Church History Part 5

12. _In Italy_ the most important contributions were in the department of history. _Mansi_, in his collection of Acts of Councils in thirty-one vols. folio, A.D. 1759 ff., and _Muratori_, in his "_Scriptores Rer.

Italic._," in twenty-eight vols., and "_Antiquitt. Ital. Med. aevi_," in six vols., show brilliant learning and admirable impartiality. _Ugolino_, in a gigantic work, "_Thesaurus Antiquitt. ss._," thirty-four folio vols., A.D. 1744 ff., gathers together all that is most important for biblical archaeology. The three _a.s.semani_, uncle and two nephews, cultured Maronites in Rome, wrought in the hitherto unknown field of Syrian literature and history. The uncle, Joseph Simon, librarian at the Vatican, wrote "_Bibliotheca Orientalis_," in four vols., A.D. 1719 ff., and edited Ephraem's works in six vols. The elder nephew, Stephen Evodius, edited the "_Acta ss. Martyrum Orient. et Occid._," in two vols., and the younger, Joseph Aloysius, a "_Codex Liturgicus Eccles. Univ._," in thirteen vols.

Among dogmatical works the "_Theologia hist.-dogm.-scholastica_," in eight vols. folio, Rome, 1739, of the Augustinian _Berti_ deserves mention.

_Zaccaria_ of Venice, in some thirty vols., proved an indefatigable opponent of Febronianism, Josephinism, and such-like movements, and a careful editor of older Catholic works. The Augustinian _Florez_, died A.D. 1773, did for _Spain_ what Muratori had done for Italy in making collections of ancient writers, which, with the continuations of the brethren of his order, extended to fifty folio volumes.-In _Germany_ the greatest Catholic theologian of the century was _Amort_. Of his seventy treatises the most comprehensive is the "_Theologia Eclectica, Moralis et Scholastica_," in four vols. folio, A.D. 1752. He conducted a conciliatory polemic against the Protestants, contested the mysticism of Maria von Agreda (-- 156, 5), and vigorously controverted superst.i.tion, miracle-mongering, and all manner of monkish extravagances. To the time of Joseph II. belongs the liberal, lat.i.tudinarian supernaturalist _Jahn_ of Vienna, whose "Introduction to the Old Testament," and "Biblical Antiquities" did much to raise the standard of biblical learning. For his anti-clericalism he was deprived of his professorship in A.D. 1805, and died in A.D. 1816 a canon in Vienna. To this century also belongs the greatly blessed literary labours of the accomplished mystic, _Sailer_, beginning at Ingolstadt in A.D. 1777, and continued at Dillingen from A.D.

1784. Deprived in A.D. 1794 of his professorship on pretence of his favouring the Illuminati, it was not till A.D. 1799 that he was allowed to resume his academic work in Ingolstadt and Landshut. By numerous theological, ascetical, and philosophical tracts, but far more powerfully by his lectures and personal intercourse, he sowed the seeds of rationalism, which bore fruit in the teachings of many Catholic universities, and produced in the hearts of many pupils a warm and deep and at the same time a gentle and conciliatory Catholicism, which heartily greeted, even in pious Protestants, the foundations of a common faith and life. Compare -- 187, 1.-Continuation, -- 191.

13. _The German-Catholic Contribution to the Illumination._-The Catholic church of Germany was also carried away with the current of "the Illumination," which from the middle of the century had overrun Protestant Germany. While the exorcisms and cures of Father Ga.s.sner in Regensburg were securing signal triumphs to Catholicism, though these were of so dubious a kind that the bishops, the emperor, and finally even the curia, found it necessary to check the course of the miracle worker, _Weishaupt_, professor of canon law in Ingolstadt, founded, in A.D. 1776, the secret society of the _Illuminati_, which spread its deistic ideas of culture and human perfectibility through Catholic South Germany. Though inspired by deadly hatred of the Jesuits, Weishaupt imitated their methods, and so excited the suspicion of the Bavarian government, which, in A.D. 1785, suppressed the order and imprisoned and banished its leaders.-Catholic theology too was affected by the rationalistic movement. But that the power of the church to curse still survived was proved in the case of the Mainz professor, _Laurence Isenbiehl_, who applied the pa.s.sage about Immanuel, in Isaiah vii. 14, not to the mother of Christ, but to the wife of the prophet, for which he was deposed in A.D. 1774, and on account of his defective knowledge of theology was sent back for two years to the seminary. When in A.D. 1778 he published a learned treatise on the same theme, he was put in prison. The pope too condemned his exposition as pestilential, and Isenbiehl "as a good Catholic" retracted. _Steinbuhler_, a young jurist of Salzburg, having been sentenced to death in A.D. 1781 for some contemptuous words about the Catholic ceremonies, was pardoned, but soon after died from the ill-treatment he had received. The rationalistic movement got hold more and more of the Catholic universities. In Mainz, _Dr. Blau_, professor of dogmatics, promulgated with impunity the doctrine that in the course of centuries the church has often made mistakes. In the Austrian universities, under the protection of the Josephine edict, a whole series of Catholic theologians ventured to make cynically free criticisms, especially in the field of church history.

