Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 12

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

XIV

more conservative period) and Kuenen, he and felt little drawing theological study, and gave himself, therefore, rather to the

that time in his

liad little clearness of religious insight

to

cultivation of literature under the guidance of Professor de

Vries.

partly

At

its close

a great change

came over him, mediated

by some striking experiences

of providential guidance with the preparation of a prize-paper which he had undertaken, partly by the continued and absorbing study of Calvin and a Lasco to which the preparation of that paper led him, and partly by the powerful impression made in connection

upon him by Miss Yonge's romance, The Heir of RedcUffe, read in this state of mind. The good work thus begun was completed under the influence of the example and conversation of the pious Reformed people of his first pastoral charge, at the little village of Beesd, where he ministered the Word from 1863 to 1867. Thus prepared for his work, he entered upon it at once con amove, when he was called in the latter year to the Church at Utrecht. From that moment, at Utrecht and Amsterdam, in the pulpit and professor's chair, in the Chamber of Deputies, and the editorial page journals, he has unceasingly waged battle for the freedom of the Church of God to found itself on the Word alone, and to live and teach in accordance with its own free of his

confession.

In his new enthusiasm of faith he went to Utrecht in the highest hope, looking upon that city, in which dwelt and

taught the Coryphseuses of the orthodoxy of the day, as '' a Zion of God," and expecting to find in them leaders whom

he would need but to follow to the reestablishment of the Church and of the religious life of the land on the one firm foundation of the

Word

of

God.

He

soon discovered that

there were limits, in reliance

and even

in trust

getical School of

upon the Reformed principles, in God's Word, beyond which the ApoloUtrecht was not prepared to go. " I had

thought to find them," he

"learned brethren, for whom lie, were the authority of Word for a weapon were defend-

says,i

the Holy Scriptures, just as they their lives,

— who with ^

the

Gedenkboek,

etc.,

as above, p. 68.

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