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Oward G. Hagem President Emeritus New Brunswick Theological Seminary

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Oward G. Hagem President Emeritus New Brunswick Theological Seminary oward G. Hagem President Emeritus New Brunswick Theological Seminary begin this paper on a somcwhatpersonalnote; because Polhemus was a recognized minister of the Dutch although there are few qualifications that I can claim as ReformedChurch, his call to Long Island was ultimately a professional historian, there are some personal approved by the Classispostfactum.l privileges that I can cite when it comes to education in New Netherland. For one thing I am a direct descendant With this single exception, however, all ministers in of someonewho is often listed as the first schoolmaster New Netherland during the Dutch period were chosen in the town of Midwout. Though I do not think that and sent by the authorities in Amsterdam. Cumbersome Adriaen Hegcman’soccupancy of that post hasever been as it was, the system seemsto have worked surprisingly fully validated, ErasmusHall High School in Brooklyn, well. To be sure, the number of congregations to be the successorto IheMidwout School, apparently accepts supplied was small, but the distinguished careersof men it, since there is a plaque to him at its entrance. More like Megapolensis or Selyns are good examples of how importantly, I am the president emeritus of an institution well the system worked. which was the last result of the controversy which I am to describe. In October 1984 New Brunswick Seminary It is not surprising, therefore, that after the British celebrated its 200th anniversary. Preparation for that conquestof 1664and the final cessionof the province to celebration has given me some acquaintance with the Britain ten years later, the Dutch congregations in New roughly half century of struggle which preceded the Yorkcontinued the systemwith little hindrance from the foundation of the school in October 1784. It is with the British government which was probably relieved that it details of that fifty year struggle that we are to be con- did not have to supply Dutch Reformed ministers in the cerned. New World. There were occasional clashes as, for ex- ample, in 1675when the British government tried to foist Becausethe Dutch Church in New Netherland began a Van Rensselaerwho was in Anglican orders on the quite simply as the religious department of the Dutch Albany congregation or again in 1705 when Lord West India Company in 1628, there was never any ques- Cornbury insisted on a royal license for Bernardus tion that its ministers should be productsof Dutch univer- Freemanfor service in Long Island.2 But considering all sity and theological training, sent to their posts in the the adjustmentsnecessary between two cultures and two New World by the Classis of Amsterdam,which was the churches,occasions such as thesewere surprisingly few. ccclcsiastical body charged with responsibility for con- gregations in both the East and West Indies. Whenever The first break in the systemwas not due to the British, a congregation over here required a domine, it simply but to internal problems in the Dutch community. A new notified the Classis which in time found a suitable can- congregation had been formed in Hackensack,New Jer- didate and shipped him over. sey in 1686. After a brief initial ministry, the congrega- tion was left leaderlessexcept for occasional visits by a The single exception to this rule wasDomine Johannes domine from New York. One of its members,William TheodorusPolhemus who found himself in New Amster- Bertholf, gradually assumed leadership until the con- dam in 1654 as a refugee from the conqueredcolony of gregation let the New York ministers know that their Brazil. At that time the three newly organized Long serviceswere no longer necessary.When Bcrtholf, a man Island congregations of Breuckelen, Midwout and New of no education but of a deep pietist persuasion, let his Amcrsfoort were looking for a minister. The arrival of New York colleaguesknow that he intended to apply to the domine on these shores struck them as heaven sent Amsterdam for ordination, they were, of course, hor- so they put him to work immediately, even though the rified and immediately warned Amsterdam against this Classis of Amsterdam had not given its approval. Since ecclesiasticalupstart.3 219 220 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS Bertholf was from a section of the province of Zeeland in frontier places like New Jersey, thoug’h by no means which had been deeply influenced by pietism. Certain confined to that area. We have already mentioned Bert- that he would have a good reception there, he set sail for holf in Hackensack,but in a later generartionthere was Middleburg in 1693. Doubtless he had made his arran- the much more powerful influence of Theodore Freling- gements in advance because the Classis of Walcheren huysen on the Raritan. Many of Frelinghoysen’s clerical examined and ordained him virtually on the spot and