Guillaume Groen Van Prinsterer and His Conception Of History -- By: Jantje Lubbegiena van Essen

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 44:2 (Fall 1982)
Article: Guillaume Groen Van Prinsterer and His Conception Of History
Author: Jantje Lubbegiena van Essen


Guillaume Groen Van Prinsterer and His Conception Of History

Jantje Lubbegiena van Essen

Translated with additional notes by Herbert Donald Morton 1 , 2

I. The Course of Groen’s Life

To understand Groen’s conception of history, it is necessary to know something about Groen himself and his spiritual development. Therefore I shall start by presenting a brief survey of the course of his life.

1. The Groen Family

Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801–1876), or Willem Groen, as he was called in ordinary life, was born 21 August 1801 in

Voorburg, near ‘s-Gravenhage, at “Vreugd en Rust,” the country estate of his parents Petrus Jacobus Groen van Prinsterer (1764–1837) and Adriana Hendrika Caan (1772–1832; m. 1797). His father, a well known ‘s-Gravenhage physician, was attached to the house of the Grand Pensionary Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck (1761–1825); then to the court of Louis Bonaparte (Lodewijk I, King of Holland); and after 1813 to that of William I, King of the Netherlands. He was a member of various national medical commissions and of the Provincial States of Holland. A progressive doctor, he advocated bathing in the sea and opposed interment in and around churches. The cemetery “Ter Navolging” at Scheveningen, where Groen would be buried in 1876, came into existence partly as a result of his efforts.

Groen’s mother was from a leading merchant family in Rotterdam. Orphaned at an early age, she was the heiress of a great fortune. Groen had two sisters. Keetje3 was two years older. In 1821 she married the Rotterdam merchant Mari Aert Fréderic Henri Hoffman (1795–1874), who for many years was a member of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament. Mimi4 was five years younger. In 1828 she married Johan Antoni Philipse (1800–1884), who eventually would rise to high judicial posts and for eighteen years preside over the First Chamber, or senate, of the Dutch Parliament. Groen received an excellent upbringing, attended the finest schools, and in 1817 matriculated at the University of Leiden in two faculties, law and literature. A bright and, indeed, celebrated student, he successfully completed doctorates in both fields by defending two dissertations5 in a single day in 1823.

2. Spiritual Climate

The milieu in which Groen grew up was religious and moderately liberal. He described it...

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