American Lutheranism (Vol. 1&2) - Friedrich Bente

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of the two Reformed pastors. My hostess also belongs to the Reformed congregation. Some years ago she was so terrified by the opinion of the unconditional decree of God that a hysterical malady set in with which she is still somewhat afflicted. I searched for the marks of the state of grace. She answered sensibly, which gave me hope that she is in a state of grace. My host desired me to go into a private chamber with him and his weak spouse, and to pray in secret, which we did." "At the close of the day my dear host again desired that I pray with him and his wife in private, since she thereby had experienced strength and relief on the former occasion. On the 30th of July I was taken to the pious English merchant, who had some awakened souls with him. They sang a psalm, read a chapter from a devotional book, and urged me to pray at the close. After a time the dear souls returned to their homes, and I remained with him till eleven o'clock and employed the time in pleasant and edifying conversation with him and his godly wife." "August 1, Saturday evening, I preached penitential sermons both in the German and Dutch languages. … The church was well filled on this occasion, and the parting seemed to touch and sadden the awakened and well-meaning souls." Weygand continued the work in the spirit of Muhlenberg, conducting "private hours" with the "awakened souls," and finding particular delight in some souls who had been awakened by Wesley. When Whitefield returned to Pennsylvania in 1702, Dr. Wrangel entered into relations with him and began to conduct prayer-meetings in a private house in the city, and when the room in that house could no longer contain the people, Muhlenberg's congregation granted him the use of their church. When not prevented by other duties, Muhlenberg regularly attended these English devotional hours. The congregational constitution of 1762 especially reserved for the pastor the right to "conduct hours of edification, exhortation, and prayer in churches and schools, on week-days or evenings, as necessity might dictate, and as strength and circumstances might permit." (383. 425. 440. 485.) Dr. J. H. C. Helmuth was the first to report on a revivalistic awakening in his congregation at Lancaster, in 1773. Later on, 1811, Helmuth, in the name of the Pennsylvania Synod, wrote a letter to Paul Henkel, then on his missionary tours in Ohio, warning him not to participate in camp-meetings, "if he should come into contact with similar aberrations from our Lutheran ways." But even at this time Synod did not take a decided stand against revivalistic enthusiasm. Already in the first decades of the nineteenth century reports, coming out of the Synod, such as the following were heard: "Here the fire is also burning." "Here we behold miracles of God's grace; everywhere we find the wounded, the weeping, the moaning, and those who are praying. Some cried out, 'My God, what shall I do that I may be saved?' Others asked with tears, 'Can I still be saved?'" (549.) In 1810 the North Carolina Synod resolved to have Philip Henkel try out a revival, since such awakenings were also to be desired among Lutherans. During the revival agitation from 1830 to 1850, the English Lutheran churches caught the contagion in great numbers. They introduced emotional preaching, the mourners' bench, protracted meetings, and, vying with the fanatical sects, denounced as spiritually dead formalists all who adhered to the old ways of Lutheranism. In its issue of March 21, 1862, the Lutheran Observer declared that the "Symbolism" of the Old Lutherans in St. Louis meant the death of the Lutheran Church, which nothing but revivals were able to save. (L. u. W. 1862, 152; 1917, 374.) Muhlenberg's Pietism had helped to prepare the way for this Methodistic aberration.

      MUHLENBERG'S HIERARCHICAL TENDENCIES.

