This pattern Church, however, {121} _fell away_ and
became corrupted after the death of the apostles, and instead of this
glorious Church an external Church was established, claiming to possess
authoritative officials, saving sacraments, and infallible doctrines, but
really lacking the inward power of the apostolic Church, no longer
following and imitating Christ, on the contrary adopting the world's way
and the world's type of authority, and destitute of the very mark and
essence of real Christianity, _the spirit of love_. Through all the
apostasy of the visible Church, however, an invisible Church has survived
and preserved the eternal ideal. It consists of all those, in whatever
ages and lands, who have lived by their faith in Christ, have kept
themselves pure and stainless in the midst of a sinful world, have
practised love, even when they have received the buffets of hate, have
lived above division and schism and sect, and have steadily believed that
their names were written in heaven and that their Church was visible to
God, even though none on earth called them brother, or recognized their
membership in the body of Christ. Some time, in God's good time, that
invisible Church, which no apostasy has annulled or destroyed, will
become once again a visible Church, equipped with "gifted" teachers and
with apostolic leaders as at the first, beautiful once more as a bride
adorned for her husband, and powerful again as the irresistible sword of
the Spirit.
But the Reformers--Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and even Menno Simons--have
taken an unwarranted course toward the reform and restoration of the
Church. It was within their right and power to _improve_ the unbearable
condition of the outward Church, by faithfully following the plain
teaching of the New Testament, and without usurping authority. They,
however, have not been satisfied to do what lay within the narrow limits
of their commission. They have ambitiously undertaken to set up again an
authoritative visible Church, even though they lacked the gifts of the
Spirit for it, and were without the necessary apostolic commission. They
insisted on their form of sacraments as essential to salvation; they
{122} drew up their infallible creeds; they set up Church officials who
were to rule over other men's faith, and they assumed a certain divine
right to compel the consciences of their members. Most of the Reformers
have even sanctioned the use of bonds and prisons to secure uniformity of
faith! The primitive apostles claimed no such right and made use of no
such unspiritual methods. Order is a good thing and is everywhere to be
sought, but God nowhere has conferred upon the heads of His Church the
authority to compel conscience or to force tender souls to submit to a
system which reveals in itself no inherent evidences of divine origin.
The writers of these Nineteen Articles fail to see anywhere in the world
a divinely established and spiritually endowed Church of Jesus Christ.
They are determined to live in purity and love, to avoid dissension and
strife, to guard their membership in the invisible Church, and to wait in
faith for the outpouring of the Spirit and the bestowal of miraculous
gifts for the restoration of the Church in its pristine apostolic purity
and power. We have thus, here in Holland, an almost exact parallel to
the "Seekers" who were very numerous in England in the middle decades of
the seventeenth century.
