Lux in Tenebris Lucet Illuminating Rational-Spiritualism and the Metaphor of Inner Light in a Quaker - Collegiant Dispute (1657-1662)

Lux in Tenebris Lucet Illuminating rational-spiritualism and the metaphor of inner light in a Quaker - Collegiant dispute (1657-1662)

Martin van Wattingen 0153346

University of Amsterdam Master Thesis, Research MA Theology & Religious Studies (June, 2017)

Thesis Supervisor: dr. H. J. Borsje Second Reader: Prof. dr. L. van Bunge

Table of Contents

Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 3

Reseach Questions and Methodology ……….……………………… 9

Enlightenment Historiography ……….………………………………. 12

From Kant to postmodernism …………………………..…………. 12

Jonathan Israel and the Radical Enlightenment …….………….. 17

Historical Background ……..………………………………………….. 22

The Dutch Collegiants ……………………………………………… 25

Early Quakers in Holland ….………………………………………. 30

The Pamplet War ……..…………………………………………………. 34

William Ames, Het Ligt dat in de duisternisse schijnt …..………. 37

Pieter Balling, Het licht op den kandelaar ……………………….. 61

Conclusion ……..…………………………………………………………. 70

Bibliography …….………………………………………………………… 73

Preface and Acknowledgments

The thesis before you was my final proof of competence for obtaining the Master of Arts (MA) degree from the University of Amsterdam. It was written to fulfill the graduation requirements and, at the same time, it is the end result of my time as a Research-master student and concludes my education.

According to historian Jan Wagenaar, the first Collegiants in Amsterdam held their meetings in a house on the corner of the Rokin and the Kalfsvelsteeg, merely a ‘stone’s throw’ away from the university library (Special Collections) where I have spend so much time completing my research. Coming from a long line of ‘Amsterdammers,’ the city’s history has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Gradually, I started to develop a special interest in the intellectual ‘climate’ in the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic. It would not take long before Spinoza and the Collegiants ‘crossed my path.’

When you say Spinoza or Collegiants, the name Wiep van Bunge will follow suit. Our introduction was, understandably, a humbling and inspirational experience. It has been an honor that professor van Bunge has co-read my thesis. My supervisor, dr. Jacqueline Borsje, who was responsible for that introduction, has to be credited for the completion of my thesis in general. At a crucial moment she gave me the much-needed motivational speech and ‘push’ in the right direction. I am gratefull for both their time and dedication.

I also wish to express my sincere gratitude to my family, friends and girlfriend for their love, trust, support and encouragement when I needed it the most. And last, but definitely not least, my parents and my sister deserve particular appreciation. The completion of this project would not have been accomplished without your confidence and endless patience.

Introduction

In 1662, an extremely controversial pamphlet circled among the intellectual elite in Amsterdam, the largest and most densely populated city in the Dutch Republic. Its ambiguous title, Het licht op den kandelaar. Dienende, tot opmerkinge van de voornaamste dingen; in het boekje genaamt De verborgentheden van het rijke Ghodts, &c. tegens Galenus Abrahamsz., en zijn Toestemmers &c. verhandelt en beschreven door William Ames (The Light on the Candlestick. Serving to Remark on the Foremost Things in the Book Called The Mysteries of God’s Kingdom, against Galenus Abrahamsz. and his Supporters by William Ames), engendered substantial controversy concerning the author and its purpose. Although Het licht was published anonymously and “printed for the author” (Gedrukt voor den Autheur), it is now fairly certain that the author was Pieter Balling, a close friend of Spinoza who frequently visited the meetings of a specific group of protestant dissenters in the Dutch Republic, who were called Collegiants. Over time, however, the tract had been attributed to others as well. Especially William Ames, whose name is displayed prominently on the title page, has often been regarded as the author. Yet Ames was not the author. Instead, he wrote The Mysteries of God’s Kingdom in which he responded to Galenus Abrahamsz. de Haan, a minister of the Mennonite congregation in Amsterdam and leader of the local branch of Collegiants in the capital. But the ambiguity can only partly be attributed to the puzzling title. The theme of Balling’s pamphlet was the divine light that guides humankind, a topic Ames had written many times about. In fact, Ames’ oeuvre consisted primarily of publications with similar titles. As one of the first Quaker missionaries in Holland, he had often felt the need to defend the doctrine of the inner light, which was so central to their message. By the time Het licht op den kandelaar was issued, Quaker fascination with the inner light had become the main source of some heated arguments and a protracted “pamphlet war” between the two groups.

Light has been a common metaphor for truth, knowledge, the life force, (spiritual) insight, individual development, etc. since ancient times. Not only did light bear a religious connotation in its biblical expression of Christ as the divine light and the ‘gift’ of wisdom bestowed from above, as stressed, for instance, by Augustine in his theory of divine illumination. But it was also, as

knowledge of the real, associated with the ancient philosophy of Plato. In the Republic Plato had Socrates draw an analogy between the sun, which illuminates the visible realm, and the Idea of the Good illuminating the intelligible realm. Even Aristotle, who objected that knowledge ultimately derives from the senses and sense perception is connected with the soul, claimed that the soul needs an inner light to perceive. A century and a half of humanist scholarship, Arthur Herman observes, had shown Enlightenment historians and philosophers how much Christianity’s evolution owed to a fusion of Jewish and Neo-Platonic ideas. But over the course of the eighteenth century, the understanding Enlightenment thinkers had of the cultural and historical separation between them and the ‘ancients’ made Plato, not Aristotle, “the big loser in all this.”1 Most influential was John Locke, who, in Aristotelian fashion, dismantled Plato’s worldview and political philosophy by stressing the importance of perception and experience. Clearly mirroring Aristotle’s tabula rasa, Locke rejected the principle of innate ideas and emphasized that our mind is blank slate waiting to be written on. This contradiction, Herman argues, between Plato’s worldview and the view of reality Enlightenment thinkers inherited from Aristotle and Locke, was the main reason the Enlightenment “disliked Plato so much.”2 In her elaborate examination of how the Enlightenment’s construal of its ‘dark’ past served as a foil against which its own defining narratives were formulated, Alicia Montoya suggests that, as a rhetorical construct, the ‘medieval’ determined, to some extent, the eighteenth-century perception of modernity.3 According to Montoya, the Enlightenment’s foundational rhetoric renegotiated the meaning of the ancient metaphor of light to create a polemic with the dark and ignorant Middle Ages. Italian humanism in the Renaissance had reversed biblical dualism and the Augustinian metaphor of Christian light versus pagan darkness. Francesco Petrarch in particular had presented the Middle Ages as a dark period that emerged after the golden Age of Antiquity.4 Late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinkers deviated

1 A. Herman, The Cave and the Light: Plato versus Aristotle, and the struggle for the soul of Western Civilization (New York, 2013), pp. 362-366. 2 Ibid. p. 365. 3 A. Montoya, Medievalist Enlightenment: From Charles Perrault to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Cambridge, 2013). 4 Ibid. pp. 43-46. Cf. J. Tunturi, “Darkness as a Metaphor in the Historiography of the Enlightenment,” in: Approaching Religion, 1 (2011), pp. 20-25. See also T.

from Christianity’s authoritative discourse and denounced the doctrine of divine light descending on the believer. Instead, following Descartes’ lumen naturale, they started to propagate the idea of the natural light of reason as a source of human knowledge and truth. “In its most common eighteenth- century use,” Montoya states, “the metaphor of light was assigned primarily a theological meaning, foregrounding perceived oppositions between light as reason and light as revelation.”5 According to Andrew Fix, an expert in Collegiant studies, light retained its central role in European religious and philosophical thought until it began to acquire a new, more secular usage in the late seventeenth century.6 In his Prophecy and Reason, Fix propounds the thesis that the changing view of the individual conscience among a specific group of Protestant dissenters in the Dutch Republic, who were called Collegiants, provides a perfect example of the secularizing and rationalizing trends occurring all over early modern Europe. In his view, “a trend toward secularism and rationalism developed out of religious despair and accelerated as the wars of religion drew to a close in 1648.”7 The decades following the Treaty of Westphalia witnessed the significant process of intellectual evolution that transformed the (older) spiritual notion of inner light into the natural light of human reason. In fact, Fix states, “nothing more clearly illustrates the role of Collegiant thought in the monumental seventeenth-century intellectual transition from faith to reason than the changing conception of the inner light found in Collegiant writings.”8 His argument is that the movement went through three stages: spiritualism, rational-spiritualism, and, finally, (secular) philosophical rationalism. First, their spiritual inclinations declined when Collegiants came into contact (and conflict!) with the ‘extreme spiritualism’ of the Quakers. Second, during the 1660s and 1670s, “a time when strong forces of rationalism and secularism were beginning to influence Collegiant thought,”9 Socinian tendencies and an active interest in the new rationalistic philosophy of Rene Descartes moved their thought in a rationalistic direction. Through

Mommsen, “Petrarch’s Conception of the Dark Ages,” in: Speculum, 17 (1942), pp. 226-242. 5 Montoya, op. cit., p. 44. 6 A. Fix, Prophecy and Reason: The Dutch Collegiants in the Early Enlightenment (Princeton, 1991), p. 185. 7 Ibid. p. 11. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. p. 212.

the gradual transformation of the Collegiant conception of the individual conscience from a spiritual to a rational inner light, their spiritualistic worldview evolved into a secular view based on human reason. “In this changing conception of the individual conscience,” Fix argues, “one can see in microcosm the larger transformation of the European worldview that took place during the course of the seventeenth century.”10 It is beyond the scope of this thesis, however, to examine Socinian and Cartesian influences on Collegiant thinking; instead we focus on the first part of this “dramatic transformation of Collegiant thought”:11 their response to the spiritualism of the Quakers.

The last decades of the twentieth century saw a significant increase in ‘Spinoza studies’ and closer inspection of the presumed tolerant attitude towards religious diversity in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. Much has been written about Collegiants as well in this context. Accordingly, yet not unlike some of the older overviews covering particular areas in Dutch history,12 they still feature predominantly as indicators of a religious pluralistic society13 or as “associates of” in works dedicated to the life and thought of Spinoza.14 Since the 1980s, however, studies on individual Collegiants have proliferated15 and have contributed significantly to our understanding of such chrétiens sans église.16 Most of these contributions,

10 Ibid. p. 11. 11 Ibid. p. 23. 12 J. C. van Slee, De Rĳnsburger collegianten: geschiedkundig onderzoek (Haarlem, 1895); C. B. Hylkema, Reformateurs, 2 Vols. (Haarlem, 1900-1902); J. Lindeboom, Geschiedenis van het vrijzinnig Protestantisme, 3 Vols. (Assen, 1931-1935); Idem, Stiefkinderen van het christendom (‘s-Gravenhage, 1929); R. B. Evenhuis, Ook dat was Amsterdam: De kerk der hervorming in de gouden eeuw. 5 vols. (Amsterdam, 1965- 1978), see, especially, parts 2 and 3. 13 See, for instance, S. Zijlstra, Om de ware gemeente en oude gronden: Geschiedenis van de dopersen in de Nederlanden 1531-1675 (Hilversum, 2000), pp 402-410; W. Frijhof (et al.), 1650: Bevochten eendracht. Nederlandse cultuur in Europese context (The Hague, 1999), pp. 412-423. On the Collegiants in particular, see pp. 413-415. 14 K. O. Meinsma, Spinoza en zĳn kring: Historisch-kritische studiën over Hollandsche vrĳgeesten (s-Gravenhage, 1896); W. Klever, Mannen rond Spinoza (1650- 1700): Presentatie van een emanciperende generatie (Hilversum, 1997); W. van Bunge, “Spinoza and the Collegiants,” in: Spinoza Past and Present. Essays on Spinoza, Spinozism, and Spinoza Scholarship (Leiden, 2012), pp. 51-65; J. Israel, “Spinoza and the Religious Radical Enlightenment,” in: The Intellectual Consequences of Religious Heterodoxy 1600-1750 (Leiden, 2012), pp. 181-203. 15 The magazine Doopsgezinde Bijdragen, in particular, has several articles on individual Collegiants: A. de Groot, “De Amsterdamse Collegiant Jan Cornelisz. Knol” (1984); W. Klever, “De Spinozistische prediking van Pieter Balling” (1988); R. Lambour, “De Amsterdamse collegiant Jacob Jansen Voogd (1630-1710)’ (1997); R.

however, are in Dutch, which, unfortunately, makes them inaccessible to interested non-parties who do not read Dutch.17 Aside from marginal references in the many social, cultural, or intellectual histories of the Enlightenment, Fix’s Prophecy and Reason is the only major study offering extensive insight into the intellectual evolution of Collegiant thought in English.

In contrast to the Collegiant movement, which ceased to exist by the end of the eighteenth century, Quakerism is still present to this day. The various branches are scattered throughout the world and their (section) meetings are open to anyone, from all different backgrounds, genders, races, ethnicities etc. There are many websites that offer information, thus histories as well as an abundance of data are readily available. The central doctrine of the inner light, which stresses the necessity of the inflowing (or, inward) light of Christ, was formulated by the movement’s founding father George Fox. Ever since it is seen as the first principle in all religious matters. From the beginning Quakers sought to spread their message among the many Radical Reformation groups. In Holland, one of their first mission fields outside the UK, they stumbled upon (what seemed like) like-minded people when they encountered the Collegiants, a native radical branch of the Second Reformation. Like the Quakers, Collegiants were a fringe church in numbers. Although they were “disproportionally prominent in Dutch intellectual debate,”18 Collegiantism came to an end after they had held their last general meeting in 1787. So why, then, study the role of Collegiants in their debate with the Quakers?

Lambour, ‘De familie en vrienden van Daniel Zwicker (1612-1678) in Amsterdam” (1999); W. van Bunge, “De bibliotheek van Jacob Ostens: spinozana en sociniana” (2004); R. Lambour, “De alchemistische wereld van Galenus Abrahamsz. (1622- 1706)” (2005); P. Visser (ed.), “Kritisch commentaar van een collegiantische kwelgeest. Twee manuscripten en een pamflet van Jan Knol uit de jaren 1655-1659, ingeleid en van aantekeningen voorzien” (2012); R. Lambour, “De collegiant Frans Kuyper (ca 1628-1691), zijn Joodse moeder en de relatie van zijn vader met de Joodse filosoof Uriel da Costa (1584-1640)” (2016). 16 The term, obviously, refers to L. Kolakowski’s Chrétiens sans Église: La conscience religieuse et le lien confessionnel au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1964). 17 These elaborate contributions include: W. van Bunge, Johannes Bredenburg (1643- 1691): Een Rotterdamse collegiant in de ban van Spinoza (Rotterdam, 1990); B. Leeuwenburgh, Het noodlot van een ketter. Adriaan Koerbagh 1633-1669 (Nijmegen, 2013); E. van der Wall, De mystieke chiliast Petrus Serrarius (1600-1669) en zijn Wereld (s.l.: 1987). 18 J. Israel, Radical Enlightenment, p. 342.

Although relatively small in number, Collegiants provide an exceptionally interesting case with regard to the dispute over the metaphor of inner-light metaphor we are examining here. They were educated, literate, well-read individuals with a considerable interest in the religious, philosophical, and intellectual developments of their time. Despite their diverse backgrounds, Collegiants shared a collective repudiation of clerical policies, a mistrust of institutionalized religion, and a firm belief in the freedom of expression. Maintaining this ‘free-speech’ mentality meant being open-minded about different interpretations of the issues under discussion in their meetings. It seems acceptable to assume that attendees influenced each other with their wide range of ideas and perspectives. Arguably, then, these ‘free-speech assemblies’ can be considered hotbeds of dissension and irreconcilable opinions, but Collegiant disputes are significant indicators of what was at stake outside the publicly endorsed Reformed state religion in the Dutch Republic as well. Intellectually, Fix emphasizes, Collegiants were “lesser thinkers,” located in that broad stratum of intellectual society just below the leading figures but well above the great mass of uneducated people.19 Even if they were not great philosophers or theologians, and none among them was of outstanding intellectual talent, let alone produced a significant all-encompassing philosophical system, they were sensitive to the groundbreaking trends and standpoints of the “greater minds.” Some of their writings may clearly demonstrate the difficulty of coping with the intellectual developments in the seventeenth century. On the other hand, they illustrate their dedication to the task of grasping these complex ideas. Therefore, studying their written records means examining an important and interesting social context in which revolutionary ideas were discussed. Collegiants provide a useful example of how the educated classes in the relatively tolerant United Provinces dealt with the development of a rational conception of the world. It seems, however, that Fix’s emphasis on the changing conception of inner light, presented as illustrative of the transition from a religious to a secular worldview, is somewhat overambitious. By constantly overstating the rationalizing and secularizing trend in the Rijnsburger movement, he appears to be examining the modernity aspect of Collegiant thought. In addition, his discussion is incomplete. There are other sources available, beyond the ones

19 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, pp. 17-19.

Fix used to substantiate his claim. For instance, he presents the works of Pieter Balling and Jarich Jelles as the first to discredit Quaker spiritualism and demonstrate rationalistic development. In his chapter “The Rational Inner Light” he writes: “In the writings of Galenus’s followers Pieter Balling and Jarich Jelles the distinction so carefully maintained … between the inner light of the Spirit and natural human reason was erased.”20 In such “transitional works” the “transformation undergone by the idea of the inner light resulted in a conception of a divine reason.”21 Despite their importance for analyzing Collegiant thought, the choice for these texts seems rather unfortunate. Due to its ambiguous content it seems unlikely to regard Pieter Balling’s Het Licht op den Kandelaar as representing a ‘departure’ from Quaker influences. The problem with Jelles’ work is that he wrote his Belijdenissse des Algemeenen en Christelyken geloofs more than ten years after Balling.22 For the purpose of evaluating Fix’s view on the formative and transitional character of seventeenth-century Collegiant thought, it is necessary to complement these texts.

Research Questions and Methodology The main goal of this thesis is, first, to research to what extent we can determine an increasing rationalistic and secular nature of Collegiant thought in the debates with the early Quakers. To explore the problem posed above I will discuss the following questions: What changes do we observe in Collegiant writings about the metaphor of the inner light in the Collegiant – Quaker dispute between 1657 and 1662? And to what extent can we detect a change in the their conception of the individual conscience that is so structural that we can refer to it as a ‘transformation,’ ‘intellectual evolution,’ or ‘secularization’ of their thought? To examine whether or not the Collegiant-

20 Ibid. 192. 21 Ibid. 22 The only edition that survived was published by Jan Rieuwertsz. in 1684, a year after Jelles’ death. This edition starts with an assignment-letter (opdracht-brief) Jelles wrote to a worthy friend (eerwaarde vriendt). The ‘letter’ has been added to Spinoza’s correspondence and is nowadays known as epistle 48a. In the epilogue (na-reden) Rieuwertsz. mentions the positive response Jelles received from his friend. Aside from this testimony, Pierre Bayle and a certain dr. Hallmann both refer to the response. The latter dates the response April 19, 1673. Together these three testimonies are combined as epistle 48b. See, F. Akkerman (et al.), Spinoza: Briefwisseling, pp. 16-17; 30; 44; 303-307; 488-489; 528-529.

Quaker dispute represents “an ever-widening fissure separating the traditional Christian worldview from the emerging secular and rationalistic view,”23 we have to provide more extensive insight into the ‘pamphlet war’ between both groups that took place between 1657 and 1662. This is the period, according to Andrew Fix, in which Collegiants encountered the Quakers’ extreme spiritualism of the inner light and started to develop an increasingly rationalistic view of the world. “In the process,” he states, “the power and authority gained by human reason seen as a divine light created the epistemological foundation in Collegiant thought for a powerful new rationalist system.”24 Although they did not arrive at “the doorstep of philosophical rationalism”25 until the 1680s, with this new view of reason Collegiants did take a decisive step in that direction. Second and subsequently, it is my intention to demonstrate that general overviews run the risk of simplifying matters too much by not paying enough attention to the arguments used in the texts under examination. Since politicians and theorists have increasingly adopted the Enlightenment in their defense of contemporary ‘progressive’ values and ideals, the new ‘rational’ criteria dubbed early modern Europe the ‘cradle’ of Western civilization. Nonetheless, at least some caution concerning statements about the ‘modernity’ of Enlightenment ideas seems warranted. It remains highly questionable whether the secular (and ‘sensible’) perspective of today is rooted in the transformation of worldviews that took place during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. In other words, can we justifiably claim a direct link between Enlightenment morals, values and ideas and those in present-day social, political, and philosophical theories? Consequently, this study will focus on the dominant trends in Enlightenment historiography from Ernst Cassirer’s philosophical perspective to Jonathan Israel’s bifurcation of the Enlightenment as well.

