Church History Part 9

II. Protestantism in General.(82)

-- 176. Rationalism and Pietism

At the beginning of the century rationalism was generally prevalent, but philosophy and literature soon weakened its foundations, and the war of independence moved the hearts of the people toward the faith of their fathers. Pietism entered the lists against rationalism, and the Halle controversy of A.D. 1830 marked the crisis of the struggle. The rationalists were compelled to make appeal to the people by popular agitators. During A.D. 1840 they managed to found several "free churches,"

which, however, had for the most part but a short and unprosperous existence. They were more successful in A.D. 1860 with the _Protestantenverein_ as the instrument of their propaganda (-- 180).

1. The old _Rationalism_ was attacked by the disciples of Hegel and Sch.e.l.ling, and in A.D. 1834 Rohr of Weimar found Hase of Jena as keen an opponent as any pietist or orthodox controversialist. That recognised leader of the old rationalists had coolly attempted to subst.i.tute a new and rational form of doctrine, wors.h.i.+p, and const.i.tution for the antiquated formularies of the Reformation, and drew down upon himself the rebuke even of those who sympathized with him in his doctrinal views.-In A.D. 1817 Claus Harms of Kiel, on the occasion of the Reformation centenary, opened an attack upon those who had fallen away from the faith of their fathers, by the publication of ninety-five new theses, recalling attention to Luther's almost forgotten doctrines. In A.D. 1827 Aug. Hahn in an academical discussion at Leipzig maintained that the rationalists should be expelled from the church, and Hengstenberg started his _Evangelische Kirchenzeitung_. The jurist Von Gerlach in A.D. 1830 charged Gesenius and Wegscheider of Halle with open contempt of Christian truth, and called for State interference. In all parts of Germany, amid the opposition of scientific theologians and the scorn of philosophers, pietism made way against rationalism, so that even men of culture regarded it as a reproach to be reckoned among the rationalists. Unbelief, however, was widespread among the ma.s.ses. When Sintenis, preacher in Magdeburg in A.D. 1840, declared the wors.h.i.+p of Christ superst.i.tious, and was reprimanded by the consistory, his neighbours, the pastors Uhlich and Konig, founded the society of the "Friends of Light," whose a.s.sembly at Kothen then was attended by thousands of clergymen and laymen. In one of these a.s.semblies in A.D. 1844, Wislicenus of Halle, by starting the question, Whether the Scriptures or the reason is to be regarded as the standard of faith? shattered the illusion that rationalism still occupied the platform of the church and Scripture. The left wing of the school of Schleiermacher took offence at the severe measures demanded by Hengstenberg and his party, and in 1846 issued in Berlin a manifesto with eighty-eight signatures against the paper pope of antiquated Reformation confessions and the inquisitorial proceedings of the _Kirchenzeitung_ party, as inimical to all liberty of faith and conscience, wis.h.i.+ng only to maintain firm hold of the truth that Jesus Christ is yesterday, to-day, and for ever the one and only ground of salvation. The Friends of Light, combining with the German Catholics and the Young Hegelians, founded Free churches at Halle, Konigsberg, and many other places. Their services and sermons void of religion, in which the Bible, the living Christ, and latterly even the personal G.o.d, had no place, but only the naked wors.h.i.+p of humanity, had temporary vitality imparted them by the revolutionary movements of A.D. 1848. This gave the State an excuse, long wished for, to interfere, and soon scarcely a trace of their churches was to be found.

