THIRD DIVISION. (Continued.) (continued 4)

§ 167.8. The Christian Life and Devotional Literature.―Pietism led to a powerful revival of religious life among the people, which it sustained by zealous preaching and the publication of devotional works. A similar activity displayed itself among the orthodox. Francke began his charitable labours with seven florins; but with undaunted faith he started his Orphanage, writing over its door the words of Isaiah xl. 31. In faith and benevolence Woltersdorff was a worthy successor of Francke; and Baron von Canstein applied his whole means to the founding of the Bible Institute of Halle. Missions too were now prosecuted with a zeal and success which witnessed to the new life that had arisen in the Lutheran church.―A remarkable manifestation of the pietistic spirit of this age is seen in The Praying Children in Silesia, A.D. 1707. Children of four years old and upward gathered in open fields for singing and prayer, and called for the restoration of churches taken away by the Catholics. The movement spread over the whole land. In vain was it denounced from the pulpits and forbidden by the authorities. Opposition only excited more and more the zeal of the children. At last the churches were opened for their services. The excitement then gradually subsided. It was, however, long a subject of discussion between the pietists and the orthodox; the latter denouncing it as the work of the devil, the former regarding it as a wonderful awakening of God’s grace.―Best remembered of the many devotional writers of this period are Bogatsky of Halle, died A.D. 1774, whose “Golden Treasury” is still highly esteemed;503 and Von Moser, died A.D. 1785, who lived a noble and exemplary life at Stuttgart amid much sore persecution. The great need of simple explanation of Scripture appears from the great sale of such popular commentaries as those of Pfaff at Tübingen, 1730, Starke at Leipzig, 1741, and the Halle Bible of S. J. Baumgarten, 1748.

§ 167.9. Missions to the Heathen.―The quickening of religious life by pietism bore fruit in new missionary activity. Frederick IV. of Denmark founded in his East Indian possessions the Tranquebar mission in A.D. 1706, under Ziegenbalg and Plutschau. Ziegenbalg, who translated the New Testament into Tamil, died in A.D. 1719. From the Danish possessions this mission carried its work over into the English Indian territories. Able and zealous workers were sent out from the Halle Institute, of whom the greatest was Chr. Fr. Schwartz, who died in A.D. 1798, after nearly fifty years of noble service in the mission field. In the last quarter of the century, however, under the influence of rationalism, zeal for missions declined, the Halle society broke up, and the English were allowed to reap the harvest sown by the Lutherans. The Halle professor Callenberg founded in A.D. 1728 a society for the conversion of the Jews, in the interests of which Stephen Schultz travelled over Europe, Asia, and Africa, preaching the Cross among the Jews. Christianity had been introduced among the Eskimos in Greenland in the eleventh century (§ 93, 5), but the Scandinavian colony there had been forgotten, and no trace of the religion which it had taught any longer remained. This reproach to Christianity lay sore on the heart of Hans Egede, a Norwegian pastor, and he found no rest till, supported by a Danish-Norwegian trading house, he sailed with his family in A.D. 1721 for these frozen and inhospitable shores. Amid almost inconceivable hardships, and with at first but little success, he continued to labour unweariedly, and even after the trading company abandoned the field he remained. In A.D. 1733 he had the unexpected joy of welcoming three Moravian missionaries, Christian David and the brothers Stach. His joy was too soon dashed by the spiritual pride of the new arrivals, who insisted on modelling everything after their own Moravian principles, and separated themselves from the noble Egede, when he refused to yield, as an unspiritual and unconverted man. Egede, on the other hand, though deeply offended at their confounding justification and sanctification, their contempt of pure doctrine, and their unscriptural views and mode of speech, was ready to attribute all this to their defective theological training. He rewarded their unkindness, when they were stricken down in sore sickness, with unwearied, loving care. In A.D. 1736 he returned to Denmark, leaving his son Paul to carry on his work, and continued director of the Greenland Mission Seminary in Copenhagen till his death in A.D. 1758.504―Continuation, § 171, 5.

§ 168. The Church of the Moravian Brethren.505

The highly gifted Count Zinzendorf, inspired even as a boy, out of fervent love to the Saviour, with the idea of gathering together the lovers of Jesus, took occasion of the visit of some Moravian Exultants to his estate to realize his cherished project. On the Hutberg he dropped the mustard seed of the dream of his youth into fertile soil, where, under his fervent care, it soon grew into a stately tree, whose branches spread over all European lands, and thence through all parts of the habitable globe. The society which he founded was called “The Society of the United Brethren.” The fact that this society was not overwhelmed by the extravagances to which for a time it gave way, that its fraternising with the fanatics, the extravagant talk in which its members indulged about a special covenant with the Saviour, and their not over-modest claims to a peculiar rank in the kingdom of God, did not lead to its utter overthrow in the abyss of fanaticism, and that on the slippery paths of its mystical marriage theory it was able to keep its feet, presents a phenomenon, which stands alone in church history, and more than anything else proves how deeply rooted founder and followers were in the saving truths of the gospel. The count himself laid aside many of his extravagances, and what still remained was abandoned by his sensible and prudent successor Spangenberg, so far as it was not necessarily involved in the fundamental idea of a special covenant with the Saviour. The special service rendered by the society was the protest which it raised against the generally prevailing apostasy. During this period of declension it saved the faith of many pious souls, affording them a welcome refuge, with rich spiritual nourishment and nurture. With the reawakening of the religious life in the nineteenth century, however, its adherents lost ground in Europe more and more, by maintaining their old onesidedness in life and doctrine, their depreciatory estimate of theological science, and the quarrelsome spirit which they generally manifested. But in one province, that of missions to the heathen, their energy and success have never yet been equalled. Their thorough and well-organized system of education also deserves particular mention. At present the Society of the Brethren numbers half a million, distributed among 100 settlements or thereabout.

§ 168.1. The Founder of the Moravian Brotherhood, Nic. Ludwig Count von Zinzendorf and Pottendorf, was born in Dresden in A.D. 1700. Spener was one of his sponsors at baptism. His father dying early, and his mother marrying a second time, the boy, richly endowed with gifts of head and heart, was brought up by his godly pietistic grandmother, the Baroness von Gersdorf. There in his earliest youth he learned to seek his happiness in the closest personal fellowship with the Lord, and the tendency of his whole future life to yield to the impulses of pious feeling already began to assert itself. In his tenth year he entered the Halle Institute under Francke, where the pietistic idea of the need of the ecclesiolæ in ecclesia took firm possession of his heart. Even in his fifteenth year he sought its realization by founding among his fellow students “The Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed” (Matt. xiii. 31). After completing his school course, his uncle and guardian, in order to put an end to his pietistic extravagances, sent him to study law at the orthodox University of Wittenberg. Here he had at first to suffer a sort of martyrdom as a rigid pietist swimming against the orthodox current. His residence at Wittenberg, however, was beneficial to him in freeing him unconsciously of the Halle pietism, which had restrained his spiritual development. He did indeed firmly maintain the fundamental idea of pietism, ecclesiolæ in ecclesia, but in his mind it gained a wider significance than pietism had given it. His endeavours to secure a personal conference, and where possible a union, between the Halle and Wittenberg leaders were unsuccessful. In A.D. 1719 he left Wittenberg and travelled for two years, visiting the most distinguished representatives of all confessions and sects. This too fostered his idea of a grand gathering of all who love the Lord Jesus. On his return home, in A.D. 1721, at the wish of his relatives he entered the service of the Saxon government. But a religious genius like Zinzendorf could find no satisfaction in such employment. And soon an opportunity presented itself for carrying out the plan to which his thoughts and longings were directed.506

§ 168.2. The Founding of the Brotherhood, A.D. 1722-1727. The Schmalcald, and still more the Thirty Years’ War, had brought frightful suffering and persecution upon the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren. Many of them sought refuge in Poland and Prussia. One of the refugees was the famous educationist J. Amos Comenius, who died in A.D. 1671, after having been bishop of the Moravians at Lissa in Posen from 1648. Those who remained behind were, even after the Peace of Westphalia, subjected to the cruellest oppression! Only secretly in their houses and at the risk of their lives could they worship God according to the faith of their fathers; and they were obliged publicly to profess their adherence to the Romish church. Thus gradually the light of the gospel was extinguished in the homes of their descendants, and only a tradition, becoming ever more and more faint, remained as a memory of their ancestral faith. A Moravian carpenter, Christian David, born and reared in the Romish church, but converted by evangelical preaching, succeeded in the beginning of the eighteenth century in fanning into a flame again in some families the light that had been quenched. This little band of believers, under David’s leading, went forth in A.D. 1722 and sought refuge on Zinzendorf’s estate in Lusatia. The count was then absent, but the steward, with the hearty concurrence of the count’s grandmother, gave them the Hutberg at Berthelsdorf as a settlement. With the words of Psalm lxxxiv. 4 on his lips, Christian David struck the axe into the tree for building the first house. Soon the little town of Herrnhut had arisen, as the centre of that Christian society which Zinzendorf now sought with all his heart and strength to develop and promote. Gradually other Moravians dropped in, but a yet greater number from far and near streamed in, of all sorts of religious revivalists, pietists, separatists, followers of Schwenckfeld, etc. Zinzendorf had no thought of separation from the Lutheran church. The settlers were therefore put under the pastoral care of Rothe, the worthy pastor of Berthelsdorf (§ 167, 6). To organize such a mixed multitude was no easy task. Only Zinzendorf’s glorious enthusiasm for the idea of a congregation of saints, his eminent organizing talents, the wonderful elasticity and tenacity of his will, the extraordinary prudence, circumspection, and wisdom of his management, made it possible to cement the incongruous elements and avoid an open breach. The Moravians insisted upon restoring their old constitution and discipline, and of the others, each wished to have prominence given to whatever he thought specially important. Only on one point were they all agreed, the duty of refusing to conform to the Lutheran church and its pastor Rothe. The count, therefore, felt obliged to form a new and separatist society. Personally he had no special liking for the old Moravian constitution; but the lot decided in its favour, while the idea of continuing a pre-Reformation martyr church was not without a certain charm. Thus Zinzendorf drew up a constitution with old Moravian forms and names, on the basis of which the colony was established, August 13th, A.D. 1727, under the name of the United Brotherhood.