At Bonn University, founded in A.D. 1786 by the Elector-archbishop of Cologne, there were teachers like _Hedderich_, who sportively described himself on the t.i.tle page of a dissertation as "_jam quater Romae d.a.m.natus_," _Dereser_, previously a Carmelite monk, who followed Eichhorn in his exposition of the biblical miracles, and _Eulogius Schneider_, who, after having made Bonn too hot for him by his theological and poetical recklessness, threw himself into the French Revolution, for two years marched through Alsace with the guillotine as one of the most dreaded monsters, and finally, in A.D. 1794, was made to lay his own head on the block.-At the Austrian universities, under the protection of the tolerant Josephine legislation, a whole series of Catholic theologians, Royko, Wolff, Dannenmayr, Michl, etc., criticised, often with cynical plainness, the proceedings and condition of the Catholic church. To this cla.s.s also, in the first stage of his remarkably changeful and eventful career, belongs Ign. Aur. _Fessler_. From 1773, a Capuchin in various cloisters, last of all in Vienna, he brought down upon himself the bitter hatred of his order by making secret reports to the emperor about the ongoings that prevailed in these convents. He escaped their enmity by his appointment, in 1784, as professor of the oriental languages and the Old Testament at Lemberg, but was in 1787 dismissed from this office on account of various charges against his life, teaching, and poetical writings. In Silesia, in 1791, he went over to the Protestant church, joined the freemasons, held at Berlin the post of a councillor in ecclesiastical and educational affairs for the newly won Catholic provinces of Poland, and, after losing this position in consequence of the events of the war of 1806, found employment in Russia in 1809; first, as professor of oriental languages at St. Petersburg, and afterwards, when opposed and persecuted there also on suspicion of entertaining atheistical views, as member of a legal commission in South Russia. Meanwhile having gradually moved from a deistical to a vague mystical standpoint, he was in 1819 made superintendent and president of the evangelical consistory at Saratov, with the t.i.tle of an evangelical bishop, and after the abolition of that office in 1833 he became general superintendent at St. Petersburg, where he died in 1839. His romances and tragedies as well as his theological and religious writings are now forgotten, but his "Reminiscences of his Seventy Years' Pilgrimage," published in 1824, are still interesting, and his "History of Hungary," in ten volumes, begun in 1812, is of permanent value.

14. _The French Contribution to the Illumination._-The age of Louis XIV., with the morals of its Jesuit confessors, the l.u.s.t, bigotry, and hypocrisy of its court, its dragonnades and Bastille polemic against revivals of a living Christianity among Huguenots, mystics, and Jansenists, its prophets of the Cevennes and Jansenist convulsionists, etc., called forth a spirit of freethinking to which Catholicism, Jansenism, and Protestantism appeared equally ridiculous and absurd. This movement was essentially different from English deism. The principle of the English movement was _common sense_, the universal moral consciousness in man, with the powerful weapon of rational criticism, maintaining the existence of an ideal and moral element in men, and holding by the more general principles of religion. French naturalism, on the other hand, was a philosophy of the _esprit_, that essentially French lightheartedness which laughed away everything of an ideal sort with scorn and wit. Yet there was an intimate relationship between the two. The philosophy of common sense came to France, and was there travestied into a philosophy _d'esprit_. The organ of this French philosophy was the "_Encyclopedie_" of Diderot and D'Alembert, and its most brilliant contributors, Montesquieu, Helvetius, Voltaire, and Rousseau. _Montesquieu_, A.D. 1689-1755, whose "_Esprit des Lois_" in two years pa.s.sed through twenty-two editions, wrote the "_Lettres Persanes_," in which with biting wit he ridiculed the political, social, and ecclesiastical condition of France. _Helvetius_, A.D.

1715-1771, had his book, "_De l'Esprit_," burnt in A.D. 1759 by order of parliament, and was made to retract, but this only increased his influence. _Voltaire_, A.D. 1694-1778, although treating in his writings of philosophical and theological matters, gives only a hash of English deism spiced with frivolous wit, showing the same tendency in his historical and poetical works, giving a certain eloquence to the commonest and filthiest subjects, as in his "_Pucelle_" and "_Candide_." He obtained, however, an immense influence that extended far past his own days. To the same cla.s.s belongs _Jean Jacques Rousseau_, A.D. 1712-1778, belonging to the Roman Catholic church only as a pervert for seventeen years in the middle of his life. Of a n.o.bler nature than Voltaire, he yet often sank into deep immorality, as he tells without reserve, but also without any hearty penitence, in his _Confessions_. His whole life was taken up with the conflict for his ideals of freedom, nature, human rights, and human happiness. In his "_Contrat Social_" of A.D. 1762, he commends a return to the natural condition of the savage as the ideal end of man's endeavour. His "_Emile_" of A.D. 1761 is of epoch-making importance in the history of education, and in it he eloquently sets forth his ideal of a natural education of children, while he sent all his own (natural) children to a foundling hospital.-The physician _De la Mettrie_, who died at the court of Frederick the Great in A.D. 1751, carried materialism to its most extreme consequences, and the German-Frenchman Baron _Holbach_, A.D. 1723-1789, wrote the "_Systeme de la Nature_," which in two years pa.s.sed through eighteen editions.(51)

