Though Socinus professed the greatest respect for the Sacred Scriptures as the one and only source of all religion, he claimed the right of free interpretation even to the extent of rejecting anything in them that surpassed the powers of human understanding. In this respect he was as much a rationalist as any of the extreme rationalists who fought against Christianity in the eighteenth century. God, he maintained, was absolutely simple and therefore there could be no Trinity; He was infinite, and therefore could not unite Himself with human nature, as was assumed in the doctrine of the Incarnation; the Holy Ghost was not a person distinct from the Father, but only the energy and power of the Father as manifested in the sanctification of souls. Christ was not God; He was merely the Logos born miraculously and deputed by God to be a mediator for men. He ascended into Heaven, where He was in some sense deified and endowed with supreme dominion over the universe. Hence in opposition to the Unitarians Socinus maintained that Christ should be worshipped as God. He died on the cross according to the command of the Father, but it was by His example of obedience and by His preaching rather than by the vicarious sacrifice of His life that man's redemption was effected. The work of redemption which Christ began on earth is continued in Heaven through His intercession with the Father. From this notion of the redemption it followed as a logical consequence that the sacraments could not be regarded as channels of grace or as anything more than external signs of union with the Christian body. The Socinian doctrine was condemned by Paul IV.[10] (1555) and by Clement VIII. (1603).
/Pietism/.[11]—This movement among the Lutherans resembled closely some of the developments of Mysticism in the Catholic Church during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Its object was to direct attention to the spiritual and ethical side of religion regardless of dogma and external organisation. One of its greatest leaders was Spener,[12] a student at Geneva, and later on a preacher at Frankfurt. In his endeavours to bring religion to bear on the daily lives of the people and to awaken in them a sense of their personal relations to God he founded the /Collegia Pietatis/, private assemblies for the study of the Scriptures, for the discussion of the means of redemption, and for a general revival of religious zeal. With the same object in view he wrote the /Pia Desideria/ (1567), which was much prized as a spiritual reading book by the devout Lutherans of Germany. He emphasised the idea of a universal priesthood, which he thought had been somewhat neglected by the leaders of the Lutherans, advocated for those who were destined for the ministry a training in spiritual life rather than in theological lore, encouraged good works as the best means of securing eternal bliss, objected to polemical discussions, and welcomed the establishments of private societies for the promotion of Christian perfection. About the same time Franke and Anton undertook a similar work in Leipzig by founding the /Collegium Philobiblicum/ principally for students and members of the university. This society was suppressed at the instigation of the Lutheran faculty of theology, and the two founders of it were dismissed. In a short time Spener was appointed to an office in Berlin and was received with great favour at the court. By his influence three of his leading disciples, Franke, Anton, and Breithaupt were appointed professors in the University of Halle, which from that time became the leading centre of Pietism in Germany. Students flocked to Halle from all parts of Germany, from Denmark, and from Switzerland. An attempt was made to explain away Luther's teaching on good works, and to insist on the practical as distinct from the intellectual aspect of Christianity. This relegation of dogma to a secondary place, and the establishment of private assemblies to supplant the ecclesiastical organisation and the established liturgy, led to the development of separatist tendencies and ultimately to the promotion of dogmatic indifference. It is a noteworthy fact that Semler was one of the students most sincerely attached to Pietism at Halle.
/Herrnhuters/.[13]—This sect was only a development of the Moravian Brothers founded in 1457 by one of the Hussite leaders. It owes its development in the eighteenth century to Count Zinzendorf (1700-1760), a wealthy nobleman and a Pietist of the school of Spener. A number of the Moravian or Bohemian Brethren having appealed to him for a suitable place to establish a settlement, he offered them portion of his estate at Hutberg (1722). As they were inclined to quarrel amongst themselves he undertook in person the work of organisation. He appointed a college of elders to control the spiritual and temporal affairs of the community, together with a college of deacons to superintend specially the temporal wants of the brethren. Like the Pietists generally he paid little attention to dogmatic differences, allowing the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Moravians to have their own separate elders. As he was anxious to undertake missionary work he received Holy Orders, and wished to preach in Bohemia, but the Austrian government refused to allow him to continue his work in that province, and even secured his banishment from Saxony. He went through Europe visiting Holland and England and established some of his communities in both these countries, after which he returned to Herrnhut in 1755. During his lifetime Zinzendorf was looked upon as the head of the whole community, but after his death it was much more difficult to preserve unity. The Herrnhuters made some progress in Germany, but their greatest strength at the present day is to be found in England and the United States.
/Swedenborgians/.[14]—The founder of this sect was Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), who was born at Stockholm, and educated at the University of Upsala. He was a very distinguished student especially in the department of mathematics and physical science, and after an extended tour through Germany, France, Holland, and England he returned and settled down in Sweden, where he was offered and refused a chair at Upsala. From 1734 he began to turn to the study of philosophy and religion. After 1743, when he declared that Our Lord had appeared to him in a vision, had taught him the real spiritual sense of Scripture, and had commanded him to instruct others, he abandoned his mathematical pursuits and turned entirely to religion. As Judaism had been supplanted by Christianity, so too, he maintained, the revelation given by Christ was to be perfected by that granted to himself. He rejected the Justification theory of Luther, the Predestination teaching of Calvin, the doctrines of the Trinity, of Original Sin, and of the Resurrection of the body. The one God, according to him, took to Himself human flesh, and the name, Son of God, was applied properly to the humanity assumed by God the Father, while the Holy Ghost was but the energy and operation of the God Man. The new Jerusalem, that was to take the place of the Christian Church, was to be initiated on the day he completed his great work /Vera Christiana Religio/ (1770). He claimed that the last Judgment took place in his presence in 1757. During his own life he did little to organise his followers except by establishing small societies for the study of the Bible, but after his death the organisation of the new Jerusalem was pushed on rapidly. From Sweden the sect spread into England, where the first community was established in Lancashire in 1787, and into America and Germany. For a long time the Swedenborgians were persecuted as heretics in Sweden. —————
[1] Kawerau, /J. Agricola/, 1881. Elwert, /De antinomia Agricolae/, 1837.
[2] Moller, /Dr. Andreas Osiander/, 1870.
[3] Preger, /M. Flacius Illyrikus und seine Zeit/, 2 Bde., 1859-61.
[4] Dowling, /The Life and Correspondence of Christ/, 1863.
[5] Maronier, /Jacobus Arminius/, 1905. De Bray, /Histoire de l'eglise Arminienne/, 1835.
[6] Keller, /Geschichte der Wiedertaufer und ihres Reichs/, 1880.