§ 168.3. The Development of the Brotherhood down to Zinzendorf’s Death, A.D. 1727-1760.―With great energy the new society proceeded to found settlements in Germany, Holland, England, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, and North America, as well as among German residents in other lands. In A.D. 1734, Zinzendorf submitted to examination at Tübingen as candidate for license, and in A.D. 1737 received episcopal consecration from the Berlin court preacher, Jablonsky, who was at the same time bishop of the Moravian Brethren, which the same prelate had two years previously granted to Dr. Nitschmann, another member of the society. The efforts of the Brethren to spread their cause now attracted attention. The Saxon government in A.D. 1736 sent to Herrnhut a commission, of which Löscher was a member. But in A.D. 1736, before it submitted its report, which on the whole was favourable, Zinzendorf quitted the country, probably by the elector’s command at the instigation of the Austrian government, which objected to the harbouring of so many Bohemian and Moravian emigrants. Like all those at this time persecuted on account of religion he took refuge in Wetterau (§ 170, 2). With his little family of pilgrims he settled at Ronneburg near Büdingen, founded the prosperous churches of Marienborn and Herrnhaag, and travelled extensively in Europe and America. This period of exile was the period when the society was most successful in spreading outwardly, but it was also the period when it suffered most from troubles and dissensions within. It was bitterly attacked by Lutheran theologians, and much more venomously by apostates from its own fold. The Brethren at this time afforded only too much ground for misunderstanding and reproach. To this period belongs the famous fiction of a special covenant, the Pandora-box of all other absurdities; the development of the count’s own theological views and peculiar form of expression in his numerous works; the composition and introduction of unsavoury spiritual songs, with their silly conceits and many blasphemous and even obscene pictures and analogies; the market-crier laudations of their church, the not always pure methods of propaganda, the introduction of a marriage discipline fitted to break down all modest restraints; and, finally, the so-called Niedlichkeiten, or boisterous festivals. Even the pietists opposed these antinomian excesses. Tersteegen, too (§ 169, 1), whose mystic tendency inclined him strongly toward pietist views, reproached the Herrnhuters with frivolity. This polemic, disagreeable as it was, exercised a wholesome influence upon the society. The count became more guarded in his language, and more prudent in his behaviour, while he set aside the most objectionable excrescences of doctrine and practice that had begun to show themselves in the community. At last, in A.D. 1747, the Saxon government repeated the edict of banishment so far as the person of the founder was concerned, and when, two years later, the society expressly accepted the Augsburg Confession, it was formally recognised in Saxony. In this same year, A.D. 1749, an English act of parliament recognised it as a church with a pure episcopal succession on equal terms with the Anglican episcopal church.―Zinzendorf continued down to his death to direct the affairs of this church, which hung upon him with childlike affection, reflecting his personality, not only in its excellences, but also in all its extravagances. He died in A.D. 1760 in the full enjoyment of that blessedness which his fervent love for the Saviour had brought him.

§ 168.4. Zinzendorf’s Plan and Work.―While Zinzendorf received his first impulse from pietism, he soon perceived its onesidedness and narrowness. He would have no conventicle, but one organized community; no ideal invisible, but a real visible church; no narrow methodism, but a rich, free administration of the Christian spirit. He did not, in the first instance, aim at the conversion of the world, nor even at the reformation of the church, but at gathering and preserving those belonging to the Saviour. He hoped, however, to erect a reservoir in which he might collect every little brooklet of living water, from which he might again water the whole world. And when he succeeded in organizing a community, he was quite convinced that it was the Philadelphia of the Apocalypse (iii. 7 ff.), that it introduced “the Philadelphian period” of church history, of which all prophets and apostles had prophesied. His plan had originally reference to all Christendom, and he even took a step toward realizing this universal idea. In order to build a bridge between the Catholic church and his own community, he issued, in A.D. 1727, a Christo-Catholic hymn-book and prayer-book, and had even sketched out a letter to the pope to accompany a copy of his book. He also attempted, by a letter to the patriarchs and then to Elizabeth, empress of Russia, to interest the Greek church in his scheme, dwelling upon the Greek extraction of the church of the Moravian Brethren (§ 79, 2). His gathering of members, however, was practically limited to the Protestant churches. All confessions and sects afforded him contingents. He was himself heartily attached to the distinctive doctrines of the Lutheran church. But in a society whose distinctive characteristic it was to be the gathering point for the pious of all nationalities, doctrine and confession could not be the uniting bond. It could be only a fellowship of love and not of creed, and the bond a community of loving sentiment and loving deeds. The inmost principle of Lutheranism, reconciliation by the blood of Christ, was saved, indeed was made the characteristic and vital doctrine, the one point of union between Moravians, Lutherans, and Reformed. Over the three parties stood the count himself as ordinarius; but this gave an external and not a confessional unity. The subsequent acceptance of the Augsburg Confession, in A.D. 1749, was a political act, so as to receive a civil status, and had otherwise no influence. Instead then of the confession, Zinzendorf made the constitution the bond of union. Its forms were borrowed from the old Moravian church order, but dominated and inspired by Zinzendorf’s own spirit. The old Moravian constitution was episcopal and clerical, and proceeded from the idea of the church; while the new constitution of Herrnhut was essentially presbyterial, and proceeded from the idea of the community, and that as a communion of saints. The Herrnhut bishops were only titular bishops; they had no diocese, no jurisdiction, no power of excommunication. All these prerogatives belonged to the united eldership, in which the lay element was distinctly predominant. Herrnhut had no pastors, but only preaching brothers; the pastoral care devolved upon the elders and their assistants. But beside these half-Lutheran and pseudo-Moravian peculiarities, there was also a Donatist element at the basis of the constitution. This lay in the fundamental idea of absolutely true and pure children of God, and reached full expression in the concluding of a special covenant with the Saviour at London on Sept. 16th, A.D. 1741. Leonard Dober for some years administered the office of an elder-general. But at the London synod it was declared that he had not the requisite gifts for that office. Dober now wished to resign. While in confusion as to whom they could appoint, it flashed into the minds of all to appoint the Saviour Himself. “Our feeling and heart conviction was, that He made a special covenant with His little flock, taking us as His peculiar treasure, watching over us in a special way, personally interesting Himself in every member of our community, and doing that for us perfectly which our previous elders could only do imperfectly.”

§ 168.5. Among the numerous extravagances which Zinzendorf countenanced for a time, the following may be mentioned.

The notion of the motherhood of the Holy Spirit. Zinzendorf described the holy Trinity as “man, woman, and child.” The Spirit is the mother in three respects: the eternal generation of the Son of God, the conception of the Man Jesus, and the second birth of believers.

The notion of the fatherhood of Jesus Christ (Isa. ix. 6). Creation is ascribed solely to the Son, hence Christ is our special, direct Father. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is only, “in the language of men, our father-in-law or grandfather.”

In reference to our Lord’s life on earth, Zinzendorf delighted in using terms of contempt, in order to emphasize the depths of His humiliation.

In like manner he uses reproachful terms in speaking of the style of the sacred Scriptures, and the inspired community prefers a living Bible.

The theory and practice of mystical marriage, according to Ephesians v. 32. The community and each member of it are spiritual brides of Christ, and the marriage relation and begetting of children were set forth and spiritualized in a singularly indelicate manner.

§ 168.6. Zinzendorf’s greatness lay in the fervency of his love of the Saviour, and in the yearning desire to gather under the shadow of the cross all who loved the Lord. His weakness consisted not so much in his manifested extravagances, as in his idea that he had been called to found a society. To the realizing of this idea he gave his life, talents, heart, and means. The advantages of rank and culture he also gave to this one task. He was personally convinced of his Divine call, and as he did not recognise the authority of the written word, but only subjective impressions, it is easily seen how he would drift into absurdities and inconsistencies. The end contemplated seemed to him supremely important, so that to realize it he did not scruple to depart from strict truthfulness.―Zinzendorf’s writings, over one hundred in number, are characterized by originality, brilliancy, and peculiar forms of expression. Of his 2,000 hymns, mostly improvised for public services, 700 of the best were revised and published by Knapp. Two are still found in most collections, and are more or less reproduced in our English hymns, “Jesus still lead on,” and “Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness.”

§ 168.7. The Brotherhood under Spangenberg’s Administration.―For its present form the Brotherhood is indebted to its wise and sensible bishop, Aug. Gottl. Spangenberg, who died A.D. 1792. Born in 1704, he became personally acquainted with Zinzendorf in 1727, after he had completed his studies at Jena under Buddæus, and continued ever after on terms of close intimacy with him and his community. Through the good offices of G. A. Francke, son and successor of A. H. Francke, he was called in Sept., 1732, to the office of an assistantship in the theological faculty at Halle, and appointed school inspector of the Orphanage; but very soon offence was taken at the brotherly fellowship which he had, not only with the society of Herrnhut, but also with other separatists. The misunderstanding that thus arose led in April, 1733, to his deprivation under a royal cabinet order, and his expulsion by military power from Halle. He now formally joined the communion of the Brethren. The first half of his signally blessed ministry of sixty years among the Moravians was chiefly devoted to foreign mission work, both in their colonies abroad and in their stations in heathen lands. In Holland in 1734, in England and Denmark in 1735, he obtained official permission for the founding of Moravian colonies in Surinam, in the American state of Georgia, and in Santa Cruz, the forming and management of which he himself undertook, besides directing the mission work in these places. Returning from America in 1762, he won, after Zinzendorf’s death, so complete an ascendency in the church in every respect, that he may well be regarded as its second founder. At the Synod of Marienborn, in A.D. 1764, the constitution was revised and perfected. Zinzendorf’s monarchical prerogative was surrendered to the eldership, and Spangenberg prudently secured the withdrawal of all excrescences and extravagances. But the central idea of a special covenant was not touched, and Sept. 16th is still held as a grand pentecost festival. In the fifth section of the statutes of the United Brethren at Gnaden, 1819, it distinguishes itself from all the churches as a “society of true children of God; as a family of God, with Jesus as its head.” In the fourth section of the “Historical Account of the Constitution of the United Brethren at Gnaden, 1823,” the society is described as “a company of living members of the invisible body of Jesus Christ;” and in its litany for Easter morning, it adds as a fourth particular to the article of the creed: “I believe that our brothers N. N., and our sisters N. N. have joined the church above, and have entered into the joy of the Lord.” The synod of A.D. 1848 modified this article, and generally the society’s distinctive views are not made so prominent. This liberal tendency had dogmatic expression given to it in Spangenberg’s “Idea Fidei Fratrum.” Only a few new settlements have been formed since Zinzendorf’s death, and none of any importance; while the hitherto flourishing Moravian settlements in Wetterau were destroyed and their members banished, in A.D. 1750, by the reigning prince, Count von Isenburg-Büdingen, on account of their refusing to take the oath of allegiance.―After the first attempt to establish societies among the German emigrants in Livonia and Esthonia in A.D. 1729-1743 had ended in the expulsion of the Herrnhuters, these regions proved in the second half of the century a more fruitful field than any other. They secured there a relation to the national church such as they never attained unto elsewhere. They had in these parts formally organized a church within the church, whose members, mostly peasants, felt convinced that they had been called by the Lord’s own voice as His chosen little flock, a proceeding which caused infinite trouble, especially in Livonia, to the faithful pastors, who perceived the deadly mischief that was being wrought, and witnessed against them from God’s word. This protest was too powerful and convincing to be disregarded, and now, not only too late, but also in too half-hearted a way, Herrnhut began, in A.D. 1857, to turn back, so as to save its Livonian institute by inward regeneration from certain overthrow.