2. _Pietism_ had not been wholly driven out of the evangelical church during the period of ecclesiastical impoverishment, but, purified from many eccentric excesses, and seeking refuge and support for the most part by attaching itself to the community of the Moravian Brethren, it had, even in Wurttemberg, established itself independently and in an essentially theosophical-chiliastic spirit. There too a kind of spiritualism was introduced by the physician and poet Justin Kerner of Weinsberg, and the philosopher Eschenmayer of Tubingen, with spirit revelations from above and below. Amid the religious movements of the beginning of the century Pietism gained a decided advantage. It took the form of a protest against the rationalism prevailing among the clergy. The earnest and devout sought spiritual nourishment at conventicles and so-called _Stunden_ addressed by laymen, mostly of the working cla.s.s, well acquainted with Scripture and works in practical divinity. Persecuted by the irreligious mob, the rationalist clergy, and sometimes by the authorities, they by-and-by secured representatives among the younger clergy and in the university chairs, and carried on vigorous missions at home and abroad. This pietism was distinctly evangelical and Protestant.

It did not oppose but endeavoured simply to restore the orthodoxy of the church confession. Yet it had many of the characteristics of the earlier pietism: over-estimation of the invisible to the disparagement of the visible church, of sanctification over justification, a tendency to chiliasm, etc.-Of no less importance in awakening the religious life throughout Germany, and especially in Switzerland, was the missionary activity of Madame de Krudener of Riga. This lady, after many years of a gay life, forsook the world, and began in A.D. 1814 her travels through Europe, preaching repentance, proclaiming the gospel message in the prisons, the foolishness of the cross to the wise of this world, and to kings and princes the majesty of Christ as King of kings. Wherever she went she made careless sinners tremble, and drew around her crowds of the anxious and spiritually burdened of every sort and station. Honoured by some as a saint, prophetess, and wonder-worker, ridiculed by others as a fool, persecuted as a dangerous fanatic or deceiver, driven from one country to another, she died in the Crimea in A.D. 1824.(83)

3. _The Konigsberg Religious Movement, _A.D._ 1835-1842._-The pious theosophist, J. H. Schonherr of Konigsberg, starting from the two primitive substances, fire and water, developed a system of theosophy in which he solved the riddles of the theogony and cosmogony, of sin and redemption, and harmonized revelation with the results of natural science.

At first influenced by these views, but from A.D. 1819 expressly dissenting from them, J. W. Ebel, pastor in the same city, gathered round him a group of earnest Christian men and women, Counts Kanitz and Finkenstein and their wives, Von Tippelskirch, afterwards preacher to the emba.s.sy at Rome, the theological professor H. Olshausen, the pastor Dr.

Diestel, and the medical doctor Sachs. After some years Olshausen and Tippelskirch withdrew, and dissensions arose which gave opportunity to the ecclesiastical authorities to order an investigation. Ebel was charged with founding a sect in which impure practices were encouraged. He was suspended in A.D. 1835, and at the instigation of the consistory a criminal process was entered upon against him. Dr. Sachs, who had been expelled from the society, was the chief and almost only witness, but vague rumours were rife about mystic rites and midnight orgies. Ebel and Diestel were deposed in A.D. 1839, and p.r.o.nounced incapable of holding any public office; and as a sect founder Ebel was sentenced to imprisonment in the common jail. On appeal to the court of Berlin, the deposition was confirmed, but all the rest of the sentence was quashed, and the parties were p.r.o.nounced capable of holding any public offices except those of a spiritual kind. Two reasons were alleged for deposition: (1) That Ebel, though not from the pulpit or in the public instruction of the young, yet in private religious teaching, had inculcated his theosophical views. (2) That both of them as married men had given expression to opinions injurious to the purity of married life. In general they were charged with spreading a doctrine which was in conflict with the principles of Christianity, and making such use of s.e.xual relations as was fitted to awaken evil thoughts in the minds of hearers. Ebel was p.r.o.nounced guiltless of sectarianism.-Kanitz wrote a book in defence, which represents Ebel and Diestel as martyrs to their pure Christian piety in an age hostile to every pietistic movement; whereas Von Wegnern, followed by Hepworth Dixon, in a romancing and frivolous style, lightly give currency to evil surmisings without offering any solid basis of proof. The whole affair still waits for a patient and unprejudiced investigation.(84)

4. _The Bender Controversy._-At the Luther centenary festival of A.D.