15. These seeds bore fruit in the _French Revolution_. Voltaire's cry "_ecrasez l'infame_," was directed against the church of the Inquisition, the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew, and the dragonnades, and Diderot had exclaimed that the world's salvation could only come when the last king had been strangled with the entrails of the last priest. The const.i.tutional National a.s.sembly, A.D. 1789-1791, wished to set aside, not the faith of the people, but only the hierarchy, and to save the state from a financial crisis by the goods of the church. All cloisters were suppressed and their property sold. The number of bishops was reduced to one half, all ecclesiastical offices without a pastoral sphere were abolished, the clergy elected by the people paid by the state, and liberty of belief recognised as an inalienable right of man. The legislative National a.s.sembly, A.D. 1791, 1792, made all the clergy take an oath to the const.i.tution on pain of deposition. The pope forbad it under the same threat. Then arose a schism. Some 40,000 priests who refused the oath mostly quitted the country. Avignon (-- 110, 4) had been incorporated in the French territory. The terrorist National Convention, A.D. 1792-1795, which brought the king to the scaffold on January 21st, A.D. 1793, and the queen on October 16th, prohibited all Christian customs, on 5th October abolished the Christian reckoning of time, and on November 7th Christianity itself, laid waste 2,000 churches and converted _Notre Dame_ into a _Temple de la Raison_, where a ballet-dancer represented the G.o.ddess of reason. Stirred up by the fanatical baron, "Anacharsis" Cloots, "the apostle of human freedom and the personal enemy of Jesus Christ," the Archbishop Gobel, now in his sixtieth year, came forward, proclaiming his whole past life a fraud, and owning no other religion than that of freedom. On the other hand, the n.o.ble Bishop Gregoire of Blois, the first priest to support the const.i.tution, who voted for the abolition of royalty, but not the execution of the king, was not driven by the terrorism of the convention, of which he was a member, from a bold and open profession of Christianity, appearing in his clerical dress and unweariedly protesting against the vandalism of the a.s.sembly.

Robespierre(52) himself said, "_Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer_," pa.s.sed in A.D. 1794 the resolution, _Le peuple francais reconnait l'etre supreme et l'immortalite de l'ame_, and issued an order to celebrate the _fete de l'etre supreme_. The Directory, A.D. 1795-1799, restored indeed Christian worship, but favoured the deistical sect of the _Theophilanthropists_, whose high-swelling phrases soon called forth public scorn, while in A.D. 1802 the first consul banished their worship from all churches. But meanwhile, in A.D. 1798, in order to nullify the opposition of the pope, French armies had overrun Italy and proclaimed the Church States a Roman Republic. _Pius VI._ was taken prisoner to France, and died in A.D. 1799 at Valence under the rough treatment of the French, without having in the least compromised himself or his office.(53)

16. _The Pseudo-Catholics._-(1) _The Abrahamites or Bohemian Deists._ When Joseph II. issued his edict of toleration in A.D. 1781, a sect which had hitherto kept itself secret under the mask of Catholicism made its appearance in the Bohemian province of Pardubitz. The Abrahamites were descended from the old Hussites, and professed to follow the faith of Abraham before his circ.u.mcision. Their fundamental doctrine was deistic monotheism, and of the Bible they accepted only the ten commandments and the Lord's Prayer. But as they would neither attend the Jewish synagogue nor the churches of any existing Christian sect, the emperor refused them religious toleration, drove them from their homes, and settled them in A.D. 1783 on the eastern frontiers. Many of them, in consequence of persecution, returned to the Catholic church, and even those who remained steadfast did not transmit their faith to their children.

17. (2) _The Frankists._-Jacob Leibowicz, the son of a Jewish rabbi in Galicia, attached himself in Turkey, where he a.s.sumed the name of _Frank_, to the Jewish sect of the Sabbatarians, who, repudiating the Talmud, adopted the cabbalistic book Sohar as the source of their more profound religious teaching. Afterwards in Podolia, which was then still Polish, he was esteemed among his numerous adherents as a Messiah sent of G.o.d.

Bitterly hated by the rabbinical Jews, and accused of indulging in vile orgies in their a.s.semblies, many of those Soharists were thrown into prison at the instigation of Bishop Dembowski of Kaminetz. But when they turned and accused their opponents of most serious crimes against Christendom, and, at Frank's suggestion, pointing out what they alleged to be an ident.i.ty between the book Sohar and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and incarnation, made it known that they were inclined to become converts, they won the favour of the bishop. He arranged a disputation between the two parties, p.r.o.nounced the Talmudists beaten, confiscated all available copies of the Talmud, dragged them through the streets tied to the tail of a horse, and then burnt them. Dembowski, however, died soon after in A.D. 1757, and the cathedral chapter expelled the Soharists from Kaminetz. They appealed to King Augustus III. and to Archbishop Lubienski of Lemberg, renewing their profession of faith in the Trinity, and promising to be subject to the pope. In a disputation with the Talmudists lasting three days they sought to prove that the Talmudists used Christian blood in their services, which afterwards led to the death of five of the Jews thus accused. By Frank's advice, who took part neither in this nor in the former disputation, but was the secret leader of the whole movement, they now formally applied for admission into the Catholic church, and their leader now entered Lemberg in great state. They actually submitted to be thus driven by him, and 1,000 of his adherents were baptized at Lemberg. Frank was baptized at Warsaw under the name of _Joseph_, the king himself acting as sponsor. In all Catholic journals this event was celebrated as a signal triumph for the Catholic church. But Frank among his own disciples continued to play the _role_ of a miracle-working Messiah. Hence in A.D. 1760 the Inquisition stepped in. Some of his followers were imprisoned, others banished, and he himself as a heresiarch condemned to confinement for life with hard labour, from which after thirteen years he was liberated on the first part.i.tion of Poland in A.D.

1772, through the favour of Catherine II., who employed him as secret political agent. Feeling that his life was insecure in Poland, he went to Moravia, and at Brunn reorganized his numerous and attached followers into a well-knit society, by which he was revered as the incarnation of the Deity, and his beautiful daughter Eva, brought up by her n.o.ble G.o.dmother, as "the divine Emuna." How he was permitted, under the protection of the Catholic church, to continue here for sixteen years, playing the _role_ of a Messiah, and to ama.s.s such wealth as enabled him to purchase, in A.D.