§ 168.8. The doctrinal peculiarities of the Brotherhood cannot be quite correctly described as un-Lutheran, or anti-Lutheran. Bengel smartly characterized them in a single phrase: “They plucked up the stock of sound doctrine, stripped oft what was most essential and vital, and retained the half of it,” which not only then, but even still retains its truth and worth. Salvation is regarded as proceeding purely from the Son, the God-Man, so that the relation of the Father and of the Holy Spirit to redemption is scarcely even nominal; and the redemption of the God-Man again is viewed one-sidedly as consisting only in His sufferings and death, while the other side, that is grounded on His life and resurrection, is either carefully passed over, or its fruit is represented as borrowed from the atoning death. Thus not only justification, but sanctification is derived exclusively from the death of Christ, and this, not so much as a forensic substitutionary satisfaction, although that is not expressly denied, but rather as a Divine love-sacrifice which awakens an answering love in us. The whole of redemption is viewed as issuing from Christ’s blood and wounds; and since from this mode of viewing the subject God’s grace and love are made prominent rather than His righteousness, we hear almost exclusively of the gospel, and little or nothing of the law. All preaching and teaching were avowedly directed to the awakening of pious feelings of love to God, and thus tended to foster a kind of religious sentimentalism.

§ 168.9. The peculiarities of worship among the Brethren were also directed to the excitement of pious feeling; their sensuously sweet sacred music, their church hymns, overcharged with emotion, their richly developed liturgies, their restoration of the agape with tea, biscuit, and chorale-singing, the fraternal kiss at communion, in their earlier days also washing of the feet, etc. The daily watchword from the O.T. and doctrinal texts from the N.T. were regarded as oracles, and were intended to give a special impress to the religious feelings of the day. As early as A.D. 1727 they had a hymn-book containing 972 hymns. Most of these were compositions of their own, a true reflection of their religious sentiments at that period. It also contained Bohemian and Moravian hymns, translated by Mich. Weiss, and also many old favourites of the evangelical church, often sadly mutilated. By A.D. 1749 it had received twelve appendices and four supplements. In these appendices, especially in the twelfth, the one-sided tendency to give prominence to feeling was carried to the most absurd lengths of caricature in the use of offensive and silly terms of endearment as applied to the Saviour. Zinzendorf admitted the defects of this production, and had it suppressed in 1751, and in London prepared a new, expurgated edition of the hymn-book. Under Spangenberg’s presidency Christian Gregor issued, in A.D. 1778, a hymn-book, containing 542 from Zinzendorf’s book and 308 of his own pious rhymes. He also published a chorale book in A.D. 1784. Among their sacred poets Zinzendorf stands easily first. His only son, Christian Renatus, who died A.D. 1752, left behind him a number of sacred songs. Their hymns were usually set to the melodies of the Halle pietists.

§ 168.10. In regard to the Christian life, the Brotherhood withdrew from politics and society, adopted stereotyped forms of speech and peculiar usages, even in their dress. They sought to live undisturbed by controversy, in personal communion with the Saviour. Their separatism as a covenanted people may be excused in view of the unbelief prevailing in the Protestant church, but it has not been overcome by the reawakening of spiritual life in the Church. As to their ecclesiastical constitution, Christ Himself, as the Chief Elder of the church, should have in it the direct government. The leaders, founding upon Proverbs xvi. 33 and Acts i. 26, held that fit expression was given to this principle by the use of the lot; but soon opposition to this practice arose, and with its abandonment the “special covenant” theory lost all its significance. The lot was used in election of office-bearers, sending of missionaries, admission to membership, etc. But in regard to marriage, it was used only by consent of the candidates for marriage, and an adverse result was not enforced. The administration of the affairs of the society lay with the conference of the united elders. From time to time general synods with legislative power were summoned. The membership was divided into groups of married, widowed, bachelors, maidens, and children, with special duties, separate residences, and also special religious services in addition to those common to all. The church officers were bishops, presbyters, deacons, deaconesses, and acolytes.

§ 168.11. Missions to the Heathen.―Zinzendorf’s meeting with a West Indian negro in Copenhagen awakened in him at an early period the missionary zeal. He laid the matter before the church, and in A.D. 1732 the first Herrnhut missionaries, Dober and Nitschmann, went out to St. Thomas, and in the following year missions were established in Greenland, North America, almost all the West Indian islands, South America, among the Hottentots at the Cape, the East Indies, among the Eskimos of Labrador, etc. Their missionary enterprise forms the most brilliant and attractive part of the history of the Moravians. Their procedure was admirably suited to uncultured races, and only for such. In the East Indies, therefore, they were unsuccessful. They were never wanting in self-denying missionaries, who resigned all from love to the Saviour. They were mostly pious, capable artisans, who threw themselves with all their hearts into their new work, and devoted themselves with affectionate tenderness to the advancement of the bodily and spiritual interests of those among whom they laboured. One of the noblest of them all was the missionary patriarch Zeisberger, who died in A.D. 1808, after toiling among the North American Indians for sixty-three years. These missions were conducted at a surprisingly small outlay. The Brethren also interested themselves in the conversion of the Jews. In A.D. 1738 Dober wrought among the Jews of Amsterdam; and with greater success in A.D. 1739, Lieberkühn, who also visited the Jews in England and Bohemia, and was honoured by them with the title of “rabbi.”507

§ 169. The Reformed Church before the “Illumination.”

The sharpness of the contest between Calvinism and Lutheranism was moderated on both sides. The union efforts prosecuted during the first decades of the century in Germany and Switzerland were always defeated by Lutheran opposition. In the Dutch and German Reformed Churches, even during the eighteenth century, Cocceianism was still in high repute. After it had modified strict Calvinism, the opposition between Reformed orthodoxy and Arminian heterodoxy became less pronounced, and more and more Arminian tendencies found their way into Reformed theology. What pietism and Moravianism were for the Lutheran church of Germany, Methodism was, in a much greater measure, and with a more enduring influence, for the episcopal church of England.

§ 169.1. The German Reformed Church.―The Brandenburg dynasty made unwearied efforts to effect a union between the Lutheran and Reformed churches throughout their territories (§ 154, 4). Frederick I. (III.) instituted for this purpose in A.D. 1703 a collegium caritativum, under the presidency of the Reformed court preacher Ursinus (ranked as bishop, that he might officiate at the royal coronation), in which also, on the side of the Reformed, Jablonsky, formerly a Moravian bishop, and, on the part of the Lutherans, the cathedral preacher Winkler of Magdeburg and Lüttke, provost of Cologne-on-the-Spree, took part. Spener, who wanted not a made union but one which he himself was making, gave expression to his opinion, and soon passed over. Lüttke after a few sederunts withdrew, and when Winkler in A.D. 1703 published a plan of union, Arcanum regium, which the Lutheran church merely submitted for the approval of the Reformed king, such a storm of opposition arose against the project, that it had to be abandoned. In the following year the king took up the matter again in another way. Jablonsky engaged in negotiations with England for the introduction of the Anglican episcopal system into Prussia, in order by it to build a bridge for the union with Lutheranism. But even this plan failed, in consequence of the succession of Frederick William I. in A.D. 1713, whose shrewd sense strenuously opposed it.―The vacillating statements of the Confessio Sigismundi (§ 154, 3) regarding predestination made it possible for the Brandenburg Reformed theologians to understand it as teaching the doctrine of particular as well as universal grace, and so to make it correspond with Brandenburg Reformed orthodoxy. The rector of the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin, Paul Volkmann, in A.D. 1712, interpreted it as teaching universal grace, and so in his Theses theologicæ he constructed a system of theology, in which the divine foreknowledge of the result, as the reconciling middle term between the particularism and universalism of the call, was set forth in a manner favourable to the latter. The controversy that was aroused over this, in which even Jablonsky argued for the more liberal view, while on the other side Barckhausen, Volkmann’s colleague, in his Amica Collatio Doctrinæ de Gratia, quam vera ref. confitetur Ecclesia, cum Doctr. Volkmanni, etc., came forward under the name of Pacificus Verinus as his most determined opponent, was put a stop to in A.D. 1719 by an edict of Frederick William I., which enjoined silence on both parties, without any result having been reached.―One of the noblest mystics that ever lived was Gerhard Tersteegen, died A.D. 1769. He takes a high rank as a sacred poet. Anxious souls made pilgrimages to him from far and near for comfort, counsel, and refreshment. Though not exactly a separatist, he had no strong attachment to the church.508―The prayer-book of Conrad Mel, pastor and rector at Hersfeld in Hesse, died A.D. 1733, continues to the present day a favourite in pious families of the Reformed communion.

§ 169.2. The Reformed Church in Switzerland.―The Helvetic Confession, with its strict doctrine of predestination and its peculiar inspiration theory (§ 161, 3), had been indeed accepted, in A.D. 1675, by all the Reformed cantons as the absolute standard of doctrine in church and school; but this obligation was soon felt to be oppressive to the conscience, and so the Archbishop of Canterbury and the kings of England and Prussia repeatedly interceded for its abrogation. In Geneva, though vigorously opposed by a strictly orthodox minority, the Vénérable Compagnie succeeded, in A.D. 1706, with the rector of the Academy at its head, J. A. Turretin, whose father had been one of the principal authors of the formula, in modifying the usual terms of subscription, Sic sentio, sic profiteor, sic docebo, et contrarium non docebo, into Sic docebo quoties hoc argumentum tractandum suscipiam, contrarium non docebo, nec ore, nec calamo, nec privatim, nec publice; and afterwards, in A.D. 1725, it was entirely set aside, and adhesion to the Scriptures of the O. and N.T., and to the catechism of Calvin, made the only obligation. More persistent on both sides was the struggle in Lausanne; yet even there it gradually lost ground, and by the middle of the century it had no longer any authority in Switzerland.―The union efforts made by the Prussian dynasty found zealous but unsuccessful advocates in the chancellor Pfaff of Lutheran Württemberg (§ 167, 4), and in Reformed Switzerland in J. A. Turretin of Geneva.

