§ 176.4. 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 pass 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.
§ 177.1. The Evangelical Union.—Circumstances 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 Nassau, Baden, Rhenish Bavaria, Anhalt, and to some extent in Hesse (§§ [194], [196]).
§ 177.2. The Lutheran Separation.—Though the union denied that there was any passing over from one church to another, it practically declared the distinctive doctrines to be unessential, and so assumed the standpoint of the Reformed church. Steffens (§ [174, 3]), the friend of Scheibel of Breslau, who had been deprived of his professorship 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 professorship 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 constituted 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.
§ 177.3. 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 assumptions 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 constituted 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.
§ 178.1. 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 masses 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.
§ 178.2. The Eisenach Conference.—The other German states borrowed the idea of confederation from Prussia and Württemberg. 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 worship, discipline and constitution. Beyond ventilating such questions the conference yielded no result.