The Making of the Dutch Form for Adult Baptism

Abstract

The Liturgy of the Dutch Reformed Church came about in several steps from Petrus Dathenus’s 1566 edition of the Psalms to the National Synod of Dordt (1618–1619). During the Post-Acta sessions of Dordt in 1619, it was finally decided to draw up a form for baptism of adults (“de bejaerde”), in addition to the already existing form for infant baptism. This essay shows that the church in the Netherlands could not fall back on texts that were already in use elsewhere in Europe. Both the provincial synods of North- and South-Holland and that of Zeeland provided material that was incorporated into the new form, which gradually replaced the so-called “Corte ondersoeckinge” in the years after the Synod of Dordt.