§ 169.3. The Dutch Reformed Church.―Toward the end of the seventeenth century, in consequence of threats on the part of the magistrates, the passionate violence of the dispute between Voetians and Cocceians (§ 162, 5) was moderated; but in the beginning of the eighteenth century the flames burst forth anew, reaching a height in 1712, when a marble bust of Cocceius was erected in a Leyden church. An obstinate Voetian, Pastor Fruytier of Rotterdam, was grievously offended at this proceeding, and published a controversial pamphlet full of the most bitter reproaches and accusations against the Cocceians, which, energetically replied to by the accused, was much more hurtful than useful to the interests of the Voetians. At last a favourable hearing was given to a word of peace which a highly respected Voetian, the venerable preacher of eighty years of age, J. Mor. Mommers, addressed to the parties engaged in the controversy. He published in A.D. 1738, under the title of “Eubulus,” a tract in which he proved that neither Cocceius himself nor his most distinguished adherents had in any essential point departed from the faith of the Reformed church, and that from them, therefore, in spite of all differences that had since arisen, the hand of fellowship should not be withheld. In consequence of this, the magistrates of Gröningen first of all decided, that forthwith, in filling up vacant pastorates, a Cocceian and Voetian should be appointed alternately; a principle which gradually became the practice throughout the whole country. At the same time also care was now taken that in the theological faculties both schools should have equal representation. But meanwhile also new departures had been made in each of the two parties. Among the Voetians, after the pattern formerly given them by Teellinck (§ 162, 4), followed up by the Frisian preacher Theod. Brakel, died A.D. 1669, and further developed by Jodocus von Lodenstein of Utrecht, died A.D. 1677, mysticism had made considerable progress; and the Cocceians, in the person of Hermann Witsius, drew more closely toward the pietism of the Voetians and the Lutherans. The most distinguished representative of this conciliatory party was F. A. Lampe of Detmold, afterwards professor in Utrecht, previously and subsequently pastor in Bremen, in high repute in his church as a hymn-writer, but best known by his commentary on John.―These conciliatory measures were frustrated by the publication, in A.D. 1740, of a work by Schortinghuis of Gröningen, which pronounced the Scriptures unintelligible and useless to the natural man, but made fruitful to the regenerate and elect by the immediate enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, evidenced by deep groanings and convulsive writhings. It was condemned by all the orthodox. The author now confined himself to his pastorate, where he was richly blessed. He died in A.D. 1750. His notions spread like an epidemic, till stamped out by the united efforts of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in A.D. 1752.

§ 169.4. Methodism.―In the episcopal church of England the living power of the gospel had evaporated into the formalism of scholastic learning and a mechanical ritualism. A reaction was set on foot by John Wesley, born A.D. 1703, a young man of deep religious earnestness and fervent zeal for the salvation of souls. During his course at Oxford, in A.D. 1729, along with some friends, including his brother Charles, he founded a society to promote pious living.509 Those thus leagued together were scornfully called Methodists. From A.D. 1732, George Whitefield, born in A.D. 1714, a youth burning with zeal for his own and his fellow men’s salvation, wrought enthusiastically along with them. In A.D. 1735 the brothers Wesley went to America to labour for the conversion of the Indians in Georgia. On board ship they met Nitschmann, and in Savannah Spangenberg, who exercised a powerful influence over them. John Wesley accepted a pastorate in Savannah, but encountered so many hindrances, that he decided to return to England in A.D. 1738. Whitefield had just sailed for America, but returned that same year. Meanwhile Wesley visited Marienborn and Herrnhut, and so became personally acquainted with Zinzendorf. He did not feel thoroughly satisfied, and so declined to join the society. On his return he began, along with Whitefield, the great work of his life. In many cities they founded religious societies, preached daily to immense crowds in Anglican churches, and when the churches were refused, in the open air, often to 20,000 or even 30,000 hearers. They sought to arouse careless sinners by all the terrors of the law and the horrors of hell, and by a thorough repentance to bring about immediate conversion. An immense number of hardened sinners, mostly of the lower orders, were thus awakened and brought to repentance amid shrieks and convulsions. Whitefield, who divided his attentions between England and America, delivered in thirty-four years 18,000 sermons; Wesley, who survived his younger companion by twenty-one years, dying in A.D. 1791, and was wont to say the world was his parish, delivered still more. Their association with the Moravians had been broken off in A.D. 1740. To the latter, not only was the Methodists’ style of preaching objectionable, but also their doctrine of “Christian perfection,” according to which the true, regenerate Christian can and must reach a perfect holiness of life, not indeed free from temptation and error, but from all sins of weakness and sinful lusts. Wesley in turn accused the Herrnhuters of a dangerous tendency toward the errors of the quietists and antinomians. Zinzendorf came himself to London to remove the misunderstanding, but did not succeed. The great Methodist leaders were themselves separated from one another in A.D. 1741. Whitefield’s doctrine of grace and election was Calvinistic; Wesley’s Arminian.―From A.D. 1748 the Countess of Huntingdon attached herself to the Methodists, and secured an entrance for their preaching into aristocratic circles. With all her humility and self-sacrifice she remained aristocrat enough to insist on being head and organizer. Seeing she could not play this rôle with Wesley, she attached herself closely to Whitefield. He became her domestic chaplain, and with other clergymen accompanied her on her travels. Wherever she went she posed as a “queen of the Methodists,” and was allowed to preach and carry on pastoral work. She built sixty-six chapels, and in A.D. 1768 founded a seminary for training preachers at Trevecca in Wales, under the oversight of the able and gentle John Fletcher, reserving supreme control to herself. After Whitefield’s death, in A.D. 1770, the opposition between the Calvinistic followers of Whitefield and the Arminian Wesleyans burst out in a much more violent form. Fletcher and his likeminded fellow labourers were charged with teaching the horrible heresy of the universality of grace, and were on that account discharged by the countess from the seminary of Trevecca. They now joined Wesley, around whom the great majority of the Methodists had gathered.

§ 169.5. The Methodists did not wish to separate from the episcopal church, but to work as a leaven within it. Whitefield was able to maintain this connexion by the aid of his aristocratic countess and her relationship with the higher clergy; but Wesley, spurning such aid, and trusting to his great powers of organization, felt driven more and more to set up an independent society. When the churches were closed against him and his fellow workers, and preaching in the open air was forbidden, he built chapels for himself.510 The first was opened in Bristol, in A.D. 1739. When his ordained associates were too few for the work, he obtained the assistance of lay preachers. He founded two kinds of religious societies: The united societies embraced all, the band societies only the tried and proved of his followers. Then he divided the united societies again into classes of from ten to twenty persons each, and the class-leaders were required to give accurate accounts of the spiritual condition and progress of those under their care. Each member of the united as well as the band societies held a society ticket, which had to be renewed quarterly. The outward affairs of the societies were managed by stewards, who also took care of the poor. A number of local societies constituted a circuit with a superintendent and several itinerant preachers.511 Wesley superintended all the departments of oversight, administration, and arrangement, supported from A.D. 1744 by an annual conference. Daily preaching and devotional exercises in the chapels, weekly class-meetings, monthly watchnights, quarterly fasts and lovefeasts, an annual service for the renewing of the covenant, and a great multiplication of prayer-meetings, gave a special character to Methodistic piety. Charles Wesley composed hymns for their services. They carefully avoided collision with the services of the state church. The American Methodists, who had been up to this time supplied by Wesley with itinerant missionaries, in A.D. 1784, after the War of Independence, gave vigorous expression to their wish for a more independent ecclesiastical constitution, which led Wesley, in opposition to all right order, to ordain for them by his own hand several preachers, and to appoint, in the person of Thomas Coke, a superintendent, who assumed in America the title of bishop. Coke became the founder of the Methodist Episcopal Church of America, which soon outstripped all other denominations in its zeal for the conversion of sinners, and in consequent success. The breach with the mother church was completed by the adoption of a creed in which the Thirty-nine Articles were reduced to twenty-five. At the last conference presided over by Wesley, A.D. 1790, it was announced that they had in Britain 119 circuits, 313 preachers, and in the United States 97 circuits and 198 preachers. After Wesley’s death, in A.D. 1791, his autocratic supremacy devolved, in accordance with the Methodist “Magna Charta,” the Deed of Declaration of A.D. 1784, upon a fixed conference of 100 members, but its hierarchical organization has been the cause of many subsequent splits and divisions.512

§ 169.6. Theological Literature―Clericus, of Amsterdam, died A.D. 1736, an Arminian divine, distinguished himself in biblical criticism, hermeneutics, exegesis, and church history. J. J. Wettstein was in A.D. 1730 deposed for heresy, and died in A.D. 1754 as professor at the Remonstrant seminary at Amsterdam. His critical edition of the N.T. of A.D. 1751 had a great reputation. Schultens of Leyden, died A.D. 1750, introduced a new era for O.T. philology by the comparative study of related dialects, especially Arabic. He wrote commentaries on Job and Proverbs. Of the Cocceian exegetes we mention, Lampe of Bremen, died A.D. 1729, “Com. on John,” three vols., etc., and J. Marck of Leyden, died A.D. 1731, “Com. on Minor Prophets.” In biblical antiquity, Reland of Utrecht, died A.D. 1718, wrote “Palæstina ex vett. monum. Illustr. Antiquitt. ss.;” in ecclesiastical antiquity, Bingham, died A.D. 1723, “Origines Ecclest.; or, Antiquities of the Christian Church,” ten vols., 1724, a masterpiece not yet superseded. Of English apologists who wrote against the deists, Leland, died A.D. 1766, “Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation;” Stackhouse, died A.D. 1752, “History of the Bible.” Of dogmatists, Stapfer of Bern, died A.D. 1775, and Wyttenbach of Marburg, died A.D. 1779, who followed the Wolffian method. Among church historians, J. A. Turretin of Geneva, died A.D. 1757, and Herm. Venema of Franeker, died A.D. 1787.―The most celebrated of the writers of sacred songs in the English language was the Congregationalist preacher Isaac Watts, died A.D. 1748, whose “Hymns and Spiritual Songs,” which first appeared in A.D. 1707, still hold their place in the hymnbooks of all denominations, and have largely contributed to overthrow the Reformed prejudice against using any other than biblical psalms in the public service of praise.

§ 170. New Sects and Fanatics.

The pietism of the eighteenth century, like the Reformation of the sixteenth, was followed by the appearance of all sorts of fanatics and extremists. The converted were collected into little companies, which, as ecclesiolæ in ecclesia, preserved the living flame amid prevailing darkness, and out of these arose separatists who spoke of the church as Babylon, regarded its ordinances impure, and its preaching a mere jingle of words. They obtained their spiritual nourishment from the mystical and theosophical writings of Böhme, Gichtel, Guyon, Poiret, etc. Their chief centre was Wetterau, where, in the house of Count Casimir von Berleburg, all persecuted pietists, separatists, fanatics, and sectaries found refuge. The count chose from them his court officials and personal servants, although he himself belonged to the national Reformed church. There was scarcely a district in Protestant Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands where there were not groups of such separatists; some mere harmless enthusiasts, others circulated pestiferous and immoral doctrines. Quite apart from pietism Swedenborgianism made its appearance, claiming to have a new revelation. Of the older sects the Baptists and the Quakers sent off new swarms, and even predestinationism gave rise to a form of mysticism allied to pantheism.