1883, Prof. Bender of Bonn declared that in the confessional writings of the Reformation evangelical truth had been obscured by Romish scholasticism, introduced by subtle jurists and sophistical theologians.

This called forth vigorous opposition, in which two of his colleagues, 38 theological students, 59 members of the Rhenish synod, took part.

General-Superintendent Baur, also, in a new year's address, inveighed against Bender's statements. On the other hand, 170 students of Bonn, 32 of these theological students, gave a grand ovation to the "brave vindicator of academic freedom." The Rhenish and Westphalian synods bewailed the offence given by Bender's address, and protested against its hard and unfounded attacks upon the confessional writings. At the Westphalian synod, Prof. Mangold said that the faculty was as much offended at the address as the church had been, but that its author, when he found how his words had created such feeling, sought in every way to repress the agitation, and had intended only to pa.s.s a scientific judgment on ecclesiastical and theological developments.

-- 177. Evangelical Union and Lutheran Separation.

From A.D. 1817 Prussia favoured and furthered the scheme for union between the two evangelical churches, and over this question a split arose in the camp of pietism. On the one hand were the confessionalists, determined to maintain what was distinctive in their symbols, and on the other, those who would sacrifice almost anything for union. For the most part both churches cordially seconded the efforts of the royal head of the church; only in Silesia did a Lutheran minority refuse to give way, which still maintains a separate existence.

1. _The Evangelical Union._-Circ.u.mstances favoured this movement. Both in the Lutheran and in the Reformed church comparatively little stress was laid upon distinctive confessional doctrines, and pietism and rationalism, for different reasons, had taught the relative unimportance of dogma. And so a general accord was given to the king's proposal, at the Reformation centenary of A.D. 1817, to fortify the Protestant church by means of a _Union_ of Lutherans and Calvinists. The new Book of Common Order of A.D.

1822, in the preparation of which the pious king, Frederick William III., had himself taken part, was indeed condemned by many as too high-church, even Catholicizing in its tendency. A revised edition in A.D. 1829, giving a wider choice of formularies, was legally authorized, and the union became an accomplished fact. There now existed in Prussia an evangelical national church with a common government and liturgy, embracing within it three different sections: a Lutheran, and a Reformed, which held to their distinctive doctrines, though not regarding these as a cause of separation, and a real union party, which completely abandoned the points of difference. But more and more the union became identified with doctrinal indifferentism and slighting of all church symbols, and those in whom the church feeling still prevailed were driven into opposition to the union (-- 193). The example of Prussia in sacking the union of the two churches was followed by Na.s.sau, Baden, Rhenish Bavaria, Anhalt, and to some extent in Hesse (---- 194, 196).

2. _The Lutheran Separation._-Though the union denied that there was any pa.s.sing over from one church to another, it practically declared the distinctive doctrines to be unessential, and so a.s.sumed the standpoint of the Reformed church. Steffens (-- 174, 3), the friend of Scheibel of Breslau, who had been deprived of his professors.h.i.+p in A.D. 1832 for his determined opposition to the union, and died in exile in 1843 (-- 195, 2), headed a reaction in favour of old Lutheranism. Several suspended clergymen in Silesia held a synod at Breslau in A.D. 1835, to organize a Lutheran party, but the civil authorities bore so heavily upon them that most of them emigrated to America and Australia. Guericke of Halle, secretly ordained pastor, ministered in his own house to a small company of Lutheran separatists, was deprived of his professors.h.i.+p in A.D. 1835, and only restored in A.D. 1840, after he had apologised for his conduct.

From A.D. 1838, the laws were modified by Frederick William IV., imprisoned clergymen were liberated in A.D. 1840, and a Lutheran church of Prussia independent of the national church was const.i.tuted by a general synod at Breslau in A.D. 1841, which received recognition by royal favour in A.D. 1845. The affairs are administered by a supreme council resident in Breslau, presided over by the distinguished jurist Huschke. Other separations were prevented by timely concessions on the part of the national church. The separatists claim 50,000 members, with fifty pastors and seven superintendents.