1788, from the impoverished prince of Homburg-Birstein his castle at Offenbach, with all the privileges attached to it, is an insoluble mystery. He now called himself Baron von Frank, formed with his followers from Moravia and Poland a brilliant establishment, which outwardly adhered to the Roman Catholic church, although he very seldom attended the Catholic services. Frank died in A.D. 1791, and was buried with great pomp, but without the presence of the Catholic clergy. His daughter Eva was able to maintain the extravagant establishment of her father for twenty-six years, when the debt resting on the castle reached three million florins. At last, in A.D. 1817, the long-threatened catastrophe occurred. Eva died suddenly, and a coffin said to contain her body was actually with all decorum laid in the grave.

-- 166. The Oriental Churches.

The oppressed condition of the orthodox church in the Ottoman empire continued unchanged. It had a more vigorous development in Russia, where its ascendency was unchallenged. Although the Russian church, from the time of its obtaining an independent patriarchate at Moscow, in A.D. 1589, was const.i.tutionally emanc.i.p.ated from the mother church of Constantinople, it yet continued in close religious affinity with it. This was intensified by the adoption of the common confession, drawn up shortly before by Peter Mogilas (-- 152, 3). The patriarchal const.i.tution in Russia, however, was but short-lived, for Peter I., in 1702, after the death of the Patriarch Hadrian, abolished the patriarchate, arrogated to himself as emperor the highest ecclesiastical office, and in A.D. 1721 const.i.tuted "the Holy Synod," to which, under the supervision of a procurator guarding the rights of the state, he a.s.signed the supreme direction of spiritual and ecclesiastical affairs. To these proposals the Patriarch of Constantinople gave his approval. In this reform of the church const.i.tution Theophanes Procopowicz, Metropolitan of Novgorod, was the emperor's right hand.-The monophysite church of Abyssinia was again during this period the scene of Christological controversies.

1. _The Russian State Church._-From the time of the liturgical reformation of the Patriarch Nikon (-- 163, 10) a new and peculiar service of song took the place of the old unison style that had previously prevailed in the Russian church. Without instrumental accompaniment, it was sustained simply by powerful male voices, and was executed, at least in the chief cities, with musical taste and charming simplicity. Among the _theologians_, the above-named Procopowicz, who died in A.D. 1736, occupied a prominent position. His "Handbook of Dogmatics," without departing from the doctrines of his church, is characterized by learning, clearness of exposition, and moderation. From the middle of the century, however, especially among the superior clergy, there crept in a Protestant tendency, which indeed held quite firmly by the old theology of the c.u.menical synods of the Greek Church, but set aside or laid little stress upon later doctrinal developments. Even the celebrated and widely used catechism, drawn up originally for the use of the Grand-duke Paul Petrovich, by his tutor, the learned Platon, afterwards Metropolitan of Moscow, was not quite free from this tendency. It found yet more decided expression in the dogmatic handbook of Theophylact, archimandrite of Moscow, published in A.D. 1773.-Continuation, -- 206, 1.

2. _Russian Sects._-To the sects of the seventeenth century (-- 163, 10) are to be added spiritualistic gnostics of the eighteenth, in which we find a blending of western ideas with the old oriental mysticism. Among those were the _Malakanen_, or consumers of milk, because, in spite of the orthodox prohibition, they used milk during the fasts. They rejected all anointings, even chrism and priestly consecration, and acknowledged only spiritual anointing by the doctrine of Christ. They also volatilized the idea of baptism and the Lord's supper into that of a merely spiritual cleansing and nourishing by the word of the gospel. Otherwise they led a quiet and honourable life. More important still in regard to numbers and influence were the _Duchoborzen_. Although belonging exclusively to the peasant cla.s.s, they had a richly developed theological system of a speculative character, with a notable blending of theosophy, mysticism, Protestantism, and rationalism. They idealized the doctrine of the sacraments after the style of the Quakers, would have no special places of worship or an ordained clergy, refused to take oaths or engage in military service, and led peaceable and useful lives. They made their first appearance in Moscow in the beginning of the eighteenth century under Peter the Great, and spread through other cities of Old Russia.-Continuation, -- 210, 3.

3. _The Abyssinian Church_ (---- 64, 1; 73, 2).-About the middle of the century a monk appeared, proclaiming that, besides the commonly admitted twofold birth of Christ, the eternal generation of the Father and the temporal birth of the Virgin Mary, there was a third birth through anointing with the Holy Spirit in the baptism in Jordan. He thus convulsed the whole Abyssinian church, which for centuries had been in a state of spiritual lethargy. The _abuna_ with the majority of his church held by the old doctrine, but the new also found many adherents. The split thus occasioned has continued till the present time, and has played no unimportant part in the politico-dynastic struggles of the last ten years (-- 184, 9).

II. The Protestant Churches.

-- 167. The Lutheran Church before "the Illumination."

By means of the founding of the University of Halle in A.D. 1694 a fresh impulse was given to the pietist movement, and too often the whole German Church was embroiled in violent party strifes, in which both sides failed to keep the happy mean, and laid themselves open to the reproach of the adversaries. Spener died in A.D. 1705, Francke in A.D. 1727, and Breithaupt in A.D. 1732. After the loss of these leaders the Halle pietism became more and more gross, narrow, unscientific, regardless of the Church confession, frequently renouncing definite beliefs for hazy pious feeling, and attaching undue importance to pious forms of expression and methodistical modes of life. The conventionalism encouraged by it became a very Pandora's box of sectarianism and fanaticism (-- 170, 1). But it had also set up a ferment in the church and in theology which created a wholesome influence for many years. More than 6,000 theologians from all parts of Germany had down to Francke's death received their theological training in Halle, and carried the leaven of his spirit into as many churches and schools. A whole series of distinguished teachers of theology now rose in almost all the Lutheran churches of the German states, who, avoiding the onesidedness of the pietists and their opponents, taught and preached pure doctrine and a pious life. From Calixt they had learnt to be mild and fair towards the Reformed and Catholic churches, and by Spener they had been roused to a genuine and hearty piety. Gottfried Arnold's protest, onesided as it was, had taught them to discover, even among heretics and sectaries, partial and distorted truths; and from Calov and Loscher they had inherited a zeal for pure doctrine. Most eminent among these were Albert Bengel, of Wurttemberg, who died in A.D. 1752, and Chr.