§ 170.1. Fanatics and Separatists in Germany.―Juliana von Asseburg, a young lady highly esteemed in Magdeburg for her piety, declared that from her seventh year she had visions and revelations, especially about the millennium. She found a zealous supporter in Dr. J. W. Petersen, superintendent of Lüneburg. After his marriage with Eleonore von Merlau, who had similar revelations, he proclaimed by word and writing a fantastic chiliasm and the restitution of all things. He was deposed in A.D. 1692, and died in A.D. 1727.513 Henry Horche, professor of theology at Herborn, was the originator of a similar movement in the Reformed church. He founded several Philadelphian societies (§ 163, 9) in Hesse, and composed a “mystical and prophetical bible,” the so called “Marburg Bible,” A.D. 1712. Of other fanatical preachers of that period one of the most prominent was Hochmann, a student of law expelled from Halle for his extravagances, a man of ability and eloquence, and highly esteemed by Tersteegen. Driven from place to place, he at last found refuge at Berleburg, and died there in A.D. 1721. In Württemberg the pious court chaplain, Hedinger, of Stuttgart, died A.D. 1703, was the father of pietism and separatism. The most famous of his followers were Gruber and Rock, who, driven from Württemberg, settled with other separatists at Wetterau, renouncing the use of the sacraments and public worship. Of those gathered together in the court of Count Casimir, the most eminent were Dr. Carl, his physician, the French mystic Marsay, and J. H. Haug, who had been expelled from Strassburg, a proficient in the oriental languages. They issued a great number of mystical works, chief of all the Berleburg Bible, in eight vols., 1726-1742, of which Haug was the principal author. Its exposition proceeded in accordance with the threefold sense; it vehemently contended against the church doctrine of justification, against the confessional writings, the clerical order, the dead church, etc. It showed occasionally profound insight, and made brilliant remarks, but contained also many trivialities and absurdities. The mysticism which is prominent in this work lacks originality, and is compiled from the mystico-theosophical writings of all ages from Origen down to Madame Guyon.

§ 170.2. The Inspired Societies in Wetterau.―After the unfortunate issue of the Camisard War in A.D. 1705 (§ 153, 4) the chief of the prophets of the Cevennes fled to England. They were at first well received, but were afterwards excommunicated and cast into prison. In A.D. 1711 several of them went to the Netherlands, and thence made their way into Germany. Three brothers, students at Halle, named Pott, adopted their notion of the gift of inspiration, and introduced it into Wetterau in A.D. 1714. Gruber and Rock, the leaders of the separatists there, were at first opposed to the doctrine, but were overpowered by the Spirit, and soon became its most enthusiastic champions. Prayer-meetings were organized, immense lovefeasts were held, and by itinerant brethren an ecclesia ambulatoria was set on foot, by which spiritual nourishment was brought to believers scattered over the land and the children of the prophets were gathered from all countries. The “utterances” given forth in ecstasy were calls to repentance, to prayer, to the imitation of Christ, revelations of the divine will in matters affecting the communities, proclamations of the near approach of the Divine judgment upon a depraved church and world, but without fanatical-sensual chiliasm. Also, except in the contempt of the sacraments, they held by the essentials of the church doctrine. In A.D. 1715 a split occurred between the true and the false among the inspired. The true maintained a formal constitution, and in A.D. 1716 excluded all who would not submit to that discipline. By A.D. 1719 only Rock claimed the gift of inspiration, and did so till his death in A.D. 1749. Gruber died in A.D. 1728, and with him a pillar of the society fell. Rock was the only remaining prop. A new era of their history begins with their intercourse with the Herrnhuters. Zinzendorf sent them a deputation in A.D. 1730, and paid them a visit in person at Berleberg [Berleburg]. Rock’s profound Christian personality made a deep impression upon him. But he was offended at their contempt of the sacraments, and at the convulsive character of their utterances. This, however, did not hinder him from expressing his reverence for their able leader, who in return visited Zinzendorf at Herrnhut in A.D. 1732. In the interests of his own society Zinzendorf shrank from identifying himself with those of Wetterau. Rock denounced him as a new Babylon-botcher, and he retaliated by calling Rock a false prophet. When the Herrnhuters were driven from Wetterau in A.D. 1750 (§ 168, 3, 7), the inspired communities entered on their inheritance. But with Rock’s death in A.D. 1749 prophecy had ceased among them. They sank more and more into insignificance, until the revival of spiritual life, A.D. 1816-1821, brought them into prominence again. Government interference drove most of them to America.

§ 170.3. Quite a peculiar importance belongs to J. C. Dippel, theologian, physician, alchemist, discoverer of Prussian blue and oleum dippelii, at first an orthodox opponent of pietism, then, through Gottfr. Arnold’s influence, an adherent of the pietists, and ultimately of the separatists. In A.D. 1697, under the name of Christianus Democritus, he began to write in a scoffing tone of all orthodox Christianity, with a strange blending of mysticism and rationalism, but without any trace profound Christian experience. Persecuted on every hand, exiled or imprisoned, he went hither and thither through Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden, and found a refuge at last at Berleberg [Berleburg] in A.D. 1729. Here he came in contact with the inspired, who did everything in their power to win him over; but he declared that he would rather give himself to the devil than to this Spirit of God. He was long intimate with Zinzendorf, but afterwards poured out upon him the bitterest abuse. He died in the count’s castle at Berleberg [Berleburg] in A.D. 1734.514

§ 170.4. Separatists of Immoral Tendency.―One of the worst was the Buttlar sect, founded by Eva von Buttlar, a native of Hesse, who had married a French refugee, lived gaily for ten years at the court of Eisenach, and then joined the pietists and became a rigid separatist. Separated from her husband, she associated with the licentiate Winter, and founded a Philadelphian society at Allendorf in A.D. 1702, where the foulest immoralities were practised. Eva herself was reverenced as the door of paradise, the new Jerusalem, the mother of all, Sophia come from heaven, the new Eve, and the incarnation of the Spirit. Winter was the incarnation of the Father, and their son Appenfeller the incarnation of the Son. They pronounced marriage sinful; sensual lusts must be slain in spiritual communion, then even carnal association is holy. Eva lived with all the men of the sect in the most shameless adultery. So did also the other women of the community. Expelled from Allendorf after a stay of six weeks, they sought unsuccessfully to gain a footing in various places. At Cologne they went over to the Catholic church. Their immoralities reached their climax at Lüde near Pyrmont. Winter was sentenced to death in A.D. 1706, but was let off with scourging. Eva escaped the same punishment by flight, and continued her evil practices unchecked for another year. She afterwards returned to Altona, where with her followers leading outwardly an honourable life, she attached herself to the Lutheran church, and died, honoured and esteemed, in A.D. 1717.―In a similar way arose in A.D. 1739 the Bordelum sect, founded at Bordelum by the licentiates Borsenius and Bär; and the Brüggeler sect, at Brüggeler in Canton Bern, where in A.D. 1748 the brothers Kohler gave themselves out as the two witnesses (Rev. xi.). Of a like nature too was the sect of Zionites at Ronsdorf in the Duchy of Berg. Elias Eller, a manufacturer at Elberfeld, excited by mystical writings, married in A.D. 1725 a rich old widow, but soon found more pleasure in a handsome young lady, Anna von Buchel, who by a nervous sympathetic infection was driven into prophetic ecstasy. She proclaimed the speedy arrival of the millennium; Eller identified her with the mother of the man-child (Rev. xii. 1). When his wife had pined away through jealousy and neglect and died, he married Buchel. The first child she bore him was a girl, and the second, a boy, soon died. When a strong opposition arose in Elberfeld against the sect, he, along with his followers, founded Ronsdorf, as a New Zion, in A.D. 1737. The colony obtained civil rights, and Eller was made burgomaster. Anna having died in A.D. 1744, Eller gave his colony a new mother, and practised every manner of deceit and tyranny. After the infatuation had lasted a long time, the eyes of the Reformed pastor Schleiermacher, grandfather of the famous theologian, were at last opened. By flight to the Netherlands he escaped the fate of another revolter, whom Eller persuaded the authorities at Düsseldorf to put to death as a sorcerer. Every complaint against himself was quashed by Eller’s bribery of the officials. After his death in A.D. 1750 his stepson continued this Zion game for a long time.

§ 170.5. Swedenborgianism.―Emanuel von Swedenborg was born at Stockholm, in A.D. 1688, son of the strict Lutheran bishop of West Gothland, Jasper Swedberg. He was appointed assessor of the School of Mines at Stockholm, and soon showed himself to be a man of encyclopædic information and of speculative ability. After long examination of the secrets of nature, in a condition of magnetic ecstasy, in which he thought that he had intercourse with spirits, sometimes in heaven, sometimes in hell, he became convinced, in A.D. 1743, that he was called by these revelations to restore corrupted Christianity by founding a church of the New Jerusalem as the finally perfected church. He published the apocalyptic revelations as a new gospel: “Arcana Cœlestia in Scr. s. Detecta,” in seven vols.; “Vera Chr. Rel.,” two vols. After his death, in A.D. 1772, his “Vera Christiana Religio” was translated into Swedish, but his views never got much hold in his native country. They spread more widely in England, where John Clowes, rector of St. John’s Church, Manchester, translated his writings, and himself wrote largely in their exposition and commendation. Separate congregations with their own ministers, and forms of worship, sprang up through England in A.D. 1788, and soon there were as many as fifty throughout the country. From England the New Church spread to America.―In Germany it was specially throughout Württemberg that it found adherents. There, in A.D. 1765, Oetinger (§ 171, 9) recognised Swedenborg’s revelations, and introduced many elements from them into his theosophical system.―Swedenborg’s religious system was speculative mysticism, with a physical basis and rationalizing results. The aim of religion with him is the opening of an intimate correspondence between the spiritual world and man, and giving an insight into the mystery of the connexion between the two. The Bible (excluding the apostolic epistles, as merely expository), pre-eminently the Apocalypse, is recognised by him as God’s word; to be studied, however, not in its literal but in its spiritual or inner sense. Of the church dogmas there is not one which he did not either set aside or rationalistically explain away. He denounces in the strongest terms the church doctrine of the Trinity. God is with him only one Person, who manifests Himself in three different forms: the Father is the principle of the manifesting God; the Son, the manifested form; the Spirit, the manifested activity. The purpose of the manifestation of Christ is the uniting of the human and Divine; redemption is nothing more than the combating and overcoming of the evil spirits. But angels and devils are spirits of dead men glorified and damned. He did not believe in a resurrection of the flesh, but maintained that the spiritual form of the body endures after death. The second coming of Christ will not be personal and visible, but spiritual through a revelation of the spiritual sense of Holy Scripture, and is realized by the founding of the church of the New Jerusalem.515

§ 170.6. New Baptist Sects (§ 163, 3).―In Wetterau about A.D. 1708 an anabaptist sect arose called Dippers, because they did not recognise infant baptism and insisted upon the complete immersion of adult believers. They appeared in Pennsylvania in A.D. 1719, and founded settlements in other states. Of the “perfect” they required absolute separation from all worldly practices and enjoyments and a simple, apostolic style of dress. To baptism and the Lord’s supper they added washing the feet and the fraternal kiss and anointing the sick. The Seventh-day Baptists observe the seventh instead of the first day of the week, and enjoin on the “perfect” celibacy and the community of goods. New sects from England continued to spread over America. Of these were the Seed or Sucker Baptists, who identified the non-elect with the seed of the serpent, and on account of their doctrine of predestination regarded all instruction and care of children useless. A similar predestinarian exaggeration is seen in the Hard-shell Baptists, who denounce all home and foreign missions as running counter to the Divine sovereignty. Many, sometimes called Campbellites from their founder, reject any party name, claiming to be simply Christians, and acknowledge only so much in Scripture as is expressly declared to be “the word of the Lord.” The Six-Principles-Baptists limit their creed to the six articles of Hebrews vi. 1, 2. The brothers Haldane, about the middle of the eighteenth century, founded in Scotland the Baptist sect of Haldanites, which has with great energy applied itself to the practical cultivation of the Christian life.―Continuation, §§ 208, 1; 211, 3.

