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The Dutch Second Reformation (3)

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The Dutch Second Reformation (3)

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The Essence of the Dutch Second Reformation

Several additional factors also served to promote the emergence of the Dutch Second Reformation. After the Reformation in the Netherlands, strenuous efforts were made to replace the Roman Catholic Church with the Reformed Church as an inclusive people’s church (volkskerk). During the Reformation, one-tenth of the population held membership in the Reformed church. By the seventeenth century more than sixty per cent of the Dutch population were members of the Reformed Church which possessed a “preferred status” (bevoorrechte) with the government.1 The church’s success in acquiring external growth, however, had dire consequences for spiritual life. This additional fifty per cent of the population which flooded into the church ruined its Reformed distinctiveness: “From that moment on it was impossible to maintain church discipline.”2 It became easy to confuse being anti-Catholic with being Reformed. Nominal church membership and loose living became fashionably acceptable. Spiritual and ethical sterility grew rampantly, particularly when combined with newfound prosperity. The United East-India Company, formed in 1602, and other Dutch industry ushered in a period of unparalleled affluence. The majority were inclined to live for this life rather than for the world to come. Moreover, the state increasingly interfered in church matters and church discipline.3 The state controlled the universities where Reformed ministers were being trained under the increasing influence of Rationalism, particularly the philosophy of Descartes and Spinoza.

These spiritual, social, and intellectual conditions existed in sharp tension with historic Dutch Calvinism which was intrinsically oriented toward sound doctrine and piety. The Calvinism of the Canons of Dort stood in marked contrast to the spirit of the age. Moreover, the stipulations the Synod of Dort had laid down with regard to the supervision of pastors, professors, and theological writings were not being followed. All of these circumstances, combined with the influence of English Puritanism, German Pietism, the Genevan reform,4 and native Dutch influences (e.g., medieval mysticism,5 the Devotio Moderna, and Anabaptism6—each of which emphasized sanctification), gave rise to the Dutch Second Reformation and its protest against the laxity of the age. Reflecting the concern of the Second Reformation, P. de Witte wrote, “Oh times, oh morals! What do parents do but bring up their children to become the prey of all kinds of seductive spirits, such as the papists, anabaptists, Arminians, and libertines? Yes, even to become the booty of the devil, to be the heirs of eternal damnation and the firewood of hell.”7

The Dutch Second Reformation was a movement that arose out of the ashes of the burning expectation which had moved the early Reformers. Also the Dutch Reformers had envisioned a theocratic society and an ideal Church in which the bulk of the population would be involved in personal and communal renewal. Reference was frequently made to the unbreakableness of a “threefold cord,” consisting of God, the Netherlands, and the House of Orange. But the vision that the Netherlands would yet become “the Israel of the West” in society or church life proved to be an unattainable ideal. The post-Reformers viewed the failure of that dream. They faced the painful reality that the majority of parishioners had not become more spiritual as a result of the Reformation. To their followers, many of whom found conventicles (gezelschappen)8 more spiritually edifying than formal worship, the church was no longer the communion of saints, but at best a very mixed multitude and at worst a “Babylon” or an “Egypt.” Jodocus van Lodenstein’s assessment of the Reformed church in his day is typical of that of Second Reformation divines and their adherents: “Babylon of Babylons, a thousand times worse than that of the Papacy because of the light that she had but did not rightly use.”9 The church seems “more deformed than reformed,” he lamented. “There is no practicing of the truth, but a parroting of the words of the catechism is all that one finds among Reformed people.”10 Another prominent Second Reformation divine, Bernardus Smytegelt complained:

Among external professors you will find much chaff and hardly a grain of wheat. There are heaps of external professors, and are they not indifferent and ungodly? What are they like in the families? Dear man! Do you not know how scarce pious parents are? How rare it is to find a godly mother or grandmother! How unusual to find a pious servant or maid! How unusual to find godliness among children as with Timothy!... How few are acquainted with the Bible! How few use the Bible regularly in the home! How few pray with each other, teach each other, and seek to lead each other toward heaven!11

Consequently, in opposition to sin and complacency, an urgent, zealous call went out for fresh personal, church,12 and societal reform: The scriptural appeal for sanctification must be zealously pursued; Reformation doctrine must be lived.

S. van der Linde, a leading Dutch scholar on the Second Reformation, rightly affirms that the movement must not be equated with “non-dogmatical” Christendom; rather, its goal was to join doctrine to the whole of daily life:

The Second Reformation ... is not at all a-dogmatic or anti-dogmatic. It only desires that dogma be experienced as spirit and life....13

The protest of the Second Reformation is not primarily against dogmatism as engendering a quenching of the Spirit, but much more against a certain vitalism as well as secularism whereby one observes the Spirit as being grieved.14

Elsewhere van der Linde expands these concerns and notes:

The Second Reformation sides entirely with the Reformation and levels criticism not so much against the reformata (the church which is reformed), but rather against the reformanda (the church which needs to be reformed).15 Moreover, though the Second Reformation is preeminently concerned with spiritual life and experience, so that a heavy accent falls on the practice of piety and even on precision, there is notwithstanding an array of emphases:


In opposition to sin and complacency, an urgent, zealous call went out for fresh personal, church, and societal reform: The scriptural appeal for sanctification must be zealously pursued; Reformation doctrine must be lived.


In Voetius we have the church-organizer, in Ames a very original theologian, in Teellinck and Brakel, divines of practical religion, and in Lodensteyn and Saldenus, the men of “mysticism,” cross-bearing and meditation upon the life to come.16

Despite diversity, however, van der Linde concludes that there is an underlying element of “precision” in the Second Reformation which is inseparable from a fervent desire to counteract prevailing impiety with a piety which “consciously consecrates all of life to God.”17

Several attempts have been made to define the core of the Dutch Second Reformation as a logical development from and application of the Reformation proper. Witsius emphasized that the motto, “the Reformed church needs to be ever reforming” (ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda) applies only to the church’s life and not to doctrine since Reformation doctrine was established as foundational truth. Every Second Reformation divine was convinced he was following his Reformed forebears and upholding Reformed orthodoxy, although some pointed out defects in the Reformation era, usually centering around the fact that the Reformation divines were also sons of their time. For example, Teellinck gently chides the Reformers for being more concerned with the reformation of doctrine than of life, with justification than sanctification.18

Consequently, Heppe defines the Second Reformation as “a striving for the completion of the church reformation of the sixteenth century (as being a mere reform of doctrine) by way of a revival of piety or by a reformation of life.”19 Hofmeyr concludes:

Although this movement also had other spiritual fathers, it can be contended that the central thrust of the Second Reformation (which involves a personal spiritual piety, an articulated ecclesiology and a theocratic outlook on society) is broadly derived from Calvin. It should therefore be regarded not as a correction but as a development of the Reformation.20

Van Genderen enlarges these concepts:

By this term, Nadere Reformatie, we mean a movement in the 17th century which was a reaction against dead orthodoxy and [the] secularization of Christianity in the Church of the Reformation and which insisted on the practice of faith. This may also be called a special form of Pietism, because the central idea is the “praxis pietatis” [the practice of piety]. The origin of the pietistic trend lies in England and the father of Puritan Pietism [who] was William Perkins. Via Willem Teellinck and Guilielmus Amesius a direct influence on a kindred movement in Holland ensued. To this movement belong the Teellincks, Voetius, Van Lodenstein, Saldenus, the two Brakels, and especially also Witsius. This movement is not meant as a correction of the Reformation but as the consequence of it. The background of the conspicuous preciseness is the desire to serve God fully according to His will.21

Cornelis Graafland, another leading Dutch scholar on the Second Reformation, refers to it as a movement “which turned against the generally poor conditions prevailing in the Reformed church... to achieve a radical and complete sanctification of all facets of life.” Graafland describes the movement as a “deepening and broadening of the sixteenth-century Reformation.”22

Another attempt to express the heart of the Second Reformation is that of P. B. van der Watt,23 which is paraphrased by Hofmeyr as follows:

