LAMBERTUS CIERARDUS CORNELIUS LEDEBOER was born at Rotterdam on 30th September, 1808. He had a God-fearing mother and from his childhood he was impressed with the greatness and holiness of God. He felt attracted to the Lord’s people, and his early wish was to become a minister. At the common school he acquired a great knowledge of Latin, and studied at the University of Leyden, became a Hebrew scholar, lived very soberly, had very few friends among the students, and had great objections to the teaching of professors. “Divinity,” he wrote later on, “must be taught by God. Is it possible to call one another brethren who have not the same father? Oh, land, land, land whose rulers are children, ministers deceived and ignorant teachers.”
- Translated from the Dutch by Mr. A. Docter.—Editor.
In 1833 he was licensed, but it was not before 1838 that he got a call from Benthuizen (Dutch Reformed Church). He was inducted by his cousin, Dr. Hugenholtz, Rotterdam, with a sermon on Revelation: verses 17-18, “And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead, and He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me—Fear not, I am the first and the last, I am He that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore.” Ledeboer preached his first sermon on Psalm cxxi. verse 2: “My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth.” He never married, and occupied the manse with an old house-keeper.
After being licensed in 1833, he prayed the Lord to take him to a place to glorify His name and to make use of his ministry for the good of his soul, and the souls of others. The Lord called him to Benthuizen, which was clearly proved and confirmed by a number of souls who were called out of darkness into His marvellous light. The last few months of his ministry were blessed times for his soul. After many troubles and much affliction, he got the assurance of faith. It was not long before many people, from different quarters, came to hear him. Not that he spoke so fluently, but he had the gift of praying, and his sermons were very solemn. “Only acknowledge thine iniquity,” he once preached from at Woubrugge, where the precentor was a man without grace. In his sermon he said, “An unconverted precentor and a beautiful organ are exactly the same.” Only psalms were sung during the service, as he disapproved of hymns, which had been introduced into the Dutch Reformed Church. “On almost every page you find a lie,” Dr. Ledeboer used to say. He was very liberal. One winter day it was very cold. On the road home he met a poor old man, poorly dressed. The minister took off his overcoat and handed it to the old man.
More and more he objected to the hymns and regulations of the Church. During a service in 1840 he threw the book of hymns and regulations from the pulpit. A woman hastened to pick them up, but Dr. Ledeboer said, “Leave them alone, presently we shall bury them.” After the service he invited his congregation to go with him to the garden at a house he had recently bought. After singing Psalm lxxviii. verses 1 to 4, he buried the book of hymns and regulations. The congregation swore to be faithful to the Word of God only. He felt—”Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother, and my soul is even as a weaned child.” Some people lodged a complaint against Dr. Ledeboer, with the result that the next Sabbath the Burgomaster sent a policeman to the Church to prevent the minister from going into the pulpit. This man dared not do so, but three members prevented him from preaching. Dr. Ledeboer preached in the home mentioned before. The three men who opposed Dr. Ledeboer had a remarkable end. One day one of them stood in his garden and watched a funeral of a godly man. There goes another godly disciple of Ledeboer, he said mockingly. Suddenly he fell down and died. The second enemy was smitten by the angel of the Lord and was eaten of worms (Acts xii. verse 23). The third, a well-to-do farmer, was reduced to beggary.
The Presbytery of Leyden suspended Dr. Ledeboer. Dr. Ledeboer went on preaching in barns, etc. At last he was deposed as a minister. As Dr. Ledeboer continued preaching he was heavily fined and twice put in prison, altogether 19 months. His letters, written from Leyden’s prison, are well known among the Lord’s people in Holland. It reminds us of Rutherford’s Christ’s Palace.
A wonderful story is told of Dr. Ledeboer just a few days before he was put in prison. On a stormy night he suddenly awoke. The Lord gave it in his heart that he had to go on a journey at once. He did not know where he had to go. He went to his elder and told him to come round with his horse and cart. The elder obeyed and went to the manse. “Where have we to go to?” the elder asked. “I don’t know,” the answer was, “but drive on. The Lord guides my way, and although I don’t know now, I shall know hereafter.” After three-quarters of an hour, they met two policemen, who were on their way to capture Dr. Ledeboer. They asked Dr. Ledeboer the way to Benthuizen and where Dr. Ledeboer lived. The minister told them and on they went. A few miles further on, the minister and his friend came to a crossway. “Which road have we to take?” the elder asked. Dr. Ledeboer replied, “Let the horse go. The Lord guides his way and that is enough for me.” The horse took the road to the small town of Woerden. Arriving in that place, the horse suddenly stopped, just before a home for fallen women. The elder wanted to take his whip, but Dr. Ledeboer said, “Stop; I have to be here.” He knocked at the door and the doorkeeper opened the door. The man, when he heard it was Dr. Ledeboer who wanted to come in, said, “Well, I never. If I had never believed there was a God who did wonders I couldn’t possibly deny it now.” He showed Dr. Ledeboer in and told him there was a woman on her death-bed who had prayed all night that Dr. Ledeboer should come and could not die before that time had come, and she certainly believed he should come.
Dr. Ledeboer went to the dying woman, who gathered all her strength and told the minister, her eyes full of tears, how a few years ago His servant had been the means of her conversion, how she had sinned away her life, and had fallen very low, but O, eternal wonder, how the Lord in great love had found her and pardoned her sins, and now she could say, “But Thou hast in love to my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption, for Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back.” Dr. Ledeboer listened, was speechless and full of admiration. The woman told him how she had this strong desire to tell this to him before her death. Her last words were, “Oh. Dr. Ledeboer, now I can take leave of you, but we don’t see each other for the last time. Soon we shall magnify the Lord together and praise Him for ever.”
Now the godly servant of Jesus Christ poured out his soul before the Lord, and now he saw why he had to go at dead of night to this place. Hardly had Dr. Ledeboer left this home when the woman died in the Lord. Dr. Ledeboer preached at Benthuizen till his death, in a wooden building, erected for the purpose. He had congregations in several other places. In the province of Zeiland many of his followers liked to hear him. He died at Benthuizen in 1863. After 1875 the persecution as such was finished.