We get a very interesting side-light on Galenus Abrahams in the _Journal_
of George Fox. William Penn and George Keith held a "discussion" with
this famous Collegiant leader in 1677, at which time the latter "asserted
that nobody nowadays could be accepted as a messenger of God unless he
confirmed his doctrine by miracle,"[20] and Fox says that Abrahams was
"much confounded and truth gained ground."[21] Fox himself was not
present at the "discussion," but he had a personal interview with
Abrahams at about the same time as the "discussion." The interview was
not very satisfactory. Fox says that he found this "notable teacher"
"very high and shy, so that he would not let me touch him nor look upon
him, but he bid me keep my eyes off him, for {123} he said they pierced
him!"[22] But at a later visit, in 1684, Fox found the Collegiant
doctor, now venerable with years, "very loving and tender." "He
confessed in some measure to truth," Fox says, "and we parted very
lovingly." At a meeting, held in Amsterdam a few weeks later, Abrahams
was among the large group of attenders, and "was very attentive to the
testimony of the truth," and, when the meeting was over, Fox says, "he
came and got me by the hand very lovingly,"[23] and seemed no longer
afraid of the Quaker's "piercing eyes." In spirit they were very near
together, and with a little more insight on both sides the two movements
might have joined in one single stream. For many years afterwards the
common people, not given to nice distinctions, called the annual
gathering of the Collegiants at Rynsburg "the meeting of the Quakers."[24]
The other tendency in the movement, which received its fullest expression
in the group of Collegiants at Rynsburg and their friends in Amsterdam,
had a still greater parallelism with Quakerism, in fact, the most
important book which came from a member of this group--_The Light on the
Candlestick_--is indistinguishable in its body of ideas from Quaker
teaching, and differs only in one point, that it reveals a more
philosophically trained mind in the writer than does any early Quaker
book with the single exception of Barclay's _Apology_. The author of
_The Light on the Candlestick_--written originally in Dutch and published
in 1662 under the title _Lucerna super candelabro_--was probably Peter
Balling, though the book, with characteristic Collegiant modesty, was
published anonymously. Peter Balling was one of an interesting group of
scholarly Collegiants who became very intimate friends of Baruch Spinoza,
and who received from the Jewish philosopher a strong impulse toward
mystical religion. Before they became acquainted with the young Spinoza,
however, they had already received through Descartes a powerful
intellectual awakening, {124} and had discovered that consciousness
itself, when fully sounded, has its own unescapable evidence of God. It
is not possible here to turn aside and study adequately this
extraordinary philosophical movement known as Cartesianism, beginning in
Descartes (1596-1650) and culminating in Spinoza (1632-1677), but the
distinct religious influence of it is so profoundly apparent, both in
Peter Balling and in the Quaker apologist Robert Barclay (1648-1690),
that a very brief review of the contribution from this source seems
necessary.
Rene Descartes, like almost every other supreme genius who has discovered
a new way and has forever shifted the line of march for the race, passed
through a momentous inward upheaval, amounting to a conversion
experience, and emerged into a new moral and intellectual world.[25] It
was on November 10, 1619, in the midst of a great campaign during the
opening stages of the Thirty Years' War, in which at this time the young
Frenchman was a soldier on the Roman Catholic side, that Descartes,
sitting alone all day in a heated room of some German house, resolved to
have done with outworn systems of thought and with tradition, and
determined to make the search for truth the object of his life.[26] The
new scientific method, which was the fruit of his reflections and
experiments, and which has since been carried into every field of human
research, does not now concern us. The feature of his philosophy which
impressed these serious seekers after God was his fresh discovery of what
is involved in the nature of self-consciousness. Beginning with the bold
resolution to accept nothing untested, to doubt everything in the
universe that can be doubted, and to receive as truth only that which
successfully resists every attempt to doubt it, he found one absolutely
solid point with which to start, in the self-existence of
self-consciousness--"At least I who am doubting am thinking, and to think
is to exist." {125} Pushing his search deeper down to see what is further
involved in the constitution of this self-consciousness, he discovered a
consciousness of God--the idea of an infinitely perfect Being--within
himself, and this consciousness of God seemed to him to be the underlying
condition of every kind of knowledge whatever. It turns out to be
impossible, he believes, to think of the "finite" without contrasting it,
in implication at least, with the "infinite" which is therefore in
consciousness, just as it is impossible to talk of "spaces" without
presupposing the one space of which given "spaces" are parts. That we
are oppressed with our own littleness, that we "look before and after and
