Theodorus Frelinghuysen’s Evangelism: Catalyst to the First Great Awakening

By Scott Maze

This book presents a thorough investigation of the evangelistic contributions of Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen (1692–1747/8)within the context of the First Great Awakening. In it, Scott Maze identifies the theological foundations of Frelinghuysen’s ministry, surveys his key evangelistic endeavors, and evaluates the effects these things had on the Great Awakening.

This book sheds light on a lesser known figure of the Great Awakening, reveals the influence of the Dutch Further Reformation (Nadere Reformatie) in colonial North America, and provides significant insights in terms of ministry contextualization for the contemporary student of evangelism.

Table of Contents:

1. A Brief Biography

2. Theological Bases

3. Evangelistic Contributions

4. Catalyst to the First Great Awakening

• Language: English
• Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books
• Release date: Jan 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781601785817

Book preview

THEODORUS FRELINGHUYSEN’S

EVANGELISM

CATALYST TO THE FIRST GREAT AWAKENING

Scott Maze

Reformation Heritage Books

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Theodorus Frelinghuysen’s Evangelism

© 2011 by Scott Maze

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Direct your requests to the publisher at the following addresses:

Reformation Heritage Books

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Printed in the United States of America

11 12 13 14 15 16/10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN: 978-1-60178-581-7 (epub)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Maze, Scott.

Theodorus Frelinghuysen’s evangelism : catalyst to the First Great Awakening / Scott Maze.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-60178-123-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Frelinghuysen, Theodorus Jacobus, ca. 1691-ca. 1747. 2. Evangelistic work. 3. Great Awakening. 4. Reformed churches—Doctrines. 5. Salvation—Christianity. I. Title.

BX9543.F7M39 2011

269’.2092—dc22

2011000272

For additional Reformed literature, both new and used, request a free book list from Reformation Heritage Books at the above regular or e-mail address.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. A Brief Biography

2. Theological Bases

3. Evangelistic Contributions

4. Catalyst to the First Great Awakening

Conclusion

Glossary

Bibliography

Subject Index

Preface

The book was, in essence, a dissertation written in fulfillment of the requirments for the doctoral degree at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Since I completed the work in the summer of 2006, it has been somewhat revised for publication. The revision process has been helped greatly by the keen eye of Dr. Joel Beeke, an invaluable resource in the field of the Dutch Reformed faith and the period of history entitled the Nadere Reformatie.

The idea for this book arose from a seminar taken during my doctoral studies entitled History of Spiritual Awakenings in 2000–2001. The subject of Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen’s ministry attracted me because of Frelinghuysen’s polemical style of ministry. Frelinghuysen’s methods of determining who was pious and thereby admissible for participation in the Lord’s Supper were so unusual that it drew my attention. At times, Frelinghuysen had chosen to accost directly his parishioners who lacked spiritual fervor. Such practices contrast sharply with many contemporary ministry standards.

This book has been a work of delight and anguish. I continue to marvel at God’s handiwork more than three hundred years ago during the advent of the First Great Awakening. This is especially so as the contemporary Western church has faced a grave need to awaken its people from a lethargic malaise. This draws me to Frelinghuysen in an attempt to answer the question, What can animate God’s people to intense worship and fervent evangelism? Frelinghuysen labored diligently in the face of substantial opposition, and his churches were better because of his work. This book is then an attempt to synthesize the opposing trends of God’s work in animating His church versus the church’s proclivity for decline.

Special appreciation goes to the library staffs of the A. Webb Roberts Library of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and especially Albert C. King of Special Collections and University Archives at the Rutgers University Library. The entire staff was helpful upon the author’s visit and research at Rutgers University Library, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

I am thankful for the friendship and counsel of two men who have been mentors to me: Dr. Roy Fish and Dr. Malcolm McDow. Special appreciation is owed both to Dr. Fish, my dissertation supervisor, for his insightful analysis and his wife, Jean, who has shown me great kindness over many years. Thank you all for your love for Christ and your evangelistic passion for people.