3. _The Separation within the Separation._-Differences arose among the separate Lutherans, especially over the question of the visible church.

The majority, headed by Huschke, defined the visible church as an organism of various offices and orders embracing even unbelievers, which is to be sifted by the divine judgment. To it belongs the office of church government, which is a _jus divinum_, and only in respect of outward form a _jus humanum_. The opposition understood visibility of the preaching of the word and dispensation of sacraments, and held that unbelievers belonged as little to the visible as to the invisible church. The distribution of orders and offices is a merely human arrangement without divine appointment, individual members are quite independent of one another, the church recognises no other government than that of the unfettered preaching of the word, and each pastor rules in his own congregation. Diedrich of Jabel and seven other pastors complained of the papistical a.s.sumptions of the supreme council, and at a general synod in A.D. 1860 refused to recognise the authority of that council, or of a majority of synods, and in A.D. 1861, along with their congregations, they formally seceded and const.i.tuted the so called Immanuel Synod.

-- 178. Evangelical Confederation.

The union had only added a third denomination to the two previously existing, and was the means of even further dissension and separation.

Thus the interests of Protestantism were endangered in presence of the unbelief within her own borders and the machinations of the ultramontane Catholics without. An attempt was therefore made in A.D. 1840 to combine the scattered Protestant forces, by means of confederation, for common work and conflict with common foes.

1. _The Gustavus Adolphus Society._-In A.D. 1832, on the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of the saviour of German Protestantism, on the motion of Superintendent Grossman of Leipzig, a society was formed for the help of needy Protestant churches, especially in Catholic districts. At first almost confined to Saxony, it soon spread over Germany, till only Bavaria down to A.D. 1849, and Austria down to A.D. 1860, were excluded by civil enactment from its operations. The ma.s.ses were attracted by the simplicity of its basis, which was simply opposition to Catholicism, and the demagogical Friends of Light soon found supremacy in its councils.

Because of opposition to the expulsion of Rupp, in A.D. 1846, as an apostate from the principle of protestantism, great numbers with church leanings seceded, and attempted to form a rival union in A.D. 1847. After recovering from the convulsions of A.D. 1848, under the wise guidance of Zimmermann of Darmstadt, the society regained a solid position. In A.D.

1883 it had 1,779 branches, besides 392 women's and 11 students' unions, and a revenue for the year of about 43,000.-The same feeling led to the erection of the _Luther Monument at Worms_. This work of genius, designed by Rietschel, and completed after his death in A.D. 1857 by his pupils, and inaugurated on 25th June, A.D. 1868, represents all the chief episodes in the Reformation history. It was erected at a cost of more than 20,000, raised by voluntary contributions, and the scheme proved so popular that there was a surplus of 2,000, which was devoted to the founding of bursaries for theological students.

2. _The Eisenach Conference._-The other German states borrowed the idea of confederation from Prussia and Wurttemberg. It took practical shape in the meetings of deputies at Eisenach, begun in A.D. 1852, and was held for a time yearly, and afterwards every second year, to consult together on matters of wors.h.i.+p, discipline and const.i.tution. Beyond ventilating such questions the conference yielded no result.

