# Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen



## VirginiaHuguenot (Dec 17, 2006)

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.


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## jaybird0827 (Dec 18, 2006)

VirginiaHuguenot said:


> 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.


 


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 (Dec 18, 2006)

That's cool, Jay! I think I'll have to add another stop on my Reformed Historical Tour of America.


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## crhoades (Dec 22, 2006)

*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).​R. H. Balmer​http://www.puritanboard.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=223710#_ftn8 

_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.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Dec 22, 2006)

There is also a good bio in _Meet the Puritans_ ed. by Joel Beeke and Randall Pederson.


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