According to Fix, the pamphlet war began with the publication of William Ames’ Het Ligt dat in de duisternisse schijnt, in which he responded to Galenus Abrahamsz.’ XIX Artikelen.26 Pieter Balling’s Het licht op den kandelaar published in 1662, at the time of Ames’ untimely death, marks the

23 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, p. 212 24 Ibid. p. 192. 25 Ibid. p. 255. 26 Ibid. p. 196.

end of the debate. As one of the most widely discussed tracts written by a Collegiant, Fix states, it was a work “solidly anchored in the Collegiant religion of individual conscience as well as in the tradition on inner-light spiritualism, but it also contained unmistakable rationalistic elements.”27 For Jonathan Israel, Het licht “seemed to many deftly to bridge the gap between the ‘inner light’ of the Spiritualists, a mystical emanation from God, and the philosophical reason of the Cartesians.”28 Wim Klever, who reissued Het licht op den kandelaar in 1988,29 stresses the extensive research it would require to determine the exact standpoints of both Galenus Abrahamsz. and William Ames and to fully grasp the significance of their dispute, to which Balling refers on his title page. Recently, Jo van Cauter and Laura Rediehs have made a first step in this research by providing a full transcription and translation of Ames’ work and to demonstrate the influence The Mysteries had on Balling’s Licht, to which I will return in my discussion of the document.30 In 2011, Michiel Wielema edited and translated an equally important tract written by the radical Collegiant Adriaan Koerbagh.31 In line with these contributions, I have considered it important to provide a transcription and translation of William Ames’ Het Ligt dat in de duisternisse schijnt, which actually is a compilation of several refutations. For the sake of brevity, I will focus on, what I think, are the first pamphlets in the “war.” It seems appropriate to start with Galenus’ treatise and end with Balling’s Het Licht op den Kandelaar, published shortly after the ‘pamphlet war’ between Collegiants and Quakers had ended. A close reading of these writings should demonstrate that the debate about inner light was more elaborate than that presented by Fix.

27 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, p. 200. 28 Israel, Radical Enlightenment, p. 343. 29 W. Klever, “De Spinozistische prediking van Pieter Balling: Uitgave van ‘Het Licht op den Kandelaar’ met biografische inleiding en commentaar,” in: Doopsgezinde Bijdragen, nieuwe reeks (1988) pp. 55-85. 30 J. van Cauter and L. Rediehs, “Spiritualism and Rationalism in Dutch Collegiant thought: New Evidence from William Ames’ Mysteries of the Kingdom of God (1661), with a Translation,” in: Lias (2013), pp. 105-175. 31 M. Wielema (ed.), Adriaan Koerbagh: A Light Shining in Dark Places: To Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion (Leiden, 2011).

Enlightenment Historiography

“Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Selbstverschuldet ist diese Unmündigkeit, wenn die Ursache derselben nicht am Mangel des Verstandes, sondern der Entschließung und des Mutes liegt, sich seiner ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Sapere aude! Habe Mut, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen! ist also der Wahlspruch der Aufklärung.”

Immanuel Kant wrote these now famous words in 1784 in response to the question: ‘Was ist Aufklärung?’32 The Prussian philosopher thus defined Enlightenment as escape of humankind from its self-imposed immaturity. Echoing Voltaire’s “osez penser par vous-même” (“dare to think for yourself”33), he encouraged the individual to think on his/her own without ‘guidance’ by others. But the appeal to independent thinking, succinctly encapsulated in the Enlightenment’s motto (sapere aude! —dare to know!), was not just the expression of his desire for people to make use of their own intellectual capacities. Kant understood that Enlightenment was a process and not a completed project: he realized that his was not an enlightened age but an age of Enlightenment.34 Moreover, the short (but often misinterpreted35) essay demonstrates that Kant and his contemporaries sought to present clearly what it was that marked the advent of Enlightenment.

32 Kant, ‘Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?,’ Berlinische Monatsschrift, 12, pp. 481-494. The complete text can be found on the website of the German Text- archive: http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/kant_aufklaerung_1784?p=17. 33 N. Cronk (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire (Cambridge, 2009) p. 62. See, also, E. van der Wall & L. Wessels (eds.), Een Veelzijdige Verstandhouding: Religie en Verlichting in Nederland 1650-1850 (Nijmegen, 2007), p. 28. 34 Kant, (op cit.,): “Wenn denn nun gefragt wird: Leben wir jetzt in einem aufgeklärten Zeitalter? so ist die Antwort: Nein, aber wohl in einem Zeitalter der Aufklärung” (p. 491). 35 Kant postulated a balance between the public and private exercise of reason. To avoid the outbreak of chaos, he insisted on restricting the latter. The public use of reason, on the other hand, must always be free since it alone can bring about enlightenment among people. Cf. J. Schmidt (ed.), What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth- Century Answers and Twentieth Century Questions (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1996); D. Outram, The Enlightenment (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 1-3.

The past decades have witnessed a conspicuous resurgence of interest in the Enlightenment. Predicated on the assumption that the Enlightenment and modernity are inextricably linked, globalization and the influence of non- Western civilizations have urged intellectuals to re-examine the morals and values of the Western world today. In an unabated stream of publications, the ‘long Eighteenth century’ is currently being reclaimed for its positive elements. Depicted as the cradle, or, as Vincenzo Ferrone recently formulated, the “laboratory” of Western civilization, the rehabilitation of Enlightenment ideas and values is evident.36 Ferrone’s defense is based on his view that “the new united Europe that is on the rise badly needs to find again it’s authentic roots within eighteenth century cosmopolitanism, tolerance, liberty and, more generally, within that notion of the rights of man that Enlightenment culture promoted as the proper political language of the modern and as a legitimate existential aspiration for all people of the earth.”37 Illustrative of the demanding task sketched by Ferrone is the overall lack of consensus. Experts and non-experts alike have grappled with the problem of conceptualizing and defining (the) Enlightenment since the eighteenth century. The confusion begins with understanding that the term is used to denote either a certain period or something in or about that period.38 When addressing the issue of definition, it is important to bear in mind that the term ‘Enlightenment’ is a translation of two other, distinct terms: the German Aufklärung and the French lumières. Although all three terms share the concept of light, they are not identical. In the preface to the English edition of the Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, Philip Stewart draws attention to the “problem of equivalences among the different languages.”39 Aufklärung and ‘Enlightenment’, he states, have different histories and convey different subtleties but are semantically close since both words denote processes. Lumières, on the other hand, is more abstract and was often used interchangeably with les philosophes. Many metaphorical references to light were to be found in eighteenth-century discourse, but neither ‘Enlightenment’ nor its continental equivalents were used to describe the era. In English,

36 V. Ferrone, The Enlightenment: History of an Idea (2010; New Jersey, 2015), pp. xi- xvi. 37 Ibid. p. xvi. 38 S. Grote, “Review-Essay: Religion and Enlightenment,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2014), pp. 141-146. 39 M. Delon (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, Vol I (1997; New York, 2013), pp. xi-xii.

Stewart argues, etymologically related expressions such as ‘this enlightened age’ were severely outnumbered by “semantically similar terms independent of the light metaphor, the best known of which is “The Age of Reason.”40 Enlightenment, explains John Robertson, was mainly a philosophical idea from the beginning (and remained so).41 It was not established as a period label for the eighteenth century until it came under historical scrutinization by the time the nineteenth century had almost come to an end. From the 1920s onwards, syntheses of Enlightenment thought and accounts of its key concepts dominated the scholarly agenda for almost half a century. Unlike Kant’s characterization of Aufklärung, these historical reconstructions presented ‘the Enlightenment’ (with the definite article) as a unified phenomenon, primarily associated with French and German thinkers. Such interpretations remained in vogue, even when Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno linked modernity’s totalitarianism with the Enlightenment during their years in exile.42 Two of the most influential writers to provide such synthetic interpretations of Enlightenment ideas radiating from Germany and France were Ernst Cassirer and Paul Hazard. To revise the derogatory Romantic verdict of the “shallow Enlightenment,” Cassirer offered a sympathetic history of Enlightenment philosophy. In his seminal Die philosophie der Aufklärung (1932) he emphasizes that the Enlightenment had to be presented in the light of the unity of its underlying principle rather than its manifestations and results.43 During the eighteenth century, Cassirer observes, philosophy liberated itself by breaking down the older form of philosophical knowledge, i.e., metaphysical systems. No longer confined within the limits of a systematic doctrinal structure, philosophy becomes the universal atmosphere of all intellectual activity. The true nature of Enlightenment thinking cannot be seen as a formulated set of axioms and theorems. It is a process which involves all active intellectual forces in daily life. With regard to reason he writes:

Here again is evident a characteristic change of meaning in the concept of reason as compared with seventeenth century usage. In the great

40 Ibid. p. xi. 41 J. Robertson, The Enlightenment: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2015), pp. 2-3. 42 M. Horkheimer, T. Adorno, Dialektik der Aufklarung: Philosophische Fragmente (Amsterdam, 1947). 43 E. Cassirer, Philosophy of the Enlightenment (1932; Princeton, 1951), p. v.

metaphysical systems of that century—those of Descartes and Malebranche, of Spinoza and Leibniz—reason is the realm of “eternal verities,” of those truths held in common by the human and the divine mind. … The eighteenth century takes reason in a different and more modest sense. … It is not the treasury of the mind in which the truth like a minted coins lies stored; it is rather the original intellectual force which guides the discovery and determination of truth. This determination is the seed and indispensible presupposition of all real certainty. The whole eighteenth century understands reason in this sense; not as a sound body of knowledge, principles and truths, but as a kind of energy, a force which is fully comprehensible in its agency and effects.44

One general characterization of the Enlightenment Cassirer refutes is the view that it was an irreligious era. It was not the rejection of belief but the new form of faith it proclaimed that counted as one of the most important positive achievements of the time.45 Via Bayle, Diderot, English Deism, and Kant, Cassirer traces the pleas for religious tolerance and the joint fight of knowledge and faith against their common enemy: superstition. The struggle for the “freedom of an all-comprehensive, a truly universal awareness of God” was, especially for Bayle, intended to establish a universal goal and represent a principle which would be equally binding for every form of belief.46 The theoretical principle of freedom of faith and conscience brought about a positive religious force which, eventually, became the new and unique characterization of the Enlightenment epoch. This new religious awareness, according to Cassirer, could only be attained by a complete change in religious aims and sentiment. “Henceforth,” he states, “religion is not to be a matter of mere receptivity; it is to originate from, and to be chiefly characterized by, activity. Man is not merely seized and overwhelmed by this activity as by a strange power, but he in turn influences and shapes the activity from within.”47 It might seem paradoxical that the Enlightenment, as a period of pure intellectualism, attempted to emancipate religion from understanding, but the principle of religious certainty excludes, by definition, all differences in religious ideas and concepts produced by the dogmatic system of theology. Such “outside wrappings” reduce belief to a mere

44 Ibid. p. 13. 45 Ibid. p. 135. 46 Ibid. pp.166-167. 47 Ibid. p. 164.

acknowledgment of certain ideas and arguments “and thus deprive it of its real moral and practical force.”48 In his equally classical work, La crise de la conscience européenne, 1680- 1715 (1935), the French literary historian Paul Hazard argued that virtually all ideas which were considered revolutionary by 1760, or even 1789, had already been formulated as early as 1680. In the “unexplored” decades spanning the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth Hazard discerned a crisis in the European mind.49 For Hazard, it was the most important crisis between the Renaissance and the French Revolution. Eventually, the older civilization founded on duty was replaced by a civilization founded on rights. Within this “unsafe, hardly passable zone” the “rationaux” and the “religionnaires,” as Bayle had labelled them, clashed in confrontations over questions of faith, tradition and authority.50 In contrast to Cassirer’s philosophical perspective, Hazard offers a more historical approach. By studying the development of ideas he arrives at the conclusion that it is the intellectual and moral forces that guide and determine life, not the material ones.51 According to Margaret Jacob, Hazard was right to recognize the significance of the Dutch Republic for the maturation of the crisis, but his “Francophone characterization” of the Netherlands focused primarily on its geographical merits.52 “It happened to be,” she avers, “the place where the migration stopped and the English freethinkers first encountered the French Huguenot refugees.”53 True, Hazard’s historiography indeed omits economic and social factors but the thesis he propounded, as Jacob admits, has “admirably withstood the passage of time.”54 Peter Gay’s magisterial two-volume study of the Enlightenment (published in 1966 and 1969)55 was one of the last post-war syntheses in which a single Enlightenment was defined by a coherent programme. It held sway until the next decade, when the appeal of postmodernism began. Historians and philosophers rejected the traditional emphasis on ideas,

48 Ibid. p. 165. 49 P. Hazard, De crisis in het Europese denken, p. 25. 50 Ibid. p. 24. 51 Ibid. p. 27. 52 M. Jacob,”The Crisis of the European Mind: Hazard Revisited,” in: Mededelingen van de Stichting Jacob Campo Weyerman (1984), p. 72. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. p. 65. 55 P. Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 vols. (New York, 1966 and 1969).

challenged the ‘old’ intellectual history on its separation of ideas from context and started to question the premises of what they considered the ‘Enlightenment project.’ Stressing both the discontinuity of history and the redundancy of meta-narratives, leading authors such as Michel Foucault and Robert Darnton no longer viewed the Enlightenment as a unified, monolithic, and secular phenomenon.56 They redirected their investigations towards social contexts and highlighted the different ‘types’ (local, national, confessional etc.) of Enlightenment. However, as has recently been argued, the recoil from postmodernist ‘relativism’ seems inevitable due to postmodernism’s “evident failure to evaluate the Enlightenment intellectual arena fully or correctly.”57

Jonathan Israel and the Radical Enlightenment During the past two decades, Jonathan Israel has forcefully modified the dominant narrative in Enlightenment scholarship. Considering the sheer size of his copious tripartite study,58 it is not surprising that each one of these weighty tomes have been among the most extensively reviewed and discussed works in the genre.59 Rejecting the large body of critical postmodern

56 D. Brewer, The Enlightenment Past: Reconstructing Eighteenth-Century French Thought (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 2-3; J. Robertson, The Enlightenment: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2015), pp. 123-125; J. Kent Wright, “A Bright Clear Mirror: Cassirer’s Philosophy of the Enlightenment,” in: K.M. Baker and P. H. Reill (eds.), What’s Left of Enlightenment? A Postmodern Question (Stanford, 2001), pp. 71-72; W. Clark, J. Golinski and S. Schaffer (eds.), The Sciences in Enlightened Europe (Chicago, 1999), pp. 9-10; D. Outram, The Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1995), p. 4. 57 J. Israel, “Enlightenment: Which Enlightenment?,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2006), pp. 528-530. 58 Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750 (New York, 2001); Idem, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752 (New York, 2006); Idem, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790 (New York, 2011). 59 For instance, Douglas Shantz (“Religion and Spinoza in Jonathan Israel’s Interpretation of the Enlightenment,” in: Religious Minorities and Cultural Diversity in the Dutch Republic) has recently emphasized Israel’s structural neglect of the transformational reform that took place within the religious (mostly Protestant) movements themselves. But the list seems almost endless. See, also, S. Stuurman, op. cit.; M. Jacob, “Spinoza Got It,” in: London Review of Books (2012), pp. 26-27; Idem, “Radical Enlightenment and Freemasonry: Where We Are Now,” in: Philosophica (2013), pp. 13-29; R. Leo, “Caute: Jonathan Israel’s Secular Modernity,” in: Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (2008), pp. 76-83; H. Jürgens, “Contesting Enlightenment Contested. Some questions and remarks for Jonathan Israel,” in: De Achttiende Eeuw (2007), pp. 52-61; J. Stalnaker, “Jonathan Israel in Dialogue,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2016), pp. 637-648; Wolin, R., “Introduction to the

literature, Israel is convinced that contesting methodologies (the French histoire de mentalités, the German Begriffsgeschichte and British contextualism) failed in their attempt to “integrate intellectual history effectively with social, cultural and political history.”60 What is needed to reform intellectual history is an approach that focuses on debates and disputes, for these contribute substantially to our understanding of the interaction between ideas and the (social) context in which they were (and are) worth discussing. Because key concepts are repudiated and/or defended through polemical arguments, such encounters provide more than the intellectual reflections of individual theorists; they are a crucial indicator of what is at stake in society at large. Therefore, by emphasizing the two-way interaction between ideas and society, expressed clearly by shared and disputed concepts, the controversialist approach increases comprehension of major and minor representative issues. The numerous early Enlightenment public controversies, Israel writes, enable us to see “in a reasonably objective light how structures of belief and sensibility in society interact dialectically with the evolution of philosophical ideas.”61 In addition, Israel takes issue with the notion of a plurality of (more or less) national Enlightenments, a notion most famously advocated by Roy Porter, Franco Venturi and John Pocock who introduced the concept of a ‘family of Enlightenments.’62 For Pocock, the Enlightenment “occurred in too many forms to be comprised within a single definition and history.” Therefore, he continues, “we do better to think of a family of Enlightenments, displaying both family resemblances and family quarrels.”63 Although he agrees with Israel that the histories of certain actors have a great deal in common, he is

Symposium on Jonathan Israel’s Democratic Enlightenment,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2016), pp. 615-626. 60 Israel, Enlightenment Contested, pp. 15-23. 61 Ibid. p. 26. 62 J. Israel, “J. G. A. Pocock and the ‘Language of Enlightenment’ in his Barbarism and Religion,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2016), pp. 107-127; Idem, Enlightenment Contested, pp. 16-20, 863-867; Idem, Revolution of the Mind, pp. 18- 20. 63 J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion: The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon 1734- 1764 (Cambridge, 1999), here p. 9. See also, idem, “Enthusiasm: The Antiself of Enlightenment,” in: Huntington Library Quarterly (1997), pp. 7-28; Idem, “Historiography and Enlightenment: A View of their History,” in: Modern Intellectual History (2008), pp. 83–96; Idem, “Response and Commentary,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2016), pp. 157-171.

convinced that the narratives to which they gave rise do not display enough generalized characteristics to justify writing a history of ‘the’ Enlightenment.64 Israel, on the other hand, sees modernity as the continuous conflict between the three “irreconcilably opposed intellectual blocs” of the modern West: a mainstream Enlightenment, a radical Enlightenment and a successive counter-Enlightenment.65 The most distinctive feature of his theory is the bifurcation of the Enlightenment into a moderate and a radical wing. The irresolvable essential duality, he argues, was rooted in the metaphysical dichotomy of one-substance doctrine and two-substance dualism.66 Briefly stated, all three of the ideological blocs had to cope with the sweeping measures Descartes’ revolutionary conceptual and interpretive paradigm entailed.67 The Counter-Enlightenment emphasized the traditional authority of theology as the only true guide for human life. The moderate, mainstream position postulated a balance between reason and tradition. Despite its political and cultural preponderance, the Moderate Enlightenment was intellectually unstable, for “all its philosophical recipes for blending theological and traditional categories with the new critical-mathematical rationality proved flawed in practice, not to say highly problematic and shot through with contradiction.”68 Even the ‘great minds’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, such as Rene Descartes, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Nicolas Malebranche, Gottfried Leibniz, Christian Wolff etc. failed in their attempts to merge the new philosophical systems with traditional, religious worldviews.69 By far the most significant Enlightenment was radical because its adherents rigidly rejected any compromise with the past. Instead, they endorsed “a package of basic concepts and values” such as secularization, democracy, tolerance, equality, emancipation, and other hallmarks of modernity.70 Emphasizing that human reason was fundamental for a society based on liberty, equality, and freedom of thought and expression, the radical faction considered Mosaic creation, heavenly commandments, and divine

64 Idem, “Response and Commentary,” pp. 166-167. 65 Israel, Enlightenment Contested, pp. 10-11; 37. 66 J. Israel, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton, 2010), p. 18. 67 Ibid. pp. 5-6. 68 Israel, Enlightenment Contested, p.11. 69 Ibid. pp. 37-38; Idem, Radical Enlightenment, p. 15. 70 Ibid. p. 11; 866.

providence of no importance in everyday life.71 In addition, they dared to progressively challenge the intellectual incompatibility of new discoveries and existing authoritative structures, which so troubled the dualistic thought of mainstream philosophers. “The only kind of philosophy,” Israel avers, “which could (and can) coherently integrate and hold together such far-reaching value condominium in the social, moral and political spheres, as well as in ‘philosophy,’ was the monist, hylozoic systems of the Radical Enlightenment generally labeled ‘Spinozist’ ...”72 In other words, the core values of Western societies today are based on the central principles of the Radical Enlightenment. Postmodernism’s denial of a moral core to the Enlightenment and the claim that all values are equally valid are a “major threat” to those vital aspects of modernity.73 Furthermore, postmodernist philosophers such as Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre discredit the Enlightenment by questioning the credentials of its “principal heroes” (Locke, Newton, Voltaire and Hume). But these thinkers, Israel remarks, were social and moral conservatives who rejected the main line of egalitarian, democratic, and republican thought.74 Spinoza, on the other hand, produced a philosophically coherent and cogent system in which he integrated previous atheistic concepts into an unbroken chain of reasoning.75 This intellectual consistency, according to Israel, was the advantage monist systems always afford.76 Traditional historiography, according to Israel, erred on more than one occasion. First, more emphasis should be placed on the importance of the Early Enlightenment. Like most historians, he concurs with Hazard regarding the introduction of a transitional phase, or prelude, to the Enlightenment, which Hazard described as an intellectual crisis.77 For Israel, however, Hazard’s dating of the onset of this crisis at around 1680 is “unacceptably late.”78 Subsequently, the focus in Enlightenment studies should be directed towards the freethinking intellectual underground that was developing in the Dutch Republic from the middle of the seventeenth century on. It was not Voltaire, Locke, or Newton who were the prime instigators of the Radical

71 Ibid. pp. 11-12; 36-41. 72 Ibid. p. 867. 73 Ibid. pp. 806-808; 868-869. 74 J. Israel, “Enlightenment: Which Enlightenment?,” pp. 528-530. 75 Israel, Radical Enlightenment, pp. 159-174; 230-241. 76 Israel, Enlightenment Contested, p. 40. 77 Ibid. pp. 14-22. 78 Ibid. p. 20. Cf. S. Stuurman, “Pathways to the Enlightenment: From Paul Hazard to Jonathan Israel,” in: History Workshop Journal No. 54 (2002), pp. 227-235.

