LET Him lead thee blindfold onwards,
Love needs not to know ;
Children whom the Father leadeth
Ask not where they go,
Though the path be all unknown
Over moors and mountains lone.
Give no ear to reason's questions ;
Let the blind man hold That the sun is hut a fable
Men believed of old.
At the breast the babe will grow ;
Whence the milk he need not know.
God is evermore rejoicing,
Loving, tender, still ;
Breathe His life and learn His gladness,
Sweetness of His will.
Loving, still, thou thus shalt be,
Jesus manifest in thee.
—G. TERSTEEGEN,
AND now there arose a cloud upon the horizon I which had been little anticipated. There were some in the Reformed Church who looked with a suspicious eye upon this fervent, perhaps they would say, wild and enthusiastic, Frenchman. Was he sound in the faith ? Was he ready to conform to the rules and ordinances of the Reformed Church ? Might he riot be a mystic, or a species of Quaker ? For all this time the strange ways of the Quakers were talked of far and wide, and it was not necessary to be a phlegmatic Dutchman to feel a wholesome horror of some of their practices.
Had not a Quaker woman, Margaret Brewster, " come into a church, in time of divine service, with her face disfigured " (so wrote an eye-witness), " her hair about her shoulders, and ashes upon her head, and sackcloth upon her upper garments, and barefooted, like unto some wild satyr, or some mad lunatic person ? by which unlooked for strange aspect the whole congregation was disturbed, some children much affrighted, and several women were ready to faint " ? And had she not declared to them "that she came thither, in that manner, in true obedience to the Lord, to warn them of their pride, and their superfluous adornments and attire " ? And had not the Quakers excused and commended her as being a "devout woman, under a religious concern, and affliction in spirit, who found herself constrained to appear in an unusual and extraordinary manner, whereat the priest, an utter stranger to such prophetic appearances was" (strange to say) "highly displeased " ? What might not other Quakers find themselves constrained to do ? And what " unusual and extraordinary" scenes might there not be ere long in the Dutch churches ? Was it seemly that a Quaker should stand up in a church, as one had done, to reprove and argue with the preacher, because he had said that Mordecai was hanged, and Haman promoted to honour ? And had not another walked through an Irish city, being only half-clothed, and having " fire and brimstone burning on his head " ? and in this manner had he not walked into a Popish church, saying, " Wo ! Wo ! O idolatrous worshippers" ?
And even in Holland, had they not testified, in various strange ways, preaching out of doors, and contradicting the pastors and ministers in the churches ?
Would it not, seeing that such things had been possible amongst men, be necessary to look more closely into the belief and the practices of this strange Frenchman ? Ought he not to subscribe to the confession of faith of the Reformed Church, and sign a declaration that he would submit himself in all things to the discipline and the ordinances prescribed by the Synods ?
For various rumours were already spread abroad that he had preached in a way little conformable to the Heidelberg catechism. And having been summoned once and again to appear and answer for himself at various synods, he had made various excuses for his non-appearance. Once, the vain excuse that he had a headache.
Nor had he consented to sign any confession of faith, or to promise submission to the Church. He had said on one occasion, that he had not the health to read through the confession sent to him with proper attention.
As time went on, it was reported that he had said the confession of the French Reformed Church contained unscriptural expressions. He had refused the Lord's Supper to a certain man without the authority of the Consistory. And lastly, he had preached not only against the wearing of jewels and costly finery, but also had openly declared that the Lord Jesus would return and reign in visible presence for a thousand years on the earth.
Thus he was a Chiliast. For this name was given at that time to all who professed a belief in the second coming of the Lord. This name served the purpose of deterring all who desired to be orthodox Protestants from " waiting for the Son of God from heaven," as did the Thessalonians.
Also Labadie joined to his belief in the future reign of Christ, a deep love and compassion for the chosen people of God after the flesh. He preached and taught that God would yet visit his ancient nation, that a great conversion of the Jews must prepare the way for the reign of Christ. He did not know that those who now believe in Jesus must be raised and changed, and caught up to be with the Lord, before this awakening of the Jewish nation can take place. But at least he looked forward to the glorious appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Twice at Utrecht, in the absence of Wolzogen, the French pastor, who was a disciple of Descartes, did Labadie preach the coming of the Lord.
He was known to say, moreover, that no man ought to be called upon to sign or to subscribe to writings of any man or men, for that in all writings of men there must be more or less error, none being infallible. And in addition to all these charges, he was known to use extempore prayer, not binding himself to the forms of prayer ordained by the Reformed Church.
Thus did the Reformed pastors and elders look with great suspicion upon these ways and doings of Labadie, so new-fangled, as they supposed ; for they did not compare them with the beliefs and customs of the Church of the Apostles, as Labadie, even in the Jesuit college, had done, but with the decrees of the Synod of Dordrecht, and the institutes of Calvin, and the Heidelberg catechism.