§ 170.7. New Quaker Sects.―The Jumpers, who sprang up among the Methodists of Cornwall about A.D. 1760, are in principle closely allied to the early Quakers (§ 163, 4). They leaped and danced after the style of David before the ark and uttered inarticulate howls. They settled in America, where they have adherents still.―The Shakers originated from the prophets of the Cevennes who fled to England in A.D. 1705. They converted a Quaker family at Bolton in Lancashire named Wardley, and the community soon grew. In A.D. 1758 Anna Lee, wife of a farrier Stanley, joined the society, and, as the apocalyptic bride, inaugurated the millennium. She taught that the root of all sin was the relationship of the sexes. Maltreated by the mob, she emigrated to America, along with thirty companions, in A.D. 1774. Though persecuted here also, the sect increased and formed in the State of New York the Millennial Church or United Society of Believers. Anna died in A.D. 1784; but her prophets declared that she had merely laid aside the earthly garb and assumed the heavenly, so that only then the veneration of “Mother Anna” came into force. As Christ is the Son of the eternal Wisdom, Anna is the daughter; as Christ is the second Adam, she is the second Eve, and spiritual mother of believers as Christ is their father. Celibacy, community of goods, common labour (chiefly gardening), as a pleasure, not a burden, common domestic life as brothers and sisters, and constant intercourse with the spirit world, are the main points in her doctrine. By the addition of voluntary proselytes and the adoption of poor helpless children the sect has grown, till now it numbers 3,000 or 4,000 souls in eighteen villages. The capital is New Lebanon in the State of New York. The name Shakers was given them from the quivering motion of body in their solemn dances. In their services they march about singing “On to heaven we will be going,” “March heavenward, yea, victorious band,” etc. Like the Quakers (§ 163, 6) they have neither a ministry nor sacraments, and their whole manner of life is modelled on that of the Quakers. The purity of the relation of brothers and sisters has always been free from suspicion.516

§ 170.8. Predestinarian-Mystical Sects.―The Hebræans, founded by Verschoor, a licentiate of the Reformed church of Holland deposed under suspicion of Spinozist views, in the end of the seventeenth century, hold it indispensably necessary to read the word of God in the original. They were fatalists, and maintained that the elect could commit no sin. True faith consisted in believing this doctrine of their own sinlessness. About the same time sprang up the Hattemists, followers of Pontiaan von Hattem, a preacher deposed for heresy, with fatalistic views like the Hebræans, but with a strong vein of pantheistic mysticism. True piety consisted in the believer resting in God in a purely passive manner, and letting God alone care for him. The two sects united under the name of Hattemists, and continued to exist in Holland and Zealand till about A.D. 1760.

§ 171. Religion, Theology, and Literature of the “Illumination.”517

In England during the first half of the century deism had still several active propagandists, and throughout the whole century efforts, not altogether unsuccessful, were made to spread Unitarian views. From the middle of the century, when the English deistic unbelief had died out, the “Illumination,” under the name of rationalism, found an entrance into Germany. Arminian pelagianism, recommended by brilliant scholarship, English deism, spread by translations and refutations, and French naturalism, introduced by a great and much honoured king, were the outward factors in securing this result. The freemason lodges, carried into Germany from England, a relic of mediævalism, aided the movement by their endeavour after a universal religion of a moral and practical kind. The inward factors were the Wolffian philosophy (§ 167, 3), the popular philosophy, and the pietism, with its step-father separatism (§ 170), which immediately prepared the soil for the sowing of rationalism. Orthodoxy, too, with its formulas that had been outlived, contributed to the same end. German rationalism is essentially distinguished from Deism and Naturalism by not breaking completely with the Bible and the church, but eviscerating both by its theories of accommodation and by its exaggerated representations of the limitations of the age in which the books of Scripture were written and the doctrines of Christianity were formulated. It thus treats the Bible as an important document, and the church as a useful religious institution. Over against rationalism arose supernaturalism, appealing directly to revelation. It was a dilution of the old church faith by the addition of more or less of the water of rationalism. Its reaction was therefore weak and vacillating. The temporary success of the vulgar rationalism lay, not in its own inherent strength, but in the correspondence that existed between it and the prevailing spirit of the age. The philosophy, however, as well as the national literature of the Germans, now began a victorious struggle against these tendencies, and though itself often indifferent and even hostile to Christianity, it recognised in Christ a school-master. Pestalozzi performed a similar service to popular education by his attempts to reform effete systems.

§ 171.1. Deism, Arianism, and Unitarianism in the English Church.

The Deists (§ 164, 3). With Locke’s philosophy (§ 164, 2) deism entered on a new stage of its development. It is henceforth vindicated on the ground of its reasonableness. The most notable deists of this age were John Toland, an Irishman, first Catholic, then Arminian, died A.D. 1722, author of “Christianity not Mysterious,” “Nazarenus, or Jewish, Gentile, and Mohametan Christianity,” etc. The Earl of Shaftesbury, died A.D. 1713, wrote “Characteristics of Men,” etc. Anthony Collins, J.P. in Essex, died A.D. 1729, author of “Priestcraft in Perfection,” “Discourse of Freethinking,” etc. Thomas Woolston, fellow of Cambridge, died in prison in A.D. 1733, author of “Discourse on the Miracles of the Saviour.” Mandeville of Dort, physician in London, died A.D. 1733, wrote “Free Thoughts on Religion.” Matthew Tindal, professor of law in Oxford, died A.D. 1733, wrote “Christianity as Old as the Creation.” Thomas Morgan, nonconformist minister, deposed as an Arian, then a physician, died A.D. 1743, wrote “The Moral Philosopher.” Thomas Chubb, glover and tallow-chandler in Salisbury, died A.D. 1747, author of popular compilations, “The True Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Viscount Bolingbroke, statesman, charged with high treason and pardoned, died A.D. 1751, writings entitled, “Philosophical Works.”―Along with the deists as an opponent of positive Christianity may be classed the famous historian and sceptic David Hume, librarian in Edinburgh, died A.D. 1776, author of “Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding,” “Natural History of Religion,” “Dialogues concerning Natural Religion,” etc.518―Deism never made way among the people, and no attempt was made to form a sect. Among the numerous opponents of deism these are chief: Samuel Clarke, died A.D. 1729; Thomas Sherlock, Bishop of London, died A.D. 1761; Chandler, Bishop of Durham, died A.D. 1750; Leland, Presbyterian minister in Dublin, died A.D. 1766, wrote “View of Principal Deistic Writers,” three vols., 1754; Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, died A.D. 1779; Nath. Lardner, dissenting minister, died A.D. 1768, wrote “Credibility of the Gospel History,” seventeen vols., 1727-1757. With these may be ranked the famous pulpit orator of the Reformed church of France, Saurin, died A.D. 1730, author of Discours hist., crit., theol., sur les Evénements les plus remarkables du V. et N.T.

The So-called Arians. In the beginning of the century several distinguished theologians of the Anglican church sought to give currency to an Arian doctrine of the Trinity. Most conspicuous was Wm. Whiston, a distinguished mathematician, physicist, and astronomer of the school of Sir Isaac Newton, and his successor in the mathematical chair at Cambridge. Deprived of this office in A.D. 1708 for spreading his heterodox views, he issued in A.D. 1711 a five-volume work, “Primitive Christianity Revived,” in which he justified his Arian doctrine of the Trinity as primitive and as taught by the ante-Nicene Fathers, and insisted upon augmenting the N.T. canon by the addition of twenty-nine books of the apostolic and other Fathers, including the apostolic “Constitutions” and “Recognitions” which he maintained were genuine works of Clement. Subsequently he adopted Baptist views, and lost himself in fantastic chiliastic speculations. He died A.D. 1752. More sensible and moderate was Samuel Clarke, also distinguished as a mathematician of Newton’s school and as a classical philologist. As an opponent of deism in sermons and treatises he had gained a high reputation as a theologian, when his work, “The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity,” in A.D. 1712, led to his being accused of Arianism by convocation; but by conciliatory explanations he succeeded in retaining his office till his death in A.D. 1729. But the excitement caused by the publication of his work continued through several decades, and was everywhere the cause of division. His ablest apologist was Dan. Whitby, and his keenest opponent Dan. Waterland.

The Later Unitarians. The anti-trinitarian movement entered on a new stage in A.D. 1770. After Archdeacon Blackburne of London, in A.D. 1766, had started the idea, at first anonymously, in his “Confessional,” he joined in A.D. 1772 with other freethinkers, among whom was his son-in-law Theophilus Lindsey, in presenting to Parliament a petition with 250 signatures, asking to have the clergy of the Anglican church freed from the obligation of subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles and the Liturgy, and to have the requirement limited to assent to the Scriptures. This prayer was rejected in the Lower House by 217 votes against 71. Lindsey now resigned his clerical office, announced his withdrawal from the Anglican church, founded and presided over a Unitarian congregation in London from A.D. 1774, and published a large number of controversial Unitarian tracts. He died in A.D. 1808. The celebrated chemist and physicist Joseph Priestley, A.D. 1733-1806, who had been a dissenting minister in Birmingham from A.D. 1780, joined the Unitarian movement in 1782, giving it a new impetus by his high scientific reputation. He wrote the “History of the Corruptions of Christianity,” and the “History of Early Opinions about Jesus Christ,” denying that there is any biblical foundation for the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, and seeking to show that it had been forced upon the church against her will from the Platonic philosophy. These and a whole series of other controversial writings occasioned great excitement, not only among theologians, but also among the English people of all ranks. At last the mob rose against him in A.D. 1791. His house and all his scientific collections and apparatus were burnt. He narrowly escaped with his life, and soon after settled in America, where he wrote a church history in four vols. Of his many English opponents the most eminent was Bishop Sam. Horsley, a distinguished mathematician and commentator on the works of Sir Isaac Newton.

