to righteous acts of fruit demonstrating salvation, they stood in need of conversion. Consequently, Frelinghuysen stressed that a person's experience of conversion was accompanied by distinguishing outward behaviors which proved them to be recipients of the new birth. Few acts incited such anger for the Colonial citizens as did Frelinghuysen's "fencing the table" Lastly, in Frelinghuysen's efforts to reach beyond the Colonial church, he rooted his ministry in the Reformation concept that the church would continuously reform, or ecclesia semper reformanda. As he adjusted to the Middle Colonies, Frelinghuysen believed the colonial church was compelled to change for its survival. Faced with a different context from the Netherlands, the result was an Americanizing movement led by Frelinghuysen's arrival in the Colonies in 1720. In place of conformity to Dutch traditions of language, style, and liturgy that were designed for the Netherlands, Frelinghuysen conceived of a church that was not restrained by the formalism prescribed by the Classis of Amsterdam Though the records for Frelinghuysen's four churches are not used as sources by contemporary church historians, some accounts of the evangelistic results experienced during his ministry remain extant. In 1726, Frelinghuysen admitted thirty-eight new converts to his four churches while an additional sixteen converts were added in 1729, and again in 1734. An additional fifty members were added in 1739, while another twenty-two people were verified as regenerate and able to participate in communion in 1741 in the New Brunswick church. In sum, he gained 180 new converts in the Raritan and New Brunswick churches alone. Such numbers of converts may pale in comparison to the throngs of people who responded to the itinerant evangelist, George Whitefield; yet, these numbers mark a sizeable proportional increase in the churches themselves.<ref>Messler, Abraham. Forty Years at Raritan: Eight Memorial Sermons with Notes for a History of the Reformed Dutch Churches in Somerset County, N. J'''. New York: A. Lloyd, 1873.</ref> Notably, none other than Jonathan Edwards credited Frelinghuysen with the beginning of the awakening in New Jersey upon his discussion with Gilbert Tennent: "But this shower of Divine blessing has been yet more extensive. There was no small degree of it in some parts of the Jerseys, as I was informed when I was at New York, (in a long journey I took at that time of the year for my health) by some people of the Jerseys, whom I saw, especially the Rev.