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.

Endorsements

"After carefully defining the significant but often-neglected Dutch Further Reformation and concepts such as spirituality and mysticism, Arie de Reuver expounds the spirituality of the movement's divines through the lives, ministries, and writings of five premier representatives. The author shows that their 'secondary differences in emphasis do not thwart the spiritual basis that all of them have in common.' This unified experiential spirituality is perceptively set in its medieval backdrop, highlighting the influence and spirituality of Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas a Kempis while stressing that the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch divines did not abandon their Reformed theological convictions. Rather, these writers were masters at marrying Reformed orthodoxy and Reformed piety to promote a life of intimacy and discipleship with God." - Joel R. Beeke, president and professor of systematic theology and homiletics, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary