LETTER

PEACE be unto the Brethren of the Komen-Jans-volck original: "Komen-Jans-volck"; a reference to a branch of the Mennonite/Anabaptist tradition in Waterland and at De Rijp. More than one hundred years have already passed since men began to praise your faith, doctrine, and household conduct, indeed your piety and steadfastness in lands and cities. It has been fifty years since we heard such laudable testimony regarding you. But what has happened? After the passage of time and the passing of your pious teachers, a new practice, unknown to you of old, has begun to creep in among you from time to time. This influence originates from a stranger who, driven by ambition and a desire to preach, became an apostate from the Reformed Church in Antwerp. His name is Hans de Rijs. He began to teach and baptize before he was even baptized upon his own faith or confirmed in the ministry. Furthermore, he is still not considered to be baptized upon his own faith, or at least not confirmed. Although he is still a novice Proevelingh probationer/novice in his style of speaking, he is nonetheless emboldened, and emboldens others, through the laying on of hands. He scornfully calls those "novices" who have not had hands laid upon them during their long-practiced ministry. It pleases us to hear and understand that you, or some of your number, no longer wish to be governed by a stranger—for we consider this Hans de Rijs to be a true stranger in lineage and doctrine, if he is still alive. He has sought to lead you away from the scriptural and old customs deemed worthy by you and your predecessors. He has used those whom he has abused for his own ends to introduce such things as marriage before the civil authorities, deeming it unnecessary to be done a second time by an exhorter Vermaender a Mennonite lay preacher, and the holding of the Lord's Supper (after the example of Christ) toward the evening, among other things.

Hans de Rijs continues to labor, if it were possible, to cast the net of the Geest-drijversche spirit-driven/enthusiast doctrine over your heads through his creatures. This teaching is drawn from the breasts of the deceased enthusiast Swinck-feldt Caspar von Schwenckfeld, a mystic theologian and his followers. He seeks to lead you away from the scriptural, old, and praiseworthy custom among you of mutual suspicion against those who touch upon his puppets. He has wrongly misused Jan Wil. M., your faithful servant in the Word. When Jan Wil. M. perceived in part the depth of Satan in Hans de Rijs and his satellites—who label themselves, as if a new sect, "Citizens of the Peace City" Vreden-Stadts-Burgers a group of followers associated with Hans de Rijs, otherwise known as enthusiasts—he wished to warn you, as a faithful teacher, that you should not allow yourselves to be carried away or led astray from your righteous mind under the appearance of some piety, self-conceited revelation, and enthusiasm. We have understood that some among you, who are already infected with the enthusiasm of Hans de Rijs, have brought it about that the book of Jan Wil. M.—written instructively and as a warning for your service—did not see the light of day. Instead, through the machinations of Hans de Rijs, Pieter Andriessen, and Cornelis Claesz. with their associates, they sang their "Placebo" a reference to the Vesper antiphon, implying sycophancy regarding its contents, or perhaps played the hypocrite according to the instructions of Hans de Rijs. We had intended this for your service, warning, and observation.

However, since you have been deprived of it until now, and we cannot obtain it from Jan Wil. M. himself through proper means and channels to share with you—except through the reprinting of the printed sheets of it that we have obtained—these shall, once reprinted, serve you as a warning from Jan Wil. M. not to be led astray by the "twofold Word" a theological concept attributed to de Rijs, distinguishing between the internal and external Word of Hans de Rijs and the consequences thereof, which have begun to spread among his fellow enthusiasts. Thus, we have a complete history of such enthusiasm—consisting of dreams, internal voices, and revelations (as they say)—as well as the fruits arising therefrom, and the rumors about Hans de Rijs and his companions, ready to be sent to the press. However, we are holding it back for the time being, awaiting the answer of Hans de Rijs to the "Sweep-brush" Raegh-besem a metaphorical title for a polemical pamphlet intended to 'clean out' error, which (as we understand) is under the press and will provide us with even more material for that purpose.