Research

Series:

Scanned Document:

December 7, 1645

Tomas Willit, plaintiff, vs. Cornelis Tonisz, defendant, for fl. 236, being the balance due for the purchase of a house. Ordered that the defendant carry out and fulfil the contract made and signed by him.

The fiscal, plaintiff, vs. Cornelis Melyn, defendant, because the defendant violated the ordinance in selling wines to the Indians. Ordered that the fiscal prove that the defendant sold wines, or else that parties settle with each other.

Summons to the Rev. Everardus Bogardus to answer charges against him and further proceedings^[1]

In the name of the Lord, Amen. Anno 1646 in New Netherland.

The Honorable director and council to the Reverend Everardus Bogardus, minister here.

Although we were informed of your proceedings in the time of the Hon. Wouter van Twiller, the former director, and were also warned to be on our guard, yet were we unwilling to pay any attention thereto, believing that no man who preached the Word of the Lord would so far forget himself, notwithstanding we have letters in your own hand, among others one dated June 17, 1634, wherein you do not appear to be moved by the spirit of the Lord, but on the contrary by a feeling unbecoming heathens, let alone Christians, much less a preacher of the Gospel. You there berate your magistrate, placed over you by God, as an incarnate villain, a child of the Devil, whose buck goats are better than he, and promise him that you would so pitch into him from the pulpit on the following Sunday that both you and his bulwarks would tremble. And many other such like insults, which we refrain from mentioning, out of the respect we entertain for that gentleman.

You have indulged no less in scattering abuse during our administration. Scarcely a person in the entire land have you spared; not even your own wife, or her sister, particularly when you were in good company and jolly. Still mixing up your human passion with the chair of truth, which has continued from time to time, you associated with the greatest criminals in the country, taking their part and defending them. You refused to obey the order to administer the Sacrament of the Lord and did not dare to partake of it yourself. And in order that you may not plead ignorance, a few out of many instances shall be cited for you as follows:

On the 25th of September 1639, having celebrated the Lord's supper, observing afterwards in the evening a bright fire in the director's house, while you were at Jacob van Curler's, being quite drunk, you grossly abused the director and Jochim Piterz, with whom you were angry, because the director had asked something of you for said Jochim Pitersen, which you refused (according to the affidavit in our possession).

Since that time many acts have been committed by you, which do not become a clergyman in the least. In the hope that you would at least demean yourself in your office in a Christian-like manner, we have overlooked those things until March 1643, when one Maryn Adriansen came into the director's room with predetermined purpose to murder him. He was prevented and put in irons. Taking up the criminal's cause, you drew up his writings and defended him. He, notwithstanding, was sent to Holland in chains against your will. Whereupon you fulminated terribly for about fourteen days and desecrated even the pulpit in your passion. In what manner you conducted yourself every evening during this time is known to those who were then your immediate neighbors. Finally, you made up your quarrel with the director and things quieted down somewhat.

In the year 1644, one Laureus Cornelisen being here - a man who committed perjury; once openly took a false oath and was guilty of theft - he immediately found a patron in you, because he bespattered the director with lies and you were daily making good cheer with him. In the summer of the same year, when minister Douthey administered the Lord's Supper in the morning, you came drunk into the pulpit in the afternoon; also on the Friday before Christmas of the same year, when you preached the sermon calling to repentence.

In the beginning of the year 1645, being at supper at the fiscal's, where you arrived drunk, you commenced as is your custom to scold your deacons and the secretary, abusing among the rest deacon Oloff Stevensz as a thief, although he did not utter an ill word against you; whereupon the director, being present, suggested to you in a kind manner that it was not the place to use such language. As you did not desist, the director finally said, that when you were drunk, you did nothing but abuse, and that you had been drunk on Friday when you went into the pulpit; that it did not become a minister to lead such a life and to give scandal to the worthy congregation.