The Lord has been gracious enough to allow me to serve as pastor of two congregations during my doctoral studies: Lakeview Baptist Church of Grand Prairie, Texas, and First Baptist Church of Borger, Texas. Both congregations helped me invaluably. I also want to thank the First Baptist Church of Van Buren, Arkansas, as I have the joy of being their pastor. They constantly overlook my faults and graciously love my family. Thank you for your encouragement.

Numerous family members and friends have encouraged and challenged me along the way. Two friends, Marty Light and Glynn Stone, have listened to large parts of this dissertation or ideas in it. They have been helpful conversation partners along the way. Thank you for your ministry and your friendship.

Traci, my wife, has loved me and listened kindly to me during this process. Thank you for your unending kindness. You have been a source of comfort and strength throughout our marriage. Thank you for your sacrifice. You will always have my love. I am so thankful that the Lord brought us together. My children, Miles, Macaul, and Matthew, have patiently endured numerous trips to libraries and quietly played while their father worked. Your mother and I pray that your holiness and passion for Christ will strengthen with each coming year. May God use you richly to influence many for His kingdom. I am thankful that God sent each of you to your mother and me.

— Scott Maze

October 2010

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to present a thorough investigation of the evangelistic contributions of Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen (1692–1747/8)1 within the context of the Middle Colonies and the First Great Awakening2 (1726–1770).3 The purpose of identifying these contributions and their relationships to Frelinghuysen’s theological thought is to view their historical significance on the evangelization of the Raritan Valley of New Jersey (about forty miles from New York City) and their overall contributions to the First Great Awakening itself.

The First Great Awakening is regarded generally as a religious revival of the eighteenth century which occurred in the American colonies. I date the beginning of the Great Awakening with Frelinghuysen’s regional revival in 1726 and conclude it with George Whitefield’s death in 1770.4 A similar awakening occurred in the British Isles, designated as either the Evangelical Revival or the Wesleyan Revival.5 The First Great Awakening within its colonial context was partly a product of the growing vigor of pietistic influence within Europe, partially spreading from Germany but also having pietistic antecedents in the Netherlands.6 Many historians have outlined the historical antecedents of the Awakening’s beginning to German pietism while relatively few individuals have traced its roots to Dutch Reformed pietism.

The research problem for this book focuses upon the following questions. What were Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen’s evangelistic contributions to the First Great Awakening? Is it valid to assert that Frelinghuysen’s ministry was propelled primarily by an experiential soteriology? If so, what were the distinguishing marks of his soteriological thought? How extensively did Frelinghuysen’s view of pastoral authority influence his evangelistic strategy? Did a regional revival7 occur during Frelinghuysen’s ministry, or has Herman Harmelink III correctly asserted that Frelinghuysen only created a disaffection?8 If Frelinghuysen’s ministry was responsible partially for a religious awakening within the New Jersey colonial context, what was its impact?

Scholars ordinarily propose that religious revivals in the New Jersey colonial context were either the product of Frelinghuysen’s ministry or that of nearby New Brunswick pastor, Gilbert Tennent (1703–1764). Historians also single out Frelinghuysen’s pietism9 along with its accompanying rigid church discipline as key factors within his ministry.10 Frelinghuysen’s ministry remains an elusive factor within the history of evangelism, far less understood than the Tennent family; Jonathan Edwards, the pastor from Northampton, Massachusetts; or George Whitefield, the great intercolonial evangelist of the First Great Awakening. The extensive discussion below of Frelinghuysen’s experiential theology, accompanied by his evangelistic contributions, provides several evangelistic principles for the student of history and evangelism. Frelinghuysen’s Dutch colonial church evangelized a society characterized by a calloused indifference to the veracity of the gospel. This study, therefore, is an examination of the effects of Frelinghuysen’s evangelistic ministry which resulted in a spiritual renewal upon the New Jersey religious landscape. It also offers a critical evaluation of this ministry within the eighteenth-century context.

