§ 200.2. The Kingdom of Holland.—In the prevailingly Reformed national church rationalism and latitudinarian supernaturalism had to such an extent blotted out the ecclesiastical distinctions between Reformed, Remonstrants, Mennonites, and Lutherans, that the clergy of one party would unhesitatingly preach in the churches of the others. Then rose the poet Bilderdijk, driven from political into religious patriotism, to denounce with glowing fury the general declension from the orthodoxy of Dort. Two Jewish converts of his, the poet and apologist Isaac da Costa, and the physician Cappadose, gave him powerful support. A zealous young clergyman, Henry de Cock, was theological mouthpiece of the party. Because he offended church order, especially by ministering in other congregations, he was suspended and finally deposed in 1834. The greater part of his congregation and four other pastors with him formally declared their secession from the unfaithful church, as a return to the orthodox Reformed church. As separatists and disturbers of public worship, they were fined and imprisoned, and were at last satisfied with the recognition granted them of royal grace in 1839, as a separate or Christian Reformed Church. It consists now of 364 congregations, embracing about 140,000 souls, with a flourishing seminary at Kampen. The Reformed State Church, with three-fourths of all the Protestant population, persevered in and developed its liberalistic tendencies. The State Synod of 1883 expressly declared that the Netherland Reformed Church demands from its teachers not agreement with all the statements of the confessional writings, but only with their spirit, gist, and essence; and the synod of 1877, by the vote of a majority, stated that no sort of formulated confession should be required even of candidates for confirmation. Yet even amid such proceedings from various sides, a churchly and evangelical reaction of considerable importance set in. Three great parties within the state church carried on a life and death struggle with one another:
- The Strict Calvinists, whose leader is Dr. Kuyper, formerly pastor in Amsterdam;
- The so-called Middle Party, which falls into two divisions: the, just about expiring, Ethical Irenical Party, with the Utrecht professor Van Oosterzee (died 1882), and the Evangelical Party with the Gröningen professor Hofstede de Groot, since 1872 Emeritus, as leaders, of which the former, subordinating the confession, regards the Christian life as the main thing in Christianity, and the latter declares itself prepared to take the gospel alone for its creed and confession; and
- The so-called Modern Party, which, with Professors Scholten and Kuenen as leaders, has its centre at Leyden, and in theology carries out with reckless energy the destructive critical principles of the school of Baur and Wellhausen (§ [182, 7], [18]).
The “Moderns” are also the founders and leaders of the “Protestant Federation” after the German model (§ [180]), with its annual assemblies since 1873, in opposition to which a “Confessional Union” holds its annual meetings at Utrecht, and operates by means of evangelists and lay preachers in places where there are only “Modern” pastors. The higher and cultured classes in the congregations mostly favour the Gröningen and some also the Leyden school, but the great majority of the middle and lower classes are adherents of Kuyper, and have frequently secured majorities in the Congregational Church Council.—The Dutch school law of 1856 banished every sort of confessional religious education from public schools supported by the state, and so called forth the erection of numerous denominational schools independent of the state, and the founding of a “Union for Christian Popular Education,” which has spread through the whole country. The university law sanctioned, after violent debates in the chamber, in 1876, establishes in place of the old theological faculties, professorships for the science of religion generally, with the exception of dogmatics and practical theology, and left it with the Reformed State Synod to care for these two subjects, either in a theological seminary or by founding for itself the two theological professorships in the universities and supporting them from the sums voted for the state church. The synod decided on the latter course, and appointed to the new chairs men of moderate liberal views. The adherents of the strict Calvinistic party, however, founded a Free Reformed University at Amsterdam, which was opened in autumn, 1880. Its first rector was Kuyper.—The Lutheran Church of fifty congregations and sixty-two pastors, with about 60,000 souls, has also had since 1816 a theological seminary. In it neological tendencies prevail.
