Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635–1711), son of the Frisian minister Theodorus à Brakel, was trained at Franeker and Utrecht under Voetius, served four Frisian congregations and then, from 1683 until his death, Rotterdam, where the people called him “Father Brakel.” He belongs to the Dutch Second Reformation, the movement that did in the Netherlands what the Puritans did in England — pressing the doctrine of the Reformed confessions into a reformation of life — and he read and translated the English Puritans himself. His Redelijke Godsdienst (The Christian’s Reasonable Service, 1700), doctrine and practice in one book, was the most-read work of Dutch divinity for two hundred years. He is not an English Puritan; he is kept here with them, as Turretin is.
Works (1)
- The Christian’s Reasonable Service — His systematic theology, every doctrine carried through into practice; in Bartel Elshout’s translation, the only one in English. (115 notes)