[The Second Reformation] revolted against the unspiritual state of the nation, ministers, and congregations. They plead also for a personal commitment to Christ. The experienced and tested religion is to them of central importance. Although nothing is done to undermine the church, the office, the sacrament, and the covenant, they regard rebirth as the priority. They also assume a reasonably strong Puritan point of view. They plead for the observance of the Sabbath and the carrying out of the demands of the Lord. The church must be pure and should be cleansed of all that is unholy. Finally, they had a high regard for the Scriptures and for the Heidelberg Catechism.24

Finally, a definition of the Second Reformation was formulated in 1983 by the group of scholars responsible for Documentatieblad Nadere Reformatie:

This movement within the “Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk,” while opposing generally prevailing abuses and misconceptions and pursuing the broadening and progressive advancement of the sixteenth-century Reformation, urges and strives with prophetic zeal for both the inner experience of Reformed doctrine and personal sanctification, as well as the radical and total sanctification of all spheres of life.25

Despite these somewhat oversimplified generalizations of the versatile Dutch Second Reformation, its complexity is not to be underestimated. Graafland points out that the Second Reformation had no organizational structure beyond a strong feeling of spiritual kinship existing among its divines. At times this led to small organized circles such as the so-called “Utrecht Circle” under the leadership of Voetius or to programs for action such as those promoted by Willem Teellinck and Jacobus Koelman. For the most part, however, each Second Reformation divine brought the message of the necessity of reform to his own parishioners. The contours of this call to reform naturally took on distinctive shapes in each locality and generation.26

May God graciously revive the essence and Spirit of the Dutch Second Reformation among and beyond us in our secular and needy day.

1“While they were not really state churches, they were folk churches. In such a church the tendency always exists to become so closely identified with the prevailing culture that its message becomes little more than a lifeless reiteration of prevailing values. This was overwhelmingly the case in the Reformed churches of the Netherlands...during the seventeenth century. Preaching was largely a matter of setting forth correct theological dogmas and generally accepted middle class virtues.... Any attempt to move in the direction of the spirituality and ethics of the New Testament was decried as ‘precisianism’ or worse” (Stoeffler, The Rise of Evangelical Pietism, pp. 115-16).

2E Vote Dordraceno (Amsterdam: Hoveker & Wormser, 1905), 3:215.

3Jacobus Koelman, for example, “opposed governmental interference in church life on several fronts. He rejected the government’s right to call ministers and to select elders and deacons. He fought against its low view of Christian living and its lack of maintaining Christian discipline in conjunction with the administration of the sacraments. And he staunchly opposed the use of read forms and the observance of church feast days” (“Jacobus Koelman,” The Banner of Truth 55[1989]:27).

4Genevan input came particularly through Jean Taffin, who studied under Calvin and Beza, and whose views are similar to those of the Teellincks, who were primarily influenced by English Puritanism. Balke feels that op’t Hof minimizes Taffin’s influence in order to emphasize the role of the Teellincks in the Second Reformation (W. J. op’t Hof, De Bibliografie van Eewout Teellinck [Kampen: De Groot Goudriaan, 1988]; W. J. op’t Hof, C. A. de Niet, H. Uil, Eewout Teellinck in handschriften [Kampen: De Groot Goudriaan, 1989]). Cf. Stoeffler, The Rise of Evangelical Pietism, p. 116; van der Linde, “Jean Taffin: eerste pleiter voor ‘Nadere Reformatie’ in Nederland,” Theologia Reformata 25 (1982):6-29.

5Graafland, “De invloed van het Puritanisme op het ontstaan van het Gereformeerd Pietisme in Nederland,” Documentatieblad Nadere Reformatie 7 (1983):11-12; op ’t Hof, Engelse pietistische geschriften in het Nederlands, 1598-1622, pp. 599-00, 640.

6Stoeffler, The Rise of Evangelical Pietism, pp. 118ff. The Devotio Moderna was “a devotional movement of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries chiefly associated with the Brethren of the Common Life; their founder, Gerard Groote; and their best-known writer, Thomas a Kempis” (P. H. Davids, “Devotio Moderna,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. by Walter Elwell, p. 317).

