Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen (born as Theodor Jakob Frelinghaus, – ) was a German-American Dutch Reformed minister, theologian and the progenitor of the Frelinghuysen family in the United States of America. Frelinghuysen is most remembered for his religious contributions in the Raritan Valley during the beginnings of the First Great Awakening. Several of his descendants became influential theologians and politicians throughout American history.
Birth and emigration
He was born in Lingen, a German-speaking city which then was part of the Union of Utrecht, to Johann Henrich Frelinghaus, a Dutch-Reformed minister; and to Anna Margaretha Brüggemann Frelinghaus (1657–1728). Frelinghuysen was ordained as a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1715 and graduated from the University of Lingen in 1717. For fourteen months he was a minister in Loegumer Voorwerk, in East Friesland, and then for a short time he was co-rector of the Latin school in Enkhuizen, in the Netherlands. In June 1719 he accepted a call from Raritan, in the Province of New Jersey, a British colony in North America, and after a re-ordination for the Dutch Reformed Church by the Classis of Amsterdam, he arrived in America in January 1720.
Family
He married Eva Terhune and had seven children, among them the Reverend Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen II and the Reverend John Frelinghuysen. All five sons became ministers and both daughters married ministers.
The Nigerian-born author James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, who was enslaved in the 1740s, reported that he was bought for £50 in New York by "Mr. Freelandhouse, a very gracious, good Minister." Freelandhouse is presumed to be Frelinghuysen. Gronniosaw remained enslaved in Frelinghuysen's household until the latter's death.
Ministry
Frelinghuysen served as minister to several of the Dutch Reformed Churches (congregations at Raritan, New Brunswick, Six-Mile Run, Three-Mile Run, and North Branch) in the Raritan River valley of New Jersey which he served until his death in 1747 or 1748.
The Encyclopedia of New Jersey states: Loyal to the Heidelberg Catechism, he emphasized pietism, conversion, repentance, strict moral standards, private devotions, excommunication, and church discipline. He was an eloquent preacher who published numerous sermons, but struggled against indifferentism and empty formalism. His theories conflicted with the orthodox views of Henry Boel, Johannes Arondeus and others, who challenged Frelinghuysen's religious emotionalism and unauthorized practices. As one of the fearless missionaries of the First Great Awakening in America, Frelinghuysen stressed tangible religious experiences. He trained young men for the clergy, often ordaining them without permission. His evangelical fervor and autonomous actions helped to instill an element of local independence for Dutch churches in North America's middle colonies.
First Great Awakening
Frelinghuysen served as a precursor to the First Great Awakening where his evangelistic contributions culminated in a regional awakening within the Middle Colonies. His ministry was greatly assisted through the efforts of Gilbert Tennent and George Whitefield. He sought to evangelize the Raritan Valley through Reformed pietism, that also owed much to the theological thought of the Puritans as well. Utilizing this theological thought, he employed a three-pronged evangelistic strategy. His chosen evangelistic strategies were preaching, church discipline, and a contextualization of the Dutch Reformed ecclesiastical practices.
His preaching aimed to convince people of the need to examine their lives in order to ascertain the validity of their salvation. In contrast to the staid orthodoxy of many of the Presbyterians and much of the New York Dutch Reformed Clergy, Frelinghuysen's evangelistic preaching penetrated the raw frontier of early eighteenth-century life of New Jersey. He attempted to ingrain within the listener a deep conviction of sin. Frelinghuysen evangelized the New Jersey Colony by using a blunt preaching style which classified his audiences into two basic categories: regenerate and unregenerate. One individual's response to the awakener was offered in the following apt summary: "We welcomed him with joy and love, in the hope that his service would be for our edification. But alas! to our great sorrow, we, soon, and increasingly found that the result was very different. His denunciations uttered against all of us from the pulpit . . . and on all occasions, to the effect that we were all unconverted . . . were severe and bitter."