Early Fathers of the Reformed Church to America Prepared for Trinity Covenant Church, RCUS Colorado Springs, CO
Peter Minuit Born 1580 1625 1710	Olivianus and Ursinus were still alive when Minuit was born. He was born in Wesel in northern Germany of French Huguenot stock, for many Huguenots had fled to Wesel from France, and Minuit became a deacon in one of the large Huguenot churches there. Most modern histories give a most unflattering report of Minuit because of their anti-Calvinist slant. He fled to America during the Thirty Years War. Like many others from Germany, he entered into the service of the Dutch. Within a year [1625] he was appointed governor of New Amsterdam [New York]. He was a godly and energetic man. He began the humane policy of buying lands from the Indians eighteen years before William Penn was born. Because of Minuit, New York escaped most of the horrors of the Indian Wars, maintaining the friendship of the Iroquois. He built a fort, established fur trade, and the colony prospered. He was an elder in the first Reformed Church in New Amsterdam, which worshipped in a loft of the fort. He opposed the aristocracy of the patroon system established by the Dutch West India Company and resigned and left for Holland after six years, with 5000 beaver skins on board. His knowledge of the New World and his success in New Amsterdam brought him to the attention of Sweden, and Prince Casimir, son of Frederick III [the Pious], who was promoting the dream of Gustavus Adolphus of a Swedish colony in America. With two ships he sailed to Deleware Bay, the up the Delewar, and up the Minquas. He bought the land from the Indians 44 years before Penn and claimed it for Sweden. He made a treaty with the Indians and with the English colony at Virginia. He built a fort and established fur trade with the Indians. On a voyage to the West Indies to buy tobacco, he accepted the hospitality of the Dutch governor on a Dutch ship in the harbor. During his visit a terrible hurricane came up and all the vessels were driven out to sea. The ship with Minuit sank and all perished. The Swedish colony was Lutheran, but many German reformed immigrated there. When the Dutch captured the Swedish colony they founded a Reformed church in Pennsylvania, and introduced the Heidelberg Catechism. This church was in existence when Penn came. A Rev. Van Vleck ministered to German reformed among the Dutch and organized the first German Reformed congregation at White Marsh, north of Philadelphia in 1710, having also baptized some of those at Skippack. The congregation evaporated when Van Vleck left, but some of the people were with Boehm fifteen years later. Peter Minuit is an example of the tremendous benefit the Reformed lay elder has brought to the United States and to the Reformed Church.
Rev. Samuel Guldin	Samuel Guldin was probably the first Reformed minister in Pennyslvania, and performed important work in evangelism. He began as a Swiss Reformed pietist or puritan, but was dissatisfied with his ministry and personal life, although a pastor at Stettlen. . He was converted about 1693 and began to be blessed in his ministry. In 1694 he was elected assistant to the cathedral of Berne, making him next in line to be canton. Opposition began to develop against Reformed pietism and against strict church discipline. The worldly were uncomfortable by plain preaching. One of the pietists began to preach pre-millennialism and there was a reaction against the pietists. Gulden resigned. It time pietism triumphed in Berne, but Gulden didn’t wait for that. After four years at a country parish, he emigrated to America, perhaps about 1718. In Pennsylvania he preached everywhere, in barns, groves, houses, for there were no churches. When the first German church was erected at Germantown, he often preached there. He earning his living by farming. In 1742 he came out in opposition to Zinzendorf, who was trying to get the Lutherans and the Reformed to join together in a union denomination. He preferred the distinctness of the Heidelberg Catechism. He did not organize any churches, but preached and baptized. He claimed that he had never departed from the Reformed faith. He died in 1745. He performed a valuable work in ministering to the destitute in America, and prepared the way for the organization of the RCUS.