Aug. Crusius of Leipzig, who died in A.D. 1775. But when the flood of "the Illumination" came rushing in upon the German Lutheran Church about the middle of the century, it overflowed even the fields sown by these n.o.ble men.

1. _The Pietist Controversies after the Founding of the Halle University_ (-- 159, 3).-Pietism, condemned by the orthodox universities of Leipzig and Wittenberg, was protected and encouraged in Halle. The crowds of students flocking to this new seminary roused the wrath of the orthodox. The Wittenberg faculty, with Deutschmann at its head, issued a manifesto in A.D. 1695, charging Spener with no less than 264 errors in doctrine. Nor were those of Leipzig silent, Carpzov going so far as to style the mild and peace-loving Spener a _procella ecclesiae_. Other leading opponents of the pietists were Schelwig of Dantzig, Mayer of Wittenberg, and Fecht of Rostock. When Spener died in A.D. 1705 his opponents gravely discussed whether he could be thought of as in glory. Fecht of Rostock denied that it could be. Among the later champions of pure doctrine the worthiest and ablest was the learned Loscher, superintendent at Dresden, A.D. 1709-1747, who at least cannot be reproached with dead orthodoxy. His "_Vollstandiger Timotheus Verinus_," two vols., 1718, 1721, is by far the most important controversial work against pietism.(54) Francis Buddeus of Jena for a long time sought ineffectually to bring about a reconciliation between Loscher and the pietists of Halle. In A.D. 1710 Francke and Breithaupt obtained a valorous colleague in Joachim Lange; but even he was no match for Loscher in controversy. Meanwhile pietism had more and more permeated the life of the people, and occasioned in many places violent popular tumults. In several states conventicles were forbidden; in others, _e.g._ Wurttemberg and Denmark, they were allowed.

2. The orthodox regarded the pietists as a new sect, with dangerous errors that threatened the pure doctrine of the Lutheran Church; while the pietists maintained that they held by pure Lutheran orthodoxy, and only set aside its barren formalism and dead externalism for biblical practical Christianity. The controversy gathered round the doctrines of the new birth, justification, sanctification, the church, and the millennium.

(_a_) The new birth. The orthodox maintained that regeneration takes place in baptism (-- 141, 13), every baptized person is regenerate; but the new birth needs nursing, nourishment, and growth, and, where these are wanting, reawakening. The pietists identified awakening or conversion with regeneration, considered that it was effected in later life through the word of G.o.d, mediated by a corporeal and spiritual penitential struggle, and a consequent spiritual experience, and sealed by a sensible a.s.surance of G.o.d's favour in the believer's blessed consciousness. This inward sealing marks the beginning, introduction into the condition of babes in Christ. They distinguished a _theologia viatorum_, _i.e._ the symbolical church doctrine, and a _theologia regenitorum_, which has to do with the soul's inner condition after the new birth. They have consequently been charged with maintaining that a true Christian who has arrived at the stage of spiritual manhood may and must in this life become free from sin.-(_b_) Justification and Sanctification. In opposition to an only too prevalent externalizing of the doctrine of justification, Spener has taught that only living faith justifies, and if genuine must be operative, though not meritorious. Only in faith proved to be living by a pious life and active Christianity, but not in faith in the external and objective promises of G.o.d's word, lies the sure guarantee of justification obtained.

His opponents therefore accused him of confounding justification and sanctification, and depreciating the former in favour of the latter. And, though not by Spener, yet by many of his followers, justification was put in the background, and in a onesided manner stress was laid upon practical Christianity. Spener and Francke had expressly preached against worldly dissipation and frivolity, and condemned dancing, the theatre, card-playing, as detrimental to the progress of sanctification, and therefore sinful; while the orthodox regarded them as matters of indifference. Besides this, the pietists held the doctrine of a day of grace, a.s.signed to each one within the limit of his earthly life (_terminism_).-(_c_) The Church and the Pastorate. Orthodoxy regarded word and sacrament and the ministry which administered them as the basis and foundation of the church; pietism held that the individual believers determined the character and existence of the church. In the one case the church was thought to beget, nurse, and nourish believers; in the other believers, const.i.tuted, maintained, and renewed the church, accomplishing this best by conventicles, in which living Christianity preserved itself and diffused its influence abroad. The orthodox laid great stress upon clerical ordination and the grace of office; pietists on the person and his faith. Spener had taught that only he who has experienced in his own heart the power of the gospel, _i.e._ he who has been born again, can be a true preacher and pastor. Loscher maintained that the official acts of an unconverted preacher, if only he be orthodox, may be blessed as well as those of a converted man, because saving power lies not in the person of the preacher, but in the word of G.o.d which he preaches, in its purity and simplicity, and in the sacraments which he dispenses in accordance with their inst.i.tution. The pietists then went so far as absolutely to deny that saving results could follow the preaching of an unconverted man. The proclamation of forgiveness by the church without the inward sealing had for them no meaning; yea, they regarded it as dangerous, because it quieted conscience and made sinners secure. Hence they keenly opposed private confession and churchly absolution. Of a special grace of office they would know nothing: the true ordination is the new birth; each regenerate one, and such a one only, is a true priest. The orthodox insisted above all on pure doctrine and the church confession; the pietists too regarded this as necessary, but not as the main thing. Spener decidedly maintained the duty of accepting the church symbols; but later pietists rejected them as man's work, and so containing errors. Among the orthodox, again, some went so far as to claim for their symbols absolute immunity from error. Spener's opposition to the compulsory use of fixed Scripture portions, prescribed forms of prayer, and the exorcism formulary occasioned the most violent contentions. On the other hand, his reintroduction of the confirmation service before the first communion, which had fallen into general desuetude, was imitated, and soon widely prevailed, even among the orthodox.-(_d_) Eschatology. Spener had interpreted the biblical doctrine of the 1,000 years' reign as meaning that, after the overthrow of the papacy and the conversion of heathens and Jews, a period of the most glorious and undisturbed tranquillity would dawn for the kingdom of Christ on earth as prelude to the eternal sabbath.

