Two facts remain in my memory; first, that Dr. Solomon Froeligh was to this peculiar people all that Knox had been to those who sat under the Scotch Reformer; and, second, that the True Reformed Dutch Church was the remnant of God’s elect; for the rest of Christendom had irrevocably passed under condemnation.
With these experiences in mind I have as far as possible gathered the facts that outline the story of a schism which, nearly a hundred years ago, threatened to disrupt the Reformed Dutch Church, then relatively among the largest of Protestant denominations. Dr. Chambers, in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopædia, has stated: “The True Reformed Dutch Church is the result of a secession led by the Rev. Solomon Froeligh, a learned man. The reasons assigned for the separation were that the Dutch Church had become erroneous in doctrine, lax in discipline, and corrupt in practice. The secession, however, did not adopt any new standards. At one time it was very formidable, numbering over one hundred churches and as many ministers. But it now numbers hardly a dozen churches. It was a great injury to the church from which it seceded, but it is hard to see what service it has been to its own members, or to anybody else.” This statement, while judicious, is hardly comprehensive. The cause of the disruption was perverse human nature; pride, envy, and jealousy had much to do with it, and the effect was that a people who might have led in the moral and material growth of the State retrograded. The evil it caused brought disaster to upwards of a thousand families who had possessed every advantage of birth, property, and intelligence.
The beginning of the settlement of the region I have described was almost coeval with that of New Amsterdam. Later the occupation of New York by the English led to a large emigration thither of Dutch families from Manhattan and Long Island. Slowly and painfully these early settlers removed the forests, drained the swamps, and established their homes. The organization of Dutch churches in the neighborhoods of this section began immediately. The people were intelligent and devout as well as thrifty. Godly and learned clergymen, among whom were Taschmaker, Varick, Bertholf, Schuyler, and Van Benschoten, soon gathered large congregations. The story of the labors of these men is one of a heroism and devotion hardly equalled in colonial history. The minutes of the synod of 1778 reported seventeen strong churches in the district. In 1818 the classes of Bergen and Paramus, into which it was divided, reported 2,400 communicant members, and more than 15,000 persons in the congregations. At this later date some of these churches were larger than those in the cities of New York and Albany.
For many years the most influential man in the region, and in the estimation of his admirers in the Dutch Church, was Dr. Solomon Froeligh, minister of the Collegiate Churches of Hackensack and Schraalenburgh. Born near Albany in 1750, he had spent his boyhood in Walkill valley. There, and in the adjacent Catskill district, the venerable Schuneman ruled for fifty years like a bishop of mediæval times. He was the lawyer, physician, pastor, and friend of a large and scattered flock, among whom his wisdom and authority were unquestioned. A narrative of his life and labors is told in a story of some sixty years ago called “The Dutch Dominie of the Catskills.” Through his guidance Froeligh was led to dedicate himself to the ministry. For ten years he studied under Dr. Dirck Romeyn of Schenectady—the founder of Union College—and Dr. Peter Wilson of Hackensack, for many years a leading professor in Kings College. Although he never visited Princeton, the College of New Jersey conferred on Froeligh at eighteen years of age the degree of master of arts, because of his profound attainments. He became a favorite of Dr. John Livingston, whom Mrs. Jay, the wife of the chief justice, named to Washington as the first citizen of New York. This great man, long the unquestioned leader of the Dutch Church, was accustomed to make progresses through the various congregations; on two at least of these, and the time occupied was frequently several months, Froeligh accompanied him. Upon his licensure in 1775 he received four calls, of which he accepted that of the Collegiate Churches of Queens County, Jamaica, Newtown, Success, and Oyster Bay. In 1776 his house near Newtown, containing his valuable library, and all his earthly possessions, was burned by the British, and he barely escaped death at their hands. For the eight succeeding years he went up and down New York and New Jersey as a missionary and fearless patriot. At the close of the war for independence he accepted a call to become the colleague of the Rev. Warmardus Kuypers in the pastorate of the Collegiate Churches of Hackensack and Schraalenburgh. Shortly after this, he was named by the General Synod of the Church together with Drs. Livingston and Romeyn, a professor of theology. For thirty years he held this office, and trained for the ministry nearly one hundred young men.
By inheritance Dr. Froeligh was a strong, self-sufficient man. His education and life accentuated these traits. His intercourse during the impressionable years of youth with such masters as Schuneman, Romeyn and Livingston must have developed in him an aptitude to command. In scholarship he was in a narrow sense profound. His early possession of the seat of authority led to a certain dogmatism. He was pronounced hyper-Calvinist, and ever ready to defend his extreme views. The synods of the Church were in that day the great events of each year, not only for clergymen but laymen. In these Dr. Froeligh was ever the leading controversialist. Both tradition and records show that he was strenuous to harshness in manner, unyielding, and exacting in statement, and always ready to estrange a friend rather than bend in the least. Combined with these traits there was in him a vein of mysticism. He dreamed dreams and saw visions that were to him authoritative communications of the Most High. Naturally such a man gathered about him devoted and obedient followers, and at the same time offended and antagonized many. Religion and politics were then, far more than in our day, issues of intense personal moment to all thoughtful persons. Party spirit blazed fiercely in every community. In the memorable Presidential contest of 1800, when the Federalist party was defeated, Dr. Froeligh was an elector and voted for Jefferson. What this meant to most of the ministers and influential laymen of the Church, who were devoted to Hamilton, can be surmised.