Rev John Philip Boehm	John Philip Boehm might be called the founder of the Reformed Church in the U. S. He came from Worms in1720 on the border of the Palatinate, a Reformed schoolmaster driven out by the Romanists, during the time Charles Philip was Elector. Boehm became schoolmaster to the Reformed north of Philadelphia In 1725 they asked him to be their pastor. He hesitated because he had not been ordained, but finally accepted, “protesting before God that he could not justify his refusal of so necessary a work.” Three consistories were elected at Falkner Swamp, Skippack, and White Marsh. The congregations were miserably poor, and he received almost no salary, supporting himself by working at his farm. In 1727, Rev. George Michael Weiss, arrived from the Palatinate and began preaching in Philadelphia. This caused some division in Boehm’s charge and so his churches asked the Dutch Reformed of New York to ordain him. After getting advice from Holland, New York ordained him, and he declared his adherence to the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort. He sent regular reports to Holland. In 1730 Weiss returned to Europe and Boehm was left to care for his churches as well as the Philadelphia one. Meanwhile the church was spreading even to Lancaster County. He administer communion to Conestoga in 1727 to 57 members. In 1708 Queen Ann of England had invited poor Palatinates to come to England; they did; she didn’t know what to do with them, and sent 4000 to New York. 1700 died in passage. They went into the wilderness, settling in Schoharie county on land given them by the Mohawks. Later on their title to the land was questioned, and they floated on the river on rafts, driving the cattle on the shore until they had traveled to Tulpehocken. In 1727 Boehm administer the sacrament to 32 communicants. He visited them twice a year. The rest is a quotation from J. I. Good: Meanwhile his district continued enlarging. Calls came to him to preach and administer the sacraments from the northern districts, as Macungie and Egypt. In a letter of 1734 Boehm very touchingly describes the pressing needs and destitution of the German colonists. He says: A minister is needed in Sacony, Macungie, Maxatawny and Great Swamp to feed the poor sheep who live on the borders of the wilderness, and who thirst to hear God’s Word as the dry earth thirsts for water. Some who were able to make the journey have at various times come all the way to Falkner Swamp, a distance of 25 or 30 miles, and brought little children all that distance for baptism. It was impossible for old persons and weak sick women to make such a journey. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that one’s heart breaks and one’s eyes are full of tears at remembering this. Alone I cannot attend to all this, for my years are beginning to accumulate, and my poor body is beginning to get feeble, for I must not only make long journeys and preach, but also because these poor people are not able to support me, I must by hard manual labor support my large family. We do not know of any more pathetic appeal in the early history of our Church than this one made by Boehm for help. He was virtually pastor of all the Reformed from the Delaware to the Susquehanna, and from Philadelphia to the Blue Mountains (with the exception, perhaps, of one or two small congregations), a territory about 100 miles square and containing now about eight countries, and covered now by seven Re3formed Classes. [Good] His work is eloquently described by his biographer, Mr. Henry S. Dotterer, in his excellent monograph: When he began, in 1720, the Indians were still numerous, having been little disturbed by the sprinkling of white settlers. At that time few lawful roads had been laid out for travel, and he had to thread his toilsome way on horseback through the deep forest, over hills and across streams, over rough and tortuous paths. At intervals of miles apart he would come upon the clearing made by the hardy settler, sheltered in a newly made log hut. At these rude firesides he was a welcome guest. Here he comforted the afflicted and homesick, and at their Sabbath gathering he brought to them Gospel blessings denied to them since they left Germany these many years. He baptized the children, catechized the youth and buried the dead. While Boehm was thus spreading out his work, so as to cover the field to its extremest limit, and to supply the shepherdless Reformed with the bread of life, there was danger of a collapse near the center of his work. This began at the Reformed church at Germantown, Zinzendorf’s aim was to start a union denomination among the Germans. They could remain Reformed or Lutheran, yet could be related to the Moravian Church as circles or tropes of it. There is no doubt that there was a great need (owing to the great religious destitution) of gathering the pious together, no matter of what denomination. But in gathering them together, Zinzendorf gathered such diverse elements that the union part of the movement soon went to pieces, and what was left was absorbed by the Moravians, who