With regard to Anabaptism, op’t Hof concludes that the Second Reformation “was one of the answers to the Anabaptist reproach that Reformed doctrine did not lead to sanctity of life” (Engelse pietistische geschriften in het Nederlands, 1598-1622, pp. 640-41; cf., pp. 606-607.).

7Dedication of his Catechesatie over den Heidelbergschen Catechismus (which underwent thirty printings in the seventeenth century!), cited in W. Verboom, De Catechese van de Reformatie en de Nadere Reformatie (Amsterdam: Buijten en Schipperheijn, 1986), p. 251.

8In the Second Reformation a desire for intimate Christian fellowship led to the development of “gatherings of the godly” to speak about spiritual truths and the experimental leadings of God with His people. These became called gezelschappen (literally, “fellowships”) in the Netherlands. “Fellowship,” however, does not fully convey the Dutch meaning of gezelschap. Consequently, gezelschap is usually translated as “conventicle,” the term ascribed to parallel meetings in Scotland. (In English Puritanism such meetings were known as prophesyings and in German Pietism as collegiae pietatis.)

9J. van Lodensteyn’s Negen Predicatien, ed. by Evarardus van der Hooght (Rotterdam: Gebr. Huge, n.d.), p. 197; cf. ibid., pp. 152ff.

10Pieter Proost, Jodocus van Lodenstein (Amsterdam: J. Brandt en Zoon, 1880), pp. 133-34.

11Des Christens Eenige Troost in Leven en Sterven, of Verklaringe over den Heidelbergschen Catechismus in LII Predicatien; Benevens V Belydenis-Predicatien (Middelburg: Ottho en Pieter van Thol, Den Haag, en A. L. en M. H. Callenfels, 1747), p. 336.

12For the ecclesiology of the Second Reformation, see van der Linde, Opgang en voortgang der reformatie, pp. 189-200.

13“De Godservaring bij W. Teellinck, D. G. a Brakel en A. Comrie,” Theologia Reformata 16 (1973):205.

14“Het Werk van de Heilige Geest in de Gemeente: Een appreciatie van de Nadere Reformatie,” Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 10 (1956):3.

15“De betekenis van de Nadere Reformatie voor Kerk en Theologie,” Kerk en Theologie 5 (1954):216.

16Ibid., p. 218.

17Het Gereformeerde Protestantisme (Nijkerk: G. F. Callenbach, 1957), p. 9.

18Cornelis Graafland, “Kernen en contouren van de Nadere Reformatie,” in De Nadere Reformatie: Beschrijving van haar voornaamste vertegenwoordigers, pp. 351-52.

19Geschichte des Pietismus und der Mystik in der Reformierten Kirche, namentlich der Niederlande, p. 6.

20“The Doctrine of Calvin as Transmitted in the South African Context by Among Others the Oude Schrijvers,” in Calvinus Reformator: His contribution to Theology, Church and Society, p. 260.

21Herman Witsius: Bijdrage tot de Kennis der Gereformeerde Theologie, p. 264; cf. pp. 220-25 for an exposition of this summary.

22“De Nadere Reformatie en haar culturele context,” in Met het woord in de Tijd, ed. by L. Westland (’s-Gravenhage: Boekencentrum, 1985), pp. 117-38.

23Die Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk, 1652-1824 (Pretoria: N. G. Kerkboek-handel, 1976), 1:83.

24“The Doctrine of Calvin as Transmitted in the South African Context by Among Others the Oude Schrijvers” in Calvinus Reformator: His contribution to Theology, Church and Society, p. 262.

25Documentatieblad Nadere Reformatie 7 (1983):109.

26Graafland, “Kernen en contouren van de Nadere Reformatie,” in De Nadere Reformatie: Beschrijving van haar voornaamste vertegenwoordigers, p. 350.

Dr. J.R. Beeke is pastor of the First Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Bekijk de hele uitgave van zaterdag 1 juni 1991

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's

The Dutch Second Reformation (3)

Bekijk de hele uitgave van zaterdag 1 juni 1991

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's