Seventeenth-Century Dutch Reformed, Mennonites, and Spiritualists on One Another, Jews, and Muslims

Abstract

Abstract: This paper examines religious identity in the early-modern Netherlands by comparing attitudes between Calvinists and Mennonites toward each other and toward the Arminian Reformed (Remonstrants), Jews, and Muslims. Opting for a national Reformed Church without mandatory membership, the Dutch regents generally did not interfere in the private religious culture of dissenting sects and restricted the exclusionary demands of Reformed preachers, allowing law-abiding Mennonites and Jews a remarkable degree of freedom of conscience and practice. Outsiders thought the Dutch Republic's toleration to be very un-Protestant, although when the Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants threatened to destroy the unity of the national church, the regents intervened. Many regents clearly favoured the spiritualists' emphasis on personal piety and unity over confession and ritual, and showed considerable respect for Muslim officials and Jewish residents. Foreign Calvinists, who feared that the Netherlands' unusual form of religious toleration was including Jews and Muslims, were not entirely off base.