Frelinghuysen’s evangelistic practices were achieved within the religious and social climates of the early eighteenth-century colonial context. These practices served as necessary platforms which sparked the beginning of the revival in the Middle Colonies.11 His contributions were responsible partly for the beginning of the First Great Awakening as various individual pockets coalesced throughout George Whitefield’s ministry and others into an intercolonial movement.12 Frelinghuysen’s evangelistic contributions inspired a slumbering people to awaken to their need of divine deliverance. The colonies had experienced a religious attenuation prior to Frelinghuysen’s arrival, as numerous immigrants had arrived in the thirteen colonies for the express purpose of economic prosperity.13 A formal and superficial allegiance to the truths of Christianity was displayed within the New Jersey colony, and a lack of serious spiritual power was evident.14 An entire generation who seldom had heard the gospel merged to form an apathetic majority. This served to create an arduous evangelistic task for the young minister. Much of the people’s religious duty reduced to their observance of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper coupled with what they considered an appropriate decency in morality.15 Though pietistic-minded ministers had preceded Frelinghuysen in the New Jersey area, ecclesiastical affairs were in decline prior to Frelinghuysen’s arrival.16

Many of the early Dutch settlers had themselves accommodated to the prevailing notions around them in their preference for economic prosperity rather than in sincere expressions of the Reformed faith.17 Many of Frelinghuysen’s parishioners had not come to the New World primarily fleeing religious persecution as had other colonialists. Though few Dutch settlements had been established prior to 1700, the people of the eventual Garden State had sought adventure and materialistic advancement in the large tracts of farm land the area offered.18 In addition, they were similar to the people in the New England colonies in that each consecutive generation’s religious devotion subsided.19 The New Jersey frontiersmen were often an uncultivated people who had sought material gain through a newly discovered agrarian culture. This is not to say that religious motivations were absent entirely from the people, for many within the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) envisioned the colonies as a Reformed Zion.20 Yet, spiritual fidelity was defined as nominal and often in terms of one’s mental assent toward the confessions, despite early efforts from pietistic-minded pastors.21 This spiritual apathy collided with Frelinghuysen’s straightforward proclamation of an experiential Christianity.22 Additionally, the onslaught of various forms of rationalistic ideas was framed around a discovery of Lockeian philosophy and Newtonian science. This intellectual climate continued to foster further spiritual decline.23

The lax conditions which characterized the Dutch colonial church constituted a formidable front. The Dutch colonial church was situated in the middle of a sea of pluralistic diversity enveloping the colonial citizens of its day.24 Many of those who remained loyal to the Dutch Reformed faith did so more from a sense of ethnic responsibility rather than from theological motivation.25 A good part of the New Jersey Dutch Reformed’s adherence to the faith was in some measure a patriotic nostalgia rather than a religious commitment. This diligence to an ever-increasing and antiquated Dutch tradition had become the church’s preferred plan.26

Accompanying the church’s rigid ecclesiastical restraints were a plethora of societal changes in this new environment. The advent of the English language presented a burdensome change to the Dutch Reformed Church. The English language served as the colonies’ lingua franca rather than the cherished Dutch language of the Netherlands. This change represented a threat for the Dutch Reformed colonists. Rather than adapt their ecclesiastical practices to the English language, the Dutch Reformed people resisted. Thus, this change functioned as a vehicle to spread the Christian truth among the unbelieving English-speaking community.27 Still further, the Dutch Reformed Church grappled with the competition of a variety of sister faiths. These rivals eventually helped contribute to the decline of the Dutch Reformed faith within the Middle Colonies.28 Little assistance was offered from the churches in the Netherlands in terms of qualified ministers or financial and moral support. In summary, the New Jersey Dutch colonial church periodically struggled to endure the tidal wave of colonial changes which counteracted their religious and societal norms.