3. _The Evangelical Alliance._-An attempt was made in England, on the motion of Dr. Chalmers (-- 202, 7), at a yet more comprehensive confederation of all Protestant churches of all lands against the encroachments of popery and puseyism (-- 202, 2). After several preliminary meetings the first session of the _Evangelical Alliance_ was held in London in August, A.D. 1846. Its object was the fraternizing of all evangelical Christians on the basis of agreement upon the fundamental truths of salvation, the vindication and spread of this common faith, and contention for liberty of conscience and religious toleration. Nine articles were laid down as terms of members.h.i.+p: Belief in the inspiration of Scripture, in the Trinity, in the divinity of Christ, in original sin, in justification by faith alone, in the obligatoriness of the two sacraments, in the resurrection of the body, in the last judgment, and in the eternal blessedness of the righteous and the eternal condemnation of the unG.o.dly. It could thus include Baptists, but not Quakers. In A.D. 1855 it held its ninth meeting at the great Paris Industrial Exhibition as a sort of church exhibition, the representatives of different churches reporting on the condition of their several denominations. The tenth meeting, of A.D. 1857, was held in Berlin. The council of the Alliance, presided over by Sir Culling Eardley, presented an address to King Frederick William IV., in which it was said that they aimed a blow not only against the sadduceanism, but also against the pharisaism of the German evangelical church. The confessional Lutherans, who had opposed the Alliance, regarded this latter reference as directed against them. The king, however, received the deputation most graciously, while declaring that he entertained the brightest hopes for the future of the church, and urged cordial brotherly love among Christians. Though many distinguished confessionalists were members of the Alliance none of them put in an appearance. The members of the "Protestantenverein" (-- 180) would not take part because the articles were too orthodox. On the other hand, numerous representatives of pietism, unionism, Melanchthonianism, as well as Baptists, Methodists, and Moravians, crowded in from all parts, and were supported by the leading liberals in church and state. While there was endless talk about the oneness and differences of the children of G.o.d, about the universal priesthood, about the superiority of the present meeting over the c.u.menical councils of the ancient church, about the want of spiritual life in the churches, even where the theology of the confessions was professed, etc., with denunciations of half-Catholic Lutheranism and its sacramentarianism and officialism, and many a true and admirable statement of what the church's needs are, Merle d'Aubigne introduced discord by the hearty welcome which he accorded his friend Bunsen, which was intensified by the pa.s.sionate manner in which Krummacher reported upon it. The gracious royal reception of the members of the Alliance, at which Krummacher gave expression to his excited feelings in the words, "Your Majesty, we would all fall not at your feet, but on your neck!" was described by his brother, Dr. F. W. Krummacher, as a sensible prelude to the solemn scenes of the last judgment. Sir Culling Eardley declared, "There is no more the North Sea." Lord Shaftesbury said in London that with the Berlin a.s.sembly a new era had begun in the world's history; and others who had returned from it extolled it as a second Pentecost.

4. _The Evangelical Church Alliance._-After the revolution of A.D. 1848, the most distinguished theologians, clergymen and laymen well-affected toward the church, sought to bring about a confederation of the Lutheran, Reformed, United, and Moravian churches. When they held their second a.s.sembly at Wittenberg, A.D. 1849, many of the strict Lutherans had already withdrawn, especially those of Silesia. The Lutheran congress, held shortly before at Leipzig under the presidency of Harless, had p.r.o.nounced the confederation unsatisfactory. The political reaction in favour of the church had also taken away the occasion for such a confederation. Yet the yearly deliberations of this council on matters of practical church life did good service. An attempt made at the Berlin meeting of A.D. 1853 to have the _Augustana_ adopted as the church confession awakened keen opposition. At the Stuttgart meeting of A.D. 1857 there were violent debates on foreign missions and evangelical Catholicity between the representatives of confessional Lutheranism who had hitherto maintained connection with the confederation and the unionist majority.

The Lutherans now withdrew. The attempt made at the Berlin October a.s.sembly of A.D. 1871, amid the excitement produced by the glorious issue of the Franco-Prussian War and the founding of the new German empire with a Protestant prince, to draw into the confederation confessional Lutherans and adherents of the "Protestantenverein," in order to form a grand German Protestant national church, miscarried, and a meeting of the confederation in the old style met again at Halle in the following year. But it was now found that its day was past.