sigh for what is not," that we are conscious of finiteness, means that we
partake in some way of an infinite which reveals itself in us by an
inherent necessity of self-consciousness. There are, then, some ideas
within us--at least there is this one idea of an infinitely perfect
reality--_implanted_ in the very structure of our thinking self, which
could have come from no other source but from God, who is that infinitely
perfect Reality. Other things may still be doubtful, and a tinge of
uncertainty may rest upon everything external to the mind that perceives
them, but _the soul and God are sure_, and, of these two certainties, God
is as sure as the soul itself, because an idea of Him is native to the
soul as a necessary part of its "furnishings," and is the condition of
thinking anything at all.[27]
Spinoza, though bringing to his philosophy elements which are foreign to
Descartes, and though fusing his otherwise mathematical and logical
system with the warmth and fervour of mystical experience that is wholly
lacking in the French philosopher, carried Cartesianism to its logical
culmination, and has given the world one of the most impressive
presentations that ever has been given of the view that all things centre
in God and are involved in His existence, that it belongs to the very
nature of the {126} human mind to know God, and that all peace and
felicity come from "the love of an infinite and eternal object which
feeds the soul with changeless and unmingled joy." He, too, had his
conversion-awakening which took him above the love of earthly things, and
through it he found an unvarying centre for his heart's devotion, which
made his life, outwardly extremely humble, inwardly one of the noblest
and most saintly in the history of philosophy. "After experience had
taught me," he writes in the opening of his early _Treatise on the
Improvement of the Understanding_, "that all things which are ordinarily
encountered in common life are vain and futile~.~.~. I at length
determined to inquire if there were anything which was a TRUE GOOD,
capable of imparting itself, and by which alone the mind could be
affected to the exclusion of all else; whether, indeed, anything existed
by the discovery and acquisition of which I might have continuous and
supreme joy to all eternity," and the remainder of his life was
penetrated by a noble passion for the Eternal, and dedicated to the
interpretation of the Highest Good which he had discovered, and which
henceforth no rival good was ever to eclipse. Dr. A. Wolf well says of
him: "His moral ardour seems almost aglow with mystic fire, and if we may
not call him a priest of the most high God, yet he was certainly a
prophet of the power which makes for righteousness."[28] He is giving
his own experience in the spiritual principle which he laid down early in
his life: "So long as we have not such a clear idea of God as shall unite
us with Him in such a way that it will not let us love anything beside
Him, we cannot truly say that we are united with God, so as to depend
immediately on Him."[29]
It is Spinoza's primary principle that the only Reality in the universe
is an all-inclusive Reality which is the origin, source, and explanation
of all that is. All human experience, either of an inward or outward
world, if it is to have any meaning and reality at all, involves the
{127} existence of this inclusive Whole of Reality, that is of God. It
belongs, thus, fundamentally to the nature of human consciousness to know
God, for if we did not know Him we should not know anything else. The
moment a "finite thing" or a "finite idea" is severed from the Whole in
which it has its ground and meaning, it becomes _nothing_; it is "real"
only so long as it is a part of a larger Reality, and so every attempt to
understand a "flower in a crannied wall," or any other object in the
universe, drives us higher up until we come at last to that which is the
_prius_ of all being and knowledge, the explanation of all that is.
But this ultimate Reality up to which all our experience carries us--if
we take the pains to think out what is involved in the experience--is no
mere sum of "finites," no bare aggregation of "parts," no heaped-up
totality of separate "units." It is an Absolute Unity which binds all
that is into one living, organic Whole, a Divine Nature,--_natura
naturans_ Spinoza calls it,--and which lives and is manifested in all the
finite "parts," in so far as they are real at all. And as soon as the
mind finds itself in living unity with the eternal Nature of things, and
views all things from their centre in God, and sees how all objects and
events flow from the eternal Being of God, it is "led as by the hand to
its highest blessedness."[30] The complications of Spinoza's system, and
the difficulty of finding a "way down" from the Absolute Unity of God to
the differentiation of the modes of a world--_natura naturata_--here, in
space and time, do not now concern us.
The point of contact between Spinoza and the spiritual movement which we
are studying is found in his central principles that God is the _prius_
of all finite reality, that to know things or to know one's own mind
truly is to know God, and that a man who has formed a pure love for the
eternal is above the variations of temporal fortune, is not disturbed in
spirit by changes in the object of his love, but loves with a love which
eternally feeds the soul with joy.