Delineation of Thesis

In this book I show that Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen led a regional spiritual awakening by employing an experiential theology that had both historical and theological antecedents in the Nadere Reformatie.29 This theological thought compelled him to utilize a three-pronged evangelistic approach: preaching, church discipline, and a general revision of the Dutch Reformed ecclesiastical practices to fit the American colonial context. This three-pronged method was spearheaded by his experiential soteriology, which forged an unusual blend of Reformation theology and pietistic tendencies into a crucible where evangelism was felt, observed, and sensed within Frelinghuysen’s New Jersey colonial surroundings.

Frelinghuysen’s preaching served to elicit a religious awakening from the religiously calloused. His preaching was the first of three deliberate evangelistic strategies that stirred the Raritan listeners to respond to the gospel, causing them to examine penitently their lives in order to ascertain the validity of their salvation. Frelinghuysen sought to evangelize the New Jersey colony and awaken the churches with a blunt and vivid preaching style. His preaching was characterized by a direct, at times even caustic, evangelistic style that resonated with the younger audiences in the Raritan Valley.30 He urged the complacent congregations of the Raritan to repent by painting their apathy and indifference against the ominous backdrop of God’s judgments.31

As a case in point, his sermon entitled The Acceptable Communicant, based on 1 Corinthians 11:29,32 made a clear demarcation between those who merely had assented to the Heidelberg Catechism33 and those who lived godly lives characterized by a sorrow for sin, an aim for holy living, and who sought salvation and forgiveness in Christ.34 His evangelistic aim was directed not only toward those estranged from Christ on the outside of the church but also toward those who lived hypocritical lives of duplicity inside the church’s walls.

His sermons emphasized a bevindelijke godgeleerdheid (experiential theology),35 which stemmed from his theological leanings.36 This alarming, if not blunt, manner of exhortation was his thoroughgoing method throughout his colonial ministry. Its extension by audience classification was Frelinghuysen’s unique contribution to the preaching of the First Great Awakening. The people of the Raritan had not seen such a passionate and vibrant preacher.37 In contrast, many churches were accustomed to sleeping through long and colorless addresses on various aspects of Reformed theology.38

One of Frelinghuysen’s strategic evangelistic techniques was his use of church discipline. Church discipline was utilized to awaken a slumbering congregation to the realization that some of its parishioners did not meet the scriptural standards of salvation. Frequently, they were prevented from participating in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. For Frelinghuysen, salvation was more than mere celestial accounting where converts simply were added to heaven’s population. In contrast, his pietistic thought necessitated that the redeemed’s behavior, attitudes, and affections consequently were marked by a divine signature. Accordingly, Frelinghuysen felt that a person’s internal salvation of the heart was accompanied by distinguishing outward behaviors which showed them to be recipients of the new birth and therefore God’s elect. This book shows that Frelinghuysen’s church discipline reflected his soteriological views toward empirical sanctification.39

At the center of these ecclesiological concerns, Frelinghuysen’s doctrine of regeneration effected the well-known Klagte affair. Klagte (complaint) was the title given to an episode during Frelinghuysen’s ministry when he enacted church discipline upon members of his four churches in New Jersey between 1720 and 1723. The title was taken from a book published to articulate his opponents’ arguments during the conflict, and it was sent to the Classis of Amsterdam in order to demonstrate the New Jersey pastor’s errors. The work was written in 1725 by Tobias Boel, a lawyer and brother to New York minister Henricus Boel (1692–1754). Henricus Boel remained an ardent antagonist of Frelinghuysen’s methods for a considerable period of the Raritan pastor’s ministry. Their work contained nearly 150 pages of complaints, charges of heresy, and general ill-will toward the young pastor of the Raritan valley.