Enlightenment, but the Dutch philosophical culture headed by men like Franciscus van den Enden, Lodewijk Meyer, and Spinoza. The ‘modern’ values these men endorsed are now being increasingly appreciated as Enlightenment products. Recent research, Israel contends, has improved our knowledge of previously forgotten clandestine texts and unfairly marginalized figures. Regretfully, however, most of the works contributing to this new emerging picture remain ‘hidden’ to those in English-speaking countries, due to the fact that this “revisionist turn” has appeared predominantly in Dutch, Italian, French and German.79 Moreover, as Israel puts it, British and American scholars seem to overemphasize and exaggerate the English or Anglo-American inspiration of modern Enlightenment values. Uncovering their true origins, in contrast to the “Atlantic perspective” in English scholarship, should result in a greater appreciation for the indispensable continental ‘enlightened’ contributions.80 In fact, the first outlines of his binary view of the Enlightenment were formed while summarizing the research of Dutch, French and German scholars.81 “None of these,” he asserts, “contested, or has since, the essential duality characterizing the remarkable early Enlightenment tableau their work so vividly illustrates.”82 From this perspective, Israel might indeed be considered only one (though eminent) representative of an already existing group of Early Enlightenment experts and Spinoza scholars.83

79 Israel, “Enlightenment: Which Enlightenment?,” p. 530. 80 Ibid. pp. 532-533. 81 J. Israel, “A Reply to Four Critics,” in: H-France Forum (2014), pp. 77-97: “I myself contributed little that was original, mostly just summarizing the research of others, principally Dutch and German colleagues to whose work I was (and still am) greatly beholden—Wim Klever, Wiep van Bunge, Manfred Walther, Winfried Schröder, and, later, Michiel Wielema, Wijnand Mijnhardt, and Henri Krop” (p. 77). 82 Ibid. p.77. See also, Israel, “Rousseau, Diderot, and the ‘Radical Enlightenment’: A Reply to Helena Rosenblatt and Joanna Stalnaker,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2016), pp. 649-677; Idem, “Replying to Hanco Jürgens,” in: De Achttiende Eeuw (2007), pp. 61-71. 83 H. Jürgens, “How to Study the History of Change? Enlightenment and the Sixties,” in: De Achttiende Eeuw (2011), p.100.

Historical Background

In the wake of Luther’s revolt, the sola scriptura principle advanced a kind of epistemological subjectivism that was resilient enough to last throughout the (post-)Reformation era. But the subjective certainty of the Reformers was open to many objections. Luther, as Richard Popkin put it, had opened Pandora’s box. The intellectual quarrels over the criterion for religious truth and the search for justification and certainty of these truths eventually fostered a feeling of uncertainty towards all authoritative criteria. With each side (Catholics and Protestants) seeking justification for its own infallible truths while at the same time questioning the Rule of Faith of the other, the post-Reformation world inherited an almost incomprehensible “sceptical crisis.”84 Coincidentally, the quest for certainty coincided in time with a revived interest in the arguments of the ancient sceptics. Especially the rediscovered manuscripts of Sextus Empiricus raised new enthusiasm for Pyrrhonian scepticism, which seemed far more appropriate when dealing with the intellectual crisis brought on by the Reformation than the ‘negative dogmatism’ of the Academic sceptics. Hence, Popkin adds, “the crisis is more aptly described as a crise pyrrhonienne than a crise academicienne.”85 During the course of the seventeenth century, two major philosophies were advanced to counter the sceptical challenge and justify the ‘new science.’ According to Popkin, even Descartes’ metaphysical theology was very much influenced by his desire to overcome the sceptical crisis of the time.86 But the usual presentation of the philosophical battle between Cartesian rationalism and British empiricism seems to omit an important group that responded to the sceptical crisis in a distinctive manner. The attempts of this latter group to “combine elements of empirical and rationalist thought with theosophic speculations and Millenarian interpretations of scripture” grouped them together and set them apart from the other seventeenth-century philosophical traditions. This “Third force,” as Popkin has labelled the group, consisted of people who do not fit well into the framework of Descartes,

84 R. Popkin, The History of Skepticism: From Savaranola to Bayle (Oxford, 2003). See, especially, chapter 1. 85 Ibid., p. xx. According to Wiep van Bunge (De Republiek, Spinoza en de radicale Verlichting, (Brussel, 2010)), no one in the Dutch Republic seems to have been troubled by this Pyrrhonian ‘revival’, which appears to have been a predominantly French affair (p.84). 86 Ibid. pp. 143-147.

Spinoza, Hobbes, and Locke and have therefore been left out of most scholarly research. To comprehend the complete transformation that took place in the seventeenth century, however, the anti-sceptical and millenarian ideas of Joseph Mede, Samuel Hartlib, John Dury, Comenius, the Cambridge Platonists Henry More and Benjamin Whichcote, and other like-minded individuals must be taken seriously and studied accordingly. Although none of the above-mentioned individuals were Dutch, almost all lived in Holland at one time, and/or had connections there. Most historians studying the Dutch Golden Age have concentrated on the first half of the seventeenth century, whereas Dutch Enlightenment specialists tend to focus on the eighteenth century. In line with the general trend in Enlightenment historiography, these experts have also shifted their attention towards the social and cultural elements of the Dutch Enlightenment. For good reasons, however, it seems appropriate to situate the early Dutch Enlightenment around the initial stages of the first stadholderless age, a time when the young, wealthy nation with a high level of literacy and printing possibilities was supplied with an academic/intellectual infrastructure.87 Philosophy came into its own after the Revolt had ended and the newly established universities were among the first academic institutions in Europe to discuss the reception of both Cartesiansim and Newtonianism.88 The Dutch Republic, Wiep van Bunge points out, “only began to produce a distinctive contribution to the European history of ideas during the second half of the seventeenth century.”89 By then, various magazines, pamphlets, and books started to proliferate and intellectual life gained momentum. Notwithstanding the fact that certain books were obviously banned, structural censorship was absent; a characteristic predominantly attributed to the decentralized organization of the Republic’s government. That fragmented political structure is considered to be responsible for another remarkable feature of the United Provinces as well: the exceptional confessional diversity.90 Indeed, the process of ‘confessionalization’,91 as

87 W. van Bunge (ed.), The Early Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic (1650-1750), (Leiden, 2003), pp. 7-9. Cf. W. van Bunge, De Nederlandse Republiek, pp. 32-34. 88 Ibid. pp. 8-9. 89 Ibid. p. 8. 90 W. van Bunge, De Nederlandse Republiek, p. 33. 91 A comprehensive overview of the concept far exceeds the scope of this thesis. For detailed information about the confessionalization paradigm, see, for instance, W.

unfolded by Heinz Schilling and Wolfgang Reinhardt, could not have been enforced from above as it had been in the princely absolutist states surrounding the Dutch provinces. Confessionalization, in the strict sense, required a forceful interaction between state and church, which was absent within the borders of the Low Countries. Instead, Olaf Mörke objects, the peculiar situation should be explained ‘from below.’ Dutch society, he stresses, was “eine lockere Föderation souveräner Provinzen auf der Basis ständischer Regimenter, einem ‘zusammengesetzten Staat’ mit nur schwach entwickelter zentralstaatlicher Gestaltungskompetenz.”92 All sovereign provinces could be held accountable for local turmoil and disorder. The high level of participation and reflexivity from the States-General down to the municipal governments of such a political situation brought about the ensured “Formierung einer disziplinierten Gemeindeorganisation” and not “einer neuzeitlich disziplinierten Untertanengesellschaft”, the latter so crucial for Schilling’s “etatistische Mainstream der Konfessionalisierungsthese.”93 Around 1650, then, the Republic had become the breeding-ground of innovative religious ideas and the obvious place of refuge for persecuted nonconformists. There were, the author of an anonymous pamphlet observed, “as many sects in the country as there were mosquitoes in the summer” (… “daer ‘t land so vol af is als den somer vol mugghen”).94 Within this turbulent religious landscape, the newly arrived Quakers came into conflict with native Collegiants on the question of the inner light. Their differences of opinion quickly deteriorated into serious polemical writings. According to Andrew Fix,

Reinhard, “Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and the Early Modern State. A Reassessment,” in: The Catholic Historical Review, 3 (1989), pp. 383-404; H. Schilling “Confessionalzation: Historical and Scholarly Perspectives of a Comparative and Interdisciplinary Paradigm,” in: J. Headley, H.J. Hillerbrand and A.J. Papalas (eds.), Confessionalization in Europe, 1555-1700: Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 21-35; H. Schilling, “Confessional Europe,” in: T. Brady, H.A. Obermann and J.D. Tracy (eds.), The Handbook of European History, 2 (Leiden, 1995), pp. 641-670; U. Lotz-Heumann, “The Concept of ‘Confessionalization’: A Historiographical Paradigm in Dispute,” in: Memoria y Civilización (2001), pp. 93- 114. 92 O. Mörke, “Die Politische Bedeutung des Konfessionellen im Deutschen Reich und in der Republik der Vereinigten Niederlande. Oder: War die Konfessionalisierung ein ‘Fundamentalvorgang’?” in: R. Asch, H. Duchhardt (eds.) Der Abslutismos: Ein Mythos? Strukturwandel monarchischer Herrschaft in West- und Mitteleuropa (ca. 1550- 1700), (Cologne, 1996), pp. 125-164. 93 Ibid. pp. 145-146. 94 Cited in: S. Zijlstra, Om de ware gemeente, p. 316.

“the bitter quarrel between the two groups … had the effect of pushing some Rijnsburgers still farther down the path to rationalism.”95

The Dutch Collegiants Dutch Collegiantism arose as a counter-movement following the expulsion of liberal Arminian theologians after the Synod of Dordt had ruled in favour of the orthodox Gomarists.96 When Prince Maurice died and was succeeded by his brother Frederick Henry in 1625, the hostile attitude towards the Remonstrants gave way to a more open atmosphere. Although the cities and institutions in the Republic remained divided, the Remonstrant leaders felt they could slowly campaign from exile for their return and readmission.97 Irrespective of whether or not Frederick Henry was more inclined to the Arminian view, during the first years of his stadtholderate he allowed many deported Remonstrant ministers to return. But, with their ministers expelled and their churches confiscated, Remonstrant congregations often met in small, clandestine gatherings to pray and study the Bible together. These get- togethers were called ‘colleges,’ a term that had been in use since the late sixteenth century to describe the informal meetings held by small groups of Protestants who were denied access to - or deliberately refrained from - worship in the ‘public church.’ At first, these assemblies functioned as schools for discussion and religious education through mutual instruction, yet they soon came to represent a movement that spread rapidly throughout the Republic, especially the provinces of Holland and Friesland.98 In the small town of Warmond near Leiden, the Van der Kodde brothers initiated the first of these meetings as a way of dealing with the outcome of the synod. Because of their Arminian heritage, the essential message of the early Collegiants was directed against the doctrinal rigidity of the Reformed church. Basing themselves on I Corinthians 14 in the Bible,

95 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, p. 194. 96 Here I cannot elaborate on the theological discussion between Arminius and Gomarus. For further research on this topic see works by E. Dekker, Rijker dan Midas. Vrijheid, genade en predestinatie in de theologie van Jcobus Arminius (1559- 1609) (Zoetermeer, 1993); and K. Stanglin, Arminius on the Assurance. The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate, 1603-1609 (Leiden, 2007); A. Goudriaan and F. van Lieburg (eds.), Revisiting the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619) (Leiden, 2010). 97 F. Sierhuis, The Literature of the arminian Controversy: Religion, Politics and the Stage in the Dutch Republic (Oxford, 2015), pp. 227-230. 98 W. van Bunge, “Spinoza and the Collegiants,” pp. 52-53.

they emphasized that everyone had the freedom to “prophesy.” “Only during our meetings,” Laurens Klinkhamer confessed, “people from all backgrounds come together in one place for mutual love and education and to hear Scripture being explained. Here, individual capacities are promoted to mutual teachings” (“In dese Vergaderingen alleen word getoont, datmen van verscheidene, in een en de selfe plaats, tot een en het zelve volk, behoudens de Vryheid van Propheteren voor een ygelijk, [...], in onderlinge liefde en stichting, de Schriftuur kan hooren verklaren. Hier worden elkanders gaven opgewekt tot onderlinge stichtinge.”).99 Anti-clerical sentiments fostered a feeling of resentment towards all forms of confessional unity. Embracing the principle of equality actually meant that the non-Reformed and even the un- churched had a ‘podium’ to express their opinions.100 While many Remonstrant ministers were in exile in Antwerp, the Remonstrant Brotherhood was formed and Simon Episcopius, a student of Jacbus Arminius, the former political leader Johannes Wtenbogaert (Uytenbogaert), and Nicolaas Grevinckhoven were chosen as their ‘foreign directorship.’ During one of their meetings, they discussed the need for a confession of faith.101 Episcopius (his original surname was Bisschop, which he later Latinized) composed the Remonstrant Confession in 1620, with Dutch and Latin publications following in 1621-2. Although the document had a non-binding character, resentment arose in Remonstrant congregations themselves, and for Gijsbert van der Kodde in particular, against what they saw as a new doctrinal conservatism of their own churches and prompted many members to doubt their confessional ties.102 Although attempts at reconciliation were made, a rift between Arminians and Collegiants was inevitable. Even after Remonstrant pastors had formally reclaimed their position in Dutch society in 1630, college meetings were held deliberately without the supervision, mediation, or intervention of professional theologians. Valuing the layman’s perspective led, in turn, to an incredible increase in attendance. Since no one was denied access on religious grounds, the movement rapidly expanded and was forced to relocate to a larger facility. The

99 L. Klinkhamer, Losse en quaade Gronden, Van de scheur-kerk: Eeniger, so genaamde, collegianten tot Rhijnsburg (Amsterdam,1686), p. 43. 100 Fix, Prophesy and Reason, pp. 38-40, 162-164. “To avoid any suggestion of clerical authority, no podium was used” (p. 40). 101 M. A. Ellis, The Arminian Confession of 1621 (Eugene, 2005), pp. iix-ix. 102 Fix, Prophecy and Reason. pp. 43-44.

new center in the neighboring town of Rijnsburg earned them their nickname (Rijnsburgers), which remained in use even after a multitude of colleges had been established throughout the country.103 Between 1630 and 1685 colleges sprang up in Utrecht, Haarlem, Hoorn, Leiden, Leeuwarden, Harlingen, Groningen, Heerenveen, and many other towns and villages. As early as 1630, the Remonstrant pastors Peter Cupus and Samuel Lansbergen founded one of the most important colleges in Holland: the one in Rotterdam. Relatively late, in 1646, Daniel de Breen and Adam Boreel set up the first college in Amsterdam. Boreel was a disciple of the spiritualist Dirck Volckertsz. Coornhert, through whose works he became acquainted with the writings of Sebastian Franck. His main work, Ad legem et ad testimonium (1644), was rife with references to the spiritual notion of direct inspiration from God and the corruption of the Christian churches since the beginnings of Christianity. De Breen, a former secretary to Simon Episcopius, disagreed with his teacher on the necessity of drawing up the Confession and started to move away from Remonstrant sentiments.104 He became an advocate of Collegiant ideas, upholding the belief that all confessions, doctrines and creeds are impediments to the coming of the Millennium. The spiritualistic and chiliastic sympathies he harbored make de Breen particularly well suited for Popkin’s category of the Third Force.105 Whereas both De Breen and Boreel preferred to remain in the background of public affairs, in the early 1650s the Amsterdam college fell under the inspired leadership of one of its most prominent members: Galenus Abrahamsz., nicknamed “de Haan.”

According to Fix, it was Galenus who “stood at the intersection of two important streams of spiritualistic thought feeding into Dutch religious life”106 Through Boreel, he had become acquainted with the ideas about the

103 Ín his Aanmerkingen over het verhaal van het eerste Begin en Opkomen der Rynsburgers, the first historian among the Collegiants, Joachim Oudaen, wrote in 1672 that their adversaries initially referred to the Rijnsburgers as “the new sect of prophets.” 104 J. Trapman, “Erasmus Seen by a Dutch Collegiant: Daniel de Breen (1594-1664) and his posthumous Compendium Theologiae Erasmicae (1677),” in: Nederlands archief voor kerkgeschiedenis (1993), pp. 156-177. Cf. Fix, Prophecy and Reason, pp. 67-72. 105 A. Fix, “Dutch Millenarianism and the Role of Reason: Daniel de Breen and Joachim Oudaen,” in: C. Laursen and R. Popkin (eds.), Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture: Continental Millenarians: Protestants, Catholics, Heretics, (Dordrecht, 2001), 49-55. 106 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, p. 190.

corruption of the Christian churches first defended by Sebastian Franck and Kaspar Schwenckfeld. Boreel had modeled many of his spiritualist conceptions on the ideas of the Dutch humanist Dirck Volckertsz. Coornhert, a disciple of Franck and Schwenckfeld, and passed them on to Galenus. Like his mentors, Coornhert had stressed the need for a personal experience of the divine, which Franck had called the inner light of Truth. This divine ‘spark,’ Schwenckfeld believed, was a gift from the Holy Spirit and must therefore be strictly separated from human reason. Eventually, by “closing the gap” between the inner light and human reason, some Collegiants took a decisive step in the intellectual transformation of their thought from spiritualism to rationalism.107 At the same time, Galenus inherited the spiritualistic tendencies which had penetrated the Anabaptist movement over the years. In the sixteenth century, diverging ideas in the writings of the early Anabaptist leaders Melchior Hoffman, Hans de Ries, David Joris, Menno Simons and others resulted in various schisms.108 Obviously, some denominations favoured a liberal approach more than others. David Joris, in particular, stressed that true religion was internal. His ideas about the personal guidance by the Holy Spirit survived the many internal quarrels and had a significant impact on Galenus’ own Mennonite congregation. Due to the great influence he had in the Collegiant movement, Galenus was able to make the doctrine of church decay a standard component in Collegiant thought as well.109 Meanwhile, Galenus became a key figure in the disputes that took place in the Flemish congregation of the Amsterdam Mennonites. Since the early 1650s, internal conflicts had stirred up some fierce debates concerning a liberal or more rigid appropriation of Mennonite confessions. Galenus increasingly embraced a more liberal stance. Under the influence of Collegiant friends, he avowed that dogmatic rigidity, sanctification, and

107 Ibid. p. 188. According to Fix, men like Pieter Balling and Jarich Jelles were Collegiants who, under the influence of Socinianism and Cartesianism, were among the first to move from spiritualism towards rationalism. Ruben Buys (Sparks of Reason: Vernacular Rationalism in the Low Countries 1550-1670, Hilversum, 2015) recently emphasized: “Good-Thinkers had already established this equalisation of the Spiritualistic concept of our inner light and reason a century before” (p. 231). 108 Steven Blaupot ten Cate (Geschiedenis der Doopsgezinden in Friesland: van derzelver ontstaan tot dezen tĳd, uit oorspronkelĳke stukken en echte berigten opgemaakt, Leeuwarden, 1839, note 96, pp. 112-113) cites A. Montanus’ list of “no less than thirty-eight sects, or rather designations, among Dutch Mennonites.” Cf. Zijlstra, Om de ware gemeente, pp. 270-315. 109 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, pp. 86-87.

baptism had no place in religion. True religion was purely spiritual, and even the visible church had only one function: to encourage ethical behavior.110 For Galenus’ conservative opponents, the crucial points in the controversy were his association with the “Socinian” Collegiants and his refusal of the confessions altogether. Bitterness arose and the debates became so intense that even the reformed, Lutherans and Catholics were drawn to the sensational meetings in the Lamist Mennonite church. With reference to the brewery next door, called “the lamb” (‘t lam) the Flemish congregation had called their clandestine church “Near the lamb” (Bij ‘t lam). After a pamphlet which appeared during the controversy under the title Lammerenkrijgh, the conflict came to be known as the “war of the lambs.”111 In 1657 Galenus and David Spruyt wrote their XIX Artikelen (XIX Articles),112 which, instead of clarifying matters, instigated, as I will discuss below, a new wave of critique.

