True Reformed Dutch Church

True Reformed Dutch Church is an organization which grew out of the secession of the Rev. Solomon Froeligh, D.D., in 1822. . He was a professor of theology, a man of erudition, and pastor of the two congregations of Hackensack and Schralenburg, N. J., which he carried with him. His secession was the culmination of difficulties of long standing, in which he was subjected to censure for aggression upon a neighboring Church. He refused to submit to the authorities of the Church. A number of disaffected ministers united with him, together with portions of their churches. The grounds alleged for their separation were that the Dutch Church had become erroneous in doctrine, lax in discipline, and corrupt in practice. The confusion, strife, and troubles produced by this conflict were long and bitter. The "True Reformed Dutch Church" retains the standards of the Church which it left, and declares that it alone keeps them in their purity. It holds no fellowship with any other denomination, refuses to co-operate with the benevolent religious institutions of the age, and is generally antinomian in sentiment and practice. The churches of this sect are less than twenty in number, small, feeble, and dwindling away with the survivors of the original strife. They are located in New Jersey and New York. For full accounts, reference is made to their pamphlet entitled Reasons Assigned by a Number of Ministers, Elders, and Deacons for Declaring Themselves the True Reformed Dutch Church in the United States of America. See also Corwin, Manual of the Ref. Church in America; Taylor, Annals of Classis and Township of Bergen, very full and accurate. (W. J. R. T.)