PREFACE.

...God’s glory and the love for His will, governance, and glory is the foundation of our direction, and in truth it is that which brings about and maintains the order, peace, and edifying unity found in this House of ChristDutch: Huys Christi. The author's name for their communal society, which they believed lived according to the model of the early Christian church.. All the sincere souls whom the Lord brings to it testify that they are freer here than they have ever been elsewhere, and they cannot wonder enough at what is said regarding their coercion and bondsCritics often accused the Labadist leaders of exercising cult-like control over their followers.. I write this before their eyes, and gladly place it in their hands; and I am well assured that they neither will nor can say otherwise than that I speak the full truth in this, and that I here testify only to the smallest part of what they themselves would say, if they were to speak of what they feel in their hearts.

Dominie KoelmanJacobus Koelman (1632–1695), a Dutch minister who initially supported the Labadists but later became a fierce critic after they separated from the Reformed Church. thinks that I would forbid those who hear us from reading his book, just as it is said that he advises against or forbids reading our books to those who hear him. As far as his own interest is concerned, many who have read it, having become either weary or offended by it, would certainly not think that a great evil was done to those souls if such reading were taken away from them. Nevertheless, I can say that what Dominie Koelman thinks and says about this is not so. Those among us who have wanted to read his book have read it as much as they wished, and I would even have trouble making everyone read it: for some, laughing at those pretended mortificationsDutch: gepretendeerde mortificatien. Acts of self-denial or "dying to the self" that critics claimed the Labadists forced upon their members. which it is said we impose upon them, said earnestly that it would be at least one of the greatest mortifications for them if I were to oblige them to read it all the way through. And I know that many outside this House of the Lord have said that one must indeed have plenty of time and patience to read such a book from beginning to end. Dominie Koelman will not easily believe this, for he has far too high an opinion of it; and certain people who flatter him, or who seek to remain in the common track, apparently serve to give him very different