VirginiaHuguenot
Puritanboard Librarian
Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, Dutch Reformed minister (1691 -- c. 1747) was a "Forerunner of the Great Awakening." He is buried in the Elm Ridge Cemetery in North Brunswick, New Jersey.
Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen
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jaybird0827
PuritanBoard Honor Roll
You're talking "my old stompin' grounds" brother. NJ State Route 27 connects Newark and New Brunswick. In Newark it is named Frelinghuysen Avenue.
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VirginiaHuguenot
Puritanboard Librarian
That's cool, Jay! I think I'll have to add another stop on my Reformed Historical Tour of America.
crhoades
Puritan Board Graduate
Frelinghuysen, Theodorus Jacobus (1691–c.1747). Dutch Reformed minister in New Jersey. Frelinghuysen, educated at the University of Lingen and influenced by pietistic followers of Gisbertus Voetius, served two pastorates in the lowlands before immigrating to America. When Frelinghuysen arrived in New York in 1720, his contumacious behavior immediately aroused the suspicions of the Dutch ministers there. A fervent pietist, Frelinghuysen chided his clerical colleagues for their personal vanity and for their use of the Lord’s Prayer in worship.
Frelinghuysen quickly settled in the Raritan Valley of New Jersey, where he enjoyed considerable success among the Dutch. He flouted ecclesiastical conventions and excoriated the Dutch Reformed hierarchy back in Amsterdam for failing to send pietist ministers to the New World. In New Jersey, his pietistic scruples demanded the exclusion of “sinners” (i.e., the unconverted) from the Lord’s Table, but his rather arbitrary enforcement of that discipline provoked bitter recriminations from some of the more affluent church members, who published an extensive bill of particulars, called the Klagte, against him. Frelinghuysen, however, refused to relent, sometimes taunted his ecclesiastical opponents and, though plagued by recurrent, debilitating bouts of mental illness, continued to demand high standards of morality from his congregants.
Frelinghuysen’s evangelical fervor and his itinerancy contributed to the onset of the Great Awakening in the Middle Colonies. Gilbert Tennent, who often shared Frelinghuysen’s pulpits, acknowledged that Frelinghuysen had taught him much about piety and revival, and both Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield spoke highly of Frelinghuysen’s ministry. Among his contributions to the Dutch Reformed Church in America was his effort to establish greater autonomy by seeking approval from the Classis of Amsterdam for the organization of a coetus in America. The coetus was approved in 1747, but Frelinghuysen did not live to see the fruit of these labors.
Bibliography. AAP 9; R. H. Balmer, “The Social Roots of Dutch Pietism in the Middle Colonies,” CH 53 (1984):187–199; DAB IV; DARB; NCAB 12; J. R. Tanis, Dutch Calvinistic Pietism in the Middle Colonies (1968).
http://www.puritanboard.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=223710#_ftn8 Frelinghuysen quickly settled in the Raritan Valley of New Jersey, where he enjoyed considerable success among the Dutch. He flouted ecclesiastical conventions and excoriated the Dutch Reformed hierarchy back in Amsterdam for failing to send pietist ministers to the New World. In New Jersey, his pietistic scruples demanded the exclusion of “sinners” (i.e., the unconverted) from the Lord’s Table, but his rather arbitrary enforcement of that discipline provoked bitter recriminations from some of the more affluent church members, who published an extensive bill of particulars, called the Klagte, against him. Frelinghuysen, however, refused to relent, sometimes taunted his ecclesiastical opponents and, though plagued by recurrent, debilitating bouts of mental illness, continued to demand high standards of morality from his congregants.
Frelinghuysen’s evangelical fervor and his itinerancy contributed to the onset of the Great Awakening in the Middle Colonies. Gilbert Tennent, who often shared Frelinghuysen’s pulpits, acknowledged that Frelinghuysen had taught him much about piety and revival, and both Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield spoke highly of Frelinghuysen’s ministry. Among his contributions to the Dutch Reformed Church in America was his effort to establish greater autonomy by seeking approval from the Classis of Amsterdam for the organization of a coetus in America. The coetus was approved in 1747, but Frelinghuysen did not live to see the fruit of these labors.
Bibliography. AAP 9; R. H. Balmer, “The Social Roots of Dutch Pietism in the Middle Colonies,” CH 53 (1984):187–199; DAB IV; DARB; NCAB 12; J. R. Tanis, Dutch Calvinistic Pietism in the Middle Colonies (1968).
AAP Annals of the American Pulpit, ed. W. B. Sprague, 9 vols.
CH Church History
DAB Dictionary of American Biography, ed. A. Johnson, D. Malone et al. (vols. I-X, 1892–1974; 1–7, 1944–1988)
DARB Dictionary of American Religious Biography, H. W. Bowden
NCAB National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 55 vols. (1892–1974); Current Series, A-L (1930–1972).
R. H. Balmer Balmer, Randall H., Ph.D., Princeton University. Assistant Professor of Religion, Columbia University, New York, New York.
http://www.puritanboard.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=223710#_ftnref8
Reid, D. G., Linder, R. D., Shelley, B. L., & Stout, H. S. (1990). Dictionary of Christianity in America. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.
VirginiaHuguenot
Puritanboard Librarian
There is also a good bio in Meet the Puritans ed. by Joel Beeke and Randall Pederson.
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