5. _The Evangelical League._-At a meeting of the Prussian evangelical middle party in autumn, 1886, certain members, "constrained by grief at the surrender of arms by the Prussian government in the _Kulturkampf_,"

gathered together for private conference, and resolved in defence of the threatened interests of the evangelical church to found an "Evangelical League" out of the various theological and ecclesiastical parties.

Prominent party leaders on both sides being admitted, a number of moderate representatives of all schools were invited to a consultative gathering at Erfurt. On January 15th, 1887, a call to join the members.h.i.+p of the league was issued. It was signed by distinguished men of the middle party, such as Beyschlag, Riehm of Halle, etc., moderate representatives of confessionalism and the positive union, such as Kawerau of Kiel, Fricke of Leipzig, Witte, Warneck, etc., and liberal theologians like Lipsius and Nippold of Jena, etc.; and it soon received the addition of about 250 names. It recognised Jesus Christ, as the only begotten Son of G.o.d, as the only means of salvation, and professed the fundamental doctrines of the Reformation. It represented the task of the League as twofold: on the one hand the defending at all points the interests of the evangelical church against the advancing pretensions of Rome, and, on the other hand, the strengthening of the communal consciousness of the Christian evangelical church against the cramping influence of party, as well as in opposition to indifferentism and materialism. For the accomplishment of this task the league organized itself under the control of a central board with subordinate branches over all Germany, each having a committee for representing its interests in the press, and with annual general a.s.semblies of all the members for common consultation and promulgating of decrees.

-- 179. Lutheranism, Melanchthonianism, and Calvinism.

Widespread as the favourable reception of the Prussian union had been, there were still a number of Lutheran states in which the Reformed church had scarcely any adherents, _e.g._ Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Mecklenburg, and Schleswig-Holstein; and the same might be said of the Baltic Provinces and of the three Scandinavian kingdoms. Also in Austria, France, and Russia the two denominations kept apart; and in Poland, the union of A.D.

1828 was dissolved in A.D. 1849 (-- 206, 3). The Lutheran confessional reaction in Prussia afforded stimulus to those who had thus stood apart.

In all lands, amid the conflict with rationalism, the confessional spirit both of Lutheran and Reformed became more and more p.r.o.nounced.

1. _Lutheranism within the Union._-After the Prussian State church had been undermined by the revolution of A.D. 1848, an unsuccessful attempt was made to have a pure Lutheran confessional church set up in its place.

At the October a.s.sembly in Berlin, in A.D. 1871, an ineffectual effort was made by the United Lutherans to co-operate with those who were unionists on principle. During the agitation caused by the May Laws (-- 197, 5) and the Sydow proceedings (-- 180, 4), the first general evangelical Lutheran conference was held in August, A.D. 1873, in Berlin. It a.s.sumed a moderate conciliatory tone toward the union, p.r.o.nounced the efforts of the "Protestantenverein" (-- 180) an apostasy from the fundamental doctrines of the gospel, bewailed the issuing of the May Laws, protested against their principles, but acknowledged the duty of obedience, and concluded an address to the emperor with a pet.i.tion on behalf of a democratic church const.i.tution and civil marriage.-The literary organs of the United Lutherans are the "_Evang. Kirchenzeitung_," edited by Hengstenberg, and now by Zockler, and the "_Allgem. konserv. Monatsschrift fur die christl.

Deutschl._," by Von Nathusius.

