[447] The sect of the Familists or Family of Love, have been associated with one David George of Delft, who, in 1544, fled out of Holland to Basle, giving it out that he was banished from the Low Countries, and changed his name, calling himself John of Brugg. He affirmed that he was the true David whom God had promised to send to restore again the kingdom of Israel, and wrote various books in support of his pretensions. He died on the 16th of September 1556. After him rose up one Henry Nicholas, born in Amsterdam, who maintained the same doctrine, but applied it to himself and not to David George. (See Works of Greenham, p. 219, H. N.) One Christopher Vivet, a joiner dwelling in Southwark, who had been in Queen Mary's days an Arian, translated out of Dutch into English several of the books of Henry Nicholas, among which was his "Evangelium Regni." The claims of Nicholas were those of a fanatic, and his system was a lie. (Pagitt's "Heresiography," pp. 81-91.)
[448] The "Separatists" were a kind of Anabaptists, so called because they pretended to be separate from the rest of the world. They condemned fine clothes. To them that laughed they would cry, "Woe be to you that laugh, for hereafter ye shall mourn." They did look sadly, and fetched deep sighs; they avoided marriage meetings, feasts, music; and condemned the bearing of arms and Covenants. (Pagitt's "Heresiography," p. 30.)
[449] Strange.
[450] In the end of the year 1643, the Scottish army raised by the Convention of Estates for the assistance of the English Parliament marched into England, and, having joined the Parliamentary forces, blockaded Newcastle, as Rutherford here describes.
[451] Afterwards Earl of Crawford. See notice of, Letter CCXXXI.
[452] He had lost two children before going to London, and the above is in reference to the death of other two after he came thither.
[453] "Ease" in older editions.
[454] Q.d., You need this advice, as too often even believers make haste.
[455] The allusion is to Jer. vi. 29, and in that passage "daylight" is a variation from our common version. Could Rutherford have been reading Jeremiah in the Septuagint Greek version? There the word is φυσητὴρ, "blowpipe," or "bellows;" but we might suppose that his eye mistook the word for φωστὴρφωστὴρ, "lightgiver," "window-light." The Scotch phrase, "to burn daylight," means to waste time and opportunity.
[456] Passage.