Sweet Communion: Trajectories of Spirituality from the Middle Ages through the Further Reformation

by Arie de Reuver

Sweet Communion introduces scholars and interested Reformed readers to the spirituality practiced during the Further Reformation, a seventeenth-century movement that strove for a contemporary application of the sixteenth-century Reformation. The book is organized around leading figures of the era, including Willem Teellinck, Theodorus à Brakel, Guiljelmus Saldenus, Wilhelmus à Brakel, and Herman Witsius. Sweet Communion examines the quality, form, and roots of this period s spirituality. De Reuver determines that each of the Further Reformation authors promotes a spirituality in which the heart experiences communion with God by the Word and Spirit. In examining the roots of this spirituality, de Reuver reaches back to the Middle Ages and the spirituality of Thomas à Kempis and Bernard of Clairvaux. Table of
1. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
2. Thomas à Kempis (c. 1379-1471)
3. Willem Teellinck (1579-1629)
4. Theodorus à Brakel (1608-1669)
5. Guiljelmus Saldenus (1627-1694)
6. Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635-1711)
7. Herman Witsius (1636-1708)

304 pages, Paperback

Published August 16, 2017

Reviews

[Ben Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, rigorous study of the continuities and discontinuities between the spirituality of the Middle Ages (i.e. Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas á Kempis) and the Dutch Reformed thought of the Nadere Reformatie (e.g., Voetius, Witsius, á Brakel, etc.). Quite a compelling thesis too!

Personally, this book made me desire to go in my love for Jesus all the more.

[Nicholas Abraham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful review of key Further Reformation authors and a careful display of their connection to Reformation and pre-Reformation spirituality.

[Tyler Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super interesting book. Generally, there is a criticism of reformed theology that it is not experiential enough, and there is a criticism of some experience-driven aspects of evangelicalism that it is not robustly theological enough. Maybe the trick to balancing those two perspectives lies in the history of the Further Reformation which sought to reevaluate Catholic Mysticism to understand which aspects needed to be stripped away in order to follow the movement of Luther and Calvin and which aspects could be reimported. De Reuver is extremely helpful in investigating that.