rant" preacher was sent to care for the orphaned Church in
Warmund, but Giesbert had become satisfied with the new type of meeting,
and now expressed himself emphatically against listening to preachers who
lived without working and at the expense of the community, and who
hindered the free exercise of "prophecy." Many of the members of the
Church did not share these views, but {116} much preferred to have the
comfort of a minister, so that a "separation" occurred, and Giesbert,
with his brothers and fellow-believers, rented a house and perfected
their new type of congregational meeting. They soon moved their meeting
(called a "Collegium," _i.e._ gathering) to the neighbouring town of
Rynsburg, where it received additions to its adherents, largely drawn
from the Mennonites, many of whose ideas were strongly impressed upon the
little "Society,"--for example, opposition to taking oaths, refusal to
fight, or even to take measures of self-defence, and rejection of the
right of magistrates and other political officers to inflict punishment.
They also adopted, as the Mennonites did, the Sermon on the Mount as the
basis of their ethical standard, which they applied with literalness and
rigour. They insisted on simplicity of life, the denial of "worldly"
occupations or professions, plainness of garb, rejection of the world's
etiquette, absence of titles in addressing persons, and equality of men
and women, even in public ministry. They introduced the practice of
immersion ("Dompeldoop") as a mark of initiation into the Society, but
they considered true Christian baptism to be with the Spirit and not with
water, and they allowed their members a large range of liberty in the use
or disuse of water baptism, as well as in the form of receiving it. They
rejected the Supper as an ecclesiastical ceremony, but they highly prized
it as an occasion of fellowship and of group worship. Every person might
share the supper with them if he confessed his faith in Christ and were
not living in unrepented sin, though they were inclined to exclude
persons occupying offices which involved the violation of the Sermon on
the Mount. The one essential mark of fellowship was brother-love, which
was not to be confined to the narrow limits of the Society, but that
person was regarded the truest disciple of Christ who practised the
neighbour-spirit in the broadest and most effective manner. They cared
for their own sick and poor, and they had a wide s