The first minister of the Dutch reformed church in the United States
(The first minister of the Dutch reformed church in the Un...)
The first minister of the Dutch reformed church in the United States This book, "The first minister of the Dutch reformed church in the United States", by Jonas Michaëlius, is a replication of a book originally published before 1858. It has been restored by human beings, page by page, so that you may enjoy it in a form as close to the original as possible.
Michaelius was a son of the Rev. Jan Michielsz, one of those fighting preachers who fanned the hatred of Spanish rule and popery among the Reformed in Holland and Flanders. But he was also a man of affairs, for he was repeatedly employed in matters of state, both in England and Holland, by William of Orange, the Earl of Leicester, and Prince Maurice of Nassau. The son was born in 1584 in the village of Grootebroek in the north of the Province of Holland, to which Jan Michielsz had accepted a call in 1582. After the father's death in 1595, his widow moved to Hoorn, the town nearest to Grootebroek.
Education
Michaelius attended the Latin school until, at fifteen, he entered the Theological College at Leyden with a scholarship awarded him by the burgomasters of Hoorn. He graduated in 1605.
Career
For a period of twenty years, Michaelius ministered to various parishes in Brabant and Holland. In 1624, however, he asked to be transferred to Brazil, where the Hollanders were then trying to oust the Portuguese from their possessions. In March 1625, he sailed for his new destination in the fleet that was to clinch the Dutch hold on Bahia. During the voyage the commander, hearing from home-bound ships that the Portuguese had recaptured Bahia, changed his course and made for More on the coast of Guinea, West Africa. They arrived on November 19, 1625, and Michaëlius went on shore and remained in the fort. By the end of the year 1627 he was again in Holland, for on January 24, 1628; he sailed with his family from The Texel for New Netherland. They landed at New Amsterdam on April 7. Soon after his arrival he organized a church community, the beginning of the Collegiate Church in the City of New York and of the Reformed Church in America, of which Michaëlius may justly be called the founder. The Sunday services were held in Dutch, as the number of those who did not understand the language was very small, but for the benefit of those few he administered the Lord's Supper in French.
Michaëlius had a missionary's zeal to convert the Indians, whom he found to be "strangers to all decency. " Two years later he wrote with greater bitterness about the men of his own congregation, including the Director-General Peter Minuit, an elder of his church, and the members of the Council, whom he condemned wholesale as a "pestilent kind of people. " He accused them of defrauding the Company, of oppressing the innocent, and of leading immoral lives. Having returned to Holland in 1632, he repeated these charges in person before the Consistory of Amsterdam. The Directors of the West India Company, however, apparently did not appreciate the vehemence with which he had defended their interests. In 1637 the Classis of Amsterdam recommended Michaëlius for reappointment to the ministry in New Netherland, but the Assembly of the Nineteen unanimously rejected him. Their curt reply to the Classis contains the last record of his name. Three of the many letters that he sent from Manhattan to correspondents in Holland have fortunately been preserved. Two of these are written in forceful Dutch, the third is in somewhat florid Latin. They are among the earliest and most interesting records of New Amsterdam in its infancy. His character sketch of Peter Minuit and his Council, contained in the Latin letter to Joannes van Foreest, must be taken with reservations.
Achievements
Michaelius is known as the first minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at New Amsterdam. He was one of those who, not content with the care of souls, strove to meddle with things political and to sway the minds of the magistracy.
(The first minister of the Dutch reformed church in the Un...)
Personality
Michaelius was, no doubt, an honest man, a fervid Christian, and a good Latin scholar, but intemperate in asserting his superiority in these respects over men of less conscience and less culture.
Connections
Michaelius married in 1614. His wife died in childbed, leaving him three little children, one of whom, an only son, had stayed behind in Holland.
