Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th CenturiesJones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Religion
Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries
Jones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Mysticism; Reformers
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}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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