A Curious History

clarifications given by Mr. Wolzogue, the said book was declared Orthodox unanimously and without a single one of the deputies, whether Elders or Pastors, being excepted: and the Synod ordered Labadie to make a reparation of honor to the said Mr. Wolzogue, for having rashly accused his book of being filled with heresies and impieties. But this order of the Synod did not please a proud and haughty spirit such as that of Labadie, who knows nothing of submission; and as this was the only weak pretext remaining for his schismA formal split or division within a church body., he resolved to withdraw the following day, without doing anything that had been ordered of him, leaving only a letter full of insults against the Synod, written by the hand of his fellow deputy, which was delivered to the Synod after their departure. This departure, so prompt and so hurried, did not prevent the Synodal assembly from forming its judgment of suspension against Labadie, based on several significant and well-verified points; such as obstinacy in refusing to repair the honor of one of his colleagues, whom he had so calumniously defamed; infraction of Ecclesiastical discipline and the articles of the Vlissingen agreement original: "l'accomodement de Fleffingues" for having published books without the approval of the Synod; and infraction of Ecclesiastical discipline and the articles of the agreement for having published books full of doctrines injurious to Ecclesiastical orders, false, danger-

ous, condemned by the Synod, and capable of troubling our Churches; of bad faith, of disguising the truth, and of manifest lying on several occasions; of rebellion against the orders of the Synod, and of contempt for having withdrawn against the promise he had given, etc. The suspension was enacted until the following Synod, unless, in the ClassisA regional governing body in the Reformed tradition, ranking between the local consistory and the national synod. which was to assemble at Middelburg on the 10th of October, he gave such reparation as would require this censure to be lifted.

But like a runaway horse that had taken the bit between its teeth original: "pris le frain aux dens," an idiom meaning to act uncontrollably or stubbornly, the further he went, the more he strayed from his proper course, as could be seen at the Classis of Middelburg; for as soon as the Deputies of the Classis arrived there, believing they would meet at the Consistory of the Choorkerck The "Choir Church" in Middelburg, part of the larger abbey complex., they found a great crowd of people in the Temple, and learned that Labadie and his followers had come to seize the Consistory, without the knowledge of those who had granted the place to the Deputies of the Classis; this obliged them to seek another location, into which Labadie and his followers did not fail to intrude themselves again. It went so far that when the Moderator of the Classis ordered him to leave, after having first very gently and humanely asked him to do so, Labadie, on the contrary, instead of obeying, replied in a surly tone and solely with the intent to trouble the assembly, I order you.