Frelinghuysen preached the need of regeneration to those whom he felt had a false assurance of their salvation. This was used in combination with church discipline to enact a pure and visible church.40 Frelinghuysen, among others of the First Great Awakening, worked diligently to ensure that the people of the New World understood that salvation was individual rather than institutional.41 The difference between these two positions was one’s experience of the fruits of the new birth, which helped confirm his being born again.42 This distinction has proven to be a pivotal classification within the First Great Awakening in particular and within evangelical Christianity in general.43

Frelinghuysen acted as the judge in determining who participated in the Lord’s Supper rather than deferring such church discipline to the Classis of Amsterdam as well as the consistory.44 These participants were expected to exhibit evidence of a godly walk. Conversely, their salvation and sanctification were to be distinguished empirically as their lives contrasted with the unconverted. It is not difficult to imagine how this might have offended the unsuspecting residents of New Jersey.

Evangelistic and ecclesiastical practices were reexamined and retooled within the colonial context in order to employ a contextually sensitive ministry that ultimately loosened European ties among the Dutch Reformed Church. The third of his three primary methods demonstrated the great lengths to which Frelinghuysen took his church reformation. These evangelistic methods helped to Americanize the Dutch Reformed Churches.45 His evangelism led him to utilize several nontraditional methods while seeking to convert unbelieving individuals. These methods included the use of the English vernacular in the Dutch Reformed worship services, seeking the establishment of an independent coetus within the Dutch Reformed Church, the adoption of gezelschappen (conventicles), and a refashioning of the commonly accepted Dutch Reformed order of worship.46 His style aroused early opposition from the Dutch Reformed clergy in New York47 and was seen also as sacrilegious by many within the Dutch Reformed Church at large.48 Still, Frelinghuysen battled against stringent Reformed ecclesiastical traditions and the rigid Dutch Reformed liturgy for the purpose of awakening a spiritually dead community.

His contextually sensitive methods led Frelinghuysen and other Dutch Reformed pastors in attempts to educate, to ordain their own men, and to avoid the long periods of waiting while communicating with the Classis of Amsterdam across the Atlantic. The prolonged periods of waiting only served to frustrate the process of clergy ordination, thereby delaying the church’s progress on the colonial field. Subsequently, in 1738, a group of Dutch Reformed pastors met in New York to prepare eleven Fundamental Articles as a theological foundation for a proposed coetus. Nonetheless, it was nine years before the Classis finally granted their proposal.

These attempts toward a flexibility of methods led Frelinghuysen to deplore the strict use of Dutch Reformed ecclesiastical liturgy. He often exchanged the normal Dutch Reformed Church practice for a more spontaneous form of worship.49 His desired freedom from a liturgical straightjacket coupled with his desire to clarify important elements in the Christian faith further confirmed Frelinghuysen’s evangelistic techniques. By doing away with certain denominational traditions, Frelinghuysen retooled his style of ministry in congruence to the colonial context. This was done to communicate the Christian message more effectively. This book will consider these ecclesiological revisions in relation to his evangelistic principles.

Methodology

The methodology of this study gives due attention to Frelinghuysen’s theological convictions, which gave birth to the ingenuity of his methods. Frelinghuysen’s twenty-two extant messages demonstrated that he supplied little innovation in regard to his theological thought;50 yet, his contributions to the pietistic and evangelistic methods of the Dutch Reformed Church in the New World were compelling. James Tanis has aptly summarized, His role was that of a transmitter between the Old World and the New; his great contribution was his infusing into the Middle Colonies that Dutch evangelical pietism which he carried within himself.51

Chapter 1 details Frelinghuysen’s life and ministry in order to provide insights into his unique experiences that impacted both his pastoral evangelism and theology. Some descriptive narratives are employed to elucidate the salient characteristics of his life and ministry. This chapter further examines the educational influences of Frelinghuysen while under the tutelage of Dutch Reformed pietists such as Johannes Wilhelmius (1671–1754) and Johannes á Marck (1665–1731). It sketches the history of the Nadere Reformatie along with its major figures in order to show that Frelinghuysen’s theology was nothing new. Yet, it was his theological thought, expressed through his sermons within the Middle Colonies, that unearthed a rich evangelistic matrix. Furthermore, it seeks to explain the Dutch Reformed pietism that affected Frelinghuysen as a continuation of the Nadere Reformatie. Because much of the library pertaining to the Nadere Reformatie is not available readily in the English language, much of the movement’s history has been neglected by church historians in the United States.52 Therefore, the Dutch Reformed pietistic thought, which so long characterized the theology of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany, is reviewed particularly as it influenced the American stream of theology.53