His opponents denounced this as chiliasm and fanaticism.-(_e_) There was, finally, a controversy about Divine providence occasioned by the founding of Francke's orphan house at Halle. The pietists pointed to the establishment and growth of this inst.i.tution as an instance of immediate divine providence; while Loscher, by indicating the common means employed to secure success, reduced the whole affair to the domain of general and daily providence, without denying the value of the strong faith in G.o.d and the active love that characterized its founder, as well as the importance of the Divine blessing which rested upon the work.(55)

3. _Theology_ (-- 159, 4).-The last two important representatives of the _Old Orthodox School_ were _Loscher_, who, besides his polemic against pietism, made learned contributions to biblical philology and church history; and his companion in arms, _Cyprian_ of Gotha, who died in A.D.

1745, the ablest combatant of Arnold's "_Ketzerhistorie_," and opponent of union efforts and of the papacy.-The _Pietist School_, more fruitful in practical than scientific theology, contributed to devotional literature many works that will never be forgotten. The learned and voluminous writer _Joachim Lange_, who died A.D. 1744, the most skilful controversialist among the Halle pietists, author of the "Halle Latin Grammar," which reached its sixtieth edition in A.D. 1809, published a commentary on the whole Bible in seven folio vols. after the Cocceian method. Of importance as a historian of the Reformation was _Salig_ of Wolfenb.u.t.tel, who died in A.D. 1738. _Christian Thomasins_ at first attached himself to the pietists as an opponent of the rigid adherence to the letter of the orthodox, but was repudiated by them as an indifferentist. To him belongs the honour of having turned public opinion against the persecution of witches (-- 117, 4). Out of the contentions of pietists and orthodox there now rose a _third school_, in which Lutheran theology and learning were united with genuine piety and profound thinking, decided confessionalism with moderation and fairness. Its most distinguished representatives were _Hollaz_ of Pomerania, died 1713 ("_Examen Theologic.u.m Acroamatic.u.m_"); _Buddeus_ of Jena, died 1729 ("_Hist. Ecclst. V.T._," "_Inst.i.t. Theol.

Dogma_," "_Isagoge Hist. Theol. Univ._"); _J. Chr. Wolf_ of Homburg, died 1739 ("_Biblioth. Hebr._," "_Curae Philol. et Crit. in N.T._"); _Weismann_ of Tubingen, died 1747 ("_Hist. Ecclst._"); _Carpzov_ of Leipzig, died A.D. 1767 as superintendent at Lubeck ("_Critica s. V.T._," "_Introductio ad Libros cen. V.T._," "_Apparatus Antiquitt. s. Codicis_"); _J. H.

Michaelis_ of Halle, died 1731 ("_Biblia. Hebr. c. Variis Lectionibus et Brev. Annott._," "_Uberiores Annott. in Hagiograph._"); a.s.sisted in both by his learned nephew _Chr. Ben. Michaelis_ of Halle, died 1764; _J. G.

Walch_ of Jena, died 1755 ("_Einl. in die Religionsstreitigkeiten_,"

"_Biblioth. Theol. Selecta_," "_Biblioth. Patristica_," "_Luther's Werke_"); _Chr. Meth. Pfaff_ of Tubingen, died 1760 ("_K. G., K. Recht, Dogmatik, Moral_"); _L. von Mosheim_ of Helmstadt and Gottingen, died 1755, the father of modern church history ("_Inst.i.tt. Hist. Ecclst._,"

"_Commentarii Rebus Christ. ante Constant. M._," "_Dissertationes_,"

etc.); _J. Alb. Bengel_ of Stuttgart, died 1752 ("_Gnomon N.T._," a commentary on the N.T. distinguished by pregnancy of expression and profundity of thought; from his interpretation of Revelation he expected the millennium to begin in A.D. 1836); and _Chr. A. Crusius_ of Leipzig, died 1775 ("_Hypomnemata ad Theol. Propheticam._")-A _fourth_ theological school arose out of the application of the mathematical method of demonstration by the philosopher _Chr. von Wolff_ of Halle, who died A.D.

1754. Wolff attached himself to the philosophical system of Leibnitz, and sought to unite philosophy and Christianity; but under the manipulation of his logico-mathematical method of proof he took all vitality out of the system, and the pre-established harmony of the world became a purely mechanical clockwork. He looked merely to the logical accuracy of Christian truths, without seeking to penetrate their inner meaning, gave formal exercise to the understanding, while the heart was left empty and cold; and thus inevitably revelation and mystery made way for a mere natural theology. Hence the charge brought against the system of tending to fatalism and atheism, not only by narrow pietists like Lange, but by able and liberal theologians like Buddeus and Crusius, was quite justifiable. By a cabinet order of Frederick William I. in A.D. 1723 Wolff was deposed, and ordered within two days, on pain of death, to quit the Prussian states. But so soon as Frederick II. ascended the throne, in A.D.