he supportersand disciples had their background in German returned to Hackensack in 1694 with credentials as im- Pietism, like John Henry Goetschius who had come up peccable as those of anyone.4 How the other domines from Philadelphia. received him is another story, but Bertholf was the first to demonstratethat there were other routes to the Dutch In a word, in the first half of the eighteenth century Reformed ministry besides that of Amsterdam. From there was a growing theological suspicion of training in time to time some ordinations were performed in the the Netherlands. The evangelical pietism which New World, but always with the previous consent of the dominated the thinking of many dominels here found it Classis of Amsterdam which delegatedits powers to the difficult to accept the supernatural rationalism which ministers in New York. All of these, however, were prevailed at Groningen and L&den and was gaining special cases of which it could fairly be said that the influence in Utrecht. Congregations which wanted an Classis of Amsterdam would itself have performed the evangelical new light ministry were not likely to find it ordination if the geography of the case had permitted. in a Dutch university graduate. Pietist tninisters were reluctant to permit sons of their congregations in It is not really possible to say when dissatisfaction with America to study in the Netherlands. Not only were real this traditional system began to spread. It is a question risks involved in the transatlantic journey, but there was like asking who was the first Dutch settler in New York the greater risk involved in theological infection once and New Jersey to say, “I am not a Dutchman; I am an they got there. American.” We can, of course, statewith someprecision when the dissatisfaction had become so widespread that It has to be said that these theological objections were it becamea matter of record, but before we come to that never clearly stated. One did not lightly criticize the we should look at some of the tendencies that led to it. orthodoxy of a Dutch university. But one was certainly We shall consider them in three categories: theological, suspicious of the methodology of a university graduate cultural and linguistic. who, while he might preach orthodox sermons, did not know how to save souls. To all intents and purposes, It is surely not without some significance that of the Frelinghuysen and his colleagues on the Raritan were more than forty Dutch domines who served in New York running revival meetings. How was a Leiden education and New Jerseybetween 1628 and 1735, at least sixteen going to help prepare a domine for those? were graduatesof Leiden University. The number may have been even larger since somenames cannot be found Closely allied with the theological problem was a in any Dutch university register. But sixteen was far and cultural one. In settled societieslike New York or Albany away the largest group of graduates from any Dutch a Leiden graduatewould have a congregat.ionof well-to- university. Utrecht was representedby only four or five do merchantswho would appreciatethe educational and while the number from Groningen during that period was cultural level of their domine’s sermons. Henricus even smal1er.5The point of looking at university origins Selyns, for example, a L&den graduate and one of the of the clergy is that at this time Leiden was considered best-loved ministers in New York, was closely allied the most “liberal” of the Dutch schools.Under the leader- with the well-to-do merchant oligarchy and used to cor- ship of a teacher named Cocceius, a man heavily in- respond in Latin with the celebrated Cotton Mather in fluenced by the new philosophy of Descartes,Leiden Boston. graduateswere probably the most urbane and sophisti- cated graduatesof the three Dutch theological faculties. But what would have happened if Selyns had been There was a sizeable pietist influence at Utrecht, but it asked to preach on the frontier in New Brunswick or on certainly never touched L&den. the Raritan? We have a partial answer to such a question from Hackensack where Selyns used to go on occasion But in the New World, pietism was an increasingly to administer the sacramentswhen the congregation was strong strain in the Dutch Reformed churches especially without an ordained minister. In 169112 the congregation HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE MIDDLE CQLONIES 221 told Selyns not to come back, saying “that they can live Herman Lancelot Boelen was sent by the Classis of well enough without ministers or sacramentss.“6Part of Amsterdam in 1766 to the four QueensCounty churches this rejection may have been the result of Selyns’ stance of Newtown, Jamaica, Oyster Bay and Success,all of during the Leisler Rebellion; part of it because of them small farming communities. Boelen had previously theological differences between the domine and Bert- been domine of the church in the farming village of half, at that time the lay leader of the congregation.
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