Groan was a faithful Christian, a Calvinist, and a Netherlander who knew and understood the history of his people. These circumstances explain his principles and actions. Faith and subjection to God were to him the highest ideals. Without them, he held, there is no salvation for a people. God's sovereignty must be acknowledged in the political sphere as well.
Reason is corrupted by sin.
The influence of Groan's ideas is perceptible in the political and ecclesiastical tendencies in the Netherlands of the present, but owing to the fact that he did not succeed in uniting his thoughts in a compact system, there is no harmony among the different parties. Beside his daily paper De Nederlander, he published also a political journal entitled Neder lartdache Gedachten. A school of Dutch theologians and scholars, deriving its name from the university town of Groningen, where its founders and principal representatives lived and This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College. Last updated on June 13, 2000.