§ 171.2. Freemasons.―The mediæval institution of freemasons (§ 104, 13) won much favour in England, especially after the Great Fire of London in A.D. 1666. The first step toward the formation of freemason lodges of the modern type was taken about the end of the sixteenth century, when men of distinction in other callings sought admission as honorary members. After the rebuilding of London and the completion of St. Paul’s in A.D. 1710, most of the lodges became defunct, and the four that continued to exist united in A.D. 1717 into one grand lodge in London, which, renouncing material masonry, assumed the task of rearing the temple of humanity. In A.D. 1721 the Rev. Mr. Anderson prepared a constitution for this reconstruction of a trade society into a universal brotherhood, according to which all “free masons” faithfully observing the moral law as well as all the claims of humanity and patriotism, came under obligation to profess the religion common to all good men, transcending all confessional differences, without any individual being thereby hindered from holding his own particular views. Although, in imitation of the older institution, all members by reason of their close connexion were bound to observe the strictest secrecy in regard to their masonic signs, rites of initiation and promotion, and forms of greeting, it is not properly a secret society, since the constitution was published in A.D. 1723, and members publicly acknowledge that they are such.―From London the new institute spread over all England and the colonies. Lodges were founded in Paris in A.D. 1725, in Hamburg in A.D. 1737, in Berlin in A.D. 1740. This last was raised in A.D. 1744 into a grand lodge, with Frederick II. as grand master. But soon troubles and disputes arose, which broke up the order about the end of the century. Rosicrucians (§ 160, 1) and alchemists, pretending to hold the secrets of occult science, Jesuits (§ 210, 1), with Catholic hierarchical tendencies, and “Illuminati” (§ 165, 13), with rationalistic and infidel tendencies, as well as adventurers of every sort, had made the lodges centres of quackery, juggling, and plots.519

§ 171.3. The German “Illumination.”

Its Precursors. One of the first of these, following in the footsteps of Kuntzen and Dippel, was J. Chr. Edelmann of Weissenfels, who died A.D. 1767. He began in A.D. 1735 the publication of an immense series of writings in a rough but powerful style, filled with bitter scorn for positive Christianity. He went from one sect to another, but never found what he sought. In A.D. 1741 he accepted Zinzendorf’s invitation, and stayed with the count for a long time. He next joined the Berleberg [Berleburg] separatists, because they despised the sacraments, and contributed to their Bible commentary, though Haug had to alter much of his work before it could be used. This and his contempt for prayer brought the connexion between him and the society to an end. He then led a vagabond life up and down through Germany. Edelmann regarded himself as a helper of providence, and at least a second Luther. Christianity he pronounced the most irrational of all religions; church history a conglomeration of immorality, lies, hypocrisy, and fanaticism; prophets and apostles, bedlamites; and even Christ by no means a perfect pattern and teacher. The world needs only one redemption―redemption from Christianity. Providence, virtue, and immortality are the only elements in religion. No less than 166 separate treatises came from his facile pen.―Laurence Schmidt of Wertheim in Baden, a scholar of Wolff, was author of the notorious “Wertheimer Bible Version,” which rendered Scripture language into the dialect of the eighteenth century, and eviscerated it of all positive doctrines of revelation. This book was confiscated by the authorities, and its author cast into prison.

§ 171.4.

The Age of Frederick the Great. Hostility to all positive Christianity spread from England and France into Germany. The writings of the English deists were translated and refuted, but mostly in so weak a style that the effect was the opposite of that intended. Whilst English deism with its air of thoroughness made way among the learned, the poison of frivolous French naturalism committed its ravages among the higher circles. The great king of Prussia Frederick II., A.D. 1740-1786, surrounded by French freethinkers Voltaire, D’Argens, La Metrie, etc., wished every man in his kingdom to be saved after his own fashion. In this he was quite earnest, although his personal animosity to all ecclesiastical and pietistic religion made him sometimes act harshly and unjustly. Thus, when Francke of Halle (son of the famous A. H. Francke) had exhorted his theological students to avoid the theatre, the king, designating him “hypocrite” Francke, ordered him to attend the theatre himself and have his attendance attested by the manager. His bitter hatred of all “priests” was directed mainly against their actual or supposed intolerance, hypocrisy, and priestly arrogance; and where he met with undoubted integrity, as in Gellert and Seb. Bach, or simple, earnest piety, as in General Ziethen, he was not slow in paying to it the merited tribute of hearty acknowledgment and respect. His own religion was a philosophical deism, from which he could thoroughly refute Holbach’s materialistic “Système de la Nature.”―Under the name of the German popular philosophy (Moses Mendelssohn, Garve, Eberhard, Platner, Steinbart, etc.), which started from the Wolffian philosophy, emptied of its Christian contents, there arose a weak, vapoury, and self-satisfied philosophizing on the part of the common human reason. Basedow was the reformer of pedagogy in the sense of the “Illumination,” after the style of Rousseau, and crying up his wares in the market made a great noise for a while, although Herder declared that he would not trust calves, far less men, to be educated by such a pedagogue. The “Universal German Library” of the Berlin publisher Nicolai, 106 vols. A.D. 1765-1792, was a literary Inquisition tribunal against all faith in revelation or the church. The “Illumination” in the domain of theology took the name of rationalism. Pietistic Halle cast its skin, and along with Berlin took front rank among the promoters of the “Illumination.” In the other universities champions of the new views soon appeared, and rationalistic pastors spread over all Germany, to preach only of moral improvement, or to teach from the pulpit about the laws of health, agriculture, gardening, natural science, etc. The old liturgies were mutilated, hymn-books revised after the barbarous tastes of the age, and songs of mere moral tendency substituted for those that spoke of Christ’s atonement. An ecclesiastical councillor, Lang of Regensburg, dispensed the communion with the words: “Eat this bread! The Spirit of devotion rest on you with His rich blessing! Drink a little wine! The virtue lies not in this wine; it lies in you, in the divine doctrine, and in God.” The Berlin provost, W. Alb. Teller, declared publicly: “The Jews ought on account of their faith in God, virtue, and immortality, to be regarded as genuine Christians.” C. Fr. Bahrdt, after he had been deposed for immorality from various clerical and academical offices, and was cast off by the theologians, sought to amuse the people with his wit as a taphouse-keeper in Halle, and died there of an infamous disease in A.D. 1792.

§ 171.5.

The Wöllner Reaction.―In vain did the Prussian government, after the death of Frederick the Great, under Frederick William II., A.D. 1786-1797, endeavour to restore the church to the enjoyment of its old exclusive rights by punishing every departure from its doctrines, and insisting that preaching should be in accordance with the Confession. At the instigation of the Rosicrucians (§ 160, 1) and of the minister Von Wöllner, a country pastor ennobled by the king, the Religious Edict of 1788 was issued, followed by a statement of severe penalties; then by a Schema Examinationis Candidatorum ss. Ministerii rite Instituendi; and in A.D. 1791, by a commission for examination under the Berlin chief consistory and all the provincial consistories, with full powers, not only over candidates, but also over all settled pastors. But notwithstanding all the energy with which he sought to carry out his edict, the minister could accomplish nothing in the face of public opinion, which favoured the resistance of the chief consistory. Only one deposition, that of Schulz of Gielsdorf, near Berlin, was effected, in A.D. 1792. Frederick William III., A.D. 1797-1840, dismissed Wöllner in A.D. 1798, and set aside the edict as only fostering hypocrisy and sham piety.

§ 171.6. The Transition Theology.―Four men, who endeavoured to maintain their own belief in revelation, did more than all others to prepare the way for rationalism: Ernesti of Leipzig, in the department of N.T. exegesis; Michaelis of Göttingen, in O.T. exegesis; Semler of Halle, in biblical and historical criticism; and Töllner of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, in dogmatics. J. A. Ernesti, A.D. 1707-1781, from A.D. 1734 rector of St. Thomas’ School, from A.D. 1742 professor at Leipzig, colleague to Chr. A. Crusius (§ 167, 3), was specially eminent as a classical scholar, and maintained his reputation in that department, even after becoming professor of theology in A.D. 1758. His Institutio Interpretis N.T., of A.D. 1761, made it an axiom of exegesis that the exposition of Scripture should be conducted precisely as that of any other book. But even in the domain of classical literature there must be an understanding of the author as a whole, and the expositor must have appreciation of the writer’s spirit, as well as have acquaintance with his language and the customs of his age. And just from Ernesti’s want of this, his treatise on biblical hermeneutics is rationalistic, and he became the father of rationalistic exegesis, though himself intending to hold firmly by the doctrine of inspiration and the creed of the church.―What Ernesti did for the N.T., J. D. Michaelis, A.D. 1717-1791, son of the pious and orthodox Chr. Bened. Michaelis, did for the O.T. He was from A.D. 1750 professor at Göttingen, a man of varied learning and wide influence. He publicly acknowledged that he had never experienced anything of the testimonium Sp. s. internum, and rested his proofs of the divinity of the Scriptures wholly on external evidences, e.g. miracles, prophecy, authenticity, etc., a spider’s web easily blown to pieces by the enemy. No one has ever excelled him in the art of foisting his own notions on the sacred authors and making them utter his favourite ideas. A conspicuous instance of this is his “Laws of Moses,” in six vols.―In a far greater measure than either Ernesti or Michaelis did J. Sol. Semler, A.D. 1725-1791, pupil of Baumgarten, and from A.D. 1751 professor at Halle, help on the cause of rationalism. He had grown up under the influence of Halle pietism in the profession of a customary Christianity, which he called his private religion, which contributed to his life a basis of genuine personal piety. But with a rare subtlety of reasoning as a man of science, endowed with rich scholarship, and without any wish to sever himself from Christianity, he undermined almost all the supports of the theology of the church. This he did by casting doubt on the genuineness of the biblical writings, by setting up a theory of inspiration and accommodation which admitted the presence of error, misunderstanding, and pious fraud in the Scriptures, by a style of exposition which put aside everything unattractive in the N.T. as “remnants of Judaism,” by a critical treatment of the history of the church and its doctrines, which represented the doctrines of the church as the result of blundering, misconception, and violence, etc. He was a voluminous author, leaving behind him no less than 171 writings. He sowed the wind, and reaped the whirlwind, by which he himself was driven along. He firmly withstood the installation of Bahrdt at Halle, opposed Basedow’s endeavours, applied himself eagerly to refute the “Wolfenbüttel Fragments” of Reimarus, edited by Lessing in 1774-1778, which represented Christianity as founded upon pure deceit and fraud, and defended even the edict of Wöllner. But the current was not thus to be stemmed, and Semler died broken-hearted at the sight of the heavy crop from his own sowing.―J. Gr. Töllner, A.D. 1724-1774, from A.D. 1756 professor at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, was in point of learning and influence by no means equal to those now named; yet he deserves a place alongside of them, as one who opened the door to rationalism in the department of dogmatics. He himself held fast to the belief in revelation, miracles, and prophecy, but he also regarded it as proved that God saves men by the revelation of nature; the revelation of Scripture is only a more sure and perfect means. He also examined the divine inspiration of Scripture, and found that the language and thoughts were the authors’ own, and that God was concerned in it in a manner that could not be more precisely determined. Finally, in treating of the active obedience of Christ, he gives such a representation of it as sets aside the doctrine of the church.