2. _Lutheranism outside of the Union._-A general Lutheran conference was held under the presidency of Harless, in July, A.D. 1868, at which the sentiments of Kliefoth, denouncing a union under a common church government without agreement about doctrine and sacraments, met with almost universal acceptance. At the Leipzig gathering of A.D. 1870, Luthardt urged the duty of firmly maintaining doctrinal unity in the Lutheran church. The a.s.sembly of the following year agreed to recognise the emperor as head of the church only in so far as he did not interfere with the dispensation of word and sacrament, admitted the legality of a merely civil marriage but maintained that despisers of the ecclesiastical ordinance should be subjected to discipline, that communion fellows.h.i.+p is to be allowed neither to Reformed nor unionists if fixed residents, but to unionists faithful to the confession if temporary residents, even without expressly joining their party; and also with reference to the October a.s.sembly of the previous year the union of the two Protestant churches of Germany under a mixed system of church government was condemned. The third general conference of Nuremburg, in A.D. 1879, dealt with the questions: Whether the church should be under State control or free? Whether the schools should be denominational or not? and in both cases decided in favour of the latter alternative.-Its literary organ is Luthardt's "_Allg.

Luth. Kirchenzeitung_."

3. _Melancthonianism and Calvinism._-The Reformed church of Germany has maintained a position midway between Lutheranism and Calvinism very similar to the later Melanchthonianism. Ebrard indeed sought to prove that strict predestinarianism was only an excrescence of the Reformed system, whereas Schweitzer, purely in the interests of science (-- 182, 9, 16), has shown that it is its all-conditioning nerve and centre, to which it owes its wonderful vitality, force, and consistency. Heppe of Marburg went still further than Ebrard in his attempt to combine Lutheranism and Calvinism in a _Melancthonian church_ (-- 182, 16), by seeking to prove that the original evangelical church of Germany was Melanchthonian, that after Luther's death the fanatics, more Lutheran than Luther, founded the so-called Lutheran church and completed it by issuing the Formula of Concord; that the Calvinizing of the Palatinate, Hesse, Brandenburg, Anhalt was only a reaction against hyper- or pseudo-Lutheranism, and that the restoration of the original Melanchthonianism, and the modern union movement were only the completion of that restoration. Schenkel's earlier contributions to Reformation history moved in a similar direction. Ebrard also, in A.D. 1851, founded a "_Ref. Kirchenzeitung_."-But even the genuine strict _Calvinism_ had zealous adherents during this century, not only in Scotland (-- 202, 7) and the Netherlands (-- 200, 2), but also in Germany, especially in the Wupperthal. G. D. Krummacher, from A.D. 1816 pastor in Elberfeld, and his nephew F. W. Krummacher of Barmen, were long its chief representatives. When Prussia sought in A.D. 1835 to force the union in the Wupperthal, and threatened the opposing Reformed pastors with deposition, the revolt here proved almost as serious as that of the Lutherans in Silesia. The pastors, with the majority of their people agreed at last to the union only in so far as it was in accordance with the Reformed mode of wors.h.i.+p. But a portion, embracing their most important members, stood apart and refused all conciliation. The royal Toleration Act of A.D. 1847 allowed them to form an independent congregation at Elberfeld with Dr. Kohlbrugge as their minister. This divine, formerly Lutheran pastor at Amsterdam, was driven out owing to a contest with a rationalising colleague, and afterwards, through study of Calvin's writings, became an ardent Calvinist. This body, under the name of the Dutch Reformed church, const.i.tuted the one anti-unionist, strictly Calvinistic denomination in Prussia.-The De c.o.c.k movement (-- 200, 2), out of which in A.D. 1830 the separate "Chr. Ref. Church of Holland" sprang, spread over the German frontiers and led to the founding there of the "Old Ref. Church of East Frisia and Bentheim," which has now nine congregations and seven pastors.-At the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in New York in A.D. 1873, the Presbyterians present resolved to convoke an c.u.menical Reformed council. A conference in London in A.D. 1875 brought to maturity the idea of a Pan-Presbyterian a.s.sembly. The council is to meet every third year; the members recognise the supreme authority of the Old and New Testament in matters of faith and practice, and accept the consensus of all the Reformed confessions. The first "_General Presbyterian Council_"