While the first colleges were largely made up of former Remonstrants, the movement soon started to attract many of its members from the Radical Reformation branch.113 Most of them belonged to one of the many Mennonite denominations, but individual spiritualist, Socinians, Quakers, chiliasts and others all found their way to the meeting places of the Collegiants. Like the Arminians, those in the Radical Reformation movement were convinced that the Magisterial Reformation of Luther and Calvin had failed and that a further, or second Reformation was needed. But, whereas the spiritualist and Mennonite ideas of a non-confessional, subjective experience of religion encountered a receptive audience, the authorities were considerably more disturbed by the conspicuousness with which the Socinians, “those most dreaded of heretics,” frequented the meetings.114 Fix emphasizes that it was the tolerant attitude with which the Rijnsburgers attended their gatherings that made them the nesting ground for modern, secular thought. From the start, these ‘free-speech assemblies’

110 Ibid. p. 413. 111 On the “War of the Lambs” see: Zijlstra, Om de ware gemeente, pp. 417-421; Meihuizen, Galenus Abrahamsz., pp. 54-58; 82-83; Fix, Prophecy and Reason, pp. 104-105; 190-191. 112 Bedenckingen over Den toestant der Sichtbare Kercke Christi op aerden, Kortelijck in 19 Artikelen voor-ghestelt: en aen onse Mede-dienaren, op den 11 Ianuarij 1657, schriftelijk over-ghelevert. 113 R. Emmet McLaughlin, “Radicals,” in: D. Whitford (ed.), Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research (Kirksville, 2008), pp. 80-120. 114 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, pp. 45.

advanced an open-mindedness which stimulated, in turn, a constant discussion and reassessment of religious ideas and theories. Until the middle of the seventeenth century, the Collegiants combined a unique, eclectic accumulation of Spiritual, Mennonite and Socinian tendencies with their inherited Arminian criticism of ecclesiastical authority and doctrinal rigidity. From the 1660s onwards, far more emphasis was placed on the possibilities of the subjective mind to gain religious knowledge. Unfulfilled millenarian expectations and increasing confidence in human abilities gradually ‘liberated’ the conscience from divine attachment and became powerful forces for secularizing ideas. From this intellectual transformation, portrayed by the transformation of the metaphor of inner light from ‘revealed Light’ bestowed from above to ‘rational light’ innate to human beings, many Collegiants eventually developed a secular worldview based on human reason.115 “One of the most important events for the secularization of Collegiant thought,” Fix asserts, “was the Rijnsburgers’ contact with the English Quakers.”116

Early Quakers in Holland The movement known in history as Quakerism, or Religious Society of Friends (often abbreviated to Friends) was part of a much wider religious one.117 In 1647, George Fox, a man of humble origins from Leicestershire who made his living by polishing shoes and sheering sheep, came to the conclusion that the only true guide in life must be the indwelling Spirit of God. He considered dogma, educated theologians, and even the Bible to be of no importance. After serious contemplation and the extensive study of Holy Scripture Fox started to propagate the idea that something divine is present in the human soul. This “Spirit of God, which is in all of us,” he referred to as the Inward Light, the Light of God, God’s Light within etc. It would not take long before he started to preach his message from town to town and village to village where he attracted a lot of attention. In the beginning, small groups of Friends (the name “Children of the Light” soon became obsolete118) held their

115 Ibid. p. 255. 116 Ibid. p. 194. 117 For a detailed history of Quakerism, see, W. C. Braithwaite and R. Jones, The Beginnings of Quakerism (London, 1912). 118 J. Kannegieter, Geschiedenis van de vroegere Quakergemeenschap te Amsterdam: 1656 tot begin negentiende eeuw (Amsterdam, 1971), p. 4.

meetings in silence until someone felt inspired to speak. The essential teaching of the inner light was well-received and they found considerable support among the many non-conformist sects like the Ranters, Seekers, Levellers, Brownists etc. scattered throughout the Commonwealth. Not unlike other Radical Reformation groups in England and on the continent, Quakers emphasized the corruption of institutionalized religion and sought to reform Christian life from within. Therefore, it was not surprising that they soon turned their attention to the European mainland. The nearest ‘mission’ field outside the British Isles was Holland, where, Quaker historian William Hull states, “all the seeds of the Protestant world found a congenial soil.”119 The first Quaker missionaries came to the Dutch Republic in the middle of the 1650s. In 1655, four young Quaker women travelled overseas to start their mission but apparently caused more of a disturbance than gained support. Later that same year, John Stubbs and the young William Caton arrived in Zeeland and were the first Quakers in Vlissingen and Middelburg. It would not be until the spring of 1656 that William Ames came to Holland, proclaiming his message in and around Amsterdam. A year later, Ames returned with Humble Thatcher and stayed until he was banished and forced to leave the city. Although this time Ames had managed to win over a former Mennonite couple to join him this time, the fruits of his labor were meagre once more.120 Of these first converts, Judith Zinspenninck and her husband Jacob Willemsz. Sewel, parents of the first “genuine author of the history early Friends “ Willem Sewel of Amsterdam121, welcomed the Quaker message, and Judith in particular became one of the chief ministers of the Dutch Friends in the early years of the movement. In his attempts to convert almost anyone, it was this William Ames who reached out to an unnamed Jew in order to translate Margaret Fell’s For Mannasseth Ben Israel. The Call of the Jewes out of Babylon. In a letter to Fell, the “mother of the Quakers” and later wife of their founding father George

119 W. I. Hull, The Rise of Quakerism in Amsterdam 1655-1665 (Philadelphia, 1938), p. 1. 120 According to Kannegieter (Geschiedenis van de vroege Quakergemeenschap, p. 6), even in their heyday Quaker numbers in the Dutch Republic never reached over one hundred. Braithwaite (The Beginnings of Quakerism) disagrees: “The visit was not fruitless.” Two pages further he explains: “The Quaker influence in Holland is not to be measured by the number of persons who definitely associated themselves officially in Quaker groups” (p. 409). 121 On Willem Sewel, see W. Hull, Willem Sewel of Amsterdam 1653-1720. The first Quaker Historian of Quakerism (Philadelphia, 1933).

Fox, Ames writes that he had spoken to a “Jew at Amsterdam who by the Jews is cast out (as he himself and other sayeth) because he owneth no other teacher but the light […].”122 In addition, this Jew had willingly accepted Ames’ invitation to visit one of the Quaker meetings. It has been suggested that this unnamed Jew was Baruch de Spinoza.123 Following the ‘herem’ and Spinoza’s subsequent expulsion from the Talmud Tora congregation in 1656, his coterie of friends existed primarily of Collegiants. The generally accepted view that it was Pieter Serrarius, the Collegiant chiliast and friend of Menassah ben Israel, who introduced Ames to Spinoza, seems difficult to controvert.124 Acknowledging the fact that most Quaker historians before him were “fairly sure” it was indeed Spinoza, Richard Popkin has most forcefully demonstrated this connection between Quakers and Spinoza.125 According to Popkin, by the time Ames wrote his letter, in 1657, three others, besides Spinoza, had been excommunicated from the Jewish community for their ideological views. Of these, Uriel da Costa had committed suicide some ten to fifteen years before. Juan de Prado and Daniel Ribiera were either not yet officially banned and in the process of reconciliation with the synagogue, or had left Amsterdam by then. This leaves Spinoza, for Popkin, as the most likely ‘candidate’ for the translation of Quaker works in Hebrew. In the end, the Mennonites and Collegiants supplied most of the recruits for the Quaker movement, although the first to show interest were “whimsical people, more inclined to novelties than to true godliness.”126 Ames especially went to Collegiant meetings in order to dispute with the attendees in the hope of winning them over for the Quaker cause. At first, by stressing the similarities between both groups, his preaching attracted attention from Galenus Abrahamsz. and some of his Collegiant adherents in a positive way.

122 W. Ames to M. Fell, quoted in Hull, The Rise of Quakerism, p. 205. 123 Wim Klever (“Spinoza and van den Enden in Borch’s Diary in 1661 and 1662,” in: Studia Spinozana (1989)) objects that the journal of the Danish physician Olaus Borch, who travelled across Europe from 1660-1665 and sojourned in Holland where he encountered the Quakers, “contains statements which definitely unsettle Popkin’s hypothesis.” From what Borch wrote in his Diary we learn “that Popkin’s ‘Jew’ is not Spinoza but a certain Wilhelmus” (p. 323). 124 E. van der Wall, Petrus Serrarius, pp. 216-217; R. Popkin, Third Force, p. 123. In The sceptical mode in Modern Philosophy, Popkin even states “Ames was living in Serrarius’ house at the time” (p. 140). 125 R. Popkin, Third Force, pp. 120-134. Hull, for instance, writes about “this supposititious Spinoza” (The Rise of Quakerism, p. 205). 126 W. Sewel quoted in: W. C. Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism, p. 408.

On 24 August 1660 Quakers and Collegiants came together for a meeting in the house of Pieter Serrarius to discuss matters. On the side of the Quakers William Ames and John Higgins were present. Adam Boreel, Galenus Abrahamsz. and, of course, Pieter Serrarius represented the Collegiants.127 During the meeting, Higgins read Eenige waerdige en gewichtige aenmerckingen voor Galenus Abrahamsz. ende Adam Boreel, ende haere aenhangers (Some worthy and weighty remarks for Galenus Abrahamsz. and Adam Boreel, and their adherents), in which he attacked the Collegiant leaders. According to Fix, the heated argument that followed led to a protracted pamphlet war and, eventually, the final break between the two groups.128 It was not Galenus but his ardent supporter Serrarius who responded in writing with Een antwoord op eenighe aenmerckingen (An answer to some remarks). This, in turn, was answered by Ames who included the reply in his Het Ligt dat in de duisternisse schijnt/ beweesen den Weg tot God te sijn (The Light that shines in the darkness, proven to be the Way to God).129

127 According to Zijlstra (Om de ware gemeente, note 9, pp. 404-405) Serrarius was a minor figure (randfiguur) in the Collegiant movement. 128 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, p. 196. 129 Van der Wall, Petrus Serrarius, pp. 221-222; Fix, Prophecy and Reason, p. 196.

The “Pamphlet War”

There does not seem to be a lot of consensus about the sequence of “the pamphlet war.” According to William Hull, who provides the most comprehensive overview,130 it began with the XIX Artikelen of Galenus and Spruyt.131 Article 16, in particular, reflects on Quakerism, which inspired Ames to write Het Ligt dat in de duisternisse schijnt. After Galenus had replied, asking Drie vraegen, tot diegenen die Quakers genaemt sijn (Three Questions, to those who are called Quakers), he stepped out of the contest. Ames, however, responded and continued to be involved in the polemic until his death in 1662. After Ames’ Antwoord op drie vragen een (An Answer to three questions), Hull lists another twenty or more pamphlets written and argues that the entire debate “continued to be the subject of controversy in print … as late as 1676.”132 Ernestine van der Wall states that the written polemic began when Serrarius published Een antwoort op 23 vragen (An answer to 23 questions), in which he replied to Ames. Although this tract has been lost Ames included it in his Wederlegginge (Refutation) together with his initial questions. After Serrarius had answered Higgins’ Eenige aenmerckingen, Ames published his Het Ligt. Van der Wall further adds Serrarius’ Van den waere wegh tot God (The true way to God), which inspired Ames to write his Het ware licht beschermt (The true light defended).133 For Fix, this was the tract that instigated the pamphlet war, and to which Galenus replied with Drie Vragen (Three questions). Then, he states, Ames wrote De Verborgenheden van het Rijcke Gods (The Mysteries of the Kingdom of God). Subsequently, there followed a series of three pamphlets by Pieter Serrarius; De ware weg tot God (The true way to God), 23 Vragen aen William James en John Higgins (23 Questions to William Ames and John Higgins), and Een Antwoordt op eenige aenmerckingen door John Higgins (An answer to some remarks by John Higgins). Finally, he adds, Pieter Balling wrote his important Het licht op den kandelaar, the much-discussed

130 W. Hull, The Rise of Quakerism, pp. 232-236. 131 Included in: Nader Verklaringe van de XIX. Artikelen, Voor dezen Door G. Abrahamsz. ende D. Spruyt aen hare Mede-dienaren over-ghegeven: Dienende tot Wederlegginge van ’t Geschrift, genaemt: Antwoorde by forme van aenmerckingen, vragen, ende redenen, &c. (Amsterdam, 1659). 132 Hull, The Rise of Quakerism, p. 235. 133 Van der Wall, Petrus Serrarius, pp.221-223.

“intermediate work” which “gives the reader a rare glance into the anatomy of intellectual transition.”134

To analyse each of the tracts in the “pamphlet war” would be a daunting task, beyond the scope of this thesis. As stated above, both Adriaan Koerbagh’s Een Ligt schijnende in Duystere plaatsen (A Light Shining in Dark Places) and Ames’ De Verborgentheden van het Rijcke Gods (The Mysteries of God’s Kingdom) have recently been translated to make them better known and more accessible to readers outside the Netherlands.135 Whereas Koerbagh wrote his treatise in 1668, Ames completed his in 1661, in the midst of the controversy, but still after the publication of Het Ligt dat in de duisternisse schijnt. These tracts will, however, not be compared here. Aside from time difference, and Koerbagh writing after Ames had already passed away, Koerbagh seems not to have directed his attention towards the Quakers. They are mentioned only once in a paragraph where they are called “simple and foolish people” (eenvoudige, onnoosele luyden) and Adriaan admits that he does not even know wheteher they believe in the Trinity or not.136 The aim here will be to break through the language barrier and contribute to a further understanding of the arguments used in the seventeenth-century dabate between Quakers and Collegiants, two seemingly identical branches of Second Reformation. From the time of the clash between the two groups in Serrarius’ house in 1657 until his death Ames became a prolific writer. Het Ligt dat in de duisternisse schijnt actually consists of six refutations and an additional list of 31 questions for the Collegiants to answer. As a collection of refutations in which the views of his opponents are also presented, it is almost a polemic in itself. Regretfully, the titles in the contents and those in the text do not entirely correspond and they do not run chronologically. As such, Ames’ work sheds little light on the sequence. However, it is an important part of the dispute between Quakers and Collegiants, which, according to Fix, was so crucial for the development of the secularizing trend in Collegiant thought. Therefore, I have chosen to transcribe and translate those texts that provoked the first storm of protest.

134 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, p. 197; 205. Interestingly, William Hull does not include Balling’s Het licht op den kandelaar in the pamphlet war, but, instead, treats it separately, (The Rise of Quakerism, pp. 214-216). 135 See note 28 and 29. 136 M. Wielema, Adriaan Koerbagh, p. 245.

Since I have not been able to trace an English edition of Galenus XIX Artikelen, a translation of the sixteenth article, which was the prime target of Ames’ first attack, will also be submitted below. The passages I have selected clearly show the ferocious tone in the intial stage of the debate. They are crucial for a full understanding of what was at stake in the “pamplet war”, as well as for the mammoth undertaking of transcribing and translating all the works in Het Ligt.

Aside from the diffculty of interpreting seventeent-century language in general, the texts are all written in a small gothic font. I have deliberately refrained myself from ‘translating’ it into modern Dutch, because this would, in my opinion, add a new problem. Therefore I have kept the slashes present in the original. In the English tranlation, to improve readability, they are left out and (often) replaced by a comma. The Dutch texts will be between quotation marks and the English is in cursive script. Finally, it is important to keep in mind that there were no formal writing conventions in the seventeenth century. This means that in the same word could be spelled differently in one sentence, and letters were used that are no longer in existence. For instance, early Modern (Dutch) writing made use of what is known as a ‘long s’, a letter pronounced as a lower-case ‘s’ but in print resembles an ‘f’. Here I have replaced those with a lower-case ‘s’. I will start with an overview of the contents, followed by Ames’ preface. Next, a transcription of the important sixteenth article written by Galenus and David Spruyt and Ames’ reply will be provided. Ames’ answers to Galenus’ Three questions complete my contribution. Finally, I will return to the discussion of Pieter Balling’s Het licht op den kandelaar, which is regarded as representing the transition “from faith to reason” in Collegiant thought.

(1) W. Ames, Het Ligt dat in de duisternisse schijnt/ beweesen den Weg tot God te Sijn137

- Een wederlegginge op een Antwoort op eenige Aanmerkingen/ die uytgegeven waeren door J. Higgins, maer beantwoort waeren door Petrus Serarius - Een Antwoord op iets in de eerste ende tweede Pagina, van een Boek genaemt De Vertredinge des Heyligen Stads, uitgegeven door den geseiden Serrarius - Een Antwoord op de sestiende gedrukte Artijkel/ uitgegeven door Galenus Abrahamsz ende David Spruyt, tot haer Mededienaers - Een Antwoord op drie Vragen/ uitgegeven door Galenus Abrahamsz, tot diegene die Quakers genaemt sijn - Een Antwoord op een brief door Willem Gerritsz uitgegeven - Eenige Vraegen: uit-gegeven aen de Mennisten ende Collegianten, om te beantwoorden

“Aen den leser. Leser, in dese volgende verhandeling, indien gy die onpartijdelijk leest, moogt gy sien ende ook gevoelig sijn van de verwarringe, ende dien logenagtigen geest, die de heerschappye heeft over soodanige die den Geest Gods niet en kennen om haer te leiden, om dat sy niet in het Ligt gelooven, daer sij mede verligt sijn, waer in sy magt daer tegens konden ontfangen. Daerom neemt agt op het ligt daer gy mede verligt sijt, op dat gy ook niet gevonden wort onder de heerschappy van dien geest der dwalinge, waer door sij geregeert sijn, die niet in het Ligt gelooven, welke yder mensche verligt die in de werelt komt; ende daerom sijn sy niet bestiert door den Geest Gods; want een ygelijk die den Geest Christi niet en heeft, hoort hem niet toe, daerom is hy onder de magt des Duivels, dewelk dien geest der dwaelinge is, dewelke de menschen leidt om loogens ende verwarringe te spreeken van den weg Gods, ende

137 W. Ames, Het Ligt dat in de duisternisse schijnt/ beweesen den Weg tot God te sijn (Amsterdam, 1660). I have used the copy (OTM: Pfl. G e 24) in the library from the University of Amsterdam (Special Collections).

evenwel belijden sy God; ende soo hoopen sy verderf op voor haer selven. Ende dese Mannen die ik hier geantwoort hebbe, sijn in uitwendigen schijn, geen kleine Christenen; ende daerom sijn sy by sommige (die slegt sijn) in groote agtinge; maer haer fondament ondersogt sijnde, uit hare eige belijdinge, soo sijn sy bevonden te sijn sonder den Geest Christi, ende dat sy alsoo hem niet toehooren; Daerom is het niet veilig een mensche te volgen in wat schijn hij ook mag komen, sonder de waeragtige gevoelinge van Gods Geest van binnen, om daer door geleidt te worden in volle verseekertheit van den wille Gods.” W.A.

(1) W. Ames, The Light that shines in the darkness, proven to be the Way to God

- A Refutation of An Answer to Some Remarks, that were written by John Higgins, but answered by Petrus Serarius. - An Answer to something on the first and second page, of a book called The Destruction of the Holy City, published by Petrus Serarius. - An Answer to the printed Sixteenth Article, published by Galenus Abrahamsz and David Spruyt, for their fellow servants. - An Answer to three Questions, published by Galenus Abrahamsz. to those who are called Quakers. - An Answer to a letter published by Willem Gerritsz. - Some Questions, for the Mennonites and the Collegiants, to answer.

