NUMBER of Labadie's congregation and of former friends gathered around him, and he persuaded himself that the ideal Church was these—the dreams of his boyhood in the Jesuit convent were a reality at last.
It may be supposed that this new community aroused the bitterest enmity of the professing Christians around. The whole of the Labadists, as they were now called, were forbidden by the town council of Middelburg to hold meetings, or to preach, and finally were banished from the town.
They removed in 1669 to the neighbouring town of Veers, where the town council welcomed them warmly, and gave up to their use one of the churches, so that this little town now became a center to which crowds were gathered from all parts of the Netherlands.
The preaching of Labadie aroused and awakened the thousands who flocked to hear him. Three or four hundred of the Middeiburgers regularly attended the meetings, coming over twice every week. It was quite clear that Veere was becoming the head-quarters of heresy and schism in the eyes of the neighbouring towns and cities. It seemed, in fact, that a civil war was about to break out ; for the meetings, said the town councils of Middelburg and of the Zeeland province, must be put down by the sword, if no other means should answer the purpose.
Labadie said he would not be the cause of bloodshed. He left the little town in August, 1669, and, much regretted by the citizens of Veere, he removed to Amsterdam, bearing with him a written recommendation from the church of Veere, who declared him to be sound in the faith, and a true and faithful pastor of the flock of Christ.
He hired a roomy house, in which forty of his followers took up their abode with him. The desire for a reformation of the Reformed Churches was now so deeply felt in the Netherlands, that numbers who heard of this new community flocked to the meetings. It was not long after that there were, at Amsterdam alone, sixty thousand persons who declared themselves as members of the body, besides numbers in other towns, who formed themselves into similar communities, the ground of their separation from the Reformed Church being the impossibility of receiving the Lord's Supper except in company with the unconverted.
The teaching of Dr. Voet and others, which had opened the eyes of many to the great distinction between those born again, and those not yet passed from death to life, had thus prepared the way for the work of the Labadists.
This separation of Labadie from the Reformed Church was the beginning of the first new sect upon the Continent of Europe since the Reformation. In England the Independents and the Quakers had already left the Established Church.
It now remained to be seen whether this community formed by Labadie would prove to be really the separation of the Church from the world, or merely a separation of a certain number of believers, leaving the remainder still mixed up with the corrupt mass.
Father Lodensteyn looked on with sympathy and interest, but he did not join himself to the Labadists. Dr. Voet looked on with disapproval, Anna von Schurmann with enthusiasm.
Soon after she received a letter from Yvon, who with Dulignon and Menuret were going round to various Dutch and German towns, to invite all true-hearted believers to join themselves to the brotherhood.
"You know Labadie, my dear sister in the Lord," wrote Yvon, "how filled he is by the Spirit of God. But since we have been in Amsterdam, it is as if the Spirit had been poured out upon him in larger measure. In the morning we all meet together, and he leads us in prayer and thanksgiving, and then begins the morning exercise. Then each one goes to his work and to his spiritual meditations. At dinnertime we all meet again as brothers and sisters, and eat our meat with gladness and with the joy of brotherly love. Then we sing a hymn to the glory of God and our beloved Saviour, and the evening prayer and praise consecrates to us the evening meal when we again meet together. If you could see our life here, you would never be willing to leave us, Come to us. Why do you hesitate ? Like Paula, follow this our Jerome. It is a blessed joy to the soul to sit at his feet."
Anna was much impressed with this letter, but did not understand the reference to Paula and Jerome. Her many studies can scarcely have included Church history. She sent to Dr. Voet to ask him to lend her the life of S. Jerome, and then, in spite of the warning voice of her old friend, she betook herself to Amsterdam.
She could find no lodging in the near neighbourhood of the Labadists, and therefore took up her abode in Labadie's own house, where she inhabited the ground-floor in company with a widow from Micklelburg, and two of her maids.
Yvon vainly endeavoured to persuade good old Dr. Voet to follow her example, not by coming to live in Amsterdam, but by devoting himself to the reformation of the Church in Utrecht, either casting out the worldly and unconverted, or coming out himself with the remainder as Labadie had done. But Dr. Voet foresaw insuperable difficulties.
In many other Dutch and German towns, however, the separation was made, and Labadist communities sprang up, consisting in many cases of Christian people who had for some time back refused to join the world at the table of the Lord.
In Amsterdam the daily meetings were crowded, and amongst those who joined themselves to the brotherhood was the burgomaster of Amsterdam, Conrad von Beuningen, one of the noblest and most respected of Dutch statesmen. A young student in theology, Henry Schluter, also joined the community at this time, and became one of the most earnest preachers, teachers, and writers amongst them. We shall hear of his work later on.
But it came to pass soon afterwards that Menuret, the beloved disciple of Labadie, became insane, and shortly afterwards died. An outcry was made by the Reformed preachers, who had watched the meetings with a jealous eye. They complained that " the Labadists won over the best Christians, and the most godly souls, so that most of the congregations were despoiled of their pearls."
This was saying a good deal for the Labadists, though the pastors seem to have been little aware of the praise they were bestowing. They did not feel, like good Father Lodensteyn, that it would be well they should humble themselves when they saw the best departing from their midst, and leaving the world behind them.
The magistrate, stirred up by the pastors, now forbade all public meetings of the new sect. They might meet amongst themselves, but none from outside might take part. The Labadists took counsel together what should be done. They resolved to found a colony on the island of Nord Strand, in Schleswig. There they hoped they would be free, and that many would join them from other places. But difficulties arose, and this plan was given up.
Anna von Schurmann now bethought herself of her old friend of former days, the Princess Elizabeth of the Rhine.