Chapter 2 investigates Frelinghuysen’s soteriological thought in light of Dutch Reformed pietism. The initial step within Frelinghuysen’s soteriology is investigated as it focuses upon a personal conviction of sin. Centered within this feature of theology is an inward self-examination in which Frelinghuysen presented a four-point plan of appraisal for his parishioners.54 One’s anxious self-appraisal is then segued into contrition or sorrow for one’s sins. This sorrow provides a combination where a vehement abhorrence for sin is experienced along with an earnest passion for God.

Chapter 2 also contains a section on the primacy of Frelinghuysen’s evangelistic convictions, often referred to as rebirth.55 His stress upon individual wedergeboorte (rebirth) presents a definitive contrast with the Dutch Reformed’s covenantal doctrine of the day.56 It is this theological influence which caused the young Frelinghuysen to follow Reformed pietism’s theological emphasis toward verifiable forms of experiential salvation. His theological readings in Eduard Meiners (1691–1752)57 and Hermann Witsuis (1636–1708),58 among others, stimulated him to place a strong emphasis on the bevindelijke (experiential) and empirical signs of salvation within his soteriological thought.59 His stress on individual rebirth was then inherited from the thought of Reformed pietism, which heavily influenced Frelinghuysen’s evangelism toward experiential soteriology.60 Accordingly, the chapter concludes with his theological convictions in search for corresponding righteous expressions of faith on the part of the individuals within his congregation.

Chapter 3 explores Frelinghuysen’s veritable storehouse of evangelistic passion and variety of methods. Frelinghuysen’s evangelistic genius lay in his application of pietistic methods. The theological thought of the Dutch Nadere Reformatie expresses itself in Frelinghuysen’s de fijnen61 pietism and is then applied in the threefold strategy mentioned above where he awakened opposition inside the Middle Colonies as well as spiritual fervor within churches. These three evangelistic strategies paved the way for church reform as well as an unwanted intradenominational conflict. Consequently, this study analyzes the ecclesiological and soteriological concerns that drove Frelinghuysen to implement his brand of evangelism and its resultant methods.

Chapter 4 traces the ministry of Theodorus Frelinghuysen and his relationships with other awakeners, especially his influence on Gilbert Tennent. This chapter discusses Herman Harmelink’s claim that Frelinghuysen’s contribution was merely a denominational disturbance and not a regional awakening. In doing so, the study will set his ministry in the context of the Middle Colonies and in the overall colonial First Great Awakening. This chapter includes the manner in which the salient features of Frelinghuysen’s pastoral evangelism affected the First Great Awakening itself.

The conclusion contains summarizing comments regarding Frelinghuysen’s pastoral evangelism. It is here that the implications of the current study are discussed.

Significance of the Research

No dissertation or monograph has been devoted exclusively to the study of Frelinghuysen’s evangelistic practices in relation to the First Great Awakening.62 Certain studies have presented historical connections between Frelinghuysen and his role as a forerunner to the First Great Awakening, but these studies have lacked an in-depth consideration of Frelinghuysen’s evangelistic contributions. While many have traced Frelinghuysen’s role as a precursor and catalyst in the larger awakening itself and also his minor role as a component part in the colonial religious scene of his day, there remains a genuine need for research concerning Frelinghuysen’s evangelistic techniques, thought, and contributions in comparison to the larger figures within the First Great Awakening such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield.63 The plethora of materials dedicated to the itinerant evangelism of Whitefield and the pastoral evangelism of Jonathan Edwards have yielded numerous insights