To the reader. Reader, in this next treatise, if you read it impartially, you will see and become sensitive to the confusions, and the lying spirit, the dominion has over those that do not posess the Spirit of God to guide them, because they do not believe in the Light, from which they are enlightened, in which they have received power. Therefore, observe the light that enlightens you, so that you will not be found under the dominion of the spirit of digression, which rules those, who do not believe in the Light, which enlightens everyone that comes into the world; and therefore they are not guided by the Spirit of God; for anyone who who does not posess the Spirit of Christ, does not belong to him, and that is why he is under the influence of the Devil, which is the spirit of digression, and teaches people to spread lies and confusion about the way to God, but they do confess God; and this way they corrupt themselves. And these Men that I have ansewered here, are sincere Christians in their outward appearance, and therefore they are regarde highly among some (who are evil), but after examination of their foundation, taken from their own confessions, they seem to be without the spirit of Christ, and thus do not belong to him. Therefore it is not safe to follow a person in whatever appearance they might come, without the genuine feeling of God’s Spirit within, to guide you in full assurance of God’s will. W.A.

(2) G. Abrahamsz. en D. Spruyt, 19 Artikelen

(Artikel XVI) “Nadien ‘t dan/ seggen wij sluitelijck/ met dese saeck/ en den toestant der hedensdaeghse Kercken, en onder dese oock met den toestant van die Ghemeente, waer wy tegenwoordigh nu noch onder sorteeren/ aldus/ als boven gemeldt is/ state en gheleghen is; soo segghen wy (alles alvooren in de vreese des levendighen Godts overwoghen hebbende/ en nu nog gheneghen zijnde verder te overweghen.) Dat wy de oprechtinge, en instellinge, van dese onse hedendaeghse Gemeente, (onder welcke wy tot hier toe met merckelijcke bekommeringhe den naem van Leeraars hebben ghedragen.) Hooger niet en konnen aenmercken: als een werck/ ‘t welck nae ‘t beste goet-vinden van goedt-meenende menschen gedaen sijnde/ niet en rust op eenigh expres Gebodt/ ofte Exempel, in de Schriften des Nieuwen Testaments, desen aengaende vervaet; nochte oock op eenighe extra-ordinaire authoriteyt, last, ofte commissie, hier toe van Christo de Heere selfs verleent, ofte eenighe andere volle verseekertheydt van Godes wil: maer alleen op een bloot vertrouwen/ en tot noch toe onversekerde hoop/ van dat het den grooten Huys-vader soude mogen behaghen; en dat Hy ‘t/ nae sijn grondeloose goedertierentheydt/ voor soo veel ‘t uyt goede meening geschiedt is/ gunstelijck soude moghen aensien. Ghemerckt Godt de Heere geen onbetwijffelijck mede-ghetuyghenisse, tot hier toe/ over dit werck ghegheven heeft; hoedanigh Hy genadelijck met de eenighe eerste Kercke, boven meermaels gemeldt/ ghehandelt heeft. Als Hebr. C.2.v. *4 te sien is.”138

138 G. Abrahamsz. and D. Spruit, XIX Artikelen, pp. 6-7.

(2) G. Abrahamsz. and D. Spruyt, 19 Articles

(Article XVI) If it is, with this matter, we say in conclusion, and the condition of the present- day Churches, and also with the condition of the congregation to which we nowadays belong, as stated above, then we say (after having considered everything in fear of the living God, and still inclined toward further consideration) that we cannot regard the establishment, and regulations, of our congregation (among whom we have been Teachers with considerable concern) higher: than a work, having been done with approval and the best intentions by people, which does not rest upon any Commandment, or Example, contained in the New Testament, as far as this is concerned, nor on any extra-ordinary authority, order, or Commission, granted by Christ the Lord himself, or any other full assurance of God’s will: but solely on a mere confidence, and uncertain hope until now, that it would please the great Father; and that He, in his unfathomable mercy, in as far as it has been done with good intentions, would regard it favorable. Considering that God the Lord has not given an indisputable testimony, about this work, the way has done so gracious with the first Church, as stated several times above. As can be seen in Hebr. C.2. v. *4.

(3) W. Ames, Een Antwoord op de sestiende gedrukte Artijkel/ uitgegeven door Galenus Abrahamsz ende David Spruyt, tot haer Mededienaers

1. “Gij segt in uwe sestiende Artijkel/ (Dat uwe Gemeinte) niet en rust op eenig expres Gebod, ofte Exempel, in de Schriften des Nieuwen Testaments, desen aengaende vervat; nogte ook op eenige extraordinaire authoriteyt, last, ofte commisssie, hier toe van Christo de Heere self’s verleent; ofte eenige andere volle verseekertheydt van Godes wil; maer alleen op een blood vertrouwen, ende tot nog toe onverseekerde hoop, &c.

2. Antwoort. Eilaes voor u! wat een Gemeinte is dit/ die niet en rust op eenig Gebod/ nogte eenig Exempel in de Schriften des Nieuwen Testaments/ nogte op eenige extraordinaire authoriteit, last, ofte commissie/ Eilaes arme menschen! Ik geloove u; maer sijt giy niet by een vergadert/ maer niet voor den Heere/ ende bedekt met een bedekkinge/ maer niet van des Heeren Geest/ ende loopende als de Heere u noit fond: Ende in uwen blinden yver uytroepende tot het volk/ wagt u dan verleit te worden; Eilaes voor u! wat hebt gy om van verleit te worden? Naedemael gy den Geest Gods niet en hebt om u te leiden ende geen Gebod/ nogte Exempel voor wat gy doe; sijt gy niet blinde Leiders der Blinde/ die sonder den Geest Gods sijt? Want was het/ dat de Geest Christi in u woonde/ soo waert onmogelijck/ dat ghy beide sonder Gebod/ ofte Exempel/ ofte Authoriteit/ Last/ ofte Commissie sijn soude/; om God te dienen; ende op hoedanige wijse gy hem dienen soude/ ende sonder een vaste hope/ ende een volle verseeckertheit van de wille Godes/ gelijk gy segt dat gy sijt; want de geest ondersoekt alle dingen/ jae de diepten Godes/ I Cor: 2.10. Dat hebt gy om van verleit te worden als uwe blindheit Hoe kan het waerlijk andersins sijn/ of gy moet noodsaekelijk sijn sonder een volle verseekertheit van Godes wille/ dewelke sulk een bouwinge opgeset hebt/ ende God aenbid in sulken Gedaente/ voor dewelke geen Gebod/ Commissie/ nogte Exempel is? Is sulken aenbiddinge niet heidens? Ende sal de Here niet tot u seggen; wie heeft dit van uwe handen geeist? Ende hebben niet de Turken soo veel te seggen voor haere Aenbiddinge/ als gy voor de uwe/ dewelk geen Gebod/ Commissie/ nogte Exempel hebt? Is dit geen eigen- willigen dienst/ ende nederigheit/ ende gelijk den dwaes sijn huis op het

sand te bauwen? Ende evenwel in de duisternis van uwe herten/ wilt gy andere waerschuwen te wagten van verleidt te worden. Och gy blinde waekers die sonder den Geest Gods sijt/ zijt gy bequaem om andere te onderwijsen in den regten weg/ voor den welken gy geen Gebod/ Commissie/ nogte Exempel hebt/ nae uwe eige belijdenis? Daerom is uwe hope onseeker/ Ende gy en hebt geen volle verseekertheit van den wille Gods.

3. Eilaes arme menschen! Wat hebt gy gedaen alle deesen tijt/ een gedaente op te setten/ sonder Gebod/ Commissie/ ofte Exempel/ niet hebbende den Geest Gods om u te bestieren? Is dit niet een gedaente sonder kragt? Ende sijt gy de menschen niet die de gedaente hebt sonder de kragt/ van dewelke wij af-keeren moeten?

4. Maer God heeft u te regt woest gelaten/ sonder een vaste hope/ ofte een volle verseekertheit van sijn wille/ omdat gy niet in sijn Ligt gelooft/ waer mede gy verligt sijt in uwe eige Conscientien/ waer voor gy mogt ontfangen een volle verseekertheit. Maer eilaes voor u/ gy ontbeert den Geest Christi/ waer door gy verseegelt mogt worden/ ende een vaste hope ontfangen; daerom is uwe hope onseeker; om dat gy den Geest Christi niet hebbende/ van de sijne niet sijt/ maer sijt van die gene die aen hoopen vergadert sijn/ in een belijdinge Christi/ sonder Gebod/ Commissie/ ofte Exempel, want Christus behoorde u te leiden/ maer gij loopt voor hem/ sonder sijn Leere/ Kragt/ ofte Ligt om u te bestieren; ende daerom laet hy u in een onseekere hope; ende daerom is uw doen onseeker; ende dit hebbe ik dikmael getuigt/ beyde door word/ ende schrift; maer mijne Getuigenis heeft niet aengenomen geweest door u.

5. Eilaes voor u/ het jammert mij waerlijck uwer/ arme menschen! Indien gy niet in het Ligt gelooft/ hoe sal het met u gaen? Want gy en weet niet of de Heere schielijk uwe Adem van u sal doen neemen. Ende ik getuige tot u dat het een droevige saek is/ van dit leeven te scheyden/ sonder een vaste hope/ ende een volle verseekertheit van Gods wille/ dewelke blijkt/ dat gy ontbeert/ maer ik love den Heere voor sijne goedheit/ niet wy.

6. Ende dewijle gy schijnt alle andere volken in te sluiten/ dat sij doen sonder Gebod/ Commissie/ ofte Exempel/ gelijk gy doet/ ended dat sy sijn sonder

een vaste hope ende volle verseekertheit/ gelijk gy sijt: hierin getuige ik tegens u; want God heeft door sijnen eeuwigen Geest een volk vergadert van onder deze ydele aenbiddingen in dewelke gy nog sijt/ die geregeert sijn over- een-komende tot den wille Gods. Ende daerom dit segge ik tot u, dat in die Gemeinte/ van dewelke ik een lid ben/ is het Ligt/ de tegenwoordigheit/ en de Kracht Gods bekent/ ende genooten; waer in wij hebben een vaste ende levendige hope/ ende een volle verseekerheit van den wille Gods door sijnen Geest/ die in ons woont.”139

139 W. Ames, Het Ligt dat in de duisternisse schijnt, pp. 9-11.

(3) W. Ames, An Answer to the printed Sixteenth Article, published by Galenus Abrahamsz and David Spruyt, for their fellow servants

1. You say in your sixteenth article, (That your Congregation) does not rest upon any Commandment, or Example, in the New Testament, as far as this in concerned, nor on any extra-ordinary authority, order, or Commission, granted by Christ the Lord himself, or any other full assurance of God’s will: but solely on a mere confidence, and uncertain hope, &c.

2. Answer. Alas for you! What a congregation is this, which does not rest upon any Commandment, nor an Example in the New Testament, nor on any extra- ordinary authority, order, or Commission, Alas poor people! I believe you, but are you not at a gathered, but not for the Lord, and covered with a cover, but not from the Lords Spirit, and walking like the Lord never found you, and in your blind overzeal calling to the people, do you wait to be led astray, Alas for you! What do you have to be tempted for? Since you don’t have the Spirit of God to guide you and no Commandment, or an Example for what you do, are you not blind Leaders of the blind, who are without the Spirit of God? For was it, that the Spirit of Christ lived in you, so impossible, that you both would be without Commandment, or Example, or Authority, order, or Commission, to serve God, and in what way you would serve him, and without hope, and full assurance of God’s will, like you say you are, for the mind investigates all things, yes the depths of God, I Cor: 2.10. That is what you have to be tempted for like your blindness. Can it be other that that you are without assurance of God’s will by necessity, which has established such a building, and worship God in such a way, for which there are no Commandments, Commission, or Example? Is such worship not heathen? And will the Lord not say to you: who has demanded this from your hands? And do the Turks not have the same say about their worship, as you have about yours, which has no Commandment, Commission, nor Example. Is this service not self-willed, and modesty, like the fool who builds his house on sand? And also in the darkness of your heart, you wish to warn others from being tempted. Oh you blind whatchers who are without God’s Spirit, are you qualified to teach others the right way, for which you have no Commandment, Commission, nor Example, apart from your own confession? That is why your hope is uncertain, and you have no full assurance of God’s

will.

3. Alas poor people! What have you done these days, to set up an appearance, without Commandment, Commission, or Example without the Spirit of God to guide you? Is this not an appearance without power? And are you not the people who have an appearance without the power, from whom we must turn away?

4. But God has left you savaged, without permanent hope, or assurance of his will with good reason, because you do not believe in his Light, with which you are enlightenent in your own conscience, for which you may receive full assurance. But alas for you, you are without Christ’s Spirit, from which you may have received hope, and that is why your hope is uncertain, because you do not have Christ’s Spirit, you do not belong to his people, but to those that are gathered by hope, in a confession of Christ, without Commandment, Commission, or Example, for Christ was meant to guide you, but you walk in front of him, without his Teachings, Power, or Light to guide you, and therefore he leaves you with uncertain hope, and that is why your deeds are uncertain, this I have avowed so many times, both through words, and writing, but my Testimony has not been adopted by you.

5. Alas for you! I am truly sorry, poor people! But if you do not believe in the Light, how will you end up? For you do not know whether the Lord will take your breath from you. And I will say to you that it is sad, to separate from this world, without permanent hope, and insureance of Gods will, which, as it seems, you do not have, but I praise the Lord for his goodness, not us.

6. And while it appears that you include all the people, that they are without Commandment, Commission, or Example, like you do, and that they are without permanent hope and insurance, like you are, here I testify against you, For Gods has gathered, through his infinite Spirit, a people among these vain worships in which you remain, who have been ruled correspondingly with God’s will. And therefore I say to you, that in this community, to which I belong, the Light, Presence, and Power of God is known, and companions, in which we have permanent and lively hope, and a full assurance of God’s will through his Spirit, which lives in us.

(4) W. Ames, Drie vraegen (door Galenus Abrahamsz. uitgegeven) Beantwoort140

* “Waer ergens blijkt in de Schriften des Ouden ende des Nieuwen Testaments, dat eenig Apostel, Propheet, ofte Leeraer, als Gesanten van God tot dien einde van God gesonden, tot het Volk Gods in den Naem Gods spreekende, op soodanige wijse heeft gesproken: Namentlijk, sprekende, geseit soude hebben (gelijk nu ter tijt van u geschiet) gy hebt een Ligt in u welk Ligt is Christus, &c. Keert by selven in tot dat Ligt; dat sal u alles leeren, ende u van de sonde vry maeken.

1. Antwoort. Het Koninkrijke Gods bestaet in het Ligt/ ende Christus leerde de ongeloovige Joden/ het Koninkrijke Gods in haer te soeken ende dan leerde Christus de ongeloovige Joden te keeren tot een Ligt in haer/ waer in het Koninkrijke Gods bestaet; ende hy seit/ het komt niet met uitwendige waerneeminge/ Want het Koninkrijke Gods is binnen u; soo hier leerde Christus de ongeloovige Joden het Koninkrijke Gods te soeken (welk in het Ligt bestaet) in haer; ende daerom keerde haer Christus tot een Ligt in haer. Ende die gene/ die dese Leere Christi aennaemen/ het Koninkrijke Gods te soeken (in het Ligt) in haer; die quaemen dan te vinden de Kragt Christi (ende niet eerder) werkende in het Ligt in haer/ het werk der wedergeboorte/ door den Geest Christi dewelke heiligt/ door den welken sy verlost wierden van de sonde/ namelijk door een Ligt in haer; ende diegene die dit Ligt in haer niet en kende/ Welk Christus is/ om haer vry te maeken van de sonde ende doot/ door de Kragt sijnes Geestes woonende in haer; die waeren toen (ende sijn nu) verworpene gelijk als den dienknegt Gods getuigde/ dat die gene die den Geest Christi niet en heeft woonende in hem/ een verworpe is/ ende hem niet toe hoort.

2. Ende als Paulus te Athenen quam onder de ongeloovige Heidenen/ soo leerde hij haer te tasten nae den levendigen God (ende hem te vinden) die de werelt gemaekt heeft/ in den welken sij leefden/ bewoogen/ ende haer weesen hadden (dewelk ik segge dat in het onverderffelijke Ligt woont/ daer

140 Galenus’ questions in the original are numbered (1, 2 and 3). Like the previous tract, I have divided the long text into numbered paragraphs to improve readability. Therefore, the numbering of Galenus’ questions are replaced by ***.

geen sterfelijk oog toe naederen kan.) Daerom hoe souden sy hem voelen/ ende hem vinden/ inden welken sy leefden/ als door sijne verschijninge in haer?

3. Ende Paulus vraegde de Corinthers (alhoewel sy Christum beleeden) of sy niet en wisten dat Christus in haer was/ indien sy geen verworpene waeren? Ende indien de Corinthers verworpene geweest souden sijn/ (niet tegenstaende haere belijdinge van Christus) indien sy haer selven niet en kende/ dat Christus in haer was; wat soude dan de reeden sijn. (Dunkt gy) dat gy/ die u selven niet en kent/ dat Christus nu in u is/ geen verworpene sijt/ soo wel als sy geweest souden hebben/ indien sy haer selven toen niet en gekent hadden/ dat Christus in haer was. Indien gy my een reede kont geven/ waerom gy niet kennende u selven/ Christus in u/ de verdoemenis soudt ontvlieden/ meer als sy/ indien sy haer selven niet gekent hadden/ dat Christus in haer was; soo laet my het in u naeste schryven weeten. Maer indien in dit bysonder geen gesonde reede gegeven kan worden; denkt het dan niet vreemt/ dat wy besluiten dat gy soo sijt; naedemael gy u selven openbaer maekt onweetende te sijn van een Ligt in u? om u te regeeren/ ende om uwen bestierder te sijn. Ende indien soo; dan en kent gy Christus in u niet/ die het Ligt is; want indien gy deed/ dan sout gy een Ligt in u kennen/ waer door gy behoort geregeert te sijn/ welk regeerde in de Heilige Gods/ waer door sy geheyligt waeren ende vry-gemaeckt van de sonde/ door dien selfden Geest die in haer woonde.

4. Ende vraegt gy of de Apostelen het gene deeden/ dat sy gesonden waeren te doen? Naedemael gy dus vraegt/ waer het kan beweesen worden dat sy een volk weesen tot een Ligt in haer? Was het haer werk niet? Ende waeren sy niet gesonden tot dien einde/ om het volk te keeren uit de duisternisse tot het Ligt/ uit de magt des Duivels to God? Ende vraegt gy dit? Ende indien sy het volk tot God keerde/ keerde sy haer dan niet tot een Ligt/ door het welke sy verligt waeren/ welk in de duisternisse schijnt/ alhoewel de duisternisse het niet begrijpt; welk in de werelt was/ alhoewel de werelt hem niet en kende/ die tot sijn eige quam/ ende syn eige naemen hem niet aen/ op dat soo veele hem aennaemen magt mogten ontfangen de Kinderen Gods te worden. Ende ontfingen sy dese Kragt niet in het Ligt/ in het welke sy gelooft hadden? In den geest/ door den welken sy geheiligt waeren ende gebragt

waeren gemeinschap te hebben met God? Ende is dit de Kragt niet/ die gy ontbeert? Ende daerom is uwe hope nog onseeker. Ende dit segge ik tot u/ het sy dat gy my gelooft ofte niet/ dese Kragt sult gy noit ontfangen/ tot dat gy in het Ligt gelooft/ in het welk de Kragt is/ om Kinderen des Ligts te worden.

5. Ende was niet Christus die yder mensche verligt/ het Woord Gods? Indien jae; moest het volk dan niet kenne het Woord in haere herten? Indien jae; was dit dan niet het Woord des Geloofs/ welk de Apostelen predikte? Welk was in haere monden/ ende in haere herten? Indien het was; dan was dat Woord des Geloofs/ welk de Apostelen predikten beide tot Joden ende Grieken/ het Ligt dat in haere herten scheen/ getuigende tegens haere quaede daeden/ welk het Woord des Geloofs was/ waer in sy behoorden te gelooven.

6. Ende naedemael gy segt/ dat wy pleegen te seggen tot het volk/ Gy hebt een Ligt in u, welk Ligt is Christus, &c. Ik antwoorde/ wy pleegen te seggen dat Christus/ die het Ligt is/ in den welken de Kragt Gods/ de Wijsheit/ Liefde/ ende Heerlijkheit Gods woont/ in de duisternisse schijnt/ ende soo die gene verligt die in de duisternisse sijn/ ende tot haer openbaer maekt de daeden des duisternisse/ op dat sy die souden versaeken. Maer dit seggen wy/ dat indien een mensche niet in het Ligt gelooft/ welk in de duisternisse schijnt ende den mensche sijne quade deaden toont/ ende door het Ligt te volgen/ die versaekt/ soo komt den mensche noit te besitten de Kragt/ Wijsheit/ Liefde ende Heerlijkheit Gods/ dewelke in het Ligt woont. Ende dit seggen wy/ dat die gene die in het Ligt gelooven/ volgen ende gehoorsamen/ die komen te ontfangen de Kragt/ Wijsheit/ Liefde ende Heerlijkheit Gods/ die in het Ligt woont; ende dit sijn de Kinderen Gods/ Erfgenaemen/ ende mede Erfgenaemen met Christus. Ende dit is het Erfdeel der heiligen in het Ligt daer hy (lof sy tot God) ons mededeelagtig van gemaekt heeft/ alhoewel gy het niet gelooven wilt.

** Of sy niet in tegendeel, als gesanten Godes tot het volk spreekende, aen het selve volk, het sy door mondelijk onderwijs van Reden, ofte door Schriften, hebben voorgehouden ende overgelevert, seekere Wetten, Leeringen ende Geboden, ten einde dat de menschen die hoorende ofte leesende, daer uit den

wille Gods verstaen souden? Gelijk daer van in de Handelinge der Apostelen veelvoudige Exempelen konnen gesien worden.

7. Antwoort. Neen; de Apostelen hielden noit voort eenige Wetten/ Leeringen ende Geboden in tegendeel; want sy leerde noit door Woort ofte Schrift niet te keeren tot het Ligt/ nogte het Ligt te volgen/ waer door sy verligt waeren/ nogte sy en gaeven sulken Wet. Dunkt u/ dat sy deden? Ofte kont gy bewijsen dat sy dat oit deden? Indien jae/ soo laet my in u naeste schrijven uw’ bewijs weeten; indien niet; waerom vraegt gy dan de vraege?

8. Maer Galenus/ waer is u verstant? Hebt gy geheelijk verlooren het verstant van de letter selfs/ dat gy vraegt/ of sy niet het tegendeel leerde. Hebt gy niet geleesen van de Arbeiden ende Reisen van de Dienstknegten des Heeren/ om het volk te keeren uit de duisternisse tot het Ligt op dat sy mogten kennen den Geest Gods in haer/ Christus in haer ende de Salvinge in haer/ om haer alle dingen te leeren/ op dat sy niet van noode souden hebben dat iemandt haer leerde. Om dat niemandt de dingen Gods kent/ als den Geest Gods op dat sy door den Geest Gods geopenbaert in haer/ mogten begrijpen de dingen Gods: Ende vraegt gy my nu/ of sy als Gesanten Gods het tegendeel niet en leerden?

9. Ende alhoewel de Dienstknegten Gods/ vermaende/ onderweesen/ ende opwekte beide door Woord ende Schrift; dat was niet om haer in tegendeel te leeren/ dat de menschen niet souden keeren tot het Ligt/ ende het Ligt niet souden volgen. Maer het tegendeel daer van; namelijk dat de menschen souden keeren tot het Ligt/ ende wandelen in het Ligt om bestiert te worden door den Geest Gods.

10. Ende dewijle gy vraegt/ of daer niet en wierden seekere Wetten, Leeringen ende Geboden, &c. overgelevert tot haer, op dat sy daer uit, door het hooren ofte leesen daer van, den wille Gods verstaen souden?

11. Ik antwoorde, Wat Wetten oft Geboden sijn de menschen bequaem om te volgen/ om daer door God te behagen; eer dat sy tot het Ligt koomen/ om den Geest Gods te volgen/ sijn sy dan niet vleeselijk? Ende seyt de schrift niet/ dat den vleeselijken mensche God niet behaegen kan? ende sijn sy niet

vleeselijk/ die den Geest Gods niet en hebben? Ende terwijle de menschen vleeselijk sijn/ ende God niet konnen behaegen/ zijn sy dan niet buiten de waeragtige aenbidinge Gods? Ende is daer iemant inde aengenaeme ende waeragtige aenbiddinge Gods/ eer dat sy den Geest Gods ontfangen/ in den welken God socht aengebeeden te worden? Ende hoe kan iemant den Geest Gods ontfangen/ indien sy het Ligt niet aennemen/ (want den Geest Gods is Ligt) welk yder mensche verligt die inde werelt komt? Ende was het dan het Werk der Apostelen niet/ het volk te keeren tot het Ligt/ om den Geest te ontfangen/ om God daer in aen te bidden?

12. Ende alle de gene die het tegendeel leerden/ waeren leeden des Antichrists/ dewelcke vleeselijk zijnde/ sonder den Geest Christi/ om God daer in aen te bidden/ haere belijdinge maeken van de woorden der Heilige/ ende daer uit vergaederen uitwendige regels/ ende uitwendige gebooden/ ende uitwendige wedten/ ende soo loopen sy inde uitwendige volbrengingen/ ende soo krijgen sy een uitwendige gedaente van goddelijkheit/ ended dan roepen sy op/ haere uitwendige gebooden; ende soo vergaederen sy een uitwendige gemeinte/ ende setten een uitwendige gedaente op/ om God daer in aen te bidden/ sonder de kennisse van den Geest Gods in haer/ om haer te bestieren/ ende haer te leiden in den weg Gods/ nae den wille Gods; ende soo sijn sy vleeselijk/ niet hebbende den geest gods/ ende daerom konnen sy God niet behaegen welker hope onseeker is/ ende die sonder een volle verseekertheit zijn van den wille Gods/ gelijk gy segt/ dat gy zijt.

*** Volgens dien of het niet behoorelijk is, de menschen te wijsen tot de boeken Mose, ende der Propheeten, tot de beschreevene Wetten ende Leeringen des Heeren Jesu, ende sijner Apostelen, datse die hooren, om alsdan, nae haere Conscientien daer uit wel sullen onderweesen zijn, op het Ligt van haere Conscientien naeuw te letten.

13. Antwoort. Indien een mensche niet anders kent/ om sijne conscientie te onderregten/ als de schriften buiten hem/ waerom mach hy niet bedroogen worden soo wel als Saulus was? Ende wat was de oorsaek/ dat alhoewel Saulus naerstig was/ booven veele van sijn medegenooten/ inde Wet ende de Propheten/ ende nae de geregtigheit des Wets onstraflijk was; hy eevenwel waerlijk dogt/ dat hy veel behoorde te doen tegens Jesus van Nazareth? Was

het niet/ om dat hy vleeselijk was? Ende dat hy de schrift niet en kost verstaen/ Was het niet/ om dat hy vleeselijk was? Ende alhoewel hy yverig was in de Wet ende de Propheeten/ ende boovenveele naerstig/ ende nae de geregtigheit des wets onstraffelijk/ was sijne Conscientie daerom te regt onderregt? Oordeelt gy. Ende konnen niet de menschen nu beide naerstig ende yverig zijn inde Schriften der waerheyt/ ende evenwel also onweetend zijn van God als hy/ tot dat den Sone Gods in hem geopenbaert was. Hoe quam het dat hy niet kost sien dat de Wet ende de Propheten getuigenis vroegen van dien Jesus/ tot dat Jesus in hem geopenbaert was? Want hy was yverig van de Schriften des Wets/ ende de Propheeten; ende evenwel was sijne conscientie soo verde van onderregt te zijn/ dat Jesus de Christus was; dat hy waerlijk dogt/ dat hy hem behoorde te vervolgen/ tot dat Jesus/ den Sone Gods in hem geopenbaert was; toen quam hy te sien ende verstaen/ dat de Wet ende de Propheeten getuigenis vroegen tot dien Jesus/ den hy vervolgt had; ende dit wist hy niet totter tijt toe/ dat hij Jesus in hem geopenbaert kende/ om sijne Conscientie te onderregten/ ende hem een verstant te geven.

14. Was het om dat de Schrift niet waer is/ uit dewelke hy onderregt was dat hy het niet verstaen kost? Neen; maer sijn verstant was duisternis/ ende sijn conscientie was bevlekt met doode werken/ soo dat hy niet en kost verstaen nogte de waerheit sien/ ofte het weesen van de schrift; maer den viand magt hebbende over sijn verstand/ leide hem in het misverstand van de schrift/ om den yver die hy voor God hadde/ tegens God te gebruiken; ende soo in sijnen yver vervolgde hy den Heere des Leevens/ ende dagt waerlijk dat hy het behoorde te doen.

15. Ende is dit de oorsaek niet/ van de veele Secten ende veilingen ende opinien ende scheuringen onder menschen/ om dat haere verstanden duisternis zijn/ dat sy de schrift niet en konnen verstaen? maer den eenen verstaet het dus/ ende een ander andersins. Want sommige verstaen uit de Schrift/ dat den sevenden dag behoort tot Sabbath gehouden te worden; andere verstaen uit de Schrift het tegendeel. Sommige verstaen uit de Schrift/ dat de kinderen behooren gesprenkelt te worden; andere verstaen uit de Schrift het tegendeel. Eenige verstaen uit de Schrift/ dat God een seeker getal van persoonen bekooren heeft van alle eeuwigheit om saligh te worden; andere verstaen uit de Schrift het tegendeel. Ende veele meer

verscheidentheeden van opinien worden vergadert uyt de Schrift. Is dit om dat de Schrift in sig self’s geen waerheyt is? ik segge neen; maer het is/ om dat sy den Sone Gods niet en kennen geopenbaert in haer/ om haer een regt verstant te geeven; op dat sy voor den eeuwigen Geest mogten geleidt worden in alle waerheit/ ende soo koomen tot het verstant der Schrift. Ende indien de menschen sijn sonder deesen Geest/ soo moogen sy de schriften leesen soo lange als sy leeven/ ende evenwel noyt den sin Gods kennen tot haere vreede. Maer die gene/ die in het Ligt wagt/ welk yder mensche verligt die inde werelt komt/ welk hem uit de sonde sal leiden; den Sone Gods sal in hem geopenbaart worden/ waer door hy den sin Gods sal kennen/ ende soo den Geest Gods kennen/ beyde om te onderregten/ ende te regeeren in de Conscientie; ende tot dit Ligt behooren de menschen geweesen te worden/ op dat sy in een maete van den Geest Gods souden verstaen ende begrijpen de dingen Gods/ die den vleeselijken mensche niet en kan begrijpen alhoewel hy de Schrift mag leesen soo lange als hy leeft/ ende dit sult gy in het einde weeten waer te zijn.”

W. A.

(4) W. Ames, Three questions (published by Galenus Abrahamsz.) Answered

* Where in the writings of the Old and New Testaments is it shown that an Apostle, Prophet or Teacher, as messengers of God, for this purpose sent, and talking to the people in the name of God, has spoken in such a manner, &c. (as happening now in your time) you have a light within you which is Christ, &c. Turn yourself to that light, so you will learn everything, and free yourself of sin.

1. Answer. The Kingdom of God exists in the Light, and Christ taught the unbelieving Jews, to look for God’s Kingdom within, and then Christ taught the unbelieving Jews tot turn to the Light within, in which the Kingdom of God exists; and he said, it will not come through external observation, for the Kingdom of God is within you, so taught Christ the unbelieving Jews to look for God’s Kingdom within (which exists in the Light), and therefore Christ lead them to a Light within. And those, who accepted these instructions from Christ, to look for God’s Kingdom (in the Light) within; they found the Power of Christ operating in the Light within (and not sooner), through which they will be delivered from sin, that is through a Light within; and those who do not know this Light within, which is Christ, to be delivered from sin and death, through the power of his Spirit that resides within, those were then (and are now) cast out like God’s servant testified, and he who does not possess the Spirit of Christ within, is an outcast, and does not belong to him.

2. And when Paul was among the unbelieving Pagans in Athens, he taught them to reach for the living God (and to find him) who created the world, in which they lived, moved, and had their being (of which I say resides in the incorruptible Light, which no mortal eye can approach). And how would they feel him, and find him, in whom they lived, but through his revelation?

3. And Paul asked the Corinthians (although they professed Christ) whether they did not know that Christ was within, if they were not outcasts? And if the Corinthians were outcasts, (notwithstanding their profession of Christ), if they did not know, that Christ is within; what would be the reason. Do you think, that you, who does not know, that Christ is within you, are not an outcast, like

they would have been, if they would not have known, that Christ is within. If you can give me a reason, why you do not know, Christ in you, would flee damnation, more like them, when they would not know, that Christ is within; then let me know in your next writing. But when in this case no sound argument can be given; does it not seem strange, that we decided that you are like this, after you have publicly declared yourself unknowing of a Light in you? To reign over you, and be your ruler. And if so, then you do not know Christ within you, who is the Light; for if you did, then you would know a Light within, which is meant to rule you, which ruled in the Holy God, through which they are sanctified and delivered from sin, by the same Spirit that resides within.

4. And you asked whether the Apostles did what they were sent to do? After you asked, where it is shown that they led the people to a Light within? Was it not their task, and were they not send for this purpose, to lead the people from the darkness to the Light, from the power of the devil to God? Is this what you ask? And if they led the people to God, did they not lead them to a Light, through which the were enlightened, which shines in the darkness, although the darkness does not understand it, which was in the world, although the world did not know him, who came to himself, and his own did not accept him, because so many accepted him to receive the power and become the Children of God. And did they not receive this Power in the Light, in which they believed? In the Spirit, through which they were sanctified, and were brought to have intercourse with God? And is this not the Power, that you lack? And that is why your hope is uncertain. And this is what I say to you, whether you believe me or not, you will never receive this Power, until you believe in the Light, in which the power lies, to become Children of the Light.

5. And was not Christ, who enlightens everyone, the Word of God? If so, should the people not know the Word in their hearts? If so, was this not the Word of the Belief, that the Apostles preached? Which was in their mouths, and in their hearts? If it was, than this Word of the Belief, which the Apostles preached to both the Jews and the Greeks, was the Light that shined in their hearts testified against their evil deeds, which was the Word of the Belief, that they were meant to believe.

6. And when you say, that we say to the people, you have a Light within you, which is Christ, &c. I answer, we say that Christ, who is the Light, in which God’s Power, and Wisdom, Love, and Magnificence of God resides, shines in the darkness, and enlightens those who are in the darkness, and reveals the deeds of darkness, so they would neglect them. But this is what we say, that when someone does not believe in the Light, which shines in the darkness and reveals man his evil deeds, and by following the Light, neglect them, and so man will never possess the Power, Wisdom, Love and Magnificence of God, which lives in the Light. And we say, that those who believe in the Light, follow and obey it, will receive the Power, Wisdom, Love and Magnificence of God, who resides in the Light; and these are the Children of God, Inheritors, and fellow Inheritors with Christ. And this is the inheritance of the holy in the Light that he (praise God) has shared with us, although you do not want to believe it.

** If they not on the contrary, as messengers talking to the people, to the same people, through oral teaching, or writing, have handed down certain Laws, Teachings and Commandments, to be heard and read and people would understand them as God’s wil. Just as there are many examples of this in the Acts of the Apostles.

7. Answer. No; the apostles never handed down Laws, Teachings and Commandments, to the contrary; for they never taught through Word or Writing not to turn to the Light, nor to follow the Light, through which they were enlightened, nor did they hand down such a Law. Do you think they did? Or can you proove that they ever did? If so, than let me see this evidence in your next writing; if not, than why do you ask the question?

8. But Galenus, where is your common sense? Did you completely loose your understanding of the letter itself, that you ask, if they taught the opposite. Did you not read about the Works and the Travels of the Lord’s Servants, to lead the people from darkness to the light so they can understand God’s Spirit within, Christ within and the Anointment within, to teach them everything, so they would not need anyone to teach them. Since no one understands the matters of God, as the Spirit of God unless they can understand the matters of God through His revelation within; and do you ask me, if they as God’s Servants taught the opposite?

9. And although the Servants of God, admonished, taught, and excited through Word and Writing, this was not done to prevent people from turning to the Light, and to follow the light. But to the contrary, namely to lead people to the Light, and to walk in the Light so they can be governed by the Spirit of God.

10. And because you ask, whether or not certain Laws, Teachings, and Commandments &c. have been handed down, so they can, by hearing or reading thereof, understand God’s will?

11. I answer, which Laws or Commandments should people follow, to please God; before they come to the Light, to follow God’s Spirit, are they not carnal? And did Scripture not say, that the carnal human cannot please God? And are they not carnal, who do not possess the Spirit of God? And if human baings are carnal, and cannot please God, are they not outside the true worship of God? And is there someone in the pleasing and true worship of God, before they reveive the Spirit of God, in which God should be worshipped? And how can anyone receive the Spirit of God, if they do not accept the Light, (for the Spirit of God is Light) which enlightens every man that comes into the world? And was it not the Apostles’ task, to lead the people to the Light, to receive the Spirit, in which God should be worshipped?

12. And all those who taught the opposite, were members of the Antichrist, and are carnal, without the Spirit of Christ, to worship God, make their confessions from the words of the Holy, and gather outward regulations, commandments, and laws, and so they walk in outward accomplishments, and so they get an external appearance of godliness, and then they call out, their outward commandments; and this way they gather an external community, and set up an external building, in which they worship God, without knowledge of God’s Spirit within, to rule them, and to guide them in God’s way, how God wants it; and they are carnal, and do not possess the spirit of God, and therefore they can not please God, their hope is uncertain, and without assurance from God’s will, like you say, that you are.

*** If it is furthermore not appropriate to guide the people to the books of Moses and the Prophets, to the writings and teachings of the Lord Jesus, and to those of his Apostles; making the people hear these, so thereafter, when their

conscience has been taught by them, things will be observed more attentively.

13. Answer. When a man does not know any another way, to instruct his conscience, than with the writings outside him, why is he not to be betrayed like Saul was? And what was the reason, that although Saul was diligent, more so than many of his companions, studying the Law and the Prophets, and was not punishable because the law is just; he also truly believed, he was supposed to do much against Jesus of Nazareth. Was it not, because he was carnal? And because he did not understand Scripture, was it not, because he was carnal? And although he knew the Law and the Prophets well, and was more diligent than others, and not punishable because of the law, was his conscience taught rightly? You judge. And can the people not be diligent and studious in the Writings of the truth, and at the same time be unknowing of God like he, until the Son of God was revealed within. How could he not see that the Law and the Prophets asked a testimony from Jesus, until Jesus was revealed within? Because he knew the Laws and the Prophets well, and at the same time his conscience did not understand that Jesus was the Christ; that he truly thought, he had to prosecute him, until Jesus, the Son of God was revealed within; then he came to see and understand, that the Law and the Prophets asked testimony to Jesus, whom he had prosecuted; and he did not know this until Jesus was revealed within, to teach his conscience, and award him with intellect.

14. Was it because Scripture is not true, from which he was taught that he could not understand? No; but his intellect was darkness, and his conscience was soiled with dead deeds, so that he could not understand nor see the truth, or the essence of scripture; but the enemy ruled his intellect, led him to a misunderstanding of scripture, to use his diligence against God; and so he diligently prosecuted the Lord of Life, and was truly convinced he was supposed to.

15. And is this not the reason, of the many sects and opinions and rifts between humans, because their understandings are darkness, they cannot understand scripture? But one understands it a certain way, and another understands it differently. For some understand from Scripture, that the seventh day is meant to keep Sabbath; others understand from Scripture the opposite. Some understand from Scripture, that children are supposed to be sprinkled; others

understand from Scripture the opposite. Some understand from Scripture, that God has chosen a certain number of persons from eternity to become sanctified; others understand from Scripture the opposite. And many more differences of opinions are gathered from Scripture. Is this because Scripture is not truth in itself? I say no; but it is, because they do not know the Son of God revealed within, to bestow a right understanding, so they are brought before the eternal Spirit in all truth, and so achieve the proper understanding of Scripture. And those who do not possess this Spirit, they may read Scripture for as long as they live, and never understand the meaning of God for their peace. But those, who wait in the Light, which enlightens every man who comes into the world, and leads him away from sin; The Son of God will be revealed within, and he will understand the meaning of God, and know the Spirit of God, both to teach, and to rule in the Conscience; and people should be directed toward this Light, so they can, to a certain extent, comprehend the matters of God, which the carnal humans cannot understand even when they read Scripture as long as they live, and this you shall know to be the truth in the end.

W. A.

Synopsis Ames’ answer to the questions posed by Galenus ended the written discussion between both men. The two main points of the disagreement were Ames’ assertion that Quakers were divine ambassadors, chosen by God, and the constant stress on the spiritual inner Light as a source of divine inspiration and experience of God. Galenus stated that there was no evidence to be found in the Bible to support the ‘exclusivity’ claim. He was convinced that all established churches on earth were inferior to the first apostolic community. Since the days of the Apostles, the church was in decline and would never be fully restored. He felt that the true Church of Christ no longer existed and that the Reformation had not succeeded because the reformers lacked divine inspiration and authority. Since there was no conclusive evidence of God’s instructions for the restoration of the Apostolic Church in Holy Scripture, Galenus declared that even the establishment of his own Mennonite congregation was the work of mere, “well-meaning,” human beings. Conservative Mennonites reacted furiously because they considered their congegation to be the only true Christian Church. It was Galenus’ liberal outlook that attracted many Collegiants and deeply divided the United Flemish Mennonite congregation in Amsterdam. What came to be known as the “war of the lambs” was a direct consequence of his belief that the visible churches of his day were decayed institutions established without the gift of- and guidance by- the Holy Spirit. Ames responded with sarcasm to Galenus’ famous ‘article 16’ and constantly refers to the Light within. This Light that guides humankind is also the main source of divine inspiration and the right interpretation of Scripture. In contrast to Galenus, Ames believed that the Bible could not be understood unless one was illuminated by the Light of Christ. Even those, he asserts over and over again, who are very well knowledgable about the Laws and the Prophets, will stray without guidance from The Spirit of Christ. In addition, Galenus claims that the Apostles, Prophets and Teachers had provided mankind with Laws, Teachings and Commandments to observe God’s will. There were no passages in the Bible, he added, that mention or refer to a ‘Light Within’ that frees mankind from sin. To Galenus’ question about the lack of evidence in the Bible to support the Quaker doctrine of the inner light, Ames replies that the works of God’s Servants were precisiely aimed at turning people toward the Light.

Galenus probably had enough and stepped out of the dispute. It was his friend Petrus Serrarius who took up his pen to write De Vertredinge Des heyligen Stadts141 in which he defended Galenus and the Collegiant view that the Apostolic Church was in decline. Although Serrarius addressed the work to Jan Jansz. Swichtenheuvel and his supporters (Mede-stemmers), in the preface he directs his attention to Ames. The Quaker responded with an answer, also included in Het Ligt. Ames and Serrarius ‘exchanged thoughts’ a few more times but apparently, as William Hull notes, “Ames was after larger game.”142 He wrote his De verborgentheden van het Rijcke Gods in which he attacked Galenus once more. It is this work that is mentioned on the title page of Pieter Balling’s Het licht op den kandelaar which has become one of the most discussed pamphlets ever written by a Collegiant. Although it was never answered by the Collegiant leader, it has secured Ames’ position as one of the most influential missionaries of the early Quakers in Holland.

Pieter Balling, Het Licht op den kandelaar When Pieter Balling (anonymously) published Het licht op den kandelaar (The light on the candlestick) it immediately generated confusion and doubt. Both the ambiguous title and the multi-interpretable content became a source of a prolonged controversy. A glance at the second part, “Dienende, tot opmerkinge van de voornaamste dingen; in het boekje genaamt De verborgentheden van het rijke Ghodts, &c. tegens Galenus Abrahamsz., en zijn Toestemmers &c. verhandelt en beschreven door William Ames” (Serving to Remark on the Foremost Things in the Book Called The Mysteries of God’s Kingdom, against Galenus Abrahamsz. and his Supporters by William Ames) demonstrates how easily an incorrect interpretation can be made.143 Willem Sewel, one of the first Quaker historians, wrote in 1717 “that he [Ames] approved the contents of the book I knew, but I know also that it had never proceeded from his

141 De Vertredinge Des heyligen Stadts, Ofte Een klaer bewijs van’t verval der Eerste Apostolische Gemeeente, gestelt tot Antwoort op drie Vragen diesaengaende aen Dr Galenus gedaen in ’t byvoeghsel van seecker Voor-rede op ’t Boecxken tegens Dr Galenus & David Spruyt, ende in ’t Druck bevordert door Ian Iansz Swichtenheuvel (Amsterdam, 1659). 142 Hull, The Rise of Quakerism, p. 233. 143 Fix, for instance, refers to the Light on the Candlestick as “intended as a reply to a work by Ames,” (Prophesy and Reason, p. 199).

pen.”144 Sewel was convinced that the Dutch version should be attributed to Balling. But whether this was the original or a translation from the Latin (expressing a slight preference for the latter option) he left unanswered. Nearly two centuries later, the matter was far from settled. In his erudite dissertation on Dutch Reformers, Cornelis Bonnes Hylkema ascribes Het licht op den kandelaar to Adam Boreel, whose posthumously published Scripta Adami Borelii posthuma contains a Latin version of the pamphlet, called Lucerna Super Candelabro. In a rather confusing claim, Hylkema claims that the work was received well by William Ames even though it was directed against him.145 The former must be true, attested by the English translation of Ames’ close associate B.F. [Benjamin Furly], a year later in 1663. According to Jonathan Israel, the Light on the candlestick was “widely mistaken for a Quaker tract because Balling used the concept of the inner light with deliberate ambiguity to denote either the light of pure reason or a spiritualist inner guidance ensuing from a mystical union with God.”146 Any misreading, aside from being an obvious result of the somewhat ambiguous title, can also be explained by its content. Although Collegiants and the Quakers had quarrelled over differences, there were strong similarities in their ideas.147 It seems, however, that the most reliable account comes from Jan Rieuwertsz., the famous publisher from Amsterdam “from whose press came many politically and religiously incendiary works, including those of Spinoza.”148 In 1684, Rieuwertsz. published the treatise called Belydenisse des algemeenen en christelyken Geloofs vervattet in een Brief aan N.N. (Confession of the Universal and Christian Belief Contained in a Letter to N.N.), written by his friend Jarich Jelles. In the preface, he explains that “The friend, who had received the preceding Confession of the Belief as a gift from his friend, has also granted permission to include a copy of the small tract

144 W. Sewel, Histori, Voorreede (Preface), unpaged. (“Dat hy ‘t goedkeurde, is my bekend; doch dat het nooit uyt zyne penne gevloeid is, weet ik ook”). 145 C. Hylkema, Reformateurs (part I), p. 94. In part II, pp. 151-154 he correctly describes the Dutch translation as written by Pieter Balling. 146 Israel, Radical Enlightenment, note 60, pp. 170-171. 147 Andrew Fix (Prophecy and Reason, p. 199, note 34) erroneously includes Ernestine van der Wall in the list of authors that attribute Het licht op den kandelaar to William Ames. Van der Wall (Petrus Serrarius, pp. 226-227) specifically refers to Pieter Balling as the composer. 148 S. Nadler, Spinoza’s Ethics (Cambridge, 2006), p. 11. More information on Jan Rieuwertsz. in: S. Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton, 2011), pp. 215-219.

Het licht op den kandelaar, because both tractates correspond and complement each other. The author is the late Petrus [Pieter] Balling …” “De Vriend, die deze voorgaande Belijdenisse des Geloofs tot een gifte van zijnen Vriend had ontvangen, heeft ook goetgevonden, dit Traktaatje van ‘t Licht op den kandelaar hier achter te voegen; niet alleen omdat het in veelen daarmee overeenkomt, maar ook omdat het de zelve niet weinig licht aanbrengt. d’ Autheur hiervan is wijlen Petrus Balling, een verstandig Man, in de Grieksche en Latijnsche taalen zeer ervaren, die dit Traktaatje heeft uitgegeven in ‘t jaar 1662. onder den Titul; Het Licht op den Kandelaar …”

There is little reason to doubt the testimony of Jan Rieuwertsz. That Pieter Balling is referred to as either a Socinian or a Mennonite attests to both his ambiguous thinking and the thin line that separated these ‘radical’ confessions.149 Further biographical information on Pieter Balling is scarce.150 What was certain, however, was that he was a friend of Spinoza and frequented the meetings of the Collegiants.For the first time, Balling is mentioned in a letter from Simon Joosten de Vries to Spinoza as a messenger of Spinoza’s work. In the summer of 1661, Spinoza had left the hectic life in Amsterdam behind and had moved to Rijnsburg. His relocation must have suspended the gatherings among his friends. In February 1663, however, De Vries wrote to Spinoza that his works and thoughts are still studied and discussed. Moreover, he emphasizes, “because not all is clear to the members of our circle, (that is also why we have resumed our meetings) ... I have decided to write this letter”.151 After explaining the method for discussing Spinoza’s works in their group, de Vries ends by expressing sincere gratitude for Spinoza’s writings, which Balling had given to him. Whether Balling had

149 Israel, Radical Enlightenment, p. 343. Cf. S. Zijlstra, Om de ware gemeente, p. 327. 150 Ruud Lambour (“De Amsterdamse Collegiant Jacob Jansen Voogd,” note 16, pp. 76-77) asserts that since Meinsma’s Spinoza en zijn kring it is wrongly assumed that Balling is not mentioned in the archives. Lambour discovered that he lived in Haarlem in 1647/8, became a realtor in Amsterdam in 1656, first lived on the Bloemgracht and moved to the Lauriergracht in 1661. Pieter Balling died on 20-12- 1664 and was laid to rest on the 23rd. Fix (Prophesy and Reason, p. 200) —regretfully without providing any references— announces that “toward the end of 1664 Balling died of plague in Amsterdam.” 151 F. Akkerman, et al. Spinoza: Briefwisseling (Amsterdam, 1977), letter 8; Simon de Vries to Spinoza, p. 105. (“Daar echter de leden van onze kring niet alles duidelijk is (dat is ook de reden waarom wij onze bijeenkomsten hebben hervat) … heb ik mij ertoe gezet deze brief te schrijven”)

travelled to Rijnsburg or received these manuscripts when Spinoza visited Amsterdam remains uncertain, but the fact that he was one of the first to obtain and (allowed to) distribute them among their friends testifies to the close and trusty relationship between both men. On July 20, 1664, Spinoza responded to a letter from Balling with sincere grief, sadness and distress concerning the death of the latter’s son.152 While asleep, Balling had heard his child breathing in an unusual way and wondered whether this was an omen (voorteken). Spinoza replies by stating that it must have been a product of Balling’s imagination because this remarkable breathing was more obvious and vivid in his sleep than while awake and listening carefully.153 He then goes on to demonstrate that what Balling had experienced was, indeed, an omen. Representations of the imagination, Spinoza explains, derive from the condition of either the body or the mind. Fevers and other bodily indispositions (ongesteldheden in het lichaam) are the cause of illusions and can therefore never be regarded as omens. The mind, on the other hand, always following its reason, logically creates a mental picture of whatever is imagined. And since it is capable of having premonitions, the representations of the imagination that are caused by the indisposition of the mind can be regarded as truthful signs of future occurrences.154 Spinoza concludes the correspondence by admitting his letter was concise but that it had been on purpose because he wanted Balling to write back as soon as possible. One year after printing the Latin original of Spinoza’s Renati Des Cartes principiorum philosophae, Jan Rieuwertsz. also published the Dutch translation, entitled Renatus Des Cartes Beginzelen der wysbegeerte, I en II deel, na de meetkonstige wĳze beweezen / door Benedictus de Spinoza Amsterdammer. Mitsgaders des zelfs Overnatuurkundige gedachten, in welke de zwaarste geschillen, die zoo in ’t algemeen, als in ’t byzonder deel der

152 Balling’s letter, written on 26 June 1664, was never found. This is the only letter that survived the correspondence between both men. 153 Akkerman, Briefwisseling, letter 17; Spinoza to Balling, p. 149. (“Stellig is dit een aanwijzing dat dat zuchten niet anders is geweest dan enkel verbeelding die, zolang ge haar de vrije loop liet, een onmiskenbaar zuchten zich duidelijker en levendiger kon verbeelden dan op het moment dat ge u oprichtte om uw gehoor naar een bepaald punt te wenden”). 154 Ibid. p. 151. (“… de verschijnselen der verbeelding, oftewel beelden, die hun oorsprong vinden in de gesteldheid van de geest, [kunnen] wel voortekens zijn van een of andere toekomstige gebeurtenis, want de geest kan van iets dat nog moet gebeuren een vaag voorgevoel hebben”). Italics in original.

Overnatuurkunde ontmoeten, kortelĳk werden verklaart ; Alles uit ’t Latijn vertaalt door P.B. Considering their close connection and the rather limited number of friends who could have provided the translation, this “P.B.” must have been Pieter Balling. Besides demonstrating Balling’s obvious mastery of the Latin language, there can be no doubt that the choice for Balling as translator was approved, or perhaps even recommended, by Spinoza himself. By writing two pamphlets in 1663 and 1664, Balling intervened in the lammerenkrijgh. Failing to settle the disputes, pastors in the conservative wing eventually started to consider attracting preachers from different denominations, who they referred to as outsiders (buitenstaanders), to put an end to the conflict. This, in turn, stirred up serious resistance. Balling was among those who protested against this procedure and he asserted in his Verdediging van de Regering der Doopsgezinde Gemeente (Defense of the Government of the Baptism-minded Community) and Nader Verdediging van de Regering der Doopsgezinde Gemeente (Further Defense of…)155 that all decisions concerning the congregation must be made by its own members. The autonomy of the community was protected precisely by its capacity to resolve such issues internally. Both works were directed against the writings of the elder Jan van Dijck, who declared the churches on earth to be divine institutions and defended clerical authority.156 As was the case with the translation of Spinoza’s interpretation of Descartes, Balling merely used the initials P.B. to sign both pamphlets. Nevertheless, he mentions, his authorship is not a secret and anyone who desires to know who the author is can ask the publisher. A refutation of the Nader Verdediging that same year, called Goliadts Swaart, of Pieter Ballings soo genaamde Nader Verdediging van de Regering der Doopsgezinde Gemeynte binnen Amsterdam, uyt sijn eygen gronden

155 P. Balling, Verdediging der Doopsgezinde Gemeente, die men de vereenigde Vlamingen, Vriezen, en Hoogduytsche noemt, binnen Amsterdam, zijnde een wederlegging van het zoo genoemde Nootwendig Bericht, &c., Amsterdam: Jan Rieuwertsz., 1663; Balling, P., Nader Verdediging van de Regering der Doopsgezinde Gemeente, die men de vereenigde Hoogduytsche, Vriezen, en Vlamingen noemt, binnen Amsterdam, zijnde een wederlegging op D’Antwoort op de Verdediging, &c. (Amsterdam, 1664). 156 J. van Dijck, Noodtwendigh bericht, tot openinge der tegenwoordighe onlusten en geschillen in de Gemeente der Doops-gesinde, die men de Ver-eenighde Vlamingen, Vriezen en Hoogduytsche noemt, binnen Amsterdam, Amsterdam: Joannes van Someren, 1663); J. van Dijck, Antwoort op de vvederleggingh van het Noodtvvendigh bericht, zijnde een wederlegging der zoo-genoemde verdediging van de regeering der doops-ghesinde gemeente binnen Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1664).

wederlegt (Goliath’s Sword, or Pieter Balling’s so-called Further Defense …) ended all speculation concerning the author, if there was any. Interestingly enough, this rebuttal also provides some additional information about Balling. According to the anonymous author of Goliath’s Sword, Pieter Balling worked in Spain for several well-known merchants from Haarlem and Amsterdam (“ ... ghelijck hy ghesien heeft dat de factors in Spangien deden toen hy aldaer eenige wel bekende Haerlemsche en Amsterdamse cooplieden ... in commissie bediende...”).157 Notwithstanding the good intentions, all efforts to prohibit a rift were unsuccessful and the Flemish congregation in Amsterdam eventually, but inevitably, split up.

In contrast to both his ecclesiastical-political pamphlets, Balling’s Light on the Candlestick, merely six pages long, contains a far more philosophical and spiritual message. He starts off by stating that his main objective is to direct his readers to something that could provide them with a means towards their own salvation and welfare.158 He continues that one should “look inward and notice what is within oneself, i.e., the Light of Truth, which illuminates each and everyone in the world. That is where you should look, not outside yourself.”159 According to Balling, the deeds of darkness are exposed through this Light because it is supposed to point out evil and sins.160 It can only be assumed that in the seventeenth century intellectuals and illiterate people alike understood quite well that the saying “a light should be put on a candlestick, not hid under a bushel” was attributed to Jesus.161 “But whereas others call it Christ, the Spirit, or the Word etc.,” Balling says, “we refer to it as light more than anything else.”162 And this light is a clear and distinct knowledge of truth, present in the mind of every man, by which one is so convinced of the being and essence of things that he cannot doubt

157 S.n. Goliadts Swaart, p. 3. 158 P. Balling, Het Licht op den Kandelaar (Amsterdam 1662), p. 4. (“Wij nodigen u tot iets, ‘twelk een middel kan zijn om tot u zelfs heil en welstant te geraken”). 159 Ibid. (“Wij wijzen u dan tot u zelven, dat is dat gij moet inkeren, acht geven, ende opmerken op ‘t gene dat in u is: namelijk op het Licht der Waarheit, het waarachtige Licht, ‘t welke verlicht een yder mensche komende in de werelt. Hier moet gij zijn, niet buiten u”). 160 Ibid. pp. 4-5. (“Dit licht dan … is dat gene dat de werken der duisternisse, de zonden openbaar maakt. … Dewijle de natuur van dit licht eigentlijk is het quaat en de zonden aan te wijzen”). 161 Matthew 5:15, Mark 4:21, Luke 8:16, 11: 33. 162 Balling, Het Licht, p.4. (“Wij noemen het liever met de benaming van licht … of men het noeme Christus, den Geest, het Woort enz. … wat onder deze benaming bij ons wort beteikent”).

them.163 Balling thus deliberately refrains from using a Christian terminology because his preaching is for all creatures under Heaven. Even for those that have never heard of (let alone read) Holy Scripture.164 This ‘knowledge of truth is so powerful that it enables people to grasp the quality (hoedanigheid) of things. But unlike the prevalent belief in a divine Light guiding one towards ethical behaviour and morality, Balling seems to explain his notion in completely secular terms; his Light is rational insight, nothing mystical or incomprehensible. It is, on the contrary, an essential understanding of right and wrong, of good and evil, and so forceful that it excludes all doubt and uncertainties. Undeniably, Balling contends, the operation of the Light is not equally strong in all. In some cases, it does not seem to work at all. Just as with natural light, the Light may be hindered from working properly 165 Because our eyes and ears are constantly open to all things, and we are fully committed to enjoyment, he continues, it is no surprise that so many lack any operation of the Light. Moreover, these impediments are plentiful and omnipresent. Whenever they are encountered, they trigger our senses until the true Light surrenders to the overwhelming pleasure of acquiring these objects. The Light will never shine through when it suffers so much interposition from desire.166 But despite its failure to be effective in weak humans, the Light is always what it is and remains unchangeable. According to Balling, the Light is the first principle of religion. It is, he states, impossible to know (of) God without it. In rationalistic fashion, he goes on to explain that without there is no effect without any cause. Thus, as the

163 Ibid. (“Het licht (dan zeggen wij) is een klare en onderscheidene kennisse van waarheit, in het verstant van een ygelijck mensch, wardoor hij zodanig overtuigd is van het zijn en de hoedanigheid der dingen, dat het voor hem onmogelijk is om daar verder nog aan te twijfelen”). 164 Ibid. p. 5. (“Dit is de predikinge aan all Schepsel onder den Hemel, schoon zij noit van de Schriftuur gehoort, of die gelezen hebben”). 165 Ibid. (“Het valt weliswaar niet te ontkennen, dat de werking van dit Licht niet even krachtig is in alle mensen en in sommige mensen zelfs geheel wereloos schijnt te zijn. Dit is echter volledig te wijten aan de invloed van tegenwerkende belemmeringen. Gelijk immers het gewone licht door tussenkomst van andere lichamen of door afscherming belet kan worden om te schijnen waar het zonder die belemmeringen zou schijnen omdat het op zich onveranderd is, zo is het ook gesteld met het Licht waarover we spreken”). 166 Ibid. (“men is zozeer verwikkeld in de begeerten maar alles wat in de wereld in hoog aanzien staat en men is zozeer ondergedompeld in de wellusten, dat het bijna onmogelijk is dat het Licht een begeerte tot het goede kan opwekken. Waar het Licht zulke tegenwerkingen ondervindt, zal het nooit doorbreken”).

cause of all knowledge, the Light must precede religion.167 Continuing with this religious vocabulary, Balling proclaims that the Light is the inner ear, the only sense through which we can hear the voice of God, i.e., the truth.168 Naturally, it follows that we can no longer maintain that doctrines or books are divine. The Scriptures, Balling concludes, are neither the letters nor the words but only the sense/message. The Light, existing within everyone, is the only source through which we can know God.169

According to Fix, the scholarly attention for Balling’s work has not led to unified analyses. “The division of scholarly opininion, he argues, “is eloquent testimony to the fact that Het Licht represented a truly transitional form between spiritualism and rationalism.”170 For Jonathan Israel, the so-called “Bredenburg Disputes” (the unofficial end of the Collegiant movement), were the climax of a process which began when men like Balling and Jarich Jelles started to identify the spiritual inner light with a rationalist conception of human reason. While all Collegiants rejected the Quaker’s radical interpretation of the inner light, Socinian Cartesians such as Balling differed from their traditionalist colleagues like Galenus and Serrarius whose mystical spiritualism coexisted more and more uneasily with the rationalist tendency in the movement. Balling’s work, Israel writes, “however well-clothed in spiritual terms, turns out, on examination, to be essentially … the mathematical rationality of the Cartesians.”171 Wim klever emphasizes that there are strong similarities between Het licht en Spinoza’s early work. He acknowledges that he has not sufficiently proven Balling’s dependence on Spinoza and wonders if the influence could not have been the other way around as well. Klever concludes by claiming that it is a rational product of the religious emancipation and secularization so emblematic of the seventeenth century.172

167 Ibid. (“Dit licht is ook het eerste beginzel van den Ghodsdienst … geen kennisse Ghods zonder dit licht, zoo moet nootzakelijk den ghodsdienst zijn aanvank nemen door dit Licht”). 168 Ibid. (“Dit licht is het innerlijcke oor, door ‘t wlke alleen, en door geen ander de stemme Ghodts, dat is de waerheit, gehoort kan worden”). 169 Ibid. p. 7. (“De letteren, de woorden, deze en zijn niet de Schriftuur, maar alleen den zin is de Schriftuur. … dit licht in een ygelijk mensch is het middel om te komen tot de kennisse Ghodts”). 170 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, p. 205. 171 Israel, Radical Enlightenment, p.p. 343-344. 172 Klever, “De Spinozistische prediking van Pieter Balling,” pp. 84-85.

