It was possibly originally composed in Latin as Lucerna Super Candelabrum by Adam Boreel, translated into Low-Dutch by Peter Balling in 1662[1] and into English by B.F. (Benjamin Furly) in 1663.

Serving for Observation of the principal things in the Book called; The Mysteries of the Kingdom of God, &c against several Professors, Treated of, and written by Will.

Ames…Printed in Low-Dutch for the Author, 1662. and translated into English by B.F.”[2]This has led to the supposition that William Ames was the author of The Light upon the Candlestick, but the wording means that The Light upon the Candlestick agrees in principle with the work The Mysteries of the Kingdom of God by William Ames.

William Ames was a Quaker minister who, after being imprisoned for his beliefs in Ireland, moved to Amsterdam, where he preached with John Stubbs.

[4] Adam Boreel was a Dutch theologian and Hebrew scholar, a leader of the Collegiants and a friend of Baruch Spinoza; Peter Balling was a member of the Collegiants; Benjamin Furly, associated with John Locke, George Fox and William Penn, was an English Quaker merchant then living in Rotterdam.