Some days after, the director not being able to attend church in consequence of indisposition, to wit, on the 22d of January 1645, you abused him violently from the pulpit, saying "What else are the greatest in the land but vessels of wrath and fountains of evil, etc. Men aim at nothing but to rob one another of his property, to dismiss, banish and transport." For this reason the director absented himself from the church, in order to avoid a greater scandal; as he will maintain that he never coveted any man's property, or took it away, or acted unjustly, or banished anyone who had not deserved three times severer punishment. Whomever he dismissed was discharged because such was his prerogative, and he will vindicate his act in the proper quarter. It is none of your business.

On the 21st of March 1645, being at a wedding feast at Adam Brouwer's and pretty drunk, you commenced scolding the fiscal and the secretary then present, censuring also the director not a little, giving as your reason that he had called your wife a whore, though he says that it is not true and that he never entertained such a thought and it never can be proved. Wherefore on the 23d of March, we, being moved by motives of mercy and on account of the respect attached to your office, instead of prosecuting you, sent you a Christian admonition under seal, which you twice refused to receive (according to the report of the messenger).

You administered the Lord's Supper at Easter and Whitsuntide without partaking of it yourself; furthermore setting yourself up as a partisan; assuming that the director had sent the Yoncker^[2] and one Jottho, meaning Lysbet the midwife, to you in order to seek a reconciliation, but that you would think twice before making peace with him; using similar language also to the Yoncker and Anthony de Hooges, as shall appear by credible witnesses. At the making of the peace, many words and means were used to break it off. Good effect was expected from the order which was sent to you to offer up prayers to the Lord, but instead of a prayer, people heard an invective, the tendency whereof was of dangerous consequence. Peace being concluded with the Indians, an extract from the order of the Lords States was sent to your Reverence, to return thanks to God on the 6th of September therefor. Your Reverence preached indeed and gave a good sermon, but throughout not a word was uttered about the peace and, though the day was appointed specially for that purpose, you offered no thanks to God for It, as the other clergymen who dwell within our limits have done with great zeal. By this, people can estimate your disposition toward the Company, by whom you are paid, and the welfare of the country; which disposition is also manifested by favoring those who have grossly defrauded and injured the Company; the conventicles and gatherings held and still dally continued in reference thereto.

On the 22d of December, you said publicly, in the course of the sermon on repentance, that you have frequently administered the Lord's Supper without partaking of it yourself and wished that those who are the cause of the trouble were excluded, and that when families are visited, they can not give a reason why they absent themselves. Your bad tongue is, in our opinion, the sole cause, and your stiffneckedness and those who encourage you in your evil course the cause of its continuance. We know no one but only you who has refused to make peace. When you make a visitation you do not desire to know the reason, or are unwilling to ask it. We hold that men are bound to give a reason for such absence if it be demanded.

On the 24th of the same month, you remarked in your sermon that in Africa, in consequence of the excessive heat, different animals copulate together, whereby many monsters are generated. But in this temperate climate you knew not, you said, whence these monsters of men proceeded. They are the mighty but they ought to be made unmighty, who have many fathers and place their trust in the arm of the flesh, and not in the Lord. Children can tell to whom you hereby allude. These and many similar sermons which you have often preached have obliged us to remain away from the church.

Seeing that all this tends to the general ruin of the land, both in ecclesiastical and civil matters, to the disparagement of the authorities whom your Reverence is bound by duty and also by your oath to support; to the stirring up of a mutiny among the people, already split into factions; to schism and contention in the church, created by novel and unheard of customs, and to rendering us contemptible in the eyes of our neighbors, which things can not be tolerated where justice is accustomed to be maintained; therefore, our bounden duty obliges us to provide therein and by virtue of our commission from their High Mightinesses, his Highness, and the honorable director of the Chartered West India Company to proceed against you formally; and in order that the same may be done more regularly, we have commanded that a copy of these our charges be delivered to you, to be answered in fourteen days, protesting that your Reverence shall be treated in as Christian and civil a manner as our conscience and the welfare of Church and State will permit. The 2d of January 1646.

Notes

References

Translation: Scott, K., & Stryker-Rodda, K. (Ed.). New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, Vol. 4, Council Minutes, 1638-1649 (A. Van Laer, Trans.). Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc.: 1974.A complete copy of this publication is available on the New Netherland Institute website.