Engelsma, Joshua. Watchman on the Walls of Zion: The Life and Influence of Simon van Velzen. RFPA, 2021.
In the blurb on the back of this recent release from the Reformed Free Publishing Association it reads, “Who was Simon van Velzen? …Sadly, many Reformed Christians in the twenty-first century have little, if any, idea as to who he is”. I most certainly fell into that camp before picking up this new biography. I was completely ignorant of the fact that Simon van Velzen even existed and of the key role that he played as a preacher, professor and reformer during the Secession of 1834 in the Netherlands. The events of his life and the decisions that he helped to make had a tremendous impact not only on the formation of the Dutch Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (where my ancestors are from) but also on the various Reformed denominations that later formed in America, such as the PRC, URC and CRC.
It would be a mistake to avoid this book because you are not usually interested in reading about history or church history. Rev. Joshua Engelsma’s writing style is engaging, approachable and readable for the average person in the pew. This biography is concise, well-written and kept my attention throughout. I would not necessarily classify Simon van Velzen’s life as exciting, but it is very interesting to read about, especially if you have a connection to any of the denominations that were directly or indirectly formed as a result of the Secession of 1834. There is much to be learned from both the wise and foolish decisions made and actions taken by Simon van Velzen and the other reformers in the Netherlands at this time as it relates to how Reformed churches today should deal with their own schism and doctrinal controversy.
Throughout the events of this book, you can ultimately see the Lord’s hand at work in the preservation of His church. As the author is careful to emphasize, even great, Reformed church fathers such as Simon van Velzen are only weak instruments that were used by God to preserve His truth and carry out His sovereign will. Van Velzen’s fellow reformer Anthony Brummelkamp expressed this well when he said, “…it has been very easy for the Prince of Darkness to bring about schism after schism in the church and to cause brothers to take up arms against each other, making them tear into and devour each other! And what about repairing the breaches? The greater the efforts to heal wounds, the greater was the despair each time the attempt failed. And since our experience of the past twenty years has confirmed to us the one as well as the other in a most powerful way, we ought to exclaim in adoration and amazement: ‘God hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad’ (Ps. 126:3)”. Although we can be extremely thankful for the life and work of men like Brummelkamp and van Velzen, all glory belongs not to them, but to our Heavenly Father.
The Left Fork 