{128}
During the most important period of his intellectual and spiritual
development, Spinoza spent three years (1660-1663) in the quiet village
of Rynsburg, living in close and intimate contact with his Collegiant
friends. It was here during these happiest years of his life, in this
quiet retreat and surrounded with spiritually-minded men with whom he had
much in common, that he wrote his _Short Treatise on God, Man and His
Well-Being_, as well as his _Treatise on the Improvement of the
Understanding_, which opens with his account of the birth of his own
spiritual passion. These intellectual and high-minded Collegiants had
their influence upon the philosopher, and he in turn had a deep influence
upon them. Peter Balling translated into Dutch in 1664 Spinoza's version
of Descartes' _Principia_, and Balling turned to his friend Spinoza for
consolation in his great loss occasioned by the death of his child that
same year,[31] while the philosopher at his death left all his
unpublished manuscripts to another life-long intimate Collegiant friend
of his, John Rieuwertsz.
_The Light on the Candlestick_, to which we shall now turn for the ripest
ideas of the little sect, was written while Spinoza was living among the
Collegiants in Rynsburg. It was very quickly discovered by the Quakers,
who immediately recognized it as "bone of their bone," and circulated it
as a Quaker Tract. It was translated into English in 1663 by B. F.,[32]
who published it with this curious title-page: "The Light upon the
Candlestick. Serving for Observation of the Principal things in the Book
called, _The Mystery of the Kingdom of God, &c. Against several
Professors, Treated of, and written by Will Ames_. Printed in Low Dutch
for the Author, 1662, and translated into English by B. F."
The Collegiant author, quite in the spirit and style of Spinoza, urges
the importance of discovering a central love for "things which are
durable and incorruptible," "knowing thereby better things than those to
which the {129} multitude are link't so fast with love." We have
outgrown the "toyes with which we played as children," there is now "no
desire or moving thereunto, because we have found better things for our
minds"; so, too, "all those things in which men, even to old age, so much
delight" would seem like "toyes" if they once discovered the true Light
"which abides forever unchangeable," and if through it they got a sight
of "those things which are alone worthy to be known." This "true and
lasting change," from "toyes" to "the things which are durable and
eternal," can come only through an inward conversion. When a new vision
begins from within, then the outward action follows of itself, but no man
will part with what he judges best till he sees something better, and
then the weaker yields to the stronger without any forcing.[33] This
whole work of conversion, of transformation, of "lasting change," must
have its origin in something within ourselves. We cannot turn from
baubles and "toyes" and our "desire for that which is high in the world"
until a Light from some source plainly shows us an eternal reality for
which we may "highly adventure the tryal." There is, our author insists,
only one place where such a guiding Light could arise, and that is within
the soul itself, as an inward and immediate knowledge: "'Tis not far to
seek. We direct thee to within thyself. Thou oughtest to turn into, to
mind and have regard unto, that which is within thee, to wit, the Light
of Truth, the true Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into
the world. Here 'tis that thou must be and not without thee. Here thou
shalt find a Principle certain and infallible, through which increasing
and going on into, thou mayest at length arrive unto a happy condition.
Of this thou mayest highly adventure the tryal. And if thou happenest to
be one of those that would know all things before thou dost begin~.~.~.
know this, Thou dost therein just as those that would learn to read
without knowing the Letters. He that will not adventure till he be fully
satisfied, shall never begin, much less finish {130} his own salvation.
