16. Persecuted in New Amsterdam.--In the first part of the seventeenth
century the Lutheran Church was by law prohibited and oppressed in the
United Netherlands. When the power of the papists had come to an end,
Reformed tendencies gained the ascendency, and Calvinists reaped where
Lutherans had sowed with tears. While claiming to be adherents of the
Augsburg Confession, they persecuted the Lutherans, forbidding all
Lutheran worship in public meeting-houses as well as in private
dwellings. Nevertheless the Lutheran Church not only continued to exist,
but even made some headway in Amsterdam, Antwerp, and other places. The
greatest handicap, however, which also prevented the Dutch Lutherans
from developing any missionary activity, was the lack of a native
ministry thoroughly conversant with the language of the people.
Conditions similar to those in Holland obtained in the American
colonies. Like the mother country, New Amsterdam had a law prohibiting
the exercise of any religion save that of the Reformed faith. Sanford H.
Cobb, in his work _The Rise of Religious Liberty in America_, quotes the
law as follows: "No other religion shall be publicly admitted in New
Netherland except the Reformed, as it is at present preached and
practised by public authority in the United Netherlands; and for this
purpose the [Dutch West India] Company shall provide and maintain good
and suitable preachers, schoolmasters, and comforters of the sick
(Ziekentrooster)." (303, 321 f.) However, the report of the Jesuit
Jogues, who sojourned in the colony in about 1642, shows that this law
was not strictly enforced during the first part of the century. Also the
Lutherans were permitted to conduct reading-services in their homes. But
when the Dutch and German Lutherans (the former having arrived in New
Amsterdam probably as early as 1624) had organized a congregation in
1648, and in 1653 requested the authorities to grant them permission to
call a Lutheran pastor, they received a curt refusal at the hands of the
governor, Peter Stuyvesant. The two Reformed domines, Megapolensis, who
had arrived in 1649, and Drisius, who came in 1652 (the successors to
Michaelius, who came over in 1623, and Bogardus, who followed him in
1632), proved to be the most bigoted and fanatical in the opposition to
the request of the Lutherans. Instead of their petition being granted,
the Lutherans were now forced to have their children baptized in the
Reformed churches by Reformed pastors, and to promise to bring them up
in the Confession of Dort; and private services in dwellings were made
punishable with severe penalties. Peter Stuyvesant, who was also deacon
of the Reformed Church, declared at the close of a session of the
church council, that, if any one ever dared to appeal from his decision
to the authorities in Holland, he would reduce his stature by the
length of his head and send him back to the old country in pieces. But
the Lutherans were not intimidated. When Stuyvesant denied their
request for a Lutheran pastor, they appealed to the authorities
overseas. The two Reformed domines also sent a letter to Holland,
setting forth the dire consequences which were bound to follow in the
wake of such religious toleration.
