With his five siblings, Van Velzen received his early education from his father, who ran a boarding school in the family home. He was baptized and raised in the apostatizing state church, which he was destined by God to reform. Simon van Velzen was born on December 14, 1809, in Amsterdam. For this work Christ used a number of God-fearing men, men whose names ought to be familiar to every student of church history: De Cock, Scholte, Brummelkamp, Van Raalte. The Reformed Church in the Netherlands had apostatized in the 200 years after the Synod of Dordt, but through the Afscheiding Christ brought her back to the pattern that God had ordained in his word. One of the links in that chain is the Afscheiding (Secession), the reformation of the church of Christ in the Netherlands beginning in 1834. The watchword of the church of Christ on this earth is and must always be: “Reformed, and always reforming.” Not only did Christ reform his church in the 16 th century, but he has carried on that work of reformation in the 500 years since then.
But when we trace our spiritual heritage back to the Reformation, we recognize that there are a number of intervening links in the chain. As Reformed Christians, we give thanks to God that we stand in the line of the great 16 th century Reformation.
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