We say then, that we exhort every one to turn unto the Light that's in
him."[34]
In true Cartesian fashion, he demonstrates why this Light must have its
locus within the soul and not in some external means or medium. All
knowledge that God is being revealed in external signs, or through
external means, already presupposes a prior knowledge of God. We can
judge no doctrine, no Book to be Divine except by some inward and
immediate knowledge of what really is Divine. Without this Light the
Scriptures are only Words and Letters. But "if we experience that the
Book called the Bible in regard to the Divine doctrine therein comprised
hath such a harmony with That [in us] by which God is known, that He must
needs have been the Author of it, there cannot rationally be any more
powerful demonstration."[35]
The same principle is true with regard to every conceivable form of
revelation which could be made to our outward senses, whether by words,
or by miracles, or by any other visible "operations." No finite thing
can bring us a knowledge of God unless we already have within us a
sufficient knowledge of Him to make us able to appreciate and judge the
Divine character of the particular revelation; that is to say, we must
already have God in order either to seek Him or to find Him; or, as
Balling puts it, "Unless the knowledge of God precedes, no man can
discern Him." God is, therefore, the prius of all knowledge: "The
knowledge of God must first be, before there can be knowledge of any
particular things,"[36] and God must be assumed as present in the soul
before any basis of truth or of religion can be found. "The Light is the
first Principle of Religion; for, seeing there can be no true Religion
without the knowledge of God, and no knowledge of God without this Light,
Religion must necessarily have this Light for its first Principle."[37]
"Without thyself, O Man," he concludes, "thou hast no {131} means to look
for, by which thou mayest know God. Thou must abide within thyself; to
the Light that is in thee thou must turn thee; there thou wilt find it
and nowhere else. God is nearest unto thee and to every man. He that
goes forth of himself to any creature, thereby to know God, departs from
God. God is nearer unto every man than himself, because He penetrates
the most inward and intimate parts of man and is the Life of the inmost
spirit. Mind, therefore, the Light that is in thee."[38]
This Light--the first Principle of all Religion--is also called in this
little Book by many other names. It is "the living Word," "the Truth of
God," "the Light of Truth"; it is "Christ"; it is the "Spirit."[39] As a
Divine Light, it reproves man of sin, shows him that he has strayed from
God, accuses him of the evil he commits. It leads man into Truth, "even
though he has never heard or read of Scripture"; it shows him the way to
God; it gives him peace of conscience in well-doing; and, if followed and
obeyed, it brings him into union with God, "wherein all happiness and
salvation doth consist."[40] It operates in all men, though in many men
there are serious "impediments" which hinder its operations--"the lets to
it are manifold"--but as soon as a man turns to it and cleanses his inner
eye--removes the "lets"--he discovers "a firm foundation upon which he
may build stable and enduring things: A Principle whereby he may, without
ever erring, guide the whole course of his life, how he is to carry
himself toward God, his Neighbour and himself."[41] The writer, having
thus delivered his message, wishes to have it distinctly understood that
he is not trying to draw his readers to any new sect, or to any outward
and visible church. "Go to, then, O Man," he says, "whoever thou art, we
will not draw thee off from one heap of men to carry thee over unto
another, 'tis somewhat else we invite thee to! We invite thee to
Something which may be a means to attain thy own {132} salvation and
well-being membership in the invisible Church."
Such is the teaching of this strange little book, written by the friend
of Spinoza, and revealing the maturest expression of this slowly
developing spiritual movement, which began with Hans Denck and flowed
uninterruptedly through many lives and along many channels and burst out
full flood in England in "the Children of the Light," who were known to
the world as Quakers.
[1] Three important books on this subject are C. B. Hylkema,
_Reformateurs_ (Haarlem, 1902); Dr. Heinrich Heppe, _Geschichte des
Pietismus und der Mystik in der reformirten Kirche, namentlich der
Niederlande_ (Leiden, 1879); and Wilhelm Goeters, _Die Vorbereitung des
Pietismus in der reformierten Kirche der Niederlande_ (Leipzig, 1911).
[2] The biographical details of his life are given in a Preface to the
three-volume edition of his collected works, published in Amsterdam in
1631.
[3] The title of this work is _Zedekunst, dat is, Wellevens Kunst,
vermits waarheydts kennisse vanden Mensche, vande Zonden ende vande
Deughden. Nu aldereerst beschreven in't Neerlandtsch_. Coornhert's
_Wercken_ (1631), i. fol. 268-3353.
