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
In his final treatise[11] he goes to the full length of the implication
of his principle. He recounts with luminous {39} simplicity the
mystical _unity_ of the spiritual Universe and tells of the divine
purpose to draw all our finite and divided wills into moral harmony
with the Central Will. Once more religion is presented as wholly a
matter of the inward spirit, a thing of insight, of obedience to a
living Word, of love for an infinite Lover, the bubbling of living
streams of water in the heart of man. He declares that the period of
signs and symbols and of "the scholastic way of truth" is passing away,
and the religion of the New Testament, the religion of life and spirit,
is coming in place of the old. As fast as the new comes ceremonies and
sacraments vanish and fall away. They do not belong to a religion of
the Spirit; they are for the infant race and for those who have not
outgrown the picture-book. Christ's baptism is with power from above,
and He cleanses from sin not with water but with the Holy Ghost and the
burning fire of love. As soon as the spiritual man possesses "the key
of David," and has entered upon "the true Sabbath of his soul," he
holds lightly all forms and ceremonies which are outward and which can
be gone through with in a mechanical fashion without creating the
essential attitude of worship and of inner harmony of will with God:
"When the Kingdom of God with its joy and love has come in us we do not
much care for those things which can only happen outside us."[12]
II
Christian Entfelder held almost precisely the same views as those which
we have found in the teaching of Buenderlin. He has become even more
submerged than has Buenderlin, and one hunts almost in vain for the
events of his life. Hagen does not mention him. Gruetzmacher in his
_Wort und Geist_ never refers to him. The great _Realencyklopaedie fur
protestantische Theologie und Kirche_ has no article on him. Gottfried
Arnold in his {40} _Kirchenund Ketzer-Historien_ merely mentions him in
his list of "Witnesses to the Truth." The only article I have ever
found on him is one by Professor Veesenmeyer in Gabler's _N. theol.
Journal_ (1800), iv. 4, pp. 309-334.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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