§ 200.3. The founding of the Free University at Amsterdam, referred to above, led to a series of violent conflicts which threatened to break up the whole Reformed church of the Netherlands by a wild schism. The Reformed State Synod, consisting mainly of Gröningen theologians, but also numbering many members belonging to the Modern or Leyden school, and constituting the supreme ecclesiastical court, had, in spite of its eleventh rule, which makes “the maintenance of the doctrine” a main task of all church government, for a long time admitted the principle of unfettered freedom of teaching, and ordained that even evidence of orthodoxy on the part of candidates for confirmation would no longer be regarded as a condition of their acceptance, their examination referring only to their knowledge, the examining clergy and not the assisting elders being judges in this matter. When now the Free University had been founded in direct opposition to the synod, the latter resolved to reject all its pupils at the examination of candidates, and when, in the summer of 1885, its first student presented himself, actually carried out this resolution. Thereupon the university transferred the examination to a committee, elected by itself, consisting of orthodox Reformed pastors and elders, and a small village congregation agreed to elect the candidate for its poorly endowed, and so for seventeen years vacant, pastorate. But the synod refused him ordination. Therefore the director of a strict Calvinistic Gymnasium, formerly a pastor, performed the ceremony, and the congregation announced its secession from the synodal union. At the same time in Amsterdam a second conflict arose over the question of candidates for confirmation. Three pastors of the “modern” school demanded the elders subject to them, among them Dr. Kuyper, to take part as required in the examining of their candidates; but these refused to give their assistance, because the previous training had not been according to Scripture and the confession, and also the majority of the church council approved of this refusal, as the parents had complained, and declared that the certificate of morality demanded by other pastors could be made out only if candidates for confirmation had previously formally and solemnly confessed their genuine and hearty faith in Jesus Christ as the only and all-sufficient Saviour, which these, however, in accordance with the Dutch practice of the eighteenth century, declined to do. The controversy was carried by appeal through all the church courts, and finally the State Synod ordered the church council to make delivery of the certificates within six weeks on pain of suspension. But this was brought about before the expiry of that period by the outbreak of a far more serious conflict over matters of administration. In Amsterdam the administration of church property lay with a special commission, responsible to the church council, consisting of members, one half from the church council and the other half from the congregations. If in the beginning of January, 1886, the threatened suspension and deposition of the church council should be carried out, in accordance with proper order until the appointment of a new council all the rights of the same, therefore also that of supervising that commission, would fall to the “classical board” (§ [143, 1]) as the next highest court. In order to avoid this, the fateful resolution was passed on December 14th, 1885, to alter § 41 of the regulations, so that, if the church council in the discharge of its duty to govern the community in accordance with God’s word and the legalized church confession, it would be so hindered therein that it might feel in conscience obliged to obey God rather than man and accept suspension and deposition, and a church council should be appointed, the administrative commission would be obliged to remain subject, not to this, but to the original commission. The “classical board” annulled this resolution, suspended on January 4th, 1886, for continued obstinacy the previous church council, and constituted itself, pending decision on the part of discipline, interim administrator of all its rights and duties. The suspended majority, however, called a meeting for the same day, and when it found the doors of its meeting place closed, sent for a locksmith to break them open. They were prevented by the police, who then, by putting on a safety lock, strengthening the boards of the door by mailed plates, and setting a watch, greatly reduced the chances of an entrance. But the opposition sent to the watchers a letter by a policeman demanding that the representatives of the church council should be allowed to pass; upon which these, regarding it as an order of the police, withdrew. They then had the mailed plates sawn, took possession of the hall and the archives and treasure box lying there, and refused admission to the classical board. While then the question of law and possession was referred to the courts of law, and there the final decision would not be given before the lapse of a year, the disciplinary procedure took its course through all the ecclesiastical courts and ended in the deposition of all resisting elders and pastors. The latter preached now to great crowds in hired halls. From the capital the excitement increased by means of violent publications on both sides, spread over the whole land and produced discord in many other communities. Wild and uproarious tumults first broke out in Leidendorf, a suburb of Leyden. The pastor and the majority of the church council refused to enter on their congregational list two girls who had been confirmed by liberal churchmen elsewhere, and with by far the greater part of the congregation seceded from the synodal union. The classical board now, in July, 1886, declared the pastorate vacant, and ordered that a regular interim service should be conducted on Sundays by the pastors of the circuit. The uproar among the people, however, was thereby only greatly increased, so that the civil authorities were obliged to protect the deputed preachers, by a large military escort, from rude maltreatment, and to secure quiet during public worship by a company of police in church. And similar conflicts soon broke out on like occasions and with similar consequences in many other places throughout all parts of the land.In December, 1886, the Amsterdam church council also declared its secession from the state church, and a numerously attended “Reformed Church Congress” at Amsterdam, in January, 1887, summoned by Kuyper in the interests of the crowd of seceders, resolved to accept the decision of the law in regard to church property.[554]
§ 200.4. Even after the separation of Belgium there was still left a considerable number of Catholics, about three-eighths of the population, most numerous in Brabant, Limburg, and Luxemburg, and these were, as of old, inclined to the most bigoted ultramontanism. This tendency was greatly enhanced when the new constitutional law of 1848 announced the principle of absolute liberty of belief, in consequence of which the Jesuits crowded in vast numbers, and the pope in 1853 organized a new Catholic hierarchy in the land, with four bishops and an archbishop at Utrecht, under the control of the propaganda. The Protestant population went into great excitement over this. The liberal ministry of Thorbecke was obliged to resign, but the chambers at length sanctioned the papal ordinance, only securing the Protestant population against its misapplication and abuse.—On the withdrawal of the French in 1814 there were only eight cloisters remaining; but in 1861 there were thirty-nine for monks and 137 for nuns, and since then the number has considerably increased.—The Dutch Old Catholics (§ [165, 8]), on account of their protest against the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (§ [185, 2]), enjoined upon the Catholic church by the pope, were anew excommunicated, and joined the German Old Catholics in rejecting the decrees of the Vatican Council (§ [190, 1]).