§ 171.7. The Rationalistic Theology.―From the school of these men, especially from that of Semler, went forth crowds of rationalists, who for seventy years held almost all the professorships and pastorates of Protestant Germany. At their head stands Bahrdt, A.D. 1741-1792, writer at first of orthodox handbooks, who, sinking deeper and deeper through vanity, want of character, and immorality, and following in the steps of Edelmann, wrote 102 vols., mostly of a scurrilous and blasphemous character. The rationalists, however, were generally of a nobler sort: Griesbach of Jena, A.D. 1745-1812, distinguished as textual critic of the N.T.; Teller of Berlin, published a lexicon to the N.T., which substituted “leading another life” for regeneration, “improvement” for sanctification, etc.; Koppe of Göttingen, and Rosenmüller of Leipzig wrote scholia on N.T., and Schulze and Bauer on the O.T. Of far greater value were the performances of J. G. Eichhorn of Göttingen, A.D. 1752-1827, and Bertholdt of Erlangen, A.D. 1774-1822, who wrote introductions to the O.T. and commentaries. In the department of church history, H. P. C. Henke of Helmstädt and the talented statesman, Von Spittler of Württemberg, wrote from the rationalistic standpoint. Steinbart and Eberhardt [Eberhard] wrote more in the style of the popular philosophy. The subtle-minded J. H. Tieftrunk, A.D. 1760-1837, professor of philosophy at Halle, introduced into theology the Kantian philosophy with its strict categories. Jerusalem, Zollikofer, and others did much to spread rationalistic views by their preaching.520

§ 171.8. Supernaturalism.―Abandoning the old orthodoxy without surrendering to rationalism, the supernaturalists sought to maintain their hold of the Scripture revelation. Many of them did so in a very uncertain way: their revelation had scarcely anything to reveal which was not already given by reason. Others, however, eagerly sought to preserve all essentially vital truths. Morus of Leipzig, Ernesti’s ablest student, Less of Göttingen, Döderlein of Jena, Seiler of Erlangen, and Nösselt of Halle, were all representatives of this school. More powerful opponents of rationalism appeared in Storr of Tübingen, A.D. 1746-1805, who could break a lance even with the philosopher of Königsberg, Knapp of Halle, and Reinhard of Dresden, the most famous preacher of his age. Reinhard’s sermon on the Reformation festival of A.D. 1800 created such enthusiasm in favour of the Lutheran doctrine of justification, that government issued an edict calling the attention of all pastors to it as a model. The most distinguished apologists were the mathematician Euler of St. Petersburg, the physiologist, botanist, geologist, and poet Haller of Zürich and the theologians Lilienthal of Königsberg and Kleuker of Kiel. The most zealous defender of the faith was the much abused Goeze of Hamburg, who fought for the palladium of Lutheran orthodoxy against his rationalistic colleagues, against the theatre, against Barth, Basedow, and such-like, against the “Wolfenbüttel Fragments,” against the “Sorrows of Werther,” etc. His polemic may have been over-violent, and he certainly was not a match for such an antagonist as Lessing; he was, however, by no means an obscurantist, ignoramus, fanatic, or hypocrite, but a man in solemn earnest in all he did. In the field of church history important services were rendered by Schröckh of Wittenberg and Walch of Göttingen, laborious investigators and compilers, Stäudlin and Planck of Göttingen, and Münter of Copenhagen.―Among English theologians of this tendency toward the end of the century, the most famous was Paley of Cambridge, A.D. 1743-1805, whose “Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy” and “Evidences of Christianity” were obligatory text-books in the university. His “Horæ Paulinæ” prove the credibility of the Acts of the Apostles from the epistles, and his “Natural Theology” demonstrates God’s being and attributes from nature.

§ 171.9. Mysticism and Theosophy.―Oetinger of Württemburg [Württemberg], the Magus of the South, A.D. 1702-1782, takes rank by himself. He was a pupil of Bengel (§ 167, 3), well grounded in Scripture, but also an admirer of Böhme and sympathising with the spiritualistic visions of Swedenborg. But amid all, with his biblical realism and his theosophy, which held corporeity to be the end of the ways of God, he was firmly rooted in the doctrines of Lutheran orthodoxy.―The best mystic of the Reformed church was J. Ph. Dutoit of Lausanne, A.D. 1721-1793, an enthusiastic admirer of Madame Guyon; he added to her quietist mysticism certain theosophical speculations on the original nature of Adam, the creation of woman, the fall, the necessity of the incarnation apart from the fall, the basing of the sinlessness of Christ upon the immaculate conception of his mother, etc. He gathered about him during his lifetime a large number of pious adherents, but after his death his theories were soon forgotten.

§ 171.10. The German Philosophy.―As Locke accomplished the descent from Bacon to deism and materialism, so Wolff effected the transition from Leibnitz to the popular philosophy. Kant, A.D. 1724-1804, saved philosophy from the baldness and self-sufficiency of Wolffianism, and pointed it to its proper element in the spiritual domain. Kant’s own philosophy stood wholly outside of Christianity, on the same platform with rationalistic theology. But by deeper digging in the soil it unearthed many a precious nugget, of whose existence the vulgar rationalism had never dreamed, without any intention of becoming a schoolmaster to lead to Christ. Kant showed the impossibility of a knowledge of the supernatural by means of pure reason, but admitted the ideas of God, freedom, and immortality as postulates of the practical reason and as constituting the principle of all religion, whose only content is the moral law. Christianity and the Bible are to remain the basis of popular instruction, but are to be expounded only in an ethical sense. While in sympathy with rationalism, he admits its baldness and self-sufficiency. His keen criticism of the pure reason, the profound knowledge of human weakness and corruption shown in his doctrine of radical evil, his categorical imperative of the moral law, were well fitted to awaken in more earnest minds a deep distrust of themselves, a modest estimate of the boasted excellences of their age, and a feeling that Christianity could alone meet their necessities.―F. H. Jacobi, A.D. 1743-1819, “with the heart a Christian, with the understanding a pagan,” as he characterized himself, took religion out of the region of mere reason into the depths of the universal feelings of the soul, and so awakened a positive aspiration.―J. G. Fichte, A.D. 1762-1814, transformed Kantianism, to which he at first adhered, into an idealistic science of knowledge, in which only the ego that posits itself appears as real, and the non-ego, only by its being posited by the ego; and thus the world and nature are only a reflex of the mind. But when, accused of atheism in A.D. 1798, he was expelled from his position in Jena, he changed his views, rushing from the verge of atheism into a mysticism approaching to Christianity. In his “Guide to a Blessed Life,” A.D. 1806, he delivered religion from being a mere servant to morals, and sought the blessedness of life in the loving surrender of one’s whole being to the universal Spirit, the full expression of which he found in John’s Gospel. Pauline Christianity, on the other hand, with its doctrine of sin and redemption, seemed to him a deterioration, and Christ Himself only the most complete representative of the incarnation of God repeated in all ages and in every pious man.―In the closing years of the century, Schelling brought forward his theory of identity, which was one of the most powerful instruments in introducing a new era.521

§ 171.11. The German National Literature.―When the powerful strain of the evangelical church hymn had well-nigh expired in the feeble lispings of Gellert’s sacred poetry, Klopstock began to chant the praises of the Messiah in a higher strain. But the pathos of his odes met with no response, and his “Messiah,” of which the first three cantos appeared in A.D. 1748, though received with unexampled enthusiasm, could do nothing to exorcise the spirit of unbelief, and was more praised than read. The theological standpoint of Lessing, A.D. 1729-1781, is set forth in one of his letters to his brother. “I despise the orthodox even more than you do, only I despise the clergy of the new style even more. What is the new-fashioned theology of those shallow pates compared with orthodoxy but as dung-water compared with dirty water? On this point we are at one, that our old religious system is false; but I cannot say with you that it is a patchwork of bunglers and half philosophers. I know nothing in the world upon which human ingenuity has been more subtly exercised than upon it. That religious system which is now offered in place of the old is a patchwork of bunglers and half philosophers.” He is offended at men hanging the concerns of eternity on the spider’s thread of external evidences, and so he was delighted to hurl the Wolfenbüttel “Fragments” at the heads of theologians and the Hamburg pastor Goeze, whom he loaded with contumely and scorn. Thoroughly characteristic too is the saying in the “Duplik:” That if God holding in his right hand all truth, and in his left hand the search after truth, subject to error through all eternity, were to offer him his choice, he would humbly say, “Father the left, for pure truth is indeed for thee alone.” In his “Nathan” only Judaism and Mohammedanism are represented by truly noble and ideal characters, while the chief representative of Christianity is a gloomy zealot, and the conclusion of the parable is that all three rings are counterfeit. In another work he views revelation as one of the stages in “The Education of the Human Race,” which loses its significance as soon as its purpose is served. In familiar conversation with Jacobi he frankly declared his acceptance of the doctrine of Spinoza: Ἓν καὶ πᾶν.522 Wieland, A.D. 1733-1813, soon turned from his youthful zeal for ecclesiastical orthodoxy to the popular philosophy of the cultured man of the world. Herder, A.D. 1744-1803, with his enthusiastic appreciation of the poetical contents of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament, was not slow to point out the insipidity of its ordinary treatment. Goethe, A.D. 1749-1832, profoundly hated the vandalism of neology, delighted in “The Confessions of a Fair Soul” (§ 172, 2), had in earlier years sympathy with the Herrnhuters, but in the full intellectual vigour of his manhood thought he had no need of Christianity, which offended him by its demand for renunciation of self and the world. Schiller, A.D. 1759-1805, enthusiastically admiring everything noble, beautiful and good, misunderstood Christianity, and introduced into the hearts of the German people Kantian rationalism clothed in rich poetic garb. His lament on the downfall of the gods of Greece, even if not so intended by the poet himself, told not so much against orthodox Christianity as against poverty-stricken deism, which banished the God of Christianity from the world and set in his place the dead forces of nature. And if indeed he really thought that for religion’s sake he should confess to no religion, he has certainly in many profoundly Christian utterances given unconscious testimony to Christianity.―The Jacobi philosophy of feeling found poetic interpreters in Jean Paul Richter, A.D. 1763-1825, and Hebel, died A.D. 1826, in whom we find the same combination of pious sentiment which is drawn toward Christianity and the sceptical understanding which allied itself to the revolt against the common orthodoxy. J. H. Voss, a rough, powerful Dutch peasant, who in his “Luise” sketched the ideal of a brave rationalistic country parson, and, with the inexorable rigour of an inquisitor, hunted down the night birds of ignorance and oppression. But alongside of those children of the world stood two genuine sons of Luther, Matthias Claudius, A.D. 1740-1815, and J. G. Hamann, A.D. 1730-1788, the “Magus of the North” and the Elijah of his age, of whom Jean Paul said that his commas were planetary systems and his periods solar systems, to whom the philosopher Hemsterhuis erected in the garden of Princess Gallitzin a tablet with the inscription: “To the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks foolishness.” With them may also be named two noble sons of the Reformed church, the physiognomist Lavater, A.D. 1741-1801, and the devout dreamer, Jung-Stilling, A.D. 1740-1817. The famous historian, John von Müller, A.D. 1752-1809, well deserves mention here, who more than any previous historian made Christ the centre and summit of all times; and also the no less famous statesman C. F. von Moser, the most German of the Germans of this century, who, with noble Christian heroism, in numerous political and patriotic tracts, battled against the prevailing social and political vices of his age.