1740, he recalled the philosopher to Halle from Marburg, where he had meanwhile taught with great success.(56) _Sig. Jac. Baumgarten_, the pious and learned professor in Halle, who died in A.D. 1757, was the first to introduce Wolff's method into theology. In respect of contents his theology occupies essentially the old orthodox ground. The ablest promoter of the system was _John Carpov_ of Weimar, who died in A.D. 1768 ("_Theol.

Revelata Meth. Scientifica Adornata_"). When applied to sermons, the Wolffian method led to the most extreme insipidity and absurdity.

4. _Unionist Efforts._-The distinguished theologian Chr. Matt. Pfaff, chancellor of the University of Tubingen, who, without being numbered among the pietists, recognised in pietism a wholesome reaction against the barren worship of the letter which had characterized orthodoxy, regarded a union between the Lutheran and Reformed churches on their common beliefs, which in importance far exceeded the points of difference, as both practicable and desirable; and in A.D. 1720 expressed this opinion in his "_Alloquium Irenic.u.m ad Protestantes_," in which he answered the challenge of the "_Corpus Evangelicorum_" at Regensburg (-- 153, 1). His proposal, however, found little favour among Lutheran theologians. Not only Cyprian of Gotha, but even such conciliatory theologians as Weismann of Tubingen and Mosheim of Helmstadt, opposed it. But forty years later a Lutheran theologian, Heumann of Gottingen, demonstrated that "the Reformed doctrine of the supper is true," and proposed, in order to end the schism, that Lutherans should drop their doctrine of the supper and the Reformed their doctrine of predestination. This pamphlet, edited after the author's death by Sack of Berlin, in A.D. 1764, produced a great sensation, and called forth a mult.i.tude of replies on the Lutheran side, the best of which were those of Walch of Jena and Ernesti of Leipzig. Even within the Lutheran church, however, it found considerable favour.

5. _Theories of Ecclesiastical Law._-Of necessity during the first century of the Protestant church its government was placed in the hands of the princes, who, because there were no others to do so, dispensed the _jura episcopalia_ as _praecipua membra ecclesiae_. What was allowed at first in the exigency of these times came gradually to be regarded as a legal right. Orthodox theology and the juristic system a.s.sociated with it, especially that of Carpzov, justified this a.s.sumption in what is called the _episcopal system_. This theory firmly maintains the mediaeval distinction between the spiritual and civil powers as two independent spheres ordained of G.o.d; but it installs the prince as _summus episcopus_, combining in his person the highest spiritual with the highest civil authority. In lands, however, where more than one confession held sway, or where a prince belonging to a different section of the church succeeded, the practical difficulties of this theory became very apparent; as, _e.g._, when a Reformed or Romish prince had to be regarded as _summus episcopus_ of a Lutheran church. Driven thus to seek another basis for the claims of royal supremacy, a new theory, that of the _territorial system_, was devised, according to which the prince possessed highest ecclesiastical authority, not as _praecipuum membrum ecclesiae_, but as sovereign ruler in the state. The headship of the church was therefore not an independent prerogative over and above that of civil government, but an inherent element in it: _cujus regio, illius et religio_. The historical development of the German Reformation gave support to this theory (-- 126, 6), as seen in the proceedings of the Diet of Spires in A.D. 1526, in the Augsburg and Westphalian Peace. A scientific basis was given it by Puffendorf of Heidelberg, died A.D. 1694, in alliance with Hobbes (-- 163, 3). It was further developed and applied by Christian Thomasius of Halle, died A.D. 1728, and by the famous J. H. Bohmer in his "_Jus Ecclesiastic.u.m Protestantium_." Thomasius' connexion with the pietists and his indifference to confessions secured for the theory a favourable reception in that party. Spener himself indeed preferred the Calvinistic presbyterial const.i.tution, because only in it could equality be given to all the three orders, _ministerium ecclesiastic.u.m_, _magistratus politicus_, _status conomicus_. This protest by Spener against the two systems was certainly not without influence upon the construction of a third theory, the _collegial system_, proposed by Pfaff of Tubingen, died A.D. 1760. According to this scheme there belonged to the sovereign as such only the headship of the church, _jus circa sacra_, while the _jura in sacra_, matters pertaining to doctrine, worship, ecclesiastical law and its administration, installation of clergy, and excommunication, as _jura collegialia_, belonged to the whole body of church members. The normal const.i.tution therefore required the collective vote of all the members through their synods. But outward circ.u.mstances during the Reformation age had necessitated the relegating the discharge of these collegial rights to the princes, which in itself was not unallowable, if only the position be maintained that the prince acts _ex commisso_, and is under obligation to render an account to those who have commissioned him. This system, on account of its democratic character, found hearty supporters among the later rationalists. But as a matter of fact nowhere was any of the three systems consistently carried out. The const.i.tution adopted in most of the national churches was a weak vacillation between all the three.(57)

6. _Church Song_ (-- 159, 3) received, during the first half of the century, many valuable contributions. Two main groups of singers may be distinguished: (1) The pietistic school, characterized by a biblical and practical tendency. The spiritual life of believers, the work of grace in conversion, growth in holiness, the varying conditions and experiences of the religious life, were favourite themes. They were fitted, not so much for use in the public services, as for private devotion, and few comparatively have been retained in collections of church hymns. The later productions of this school sank more and more into sentimentalism and allegorical and fanciful play of words. We may distinguish among the Halle pietists an older school, A.D. 1690-1720, and a younger, A.D. 1720-1750.