had been the most influential in it. Boehm rose up to oppose this movement, which threatened to carry into it congregation after congregation of the Reformed, for Zinzendorf had Lischy ordained as the Swiss Reformed preacher, and Bechtel he had appointed as the Reformed Inspector, both of whom were especially to work among the Reformed, and win them from Boehm and their Heidelberg Catechism. Boehm attacked this movement, because he was confessional—that is, he believed in the uniqueness and value of the Reformed church as defined by its creed. He came into collision with Zinzendorf, whom he accused of insincerity—that Zinzendorf professed to be a Lutheran, when he was not, as he was a Moravian. The Reformed in this union movement (which was called the Congregation of God in the Spirit) made reply. They charged that Boehm did not properly represent the Reformed, but only the Dutch Reformed, with whom he was so closely allied, and who were high Calvinists, while they represented the true German Reformed, who were low Calvinists, like the Reformed at Berlin, whose minister, Jablonsky, had ordained Zinzendorf as Bishop. Bechtel seems to have gone so far as to incline toward perfectionism, and attacked the 114th question of the Heidelberg Catechism. Boehm attacked them in two pamphlets, his “Letter of True Warning,” August 23,1742, and again in his “Another Letter of Warning,” May 19, 1743. These warned the Reformed against this new movement. As a result the congregations remained true to their old Reformed faith, although a number of individuals went over to the Moravians. Even the congregation at Germantown, which had been carried over, soon tired of its pastor, Bechtel, and he had to resign in 1744. Boehm had thus saved the Reformed Church in her first great controversy. He thus proved to be her defender, as well as her founder and organizer. But the shadows of age began to creep over Boehm, and, as he says in the letter above, he felt the burden of his labors to be too heavy. Those upon whom he had hoped to cast the burden of his labors failed him. It was, therefore, with great joy and relief that he found two ministers arriving in Pennsylvania, in 1746, to relieve him. Rev. Mr. Weiss returned from New York state, and Rev. Michael Schlatter arrived from Holland, with instructions from the Reformed Church of Holland to organize the Pennsylvania congregations so that they could be provided with ministers. The first meeting of Boehm, the aged founder, and Schlatter, the new organizer of our Church, took place at Witpen, September 7, 1746. About two weeks later Mr. Boehm took Mr. Schlatter and Mr. Weiss to visit his Tulpehocken congregation, September 25, where these three administered the communion. He gladly relinquished to Mr. Schlatter the congregation at Philadelphia and installed him as its pastor, January 1, 1747. While Mr. Schlatter traveled up and down among the Reformed settlements, organizing them, Boehm aided him with his advice. And when the first Coetus met, September 29, 1747, he acted as its secretary. He was very glad the next year to have three more Reformed ministers arrive, one of whom, Mr. Bartholomaus, took charge of his Tulpehocken congregation, while Mr. Rieger had taken charge of his Schaefferstown congregation. Rev. Mr. Leydich also took his two congregations at Falkner Swamp and Providence (Trappe). Boehm now limited his labors to the Reformed around his home at Witpen and organized there a congregation in 1746—the congregation now named after him (“Boehm’s Church”). But it was hard work. The numbers were few. Most of them were poor. They built their church, but could not furnish it. Still they labored on in hope, encouraged by their aged pastor. But Boehm’s missionary spirit could not be restrained. He had so long been accustomed to travel great distances to minister to shepherdless flocks. And so when a request came from the Macungie and Egypt congregations at the beginning of 1749, as they were without a pastor, to come and supply them, he could not refuse in spite of his age. That self-denying zeal and devotion led to his death, for it was while at Egypt to celebrate the communion, April 30, that he suddenly died on Saturday night, after having held the preparatory service. Boehm deserves great honor for his industry, self-denial and faithfulness to his Church. Our Church is just beginning to realize the greatness of his labors. For 24 years he preached the Gospel for almost no pay, supporting himself and his family by his own hands, while all the time he underwent great privations, labors and sufferings through the long journeys he took to his congregations. He traveled immense distances, faced great dangers, wore out his health and strength in the service of our Church, and died in the harness. He founded and organized our Church, defended her against the Moravians, gave her her constitution, and stamped her character upon her. He being dead, yet speaketh. Not only the congregation named after him, but also the whole Reformed Church in the United States, is a monument of his zeal and consecration.