The Project Gutenberg EBook of Narrative of New Netherland, by Various

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Title: Narrative of New Netherland

Author: Various

Editor: J. F. Jameson

Release Date: April, 2002 [Etext #3161]
Posting Date: October 14, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NARRATIVE OF NEW NETHERLAND ***

Produced by Tony Adam Anthony

NARRATIVE NEW NETHERLAND

By Various

J.F. Jameson, Editor

LETTER OF REVEREND JONAS MICHAELIUS, 1628.

Reference material and source.

Michaelius, Reverend Jonas. "Letter of Reverend Jonas
Michaelius, 1628." In J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Narratives
of New Netherland, 1609-1664 (Original Narratives of Early
American History). NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909.

INTRODUCTION

THE established church in the United Netherlands was the Reformed
Church. Its polity was that of Geneva or of Presbyterianism. The
minister and ruling or lay elders of the local church formed its
consistory, corresponding to the Scottish or American kirk session. The
next higher power, administrative or judicial, resided in the classis,
consisting of all the ministers in a given district and one elder from
each parish therein, and corresponding to the presbytery. It had power
to license and ordain, install and remove ministers. Above this body
stood the provincial synod, and above that the (occasional) national
synods. In 1624 the synod of North Holland decreed that supervision
over the churches in the East Indies should belong to the churches and
classes within whose bounds were located the various "chambers" of the
East India Company. The same rule was applied in the case of the West
India Company's settlements. Under this rule the first minister sent out
to New Netherland was placed under the jurisdiction of the Classis
of Amsterdam, since the colony was under the charge of the Amsterdam
Chamber. Many extracts from the minutes of that classis, and what
remains of its correspondence with the ministers in New Netherland,
are printed in the volumes published by the State of New York under the
title _Ecclesiastical Records, State of New York_ (six v