History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology

by J. F. Hurst

While the church of Holland was in this deplorable condition, God raised up a few men to be the instruments of new life. They were endowed with great talents, moral heroism, and a steady purpose to elevate every department of ecclesiastical organization. The Holy Spirit accompanied their labors. The leaders of the group were Bilderdyk, Da Costa, Dr. Capadose, and subsequently Groen Van Prinsterer.

The first stood at the head of the modern school of Dutch poetry, and was one of the greatest poets ever produced by Holland. His conceptions were vivid, his style impassioned, his diction unequaled by any of his predecessors, and his moral life irreproachable. Having a conservative mind, he opposed each indication of revolution with every weapon at command. He was profoundly learned in the classics, history, and jurisprudence. Apart from all his efforts for the religious awakening of the people, he was the representative of the old Holland nationality. An ardent despiser of the French spirit, imparted by the fatal principles of 1789, he was equally opposed to the Rationalism of Germany. He believed that if new life were kindled in the Dutch heart, it could not be derived from without, but by a return to the pure teachings of the fathers of the Reformation in Holland.

Da Costa and Dr. Capadose were Jews. The former looked upon the condition of the country from the Israelitish standpoint developed in his Israel and the Nations. He believed in the millennium, and saw in it the divine cheerfulness of history, and the relief from surrounding evils. He is well described by one of his countrymen as "the Israelite who raised himself above the church of the Gentiles; the Israelite who testifies against this church; the Israelite who announces the glory of this church." He was a popular and spirited poet, excelling even his friend Bilderdyk in the lyrical character of his verses. He hated Rationalism in every form, and resisted whatever would interpose any authority between the conscience of man and the word of God. His Israelitish view made him reject the secondary authority of the confessions of faith, and did not permit him to attribute anything more than a relative value to the church of the Gentiles, "the church before the millennium."

Groen Van Prinsterer appeared at a time when the revival had taken definite shape, but he attached himself to its interests and contributed more than any one else to its development. He is one of those decided characters who are mentioned by friends and enemies with great animation. Studiously rejecting the individuality taught him by the school of Vinet, and reticent of his personal opinions, he has incurred the animadversions of some of his warmest admirers. Being a man of continual literary and political activity, he has taken part in all the important movements of his times. He is the Guizot of Holland. Though banished for a time from his seat in the States General by the Catholics, Revolutionists, and Rationalists, he did not intermit his labors to lead back the masses to evangelical piety. His powerful influence has been in favor of home missions and similar agencies. He has comprehended the revival, in all its scope, more clearly than any one else. He says of it that "it was neither Calvinistic, nor Lutheran, nor Mennonite, but Christian. It did not raise for its standard the orthodoxy of Dort, but the flag of the Reformation, the word of God. And though it found the doctrine of salvation admirably expressed in our symbolical books, appreciated a rule of education so conformable to the Holy Scriptures, and opposed the doctrines of the church and the duty of her ministers to the usurpations of Rationalism, it never thought of accepting and imposing the absurd and literal yoke of formularies with an absurd and puerile anxiety. A spirit of Christian fraternity predominated over the old desires."

The direct associated result of the revival was the Reunion of Christian Friends. It was presided over by Groen Van Prinsterer, and held semi-annual sessions in Amsterdam from 1845 to 1854. Its monthly journal, The Union, or Christian Voices, was conducted by Pastor Heldring, a warm-hearted man who has made himself illustrious in the annals of beneficence by his labors for home missions, by his foundation of an asylum for little neglected girls, and by similar charitable works.

Other pastoral associations sprang up in consequence of the new life, but some of them failed in a few years because of the want of a common symbol of faith. Groen Van Prinsterer hailed with joy every indication of Christian unity. He hoped that by this unity the church might be built up in its holy faith. From 1850 to 1855 he edited The Netherlander, a political and ecclesiastical review. It was in this periodical that he eulogized the revivals of other countries, and ranked the leaders of them among the greatest ornaments of history. The labors of the French and Swiss theologians, MM. Bost, Malan, Merle d'Aubigné, Gaussen, Grandpierre, and Monod find in him a most appreciative admirer.[93]

The movement inaugurated by Bilderdyk, Da Costa, and Capadose led to an important secession from the Church of Holland. There were men who saw the necessity of revival on a large scale, but in their zeal for Confessionalism, they went far ahead of their leaders. Their cry was, "Let us leave Babel, and build up a new Church." De Cock and Scholte were the first to sound the note of secession. They were joined by such men as Brummelkamp, Van Reeh, Gezelle, and Van Velsen. This party rallied around the old Calvinistic symbols, and De Cock stood in their van. As early as 1829, when he became preacher in the little village of Ulrum, he distinguished himself for his zealous ministry. People came from a distance of eighteen miles to hear his sermons. He soon indoctrinated them so thoroughly that they would no longer permit their children to be baptized by "unbelievers." This brought him immediately into conflict with the rules of the Church. Two pamphlets appeared against him, which he answered in his Defense of the True Reformed Doctrine, and of the True Reformed; or, the Sheepcot of Christ attacked by two Wolves. Another pamphlet appeared with his approval, in which the new hymns were called "Siren's Songs." The result was that he was suspended, and in 1835 excommunicated. In the same year he published his curious book, entitled "The so-called Evangelical Hymns, the Eyeball of the misguided and deceived Multitude in the Synodical-Reformed Church: Yes, of some Children of God, in their blindness, and while they have become drunk by the wine of their whoredom, tested, weighed, and found wanting: Yes, opposed to all our forms and doctrines, and the word of God; by H. De Cock, under the Cross because of Christ."

The expulsion of De Cock attracted many new friends to his standard. At the close of 1834 a Separation Act was devised at Ulrum, by which all his adherents dissolved connection with the Church. They were said to number eighty thousand, but it is probable that the estimate was an exaggeration. By request of the Synod, the Separatists were prosecuted by the government, who used as a pretext an article in the Code Napoléon, which forbade the assembly of more than twenty persons for worship without the consent of the civil authorities. They were defended by many lawyers of the school of Bilderdyk. Foremost of the number was Groen Van Prinsterer, "the conscience of the Legislative Assembly, the right arm of religion in the State, and the defender of the principle of religion in the school." They were assailed by mobs who called them the "New Lights."