The former, coloured by the fervent piety of Francke, produced simple, hearty, and often profound songs. The most distinguished representatives were _Freylinghausen_, died A.D. 1739, Francke's son-in-law, and director of the Halle Orphanage, editor in A.D. 1717 of a hymn-book widely used among the pietists, was author of the hymns "Pure Essence, spotless Fount of Light," "The day expires"; _Chr. Fr. Richter_, physician to the Orphanage, died A.D. 1711, author of thirty-three beautiful hymns, including "G.o.d, whom I as Love have known"; _Emilia Juliana_, Countess of Schwarzburg Rudolstadt, died A.D. 1706, who wrote 586 hymns, including "Who knows how near my end may be?" _Schroder_, pastor in Magdeburg, died A.D. 1728, wrote "One thing is needful: Let me deem"; _Winckler_, cathedral preacher of Magdeburg, died A.D. 1722, author of "Strive, when thou art called of G.o.d"; _Dessler_, rector of Nuremburg, died A.D. 1722, composer of "I will not let Thee go, Thou help in time of need," "O Friend of souls, how well is me;" _Gotter_, died A.D. 1735, who wrote, "O Cross, we hail thy bitter reign"; _Cresselius_, pastor in Dusseldorf, author of "Awake, O man, and from thee shake." The younger Halle school represents pietism in its period of decay. Its best representatives are _J. J.

Rambach_, professor at Giessen, died A.D. 1735, who wrote "I am baptized into thy name"; _Allendorf_, court preacher at Cothen, died A.D. 1773, editor of a collection of poetic renderings from the Canticles.-(2) The poets of the orthodox party, although opposed to the pietists, are all more or less touched by the fervent piety of Spener. _Neumeister_, pastor at Hamburg, died A.D. 1756, was an orthodox hymn-writer of thoroughly conservative tendencies, zealously opposing the onesidedness of pietism, with a strong, ardent faith in the orthodox creed, but without much significance as a poet. _Schmolck_, pastor at Schweidnitz, died A.D. 1737, wrote over 1,000 hymns, including "Blessed Jesus, here we stand," "Hosanna to the Son of David! Raise," "Welcome, thou Victor in the strife." _Sol.

Franck_, secretary to the consistory at Weimar, died A.D. 1725, wrote over 300 hymns, including "Rest of the weary, thou thyself art resting now."

The mediating party between pietism and orthodoxy, represented by Bengel and Crusius in theology, is represented among hymn-writers by _J. Andr.

Rothe_, died A.D. 1758, and by _Mentzer_, died A.D. 1784, composer of "Oh, would I had a thousand tongues!" In A.D. 1750 J. Jac. von Moser collected a list of 50,000 spiritual songs printed in the German language.-Continuation, -- 171, 1.

7. _Sacred Music (_-- 159, 5_)._-Decadence of musical taste accompanied the lowering of the poetic standard, and pietists went even further than the orthodox in their imitation and adaptation of operatic airs.

_Freylinghausen_, not only himself composed many such melodies, but made a collection from various sources in A.D. 1704, retaining some of the more popular of the older tunes.-There now arose, amid all this depravation of taste, a n.o.ble musician, who, like the good householder, could bring out of his treasure things new and old. _J. Seb. Bach_, the most perfect organist who ever lived, was musical director of the School of St. Thomas, Leipzig, and died A.D. 1750. He turned enthusiastically to the old chorale, which no one had ever understood and appreciated as he did. He harmonized the old chorales for the organ, made them the basis for elaborate organ studies, gave expression to his profoundest feelings in his musical compositions and in his recitatives, duets, and airs, reproduced at the sacred concerts many fine old chorales wedded to most appropriate Scripture pa.s.sages. He is for all times the unrivalled master in fugue, harmony, and modulation. In his pa.s.sion music we have expression given to the profoundest ideas of German Protestantism in the n.o.blest music. After Bach comes a master in oratorio music hitherto unapproached, _G. Fr. Handel_ of Halle, who, from A.D. 1710 till his death in A.D. 1759, lived mostly in England. For twenty-five years he wrought for the opera-house, and only in his later years gave himself to the composing of oratorios. His operas are forgotten, but his oratorios will endure to the end of time. His most perfect work is the "Messiah," which Herder describes as a Christian epic in music. Of his other great compositions, "Samson," "Judas Maccabaeus," and "Jephtha" may be mentioned.(58)

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 Inst.i.tute 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 G.o.d'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;(59) and Von Moser, died A.D. 1785, who lived a n.o.ble 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 Tubingen, 1730, Starke at Leipzig, 1741, and the Halle Bible of S. J. Baumgarten, 1748.

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 Inst.i.tute, of whom the greatest was Chr. Fr. Schwartz, who died in A.D. 1798, after nearly fifty years of n.o.ble 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 sh.o.r.es. 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 n.o.ble 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.(60)-Continuation, -- 171, 5.

-- 168. The Church of the Moravian Brethren.(61)

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 G.o.d, 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.

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 G.o.dly 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 a.s.sert itself. In his tenth year he entered the Halle Inst.i.tute under Francke, where the pietistic idea of the need of the _ecclesiolae 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, _ecclesiolae 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.(62)

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 G.o.d 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 lx.x.xiv. 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 (-- 166, 6). To organize such a mixed mult.i.tude 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, circ.u.mspection, 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 const.i.tution 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 const.i.tution; 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 const.i.tution 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.

3. _The Development of the Brotherhood down to Zinzendorf's Death_, A.D.