Church History, Volume 3 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
History
Church History, Volume 3 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
§ 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.
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