As years passed his character did not soften, nor could he accept defeat gracefully. Gradually, new and younger leaders in the Church came to the front. Men like Milldoler, Brownlee, Broadhead, and Fonda, whom he would not treat as his equals, paid him less and less deference. But his chief antipathy was his neighbor of Paramus, once his own scholar, Dr. Wilhelm Eltinge. They were men much alike in character, who invariably stood on opposite sides of every question.
Now the churches of Hackensack and Schraalenburgh, while ruled by one Consistory, were far from friendly to each other. They were rich in property, having inherited thousands of acres of farm land, and their members were noted for their wealth. Even before Froeligh’s day there was bitter rivalry between the two. Mr. Kuypers, Froeligh’s colleague, was a gentle and infirm man, who, above all things, hated discord. He readily yielded to his energetic associate. As the years passed the friction between the communities and factions in each church grew. Questions as to the sale of property, the rebuilding of churches, assessments of costs, and the like were constantly rising. On these friends parted and even families divided. At length four separate consistories and congregations were established, one for each minister in each place, but all in one corporation. During the earlier years of his settlement Dr. Froeligh sought to act the part of peacemaker. Not understanding the grounds for the fierce disputes, he diligently set himself to enforce agreement, and by the exercise of his masterful will partially succeeded.
In 1799 Mr. Kuypers died, and the question of his successor became a burning one. The dominie was, of course, intensely interested, and took a decided stand against a majority. During a summer storm a bolt of lightning split the tablet over the door of the largest church, on which was engraved “Endraacht maakt macht”—union makes strength. Taking this as a sign from heaven, Dr. Froeligh proclaimed in his sermon on the following Sunday, “It is our belief founded on what we have seen and know of this people that, according to the sign given on July 10, the Triune God has made them two. The fire of divine grace is on one side, and the fire of discord and rage is on the other.” Even under such conditions the dominie was master of the situation, and held the reins tightly. He was sole minister of four rich churches, and by ecclesiastical law each meeting of the consistory was subject to his call. By the civil law he was president of the corporation, and no business could be transacted without his presence. At last, in 1800, the General Synod of the Church intervened, and by the exercise of its supreme authority placed Dr. J. V. C. Romeyn in Mr. Kuypers’ stead. It also divided the old Classis of Hackensack into two, with Dr. Froeligh’s two churches in that of Paramus, and Dr. Romeyn’s in that of Bergen. Dr. Froeligh entered a solemn protest against this action, and began a course of systematic effort to undo the arrangement. For eighteen years the controversy continued. It is needless to particularize the phases of this unhappy church quarrel. At last, in 1818, the crisis came. Proceedings under church law were instituted against Dr. Froeligh on the question whether the ministry or spiritual consistory composed of the elders of a church, was the responsible party in the matter of receiving or dismissing members. The Classis of Paramus sided with Dr. Froeligh, the next higher court, the Particular Synod, sustained Dr. Romeyn, and then, in 1822, the General Synod, in perhaps the most memorable trial in her history, decided against Dr. Froeligh. Thereupon, he and the ministers and elders of nine churches, signed their names to a document declaring that they had formed themselves into a separate body by the name and title of “The True Reformed Dutch Church in America.”
Those who recall Mrs. Stowe’s story, “The Minister’s Wooing,” need not be told of the great controversy in New England caused by the sermons of Dr. Hopkins of Newport. In the light of to-day, few if any in the ministry accept his theology because of its narrowness. But a hundred years ago men like Froeligh regarded Hopkins as a dangerous heretic, and sought to cast out of the church as Pelagians those who sided with him. So long as the dominie could rule the Classis of Paramus he was reasonably content, but when Dr. Eltinge and a majority of its members approved of the Hopkins position, the Dutch Church seemed without the pale. Doubtless his greatest sorrow was that the old leaders he most admired, like Dr. Livingston, refused to join in the controversy. The younger men who were shaping the missionary activities of the church, and planning the constitution that was adopted in 1832, ignored him. No wonder he became embittered. But he had a large following of sincere, earnest, though narrow men. They had been in their early years his students and he was still their oracle. So the schism became formidable. After taking this final step he made a proselyting tour among the churches in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys. A score of these joined his new communion. As many more were completely disrupted, and soon ceased to exist. Side by side in fifty hitherto peaceful, united, and prosperous villages rival congregations began a bitter warfare. Accusations against the teaching character and morals of ministers and laymen were published. In the church courts notable trials were held. In some cases the peace of the State was broken, and the civil authorities invoked. Indeed, the actions at law caused by this secession in New York and New Jersey led to the establishment of principles as to the rights of members in church property that are to-day the basis of the ecclesiastical law in both States. Probably the most famous case was that of the Church of the English Neighborhood in New Jersey. It was argued before the Supreme Court by Messrs. Wood and Hornblower on one side, and Van Arsdale and Theodore Frelinghuysen on the other. Chief Justice Ewing delivered the opinion of the court. These five named leaders are probably the most prominent in the history of the New Jersey bar.
As I have gathered from many sources the facts herein set forth, the most interesting and impressive feature of the controversy is the sane and dignified manner with which the church met the issue. Every lawful means was adopted to first reunite and then recover the seceding churches, and, so far as the records show, this was ever in the spirit of the Christian rule of kindness. When these efforts failed all loyal members were urged to live in charity with their neighbors.