met in Edinburgh from 3rd to 10th July, A.D. 1877, about 300 delegates being present. The proceedings consisted in unmeasured glorification of presbyterianism "drawn from the whole Scripture, from the seventy elders of the Pentateuch to the twenty-four elders of the Apocalypse." The second council met at Philadelphia in A.D. 1880, and boasted that it represented forty millions of Presbyterians. It appointed a committee to draw up a consensus of the confessions of all Reformed churches. The third council of 305 members met at Belfast in A.D. 1884, and after a long debate declined, by a great majority, to adopt a strictly formulated consensus of doctrine as uncalled for and undesirable, and by the reception of the c.u.mberland Presbyterians they even surrendered the Westminster Confession (-- 155, 1) as the only symbol qualifying for members.h.i.+p of the council.

The fourth council met in London in A.D. 1887.-An c.u.menical Methodist congress was held in London in A.D. 1881, attended by 400 delegates.

-- 180. The "Protestantenverein."

Rationalists of all descriptions, adherents of Baur's school, as well as disciples of Hegel and Schleiermacher of the left wing, kept far off from every evangelical union. But the common negation of the tendencies characterizing the evangelical confederations and the common endeavour after a free, democratic, non-confessional organization of the German Protestant church, awakened in them a sense of the need of combination and co-operation. While in North Germany this feeling was powerfully expressed from A.D. 1854, in the able literary organ the "_Protest.

Kirchenzeitung_," in South Germany, with Heidelberg as a centre and Dean Zittel as chief agitator, local "_Protestantenvereine_" were formed, which combined in a united organization in the a.s.sembly of Frankfort, A.D. 1863.

After long debates the northern and southern societies were joined in one.

In June, A.D. 1865, the first general Protestant a.s.sembly was held at Eisenach, and the nature, motive, and end of the a.s.sociations were defined. To these a.s.semblies convened from year to year members of the society crowded from all parts of Germany in order to encourage one another to persevere in spreading their views by word and pen, and to take steps towards the founding of branch a.s.sociations for disseminating among the people a Christianity which renounces the miraculous and sets aside the doctrines of the church.

1. _The Protestant a.s.sembly._-The first general German Protestant a.s.sembly, composed of 400 clerical and lay notabilities, met at Eisenach in A.D. 1865, under the presidency of the jurist Bluntschli of Heidelberg and the chief court preacher Schwarz of Gotha. A peculiar l.u.s.tre was given to the meeting by the presence of Rothe of Heidelberg. Of special importance was Schwarz's address on "The Limits of Doctrinal Freedom in Protestantism," which he sought not in the confession, not in the authority of the letter of Scripture, not even in certain so called fundamental articles, but in the one religious moral truth of Christianity, the gospel of love and the divine fatherhood as Christ taught it, expounded it in his life and sealed it by his death. In Berlin, Osnabruck, and Leipzig, the churches were refused for services according to the _Protestantenverein_. In A.D. 1868 fifteen heads of families in Heidelberg pet.i.tioned the ecclesiastical council to grant them the use of one of the city churches where a believing clergyman might conduct service in the old orthodox fas.h.i.+on. This request was refused by fifty votes against four. Baumgarten denounced this intolerance, and declared that unless repudiated by the union it would be a most serious stain upon its reputation. In A.D. 1877 he publicly withdrew from the society.

2. _The _"Protestantenverein"_ Propaganda._-The views of the union were spread by popular lectures and articles in newspapers and magazines. The "_Protestanten-Bibel_," edited by Schmidt and Holtzendorff in A.D. 1872, of which an English translation has been published, giving the results of New Testament criticism, "laid the axe at the root of the dogmatics and confessionalism," and proved that "we are still Christians though our conception of Christianity diverges in many points from that of the second century, and we proclaim a Christianity without miracles and in accordance with the modern theory of the universe." The success of such efforts to spread the broad theology has been greatly over-estimated. Enthusiastic partisans of the union claimed to have the whole evangelical world at their back, while Holtzendorff boasted that they had all thoughtful Germans with them.