[4] Two of his powerful pleas for the freedom of the mind are, _Epitome
processus de occidendis haereticis et vi conscientiis inferenda_ (Gouda,
1591), and _Defensio processus de non occidendis haereticis_ (Hannover,
1593).
[5] Gottfried Arnold, _Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historien_, ii. p. 378, sec. 3.
[6] See Chap. VI.
[7] _Zedekunst_, chaps. i. and ii.
[8] _Zedekunst_, chaps. iv. and v.
[9] Wercken, iii. fol. 413-427. See also "Hert-Spiegel godlycker
Schrifturen," _Wercken_, i. fol. 1-44.
[10] _Wercken_, iii. fol. 413-427.
[11] See Arnold, _op. cit._ ii. p. 380, sec. 8.
[12] His views in this particular are very similar to those of
Schwenckfeld.
[13] Arnold, _op. cit_. pp. 381-382.
[14] _Wercken_, i. fol. 554 ff.
[15] The best history of the Collegiants is J. C. Van Sloe's _De
Rijnsburger Collegianten_ (Haarlem, 1895).
[16] One of the most tragic consequences of the controversy was the
martyrdom of John of Barneveldt, the political head of the Remonstrants.
Hugo Grotius was thrown into prison, but escaped through the bold
ingenuity of his wife.
[17] Adam Boreel's teaching is set forth in his treatise, _Ad. legem et
testimonium_ (Amsterdam, 1643). Information upon his life and teaching
is given in Arnold, _op. cit._ ii. 386-387; in Hylkema, _Reformateurs_;
and in Walter Schneider, _Adam Boreel_ (Giessen, 1911).
[18] Henry More's _Annotations upon the Discourse of Truth_ (London,
1682), pp. 271-276.
[19] Stoupe, _La Religion des Hollandois_ (Paris, 1673), translated into
English under the title _The Religion of the Dutch_ (London, 1680). The
extract is from p. 82 of the French edition and pp. 26-28 of the English
edition.
[20] Sewel, _History of the People called Quakers_ (Phila. edition,
1823), ii. p. 368.
[21] _Journal_, (ed. 1901), ii. p. 310.
[22] _Journal_, ii. p. 401.
[23] _Ibid._ ii. pp. 401-402.
[24] Simeon Friderich Rues, _Mennoniten und Collegianten_ (Jena, 1743),
p. 244.
[25] See E. S. Haldane, _Descartes, His Life and Times_ (1905), pp. 51-53.
[26] The autobiographical account of this experience is given in the
opening of part ii. of the _Discourse on Method_.
[27] Descartes' famous argument is found in Meditations III. and IV. of
his _Meditations on First Philosophy_, first published in 1641. For an
illuminating interpretation of the entire movement, see Edward Caird's
Essay on Cartesianism in _Essays on Literature and Philosophy_ (1892),
ii. pp. 267-383.
[28] Spinoza, _Short Treatise on God, Man, and his Well-Being_, Wolf's
edition (London, 1910), p. 102.
[29] _Ibid._ p. 40.
[30] _Ethics_, part ii. Preface.
[31] See Spinoza's _Correspondence_, Letter No. XXX.
[32] Benjamin Furley, a Quaker merchant of Colchester, then living in
Rotterdam.
[33] _The Light upon the Candlestick_, p. 8, freely rendered.
[34] _The Light upon the Candlestick_, pp. 3-4.
[35] _Op. cit._ p. 10. He uses also the Cartesian argument that there
must at least be as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect,
p. 12.
[36] _Op. cit._ p. 12.
[37] _Ibid._ p. 6.
[38] _The Light upon the Candlestick_, pp. 12-13.
[39] _Ibid._ pp. 4 and 9.
[40] _Ibid._ p. 5.
[41] _Ibid._ p. 6.
{133}