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      49. Government of and by the Ministers.—A clear conception of the doctrines of the Church and of the holy ministry was something Muhlenberg did not possess. Hence his congregations also were not educated to true independence and to the proper knowledge and exercise of their priestly rights and duties. Dr. Mann says of Muhlenberg and his coworkers: "These fathers were very far from giving the Lutheran Church, as they organized it on this new field of labor, a form and character in any essential point different from what the Lutheran Church was in the Old World, and especially in Germany." (Spaeth, C. P. Krauth, 1, 317.) The pastor ruled the elders; the pastor and the elders ruled the congregation; the synod ruled the pastor, the elders, and the congregation; the College of Pastors ruled the synod and the local pastor together with his elders and his congregation; and all of these were subject to, and ruled by, the authorities in Europe. The local congregations were taught to view themselves, not as independent, but as parts of, and subject to, the body of United Congregations and Pastors. The constitution for congregations simply presupposed that a congregation was a member of, and subordinate to, Synod. (499.) This appears also from a document signed by the elders of Tulpehocken and Northkill (Nordkiel), August 24, 1748, two days before the organization of the Pennsylvania Synod. In it the elders, in the name of the congregations, state and promise: "In this it always remains presupposed that we with the United Congregations constitute one whole Ev. Lutheran congregation, which acknowledges and respects as her lawful pastors all the pastors who constitute the College of Pastors (Collegium Pastorum) and remains in the closest connection with them, as being our regular teachers. … Accordingly, we have the desire to be embodied and incorporated in the United Congregations in Pennsylvania, and to be recognized and received by them as brethren and members of a special congregation of the Ev. Lutheran Church, and consequently to share in the pastoral care of the College of all the Rev. Pastors of the United Congregations. In accordance herewith we most publicly and solemnly desire, acknowledge and declare all the Rev. Pastors of the United Church-Congregations to be our pastors and ministers (Seelsorger und Hirten); we also give them complete authority to provide for the welfare of our souls, how and through whom, also as long as, they choose. We furthermore promise to regard the Rev. College of Pastors of the Ev. Lutheran Congregations in Pennsylvania as a lawful and regular presbyterium and ministerium and particularly as our pastors- and ministers-in-chief, also to respect and regard, them as such, without whose previously known advice and consent we do, order, resolve, or change nothing; hence to have nothing to do with any [other] pastor, nor even, without their previously known advice and consent, to undertake anything in important church-matters with the pastor whom they have sent to us; on the contrary, to approve of and with all our powers to observe and execute whatever, in church-matters of our own and the congregations, the whole Rev. College of Pastors will resolve, and properly indicate and make known to us. Furthermore we promise to recognize, receive, respect, honor and hear the teacher [minister] as our lawful and divinely called teacher as long as the Rev. College of Pastors will see fit to leave him with us; nor to make any opposition in case they should be pleased for important reasons to call him away and to put another in his place; moreover, to receive and regard his successor with equal love and duty. We furthermore promise, if (which God forfend) a misunderstanding or separation should arise between the whole congregation or part of it and the teacher, or between members of the congregation, to report this immediately to the Rev. College of Pastors, and to await their decision, and to abide by it." (301 f.) Graebner: "One's indignation is roused when reading how the elders of the Lancaster congregation were treated at the first synod. These men defended the by no means improper demand of their congregation that such as had fallen away to the sects and again returned should subscribe to the constitution of the congregation before they once more were recognized as members. In spite of the opinion of the assembly and the utterly wrong admonition 'to leave it to their pastor,' the elders 'adhered to their opinion.' Immediately their conversion is questioned, and 'all the elders who have not yet been thoroughly converted are admonished to convert themselves with all their heart.' The remark of the minutes, 'They kept silence,' conveys the impression that the rebuke had been merited, and that the cut was felt." (320.) According to the constitution for congregations, subscribed to October 18, 1762, by Muhlenberg and Handschuh and 270 members of their congregations, the grades of admonition and church discipline were: 1. admonition by the preacher alone; 2. admonition by the preacher in the presence of the elders and wardens; 3. expulsion before or by the whole church council. (402.) The same constitution contains the provision: If any deacon or elder who has been elected to perform this arduous duty refuses to accept the office without sufficient reasons, "he is not to be excused until he has made a considerable contribution to the church treasury." (490.) At synod the pastors ruled supreme. The lay delegates, consisting of the elders of the congregations, merely reported to Synod, when asked, concerning the work, fidelity, and efficiency of their pastors, the parochial schools, etc., and presented requests to Synod. But they had no voice

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