Despite Balling’s justification of Galenus’ liberal Mennonite outlook in his later pamphlets, the Light on the Candlestick was not a defense of the Collegiant leader. Here Balling seems to support, or, at least, mediate between, the spiritualism of William Ames and Galenus. As stated above, the title has led scholars to divergent opinions. A correct interpretation of this work seems impossible if one starts reading it, from the outset, as a work directed against the Friends, when in fact Balling was somewhat inclined towards Ames’ view. Jo van Cauter and Laura Rediehs have recently demonstrated that “some of the phrases in the Candlestick formerly thought to represent rationalist thought are in fact borrowed directly from the Mysteries and thus have more of a Quaker (spiritualist) sense than a Cartesian (rationalist) one.”173 In addition, they stress that the translation by the Quaker Benjamin Furley, and Willem Sewel’s recognition that it was received well by Ames demonstrate that Quakers did not regard it as a refutation at all. Unlike the Quakers, however, Balling rejects the Light as a metaphor for divine inspiration, bestowed from ‘above’ and completely supernatural, beyond human intellect. But what he agreed upon was their spiritualistic refutation of Scripture as a means to salvation. Although, in fact, Balling chose neither side in the dispute, it seems he preferred Quaker spiritualism to Galenus’ endorsement of the necessity of the Bible.

173 J. van Cauter and L. Rediehs, “Spiritualism and Rationalism,” p. 120. See also, L. Rediehs, “Candlestick Mysteries”, in: Quaker Studies (2014), pp. 151-169.

Conclusion

It seems unlikely that one of the most important events for the secularization of Collegiant thought was the Rijnsburgers’ contact with the Quakers, as suggested by Andrew Fix.174 When heated arguments arose over the inner light doctrine, he argues, many Collegiants started to discredit the Quaker’s extreme spiritualism in favor of a rationalistic interpretation of the individual conscience. The pamphlet war that followed magnifies the crucial differences between both groups and demonstrates the transformation of Collegiant thought. Approaching the topic in a broader context, Fix even claims that the changing conception of the individual conscience was a reflection of the transformational forces operating all over the Continent and the British Isles and, as such, represents the larger seventeenth-century European intellectual transition from faith to reason. In retrospect, however, it becomes clear that the secularizing trend among Collegiants was not given a decisive impuls in their dispute with the Quakers. The discussion of Pieter Balling’s Het licht op den kandelaar and close reading of the pamphlet war between Quakers and Collegiants have revealed that such statements are overambitious and, perhaps, even the result of a preoccupation with modernity. The ambiguous title and content of Het licht op den kandelaar leaves room for a wide range of speculations and interpretations. On the one hand, there are, as Wim Klever has shown, parallels between Balling’s work and early writings of Spinoza. Furthemore, Jonathan Israel stresses the influence of Cartesian philosophical rationalism to win Balling over for the ‘radical’ camp. By the end of the century, the advanced rationalism among Collegiants and subsequent discussions between the opposing parties resulted in a split within the movement. According to Israel, the incipient rift was already perceptible as soon as the 1660s when Cartesian philosophy started to attract a fringe of the Mennonite and Socinian members of the Rijnsburgers. Men like Pieter Balling, he states, were Collegiants closely associated with the unaffiliated radical philosopher Lodewijk Meyer and good friends of Spinoza. By adopting the new ‘rationalist’ outlook, they started to challenge the spiritualistic trend in Collegiant thought espoused by some of the most influential and prominent

174 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, pp. 194.

representatives hitherto.175 On the other hand, the recent comparison from Van Cauter and Rediehs demonstrates that William Ames’ Mysteries influenced Balling. Furthermore, we have seen that he defended the undogmatic inner light doctrine of the Quakers against his own Mennonite preacher Galenus. To what extent Balling’s tract was Spinozist, spiritual or rational is difficult to answer but that it was not a full-blown anti-religious work seems evident. The analysis of the pamphlet war also suggests that the development of Collegiant thought can hardly be attributed to their conflict with the Quakers. In 1660 William Ames wrote a response to Galenus Abrahamsz.’ popular XIX Artikelen, in which he attacked Galenus for doubting the divine inspiration of his Mennonite congregation, and all established churches in general. According to Ames, his lack of authority attested to the fact that Galenus had not received the Holy Spirit. Quakers, on the other hand, firmly believed that they were the chosen people, “divine ambassadors” inspired by the Light they received from God.176 Galenus’ answer instigated a series of refutations between Quakers and Collegiants. The discussions focussed on three major issues: the interpretation of Scripture, divine inspiration, and church decline. For Ames, and the Quaker position in general, the Divine Light of Christ would solve all religious difficulties. But as early as 1657, Collegiants started to object to Ames’ claim that the inner light was superior to the Bible itself. As the foremost authority in religious matters, the ‘inner light’ of Christ was constantly and fiercely defended by Ames. This extreme form of inner light spiritualism also inspired the Friends to call for a thorough cleansing of all established churches on earth. True Christianity, Ames believed, consisted simply in a dedicated following of Christ by listening to the light within. Aside from spiritual matters, Collegiants criticized the arrogance and rudeness of the Quakers. Their unmannered methods of conversion and general lack of respect in public as well as their disturbance and interruption of the services of others did not contribute to the much-desired conversion of Collegiants to Quakerism.177 In sum, despite the fact that Quakers and Collegiants initially showed striking resemblances in their criticism of institutionalized religion and free

175 Israel, Radical Enlightenment, pp. 343-344. 176 Ibid. pp. 196-197. 177 Ibid. pp. 195-196.

speech opportunities during their meetings, a protracted pamphlet war erupted as increasing numbers of Collegiants started to emphasize the differences instead of the similarities between the two groups. The claim that this disagreement caused the Collegiants to move away from spiritualistic positions and embrace a rationalist outlook is not supported by our analysis. It seems that the arrival of the Quakers tested Collegiant forbearance more than their religious convictions. What complicates matters further is that Collegiants, by definition, formed a group that cannot be lumped together. Galenus Abrahamsz. and Pieter Serrarius, for instance, do not represent the entire movement. And neither does Pieter Balling. Like many attendees at the colleges Galenus and Balling were Mennonites but clearly held different opinions about the interpretation of Scripture. Collegiant meetings provided time and space for discussion, not a straightforward ideology. A single, coherent philosophy among them was absent and influences and backgrounds varied so widely that Collegiants have been called “birds of different feathers.”178 Whether or not Collegiant thought formed “an intellectual bridge linking the providential worldview of the Reformation with the new worldview of science and reason”179 remains to be seen. There is little evidence to support the claim that the clash between Quakers and Collegiants should be regarded as the first stage of an “intellectual odyssey” from spiritualism, through rational spiritualism, to a largely secular philosophical rationalism.180 From the start of the eighteenth century until their last general meeting and subsequent dissolution in 1787, Collegiants played a less significant part in Dutch intellectual life than they had done the century before. “The once lonely light of Collegiantism,” Andrew Fix eloquently concludes, “dissolved into the bright dawn of the Enlightenment.”181

178 R. B. Evenhuis, Ook dat was Amsterdam (II), p. 244. (“vogels van zeer diverse pluimage”). 179 Fix, Prophecy and Reason, p. 247. 180 Ibid. p. 239. 181 Ibid. p. 231.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Abrahamsz., G., and D. Spruyt, Bedenckingen over Den toestant der Sichtbare Kercke Christi op aerden, Kortelijck in 19 Artikelen voor-ghestelt: en aen onse Mede-dienaren, op den 11 Ianuarij 1657, schriftelijk over-ghelevert (Amsterdam, 1657).

Ames, W., Het Ligt dat in de duisternisse schijnt/ beweesen den Weg tot God te sijn (Amsterdam, 1660).

Anonymous., Goliadts Swaart, of Pieter Ballings Soo genaamde Nader Verdediging van de regering der Vlaemsche Doops-gesinde Gemeynte binnen Amsterdam. Uyt sijn eygen gronden wederlegt (Amsterdam, 1664).

Balling, P., Het licht op den kandelaar. Dienende, tot opmerkinge van de voornaamste dingen; in het boekje genaamt De verborgentheden van het rijke Ghodts, &c. tegens Galenus Abrahamsz., en zijn Toestemmers &c. verhandelt en beschreven door William Ames (Amsterdam, 1662).

–––––––– Verdediging der Doopsgezinde Gemeente, die men de vereenigde Vlamingen, Vriezen, en Hoogduytsche noemt, binnen Amsterdam, zijnde een wederlegging van het zoo genoemde Nootwendig Bericht, &c., (Amsterdam, 1663).

–––––––– Nader Verdediging van de Regering der Doopsgezinde Gemeente, die men de vereenigde Hoogduytsche, Vriezen, en Vlamingen noemt, binnen Amsterdam, zijnde een wederlegging op D’Antwoort op de Verdediging, &c. (Amsterdam, 1664).

van Dijck, J., Noodtwendigh bericht, tot openinge der tegenwoordighe onlusten en geschillen in de Gemeente der Doops-gesinde, die men de Ver-eenighde Vlamingen, Vriezen en Hoogduytsche noemt, binnen Amsterdam (Amsterdam,1663).

–––––––– Antwoort op de vvederleggingh van het Noodtvvendigh bericht, zijnde een wederlegging der zoo-genoemde verdediging van de regeering der doops-ghesinde gemeente binnen Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1664).

Klinkhamer, L., Losse en quaade Gronden, Van de scheur-kerk: Eeniger, so genaamde, collegianten tot Rhijnsburg (Amsterdam,1686).

Oudaen, J., Aanmerkingen over het verhaal van het eerste Begin en Opkomen der Rynsburgers (Rotterdam, 1672).

Serrarius, P., De Vertredinge Des heyligen Stadts, Ofte Een klaer bewijs van’t verval der Eerste Apostolische Gemeeente, gestelt tot Antwoort op drie Vragen diesaengaende aen Dr Galenus gedaen in ’t byvoeghsel van seecker Voor-rede op ’t Boecxken tegens Dr Galenus & David Spruyt, ende in ’t Druck bevordert door Ian Iansz Swichtenheuvel (Amsterdam, 1659).

Secondary Sources:

Akkerman, F., H. G. Hubbeling and A. G. Westerbrink, Spinoza: Briefwisseling (1977; Amsterdam, 1992).

Brewer, D., The Enlightenment Past: Reconstructing Eighteenth-Century French Thought (Cambridge, 2008).

Braithwaite, W. C., and R. Jones, The Beginnings of Quakerism (London, 1912).

van Bunge, W., (ed.), The Early Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic (1650- 1750) (Leiden, 2003).

–––––––– De Republiek, Spinoza en de radicale Verlichting (Brussel, 2010).

–––––––– Spinoza Past and Present: Essays on Spinoza, Spinozism, and Spinoza Scholarship (Leiden, 2012).

Buys, R., Sparks of Reason: Vernacular Rationalism in the Low Countries 1550- 1670 (Hilversum, 2015).

Cassirer, E. A., The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, (1932; Princeton, 1951).

van Cauter, J., and L. Rediehs, “Spiritualism and Rationalism in Dutch Collegiant thought: New Evidence from William Ames’ Mysteries of the

Kingdom of God (1661), with a Translation,” in: Lias (2013), pp. 105- 175.

Clark, W., J. Golinski and S. Schaffer (eds.), The Sciences in Enlightened Europe (Chicago, 1999).

Cronk, N. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire (Cambridge, 2009).

Delon, M., (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (1997; New York, 2013).

Ellis, M. A., The Arminian Confession of 1621 (Eugene, 2005).

Emmet McLaughlin, R., “Radicals,” in: D. Whitford (ed.), Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research (Kirksville, 2008), pp. 80-120.

Evenhuis, R.B., Ook dat was Amsterdam: De kerk der hervorming in de gouden eeuw. 5 vols. (Amsterdam, 1965-1978).

Fix, A. C., Prophecy and Reason. The Dutch Collegiants in the Early Enlightenment (Princeton, 1991).

–––––––– “Dutch Millenarianism and the Role of Reason: Daniel de Breen and Joachim Oudaen,” in: C. Laursen and R. Popkin (eds.), Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture: Continental Millenarians: Protestants, Catholics, Heretics, (Dordrecht, 2001), 49-55.

Frijhof, W., (et al.), 1650: Bevochten eendracht. Nederlandse cultuur in Europese context (The Hague, 1999).

Grote, S., “Review-Essay: Religion and Enlightenment,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2014), pp. 141-146.

Hazard, P., De crisis in het Europese denken: Europa op de drempel van de Verlichting 1680-1715 (1934; Amsterdam, 1990).

Herman, A., The Cave and the Light: Plato versus Aristotle, and the struggle for the soul of Western Civilization (New York, 2013).

Hull, W. I., The Rise of Quakerism in Amsterdam 1655-1665 (Philadelphia, 1938).

Hylkema, C. B., Reformateurs, 2 Vols. (Haarlem, 1900-1902).

Israel, J. I., Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750 (New York, 2001).

–––––––– Enlightenment Contested. Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752 (New York, 2006).

–––––––– “Enlightenment. Which Enlightenment?,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2006), pp. 523-545.

–––––––– “Replying to Hanco Jürgens,” in: De Achttiende Eeuw (2007), pp. 61- 71.

–––––––– A Revolution of the Mind. Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton, 2010).

–––––––– Democratic Enlightenment. Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790 (New York, 2011).

–––––––– “Spinoza and the Religious Radical Enlightenment,” in: The Intellectual Consequences of Religious Heterodoxy 1600-1750 (Leiden, 2012), pp. 181-203.

–––––––– “A Reply to Four Critics,” in: H-France Forum (2014), pp. 77-97.

–––––––– “J. G. A. Pocock and the ‘Language of Enlightenment’ in His Barbarism and Religion,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2016), pp. 107-127.

–––––––– “Rousseau, Diderot, and the ‘Radical Enlightenment’: A Reply to Helena Rosenblatt and Joanna Stalnaker,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2016), pp. 649-677.

Jacob, M. C., “The Crisis of the European Mind: Hazard Revisited,” in: Mededelingen van de Stichting Jacob Campo Weyerman (1984), pp. 65- 87.

–––––––– “Radical Enlightenment,” in: The Journal of Modern History (2003), pp. 387-388.

–––––––– “Spinoza Got It,” in: London Review of Books (2012), pp. 26-27.

–––––––– “The Radical Enlightenment and Freemasonry: Where we are now,” in: Philosophica (2013), pp. 13-29.

Jürgens, H., “Contesting Enlightenment Contested. Some questions and remarks for Jonathan Israel,” in: De Achttiende Eeuw (2007), pp. 52-61.

Kannegieter, J., Geschiedenis van de vroegere Quakergemeenschap te Amsterdam: 1656 tot begin negentiende eeuw (Amsterdam, 1971),

Kent Wright, J., “A Bright Clear Mirror: Cassirer’s Philosophy of the Enlightenment,” in: K.M. Baker and P. H. Reill (eds.), What’s Left of Enlightenment? A Postmodern Question (Stanford, 2001), pp. 71-101.

Klever, W. N. A., “De Spinozistische prediking van Pieter Balling: Uitgave van ‘Het Licht op den Kandelaar’ met biografische inleiding en commentaar,” in: Doopsgezinde Bijdragen, nieuwe reeks (1988) pp. 55-85.

–––––––– “Spinoza and van den Enden in Borch’s Diary in 1661 and 1662,” in: Studia Spinozana (1989), pp. 311-325.

Lambour, R., “De Amsterdamse Collegiant Jacob Jansen Voogd (1630- 1710),” in: Doopsgezinde Bijdragen, nieuwe reeks (1997), pp. 75-90.

La Vopa, A., “Radical Enlightenment,” in: The Journal of Modern History (2003), pp. 389-393.

Leo, R., “Caute: Jonathan Israel’s Secular Modernity,” in: Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (2008), pp. 76-83.

Meihuizen, H. W., Galenus Abrahamsz 1622-1706: Strijder voor een onbeperkte verdraagzaamheid en verdediger van het Doperse Spiritualisme (Haarlem, 1954).

Mommsen, T. E., “Petrarch’s Conception of the Dark Ages,” in: Speculum, 17 (1942), pp. 226-242.

Montoya, A. C., Medievalist Enlightenment: From Charles Perrault to Jean- Jacques Rousseau (Cambridge, 2013).

Mörke, O., “Die Politische Bedeutung des Konfessionellen im Deutschen Reich und in der Republik der Vereinigten Niederlande. Oder: War die Konfessionalisierung ein ‘Fundamentalvorgang’?” in: R. Asch and H. Duchhardt (eds.) Der Abslutismos: Ein Mythos? Strukturwandel monarchischer Herrschaft in West- und Mitteleuropa (ca. 1550-1700) (Cologne, 1996), pp. 125-164.

Nadler, S., Spinoza’s Ethics (Cambridge, 2006).

–––––––– A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton, 2011).

Outram, D., The Enlightenment (Cambridge, 2005).

Pocock, J. G. A., “Enthusiasm: The Antiself of Enlightenment,” in: Huntington Library Quarterly (1997), pp. 7-28.

–––––––– Barbarism and Religion, Vol. 1, The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 1734-1764 (Cambridge, 1999).

–––––––– “Historiography and Enlightenment: a View of their History,” in: Modern Intellectual History (2008), pp. 83–96.

–––––––– “Response and Commentary,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2016), pp. 157-171.

Popkin, R. H., The third Force in Seventeenth-Century Thought (Leiden, 1992).

–––––––– The History of Skepticism: From Savaranola to Bayle (Oxford, 2003).

Robertson, J., The Enlightenment: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2015).

Shantz, D., Religion and Spinoza in Jonathan Israel’s Interpretation of the Enlightenment,” in: Religious Minorities and Cultural Diversity in the Dutch Republic (Leiden, 2014), pp. 208-221.

Sierhuis, F., The Literature of the arminian Controversy: Religion, Politics and the Stage in the Dutch Republic (Oxford, 2015).

van Slee, J. C., De Rĳnsburger collegianten: geschiedkundig onderzoek (Haarlem, 1895).

Stalnaker, J., “Jonathan Israel in Dialogue,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2016), pp. 637-648.

Stuurman, S., “Pathways to the Enlightenment: From Paul Hazard to Jonathan Israel,” in: History Workshop Journal (2002), pp. 227-235.

Trapman, J., “Erasmus Seen by a Dutch Collegiant: Daniel de Breen (1594- 1664) and his posthumous Compendium Theologiae Erasmicae (1677),” in: Nederlands archief voor kerkgeschiedenis (1993), pp. 156-177.

Tunturi, J. “Darkness as a metaphor in the historiography of the Enlightenment,” in: Approaching Religion (2011).

Ferrone, V., The Enlightenment: History of an Idea (2010; New Jersey, 2015).

van der Wall, E., De mystieke chiliast Petrus Serrarius (1600-1669) en zijn Wereld (Leiden, 1987).

–––––––– and L. Wessels (eds.), Een Veelzijdige Verstandhouding: Religie en Verlichting in Nederland 1650-1850 (Nijmegen, 2007).

Wolin, R., “Introduction to the Symposium on Jonathan Israel’s Democratic Enlightenment,” in: Journal of the History of Ideas (2016), pp. 615-626.

Zijlstra, S., Om de ware gemeente en oude gronden: Geschiedenis van de dopersen in de Nederlanden 1531-1675 (Hilversum, 2000).

Wielema, M., Adriaan Koerbagh: A Light Shining in Dark Places, To Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion (Leiden, 2011).