§ 200.5. The Kingdom of Belgium.—Catholic Belgium obtained after its separation from Holland a constitution by which unlimited freedom of religious worship and education, and the right of confessing opinion and of associating, were guaranteed, and to the state was allowed no interference with the affairs of the church beyond the duty of paying the clergy. Also in Leopold I., 1830-1865, of the house of Saxe-Coburg, it had a king who though himself a Protestant was faithful to the constitution, and, according to agreement, had his children trained up in the Roman Catholic church. The confederacy of radicalism and ultramontanism, however, was broken by the irreconciliable enmity and violent conflict in daily life and in the chambers among clerical and liberal ministers. The ultramontanes founded at Louvain in 1834 a strictly Catholic university, which was under the oversight of the bishops and the patronage of the Virgin; while the liberals promoted the erection of an opposition university for free science at Brussels. That the Jesuits used to the utmost for their own ends the liberty granted them by the constitution by means of missions and the confessional, schools, cloisters, and brotherhoods of every kind is what might have been expected. But liberalism also knew how to conduct a propaganda and to bring the clergy into discredit with the educated classes by unveiling their intrigues, legacy-hunting, etc., while these exercised a great influence chiefly upon bigoted females. The number of cloisters, which on the separation from Holland amounted only to 280, had risen in 1880 in that small territory to 1,559, with 24,672 inmates, of whom 20,645 were nuns.
§ 200.6. After the ultramontane party had enjoyed eight years of almost unchallenged supremacy, the Malou ministry favourable to it was overthrown in June, 1878, and a liberal government, under the presidency of Frère-Orban, took its place. Then began the Kulturkampf in Belgium. The charge of public education was taken from the ministry of the interior, and a special minister appointed in the person of Van Humbeeck. He began by changing all girls’ schools under the management of sisters of spiritual orders into communal schools, and in January, 1879, brought in a bill for reorganizing elementary education, which completely secularized the schools; deprived the clergy of all official influence over them, and relegated religious instruction to the care of the family and the church, the latter, however, having the necessary accommodation allowed in the school buildings. The chambers approved the bill, and the king confirmed it, in spite of all protests and agitation by the clergy. The clerical journals put a black border on their issue which published it; the provincial councils under clerical influence nullified as far as possible all money bequests for the public schools, and the bishops assembled in August at Mechlin resolved to found free schools in all communities, and to refuse absolution to all parents who entrusted their children to state schools and all teachers in them, in order thus to cause a complete decay of the public schools, which indeed happened to this extent that within a few months 1,167 communal schools had not a single Catholic scholar. On complaint being made by the government to Leo XIII., he expressed through the Brussels nuncio his regret and disapproval of the proceedings of the bishops; but, on the other hand, he not only privately praised them on account of their former zeal in opposing the school law, but also incited them to continued opposition. When this double dealing of the curia was discovered, the government in June, 1880, broke off all diplomatic relations with the Vatican by recalling their ambassador and giving the nuncio his passports. The ministerial president publicly in the chamber of deputies characterized the action of the Holy See as “fourberie.” Whereupon the pope at the next consistory called princes and peoples as witnesses of this insult. In May, 1882, the results of the inquiry into clerical incitements against the public was read in the chamber, where such startling revelations were made as these: Priests taught the children that they should no longer pray for the king when he had committed the mortal sin of confirming the school law; the ministers are worse than murderers and true Herods; a priest even taught children to pray that God might cause their “liberal” parents to die, etc. Amid such conflicts the Catholic party in parliament split into the parties of the Politici, who were willing to submit to the constitution, and that of the Intransigenti, who, under the direction of the bishops and the university of Louvain, held high above everything the standard of the syllabus. The latter fought with such passionateness, that the pope felt obliged in 1881 to enjoin upon the episcopate “that prudent attitude” which the church in such cases always maintains in “enduring many evils” which for the time cannot be overcome. But undeterred, the government continued to restrict the claims of the clergy, so far as these were not expressly guaranteed by the constitution.