A Curious History

he claimed he had deserved; however, ordering a ClassisA regional governing body in the Reformed Church, composed of ministers and elders from several local churches. at Vlissingen for the tenth of the following month, with the intention of dealing with him there, in accordance with the intentions of the Synod of Leiden.

Before the holding of this Classis, the Synod had ordered that some Deputies should arrive ahead of the scheduled date and go to Middelburg to prepare the business and try to bring Labadie back to his duty by every gentle means they could devise. But these Deputies worked in vain, for they spoke to a deaf man and tried fruitlessly to touch a hardened and inflexible heart. They withdrew on the appointed day to Vlissingen, where the Classis was convened; but the one who did not present himself was Labadie. Instead, by a letter addressed not to the Classis but to the Synodal Church, he wrote that his "infirmity" exempted him from traveling to Vlissingen, even though he was not truly sick—indeed, he had shown himself only too vigorous and healthy in his preaching and his solicitations. Consequently, to conduct business, the Classis was forced, whether they liked it or not, to move to Middelburg to meet Labadie, since he would not move to Vlissingen to meet them. Despite all these concessions being made to him, contrary to order and custom, he would never consent to be separated from his ConsistoryThe local governing council of a single congregation, made up of the minister and elders. to appear separately before the Classis, and

and one after the other, as the Synod of Leiden had ordered. But as soon as the Moderator began to tell him that he had something to represent to him in private, he rose quickly, saying with a look that marked a signal contempt for the assembly: That he did not recognize it as a Classis. Even despite the efforts that the Flemish Consistory of the Church of Middelburg made through its Deputies to engage him to satisfy the intentions of the Classis and the Synod—representing to him that it was original: "Res judicata" a matter already judged, from which, according to the rules, there was no appeal—he could not be moved. He said loudly to the delegated Flemish Pastors, That he would not preach on the matter of the Kingdom except when his text led him to it; adding, that if the Synods had such great authority over the Churches, they would be Popes. Thus, the Classis, having employed all its pains in vain and despairing of bringing this man to his duty, was constrained to suspend him from all the functions of his Ministry until the following Synod, a decision at which he mocked.

At the following Synod, which was that of Vlissingen in April of the year 1668, they began, according to the instructions of several Churches, with the affairs of Labadie. They wished to try a path of reconciliation rather than entering into an examination of the proceedings of the Classis held at Middelburg on the 10th of October