RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Kuyper Labadie
melite hermitage at Graville in enforced retirement, where he read the " Institutes " of Calvin, with which he came into thorough agreement in doctrine, though still in sympathy with the practise of the Roman Catholic Church. [The change in his attitude he expressed in the words, " This is the last time Rome shall persecute me in her Communion. Up to the present I have endeavored to help and to heal her, remaining within her jurisdiction; but now it is full time for me to renounce her and to testify against her." Cf. G. D. J. Schotel, Anna Maria van Schurman, p. 160, Leyden, 1853.] The ceaseless opposition of the Jesuits, who had now become his bitter foes, and his knowledge of the life of the Reformed congregations first led him formally to declare his allegiance to the Reformed Church at Montauban in 1650. He now sought to be a reformer of the Reformed, finding his opportunity first as a preacher and later as professor of theology at Montauban. In 1657 he was expelled from Montauban and took refuge in Orange, but was forced to leave when that city was taken by Louis XIV in 1659. He then started for London to become pastor of the Reformed French congregation there, but was so strongly urged, on the way, to remain at Geneva as preacher that he accepted, and worked there successfully for a revival in religion and morals alike. He gathered about himself a circle of disciples, including Pierre Yvon (1646-1707), Pierre Dulignon (d. 1679), Francois Menuret (d. 1670), Theodor Untereyk (d. 1693), and Friedrich Spanheim (d. 1701). His reputation and his writings on asceticism, meditation, and contemplation were spread throughout Holland, chiefly by the agency of Gottschalk van Schurman, and attracted the attention of earnest Christians at Utrecht like G. Voetius, J. van Lodenstein, and Anna Maria van Schurman (q.v.), who came to look upon Labadie as a possible reformer of the Dutch Reformed Church, which had degenerated into crass worldliness. After a short stay at Utrecht, where some of the prominent theologians denounced him as an irresponsible visionary, he was invited to Middleburg in 1666 as preacher to the Walloon Reformed congregation. His pastorate at Middelburg was at first successful, and while there he published his Ecrit sur la prophetie (Amsterdam, 1668) and his Manuel de piete (1669).
Gradually, however, Labadie's caprice and selfwill restricted his ministrations to a small circle of ardent followers, which developed into a separatists sect. He refused to subscribe to the Belgic Confession, considering it unbiblical in many articles, and he declined to follow the Reformed liturgy, preferring extempore prayers. The breach widened, and in 1668 Labadie publicly refused to submit to the judgment of the synod and was suspended. Nevertheless he celebrated the communion before the regular service, and was accordingly deposed and forbidden to remain in Middelburg. Retiring with his followers to the neighboring town of Veer, he sought to gather there and at Amsterdam a congregation of the truly regenerate. Few of importance joined them, however, excepting Anna Maria van Schurman and Conrad
van Benningen. Despite this, their services were attended by such numbers that their meetings were prohibited by the authorities in 1670, whereupon the community of some fifty persons, with five pastors and preachers, were invited by the Palgravine Elizabeth (see Elizabeth, Albehtine) to settle at Herford. Their presence raised serious opposition there, and in 1672 they retired to Altona.
Shortly after the death of Labadie, his followers, now numbering 162, returned to Holland, alarmed at the war which had broken out between Denmark and Sweden, and settled in the neighborhood of the castle of Waltha or Thetinga near Wiewert in western Frisia.
Many hundreds of Labadie's converts remained in the Reformed Church as an Evangelical element. Here their communism was further developed. In the Labadist communities all dressed in the most simple fashion without adornment, and ate together at three tables, for the leaders, the brethren, and the guests respectively. Each family had a separate dwelling, but was obliged to leave the doors open in token of the community of goods. The colony supported itself chiefly by weaving, soap-boiling, and the working of iron. The government was aristocratic and hierarchic, while the distinctive doctrines were the immediate efficacy of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of the elect, the Church restricted to the regenerate, and chiliasm. The sacraments were allowed only to the regenerate, so that infant baptism was barely tolerated and communion was rare. The marriage of the regenerate was regarded as holy, the children being considered as belonging not to the parents but to the Lord, so that they were brought up in the community. On the other hand, the marriage of unbelievers was rejected as sinful. The first and most necessary virtue was obedience. Worship was extremely simple, and was led partly in French and partly in Dutch by the " speakers." The observance of Sunday was lax. During the acme of their prosperity in 1680 the Labadists were invited by Cornelis van Sommelsdyk, governor of Surinam, to send colonists to his dominions. They gladly responded, but in 1688 their plantation, which they had named Providence, had to be abandoned when the governor was murdered by his soldiers. A second attempt at colonization was made at Bohemia Manor, Cecil Co., Md., in 1684, after Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, agents of the Labadists, had visited America in 1679. The Maryland colony survived until a few years after Sluyter 's death (1722), but was gradually absorbed in the surrounding population. [This was the first communistic settlement in the New World (see Communism, II., § 1). The principal industries were sheep raising and tobacco culture. The peaceful existence of the community was due to the religious toleration practised in Maryland.] In 1692 the communistic system of the parent house was abandoned and each member lost a fourth of his investment. From this blow the Labadists never recovered. By 1703 the community at Wiewert had dwindled from between three and four hundred to thirty, and in 1732 the last " speaker " died and the society was finally dissolved. (G. Frank-)-.)
Labarum Lacordaire