—In June, 1884, as the result of the elections for the chamber of deputies, the clerical party again were in power. Malou was once more at the head of a ministry in favour of the clericals, caused the king to dissolve the senate, and in the new elections won there also a majority for his party. No sooner were they in power than the clerical ministry, in conjunction with the majority in the chambers, proceeded with inconsiderate haste, amid the most violent, almost daily repeated explosions from the now intensely embittered liberal and radical section of the population, which only seemed to increase their zeal, to employ their absolute power to the utmost in the interest of clericalism. The restoration of diplomatic relations with the papal curia in the spirit of absolute acquiescence in its schemes was the grand aim of the reaction, as well as a new school law by which the schools were completely given over again to the clergy and the orders. But when at the next communal elections a liberal majority was returned, and protests of the new communal councils poured in against the school law on behalf of the vast number of state certificated teachers reduced by it to hunger and destitution, the Malou ministry found itself obliged to resign in October, 1884. Its place was taken by the moderate ultramontane Beernaert ministry, which sought indeed to quiet the excitement by mild measures, but held firmly in all essential points to the principles of its predecessor.
§ 200.7. An exciting episode in the Belgium Kulturkampf is presented by the appearance of Bishop Dumont of Tournay, who, previously an enthusiastic admirer of Pius IX. and a vigorous defender of the infallibility dogma, also a zealous patron of stigmatization miracles at Bois d’Haine (§ [188, 4]), now suddenly turned round on the school question and refused to obey the papal injunction. For this he was first suspended, and then in 1880 formally deposed by the pope. He afterwards wrote letters in the most advanced liberal journals with violent denunciations of the pope, whom he would not recognise as pope, but only as Bishop of Rome, and so styled him not Leo, but only Pecci. In these letters Dumont makes the interesting communication that the virgin Louise Lateau, favoured of God, has threatened with excommunication the “intruder” Durousseaux, nominated by the pope as his successor, because she continues to reverence Dumont as the only legitimate Bishop of Tournay. The Vatican pronounced him insane, and the chapter appealed to the civil authorities to have him declared incapable in the sight of the law, which, however, they refused, because they could not regard Dumont’s insanity as proved. On the other hand, Dumont refused to renounce his episcopal office, and accused Durousseaux of having by night, with the help of a locksmith, obtained entrance to his episcopal palace, and having taken forcible possession of a casket lying there, which, besides the diocesan property to the value of five millions, contained also about one and a half millions of his own private means. Pending the issue of the conflict, as to which of the two should be regarded as the true bishop, the palace was now officially sealed up. The attempt to arrest the robbed casket had to be abandoned, because meanwhile the canon Bernard, as keeper of the treasures of the diocese, had fled with its contents to America. He was, however, on legal warrant imprisoned in Havanna and brought back to Belgium in 1882. In April, 1884, the dispute of the bishops was definitively closed by the judgment of the supreme tribunal, according to which Dumont, having been legitimately deposed, has no more claim to the title and revenues of his earlier office; and in 1886 the supreme court of appeal at Brussels condemned Bernard “on account of serious breach of trust” to three years’ imprisonment.
§ 200.8. The Protestant Church was represented in Belgium only by small congregations in the chief cities and some Reformed Walloon village congregations. But for several decades, by the zealous exertions of the Evangelical Society at Brussels with thirty-four pastors and evangelists, the work of evangelization not only among Catholic Walloons, but also among the Flemish population, has made considerable progress, notwithstanding all agitation and incitement of the people by the Catholic clergy, so that several new evangelical congregations, consisting mostly of converts, have been formed. In two small places indeed the whole communities, roused by episcopal arbitrariness, have gone over.—The pastor Byse employed by the Evangelical Society at Brussels has taken up the idea that all men by the fall have lost their immortality, and that it could be restored again by faith in Christ, while all the unreconciled are given over to annihilation, the second death of Revelation ii. 11, xx. 15. So long as he maintained this theory merely as a private opinion the society took no offence at it, but when he began to proclaim it in his preaching and in his instruction of the young, and declined to yield to all advice on the matter, the synod of 1882 resolved upon his dismissal. But a great part of his congregation still remain faithful to him.