17. Moderation Advised.--The authorities in Holland agreed with the
intolerant domines and directed Stuyvesant to allow none but the
Reformed religion. Yet, while denying the request of the Lutherans,
they, at the same time, urged the governor to employ mildness and
moderate means in dealing with them. Cobb gives the following
translation of these instructions: "We have decided absolutely to deny
the request made by some of our inhabitants, adherents of the Augsburg
Confession, for a preacher and free exercise of their religion, pursuant
to the custom hitherto observed by us and the West India Company, on
account of the consequences arising therefrom; and we recommend to you
also not to receive any similar petitions, but rather to turn them off
in the most civil and least offensive way, and to employ all possible,
but moderate means to induce them to listen and finally join the
Reformed Church." (313.) The letter was dated February 26, 1654. But
notwithstanding this rebuff, the Lutherans persisted in their demand,
and held religious services in their houses without a minister,
declaring that "Heaven was above law." This excited the wrath of the
autocratic governor, who was not accustomed to brook opposition, nor
knew how to employ mildness, wisdom, and "moderate means" in dealing
with anybody, least of all with the Lutherans. Instead of persuasion he
employed force; and instead of trying "the most civil and least
offensive way," he resorted to harsh and most offensive measures. On
February 1, 1656, a stringent "Ordinance against Conventicles" was
posted, which ran: "Some unqualified persons in such meetings assume the
ministerial office, the expounding and explanation of the holy Word of
God, without being called or appointed thereto by ecclesiastical or
civil authority, which is in direct contravention and opposition to the
general Civil and Ecclesiastical order of our Fatherland, besides that
many dangerous heresies and schisms are to be apprehended. Therefore,
the director-general and council . . . absolutely and expressly forbid
all such conventicles and meetings, whether public or private, differing
from the customary, and not only lawful, but scripturally founded and
ordained meetings of the Reformed divine service, as this is observed
. . . according to the Synod of Dordrecht." The penalties imposed by the
act were 100 _Flemish_ Pounds for the preacher and 25 Pounds for every
attendant at such services. (317.) A number of Lutherans were cast into
prison. Realizing that such harsh measures would prove hurtful to their
business interests, the authorities in Holland, in an order dated June
14, 1656, rebuked Stuyvesant for his high-handed procedure, saying: "We
should have gladly seen that your Honor had not posted up the
transmitted edict against the Lutherans, and had not punished them by
imprisonment, . . . inasmuch as it has always been our intention to
treat them with all peaceableness and quietness. Wherefore, your Honor
shall not cause any more such or similar edicts to be published without
our previous knowledge, but suffer the matter to pass in silence, and
permit them their free worship in their houses." (314.)
18. Johannes Ernestus Gutwasser.--Evidently, to the Lutherans the time
seemed favorable to renew their urgent requests for a pastor of their
own. And in July, 1657, Johannes Ernestus Gutwasser (not Goetwater, or
Gutwater, or Goetwasser), a German, sent by the Lutheran Consistory of
Amsterdam, arrived on Manhattan Island. Great was the fury of the
Reformed domines and vehement their clamor for his immediate return.
They wrote a letter to the classis in Amsterdam in which, according to
Cobb, "they relate that 'a Lutheran preacher, Goetwater, arrived to the
great joy of the Lutherans and the especial discontent and
disappointment of the congregation of this place, yea, of the whole
land, even the English. We went to the Director-General,' who summoned
Goetwater, and found that he had as credentials only a letter from a
Lutheran consistory in Europe to the Lutheran Church in New Amsterdam.
The governor ordered him not to preach, even in a private house. The
domines lament, 'We already have the snake in our bosom,' and urge
Stuyvesant to open the consistory's letter, which, oddly enough, he
refused to do, but consented to the ministers' demand that Goetwater be
sent back in the ship that brought him. [']Now this Lutheran parson,'
the Dutch ministers conclude, 'is a man of a godless and scandalous
life; a rolling, rollicking, unseemly carl, who is more inclined to
look into the wine-can than to pore over the Bible, and would rather
drink a can of brandy for two hours than preach one.'" (315.) But,
though maligned and persecuted, Gutwasser did not suffer himself to be
intimidated, and even begun to preach. So great and persistent, however,
was the fury of the fanatics that he was finally compelled to yield and
return to Holland, in 1659. The second Lutheran pastor to arrive on
Manhattan Island while the Dutch were still in power was Abelius
Zetskorn, whom Stuyvesant directed to the Dutch settlement of New Amstel
(New Castle) on the Delaware. The tyranny of Stuyvesant, however, was
abruptly ended when in 1664 the English fleet sailed into the harbor and
compelled the surrender of New Amsterdam. In the Articles of
Capitulation it was specifically agreed that "the Dutch here shall enjoy
the liberty of their consciences in divine worship and church
discipline." And according to the proclamation of the Duke of York, also
the Lutherans were granted religious liberty, "as long as His Royal
Highness shall not order otherwise."