Good Dr. Voet had many a sad and anxious hour in reflecting how he himself had been the means of importing into the Netherlands this Quakerish man. And he warned, but vainly warned, Anna von Schurmann against his wild and enthusiastic vagaries.
In the year 1668, two years after the arrival of Labadie, the French pastor at Utrecht, Wolzogen, published a book, in which he taught that the Bible should be treated and explained like any other book written simply by men. Labadie called upon the elders of his church to denounce Wolzogen's book as an infidel attack upon the word of God. The elders brought the question before the Synod. The book was closely examined, and by most members of the Synod was approved. The remainder declared it to be "a Socinian and atheistical book, full of the spirit of the world, of the wisdom of the flesh, and devoid of the Spirit of God."
But by the desire of the majority, the elders of Middelberg were required to make a public apology to the Pastor Wolzogen. Labadie and Yvon left the Synod in indignation. They were forbidden in consequence to preach, but they continued to do so. The elders were deposed, and new elders appointed, who would compel Labadie to obey the Synod, or to cease altogether from his ministrations.
Matters were now come to a point. Would Labadie obey God or man ? Would he put communion with the Reformed Church in the first place, and communion with Christ and His faithful people in the second ? It had cost him much to leave the Roman Church, in which he had not only been brought up, but in which he had been awakened and converted to God. But Christ had been to him dearer than the Church he had loved. Was He not dearer to him than the Reformed Church, which had also declared itself false to Him ?
"All my experiences," he said, "experiences made during forty years in the Catholic and in the Reformed Churches, have now fully proved to me that it is scarcely possible, nay, almost impossible, to shape and fashion an already shaped and fashioned community according to the convictions which are a necessity to me. A reformation of existing church communities I see to be an impossibility. Therefore the restoration of the Apostolic Church can only be reached by separation from them all."
But Labadie did not see that even by this means he could not restore the glory of those early days. For the true Church of God would necessarily include both those who were willing, with him, to separate themselves from the existing bodies, and those who with any spark of divine life, remained even in the most corrupt of them. He could not accept the sorrowful fact of the irretrievable ruin of that building, once so glorious and so fair.
But the facts that he saw the ruin, and that he desired, in the spirit of a child-crusader, to rescue the beloved city of God, mark him out from the dead and lukewarm mass around him. And we cannot but honour the faithfulness of Labadie to the mission which he felt to be his. He had laboured with a single eye to this end, till at the age of forty he found himself outside the beloved Church of his childhood. Now, after twenty years of fixed purpose and ceaseless labour, he found himself outside the Reformed Church which had welcomed him. He would go forward at all costs, and leave all for Christ. And to leave a Church would be to one like Labadie far more than to leave his country, his kindred, and his father's house. God has owned his faithfulness, and forgiven his errors.
He openly declared to the Synod that it was impossible for him to conform to their requirements. His elders and the largest and most pious part of his congregation joined him in this declaration.
Once more they met together to take for the last time the Lord's Supper in the French Church. Only those joined in this communion who were of one mind with Labadie. He then formally and solemnly excommunicated those who held and defended the teaching of Wolzogen, and the whole party left the church, feeling that they had burnt their ships, and must now take the consequences, be they what they might.
" There is a human Church discipline," said Labadie, "there is also a divine Church discipline, the only rule of which is the Holy Scripture, to which alone we may refer. All other Church discipline rests upon human traditions, and there is no sin in refusing obedience to such. On the contrary, we may not dare to submit ourselves to it, or bind our consciences, and deprive ourselves of Christian liberty.
" For adherence to an outward confession of faith is not sufficient to form a Christian community. Nor is it enough that in that community some true believers should be found. It is absolutely necessary that the whole of those who are in communion should prove, by their holy lives, their separation from the world, and their good works, that they have the true faith, and are true believers.
" But when, on the contrary, this community consists for the most part of members who are lawless and disobedient, fleshly, worldly, and ungodly, without zeal, without love to God, common swearers, covetous men, deceivers, unrighteous, impure, scoffers or injurious, in one word, are guilty of crying and outrageous sins, what can we think of such a body and such members ? Is it not rather a synagogue of Satan than the company of the Lamb ? And is it not necessary to come out of such a communion, because such is not the Church, but the world, from which the Lord has called out His own ?"
Therefore, in leaving the Reformed Church, Labadie equally left all the churches organized by man. Nothing remained for him but to gather together those who would represent the Church of his earliest dreams, the Church of the apostles, consisting only of those called by God, and chosen out by His grace from this present evil world to witness for Him. But he did not see that unless ALL such could be gathered, the ruin of the Church remained.