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 Löscher they had inherited a zeal for pure doctrine. Most eminent among these were Albert Bengel, of Württemberg, 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 noble men.

§ 167.1. 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 ecclesiæ. 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 Löscher, superintendent at Dresden, A.D. 1709-1747, who at least cannot be reproached with dead orthodoxy.His “Vollständiger Timotheus Verinus,” two vols., 1718, 1721, is by far the most important controversial work against pietism.[498] Francis Buddeus of Jena for a long time sought ineffectually to bring about a reconciliation between Löscher 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 Löscher 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. Württemberg and Denmark, they were allowed.

§ 167.2. 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.

  1. 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 God, mediated by a corporeal and spiritual penitential struggle, and a consequent spiritual experience, and sealed by a sensible assurance of God’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.
  2. 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 God’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, assigned to each one within the limit of his earthly life (terminism).
  3. 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, constituted, 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. Löscher 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 God which he preaches, in its purity and simplicity, and in the sacraments which he dispenses in accordance with their institution. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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 institution as an instance of immediate divine providence; while Löscher, 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 God and the active love that characterized its founder, as well as the importance of the Divine blessing which rested upon the work.[499]

§ 167.3. Theology (§ [159, 4]).—The last two important representatives of the Old Orthodox School were Löscher, 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 Wolfenbüttel, who died in A.D. 1738. Christian Thomasius 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 Theologicum Acroamaticum”); Buddeus of Jena, died 1729 (“Hist. Ecclst. V.T.,” “Instit. Theol. Dogma,” “Isagoge Hist. Theol. Univ.”); J. Chr. Wolf of Homburg, died 1739 (“Biblioth. Hebr.,” “Curæ Philol. et Crit. in N.T.”); Weismann of Tübingen, died 1747 (“Hist. Ecclst.”); Carpzov of Leipzig, died A.D. 1767 as superintendent at Lübeck (“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.”); assisted 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 Tübingen, died 1760 (“K. G., K. Recht, Dogmatik, Moral”); L. von Mosheim of Helmstädt [Helmstadt] and Göttingen, died 1755, the father of modern church history (“Institt. 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.[500] 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.

§ 167.4. Unionist Efforts.—The distinguished theologian Chr. Matt. Pfaff, chancellor of the University of Tübingen, 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 Irenicum 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 Tübingen and Mosheim of Helmstädt [Helmstadt], opposed it. But forty years later a Lutheran theologian, Heumann of Göttingen, 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 multitude 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.

§ 167.5. 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 præcipua membra ecclesiæ. 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 associated with it, especially that of Carpzov, justified this assumption in what is called the episcopal system. This theory firmly maintains the mediæval distinction between the spiritual and civil powers as two independent spheres ordained of God; 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 præcipuum membrum ecclesiæ, 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. Böhmer in his “Jus Ecclesiasticum Potestantium.” 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 constitution, because only in it could equality be given to all the three orders, ministerium ecclesiasticum, magistratus politicus, status œconomicus. 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 Tübingen, 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 constitution therefore required the collective vote of all the members through their synods. But outward circumstances 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 constitution adopted in most of the national churches was a weak vacillation between all the three.[501]

§ 167.6. Church Song (§ [159, 3]) received, during the first half of the century, many valuable contributions. Two main groups of singers may be distinguished: