EVANGELICAL
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EVANGELICAL
try, especially among the Protestants. The "rights
of man", proclaimed and ruthlessly carried out by the
French Revolutionists, had found a welcome beyond
the Rhine and well nigh superseded the rights of God.
Luther and Calvin, whilst casting off the authority of
the Church, had still bowed to that of the Bible, and
their followers adhered to several "Confessions of
Faith" as binding on their conscience. These formulae
were now overthrown as inimical to the rights of free
inquiry,asthe workof men little versed in exegesis and
history, as unscientific and un- Protestant. Religious
life, thus deprived of its sap, was rapidly withering
away. Indifference and infidelity obliterated the
differences among Protestant communities and threat-
enetl for a time to sweep away Christianity itself.
The Prussian State, owing its origin, growth, and importance to Protestantism, was not sympathetic to its Catholic subjects. The Rhine Province, Westphalia, and the Polish provinces were ever ready to manifest their aiifection for the Catholic rulers of Austria and even of France. The House of Hohenzollern was Cal- vinist, the majority of the nation was Lutheran. Frederick William III, King of Prussia (1797-1S40), midertook to strengthen his rule and his country by building up a imited religion together with a powerful army, efficient schools, and a flourishing trade. As early as 1798 he had expressed the hope of uniting the Reformed and the Lutheran Churches by means of a common " Agenda", or ritual. He matured the idea on his visit to England in 1814, and made the first arrangement for a union and a new liturgy in St. James's Palace in London. It was proposed to cele- brate in Germany the third centennial jubilee of the Reformation, and in anticipation of this festival he issued on 27 Sept., 1817, the memorable declaration that it was the royal wish to unite the separate Luth- eran and Reformed Confessions in his dominions into one Evangelical Christian Church, and that he would set an example in his own congregation at Potsdam by joining in a united celebration of the Lord's Supper at the approaching festival of the Reformation. It was not intended to fuse the Reformed Church into the Lutheran, or vice- versa, but to establish one Evan- gelical Church, quickened with the spirit of the Refor- mation. The epithet " Protestant" was avoided as too partisan; prominence was given to the vague term evangelical; Lutherans and Calvinists, whilst main- taining their own specific doctrines, were to form a single church under a single government and to pre- sent a united front to the Catholic Church.
The execution of the royal plan was entrusted to the provincial consistories, synods, and clergy generally. The Synod of Berlin and nearly all the clergy and laity of Prussia responded cordially to the decree. External union, facilitated by the prevailing religious indiffer- ence, was adopted in Nassau and in the Rhenish Pala- tinate (1818), in Baden (1821), in Rhenish Hesse (1822), in Wurtemberg (1827). But Saxony, Hanover, and Bavaria proper were too exclusively Lutheran, while Switzerland was too exclusively Reformed to join the Evangelical Church, and the Austrian Protes- tants also divided their allegiance between the Hel- vetic and the Augsburg Confessions. Instead of the former two Protestant bodies in Germany, there were now three: the Reformed Church, the Lutheran, and the united Evangelical. The Reformed was the weak- est in numbers; and in doctrine its sole distinctive tenet was the rejection of Luther's teaching concern- ing the Eucharist. Neither was the Lutheran flourish- ing; true Lutheranism existed only in the pious aspira- tions of a few theologians, pastors, and jurists. A union without a uniform confession and liturgy is but a loose mass, unworthy to be called a church. Freder- ick William, therefore, attempted to consolidate his Evangelical Church by giving it a common liturgy composed by himself with the assistance of the court chaplains and a pious layman. This "Agenda" was
made obligatory by royal order for the royal chapel, the
cathedral of Berlin, and for the army; its general
adoption was only recommended. It met with deter-
mined opposition as a measure oppressive of evangeli-
cal freedom, antiquated, leaning to "Romanish"
practices, unsettling men's consciences. None the
less, by 1825 it had been adopted by 5343 churches out
of 7782. The Protestant bishops Eylert and Neander
in Berlin were in favour of it and of the measures taken
to enforce it. In 1828-29 the "Agenda" was issued
in a revised form and made binding on all Protestant
churches, some concessions being granted to Silesia,
Saxony, Pomerania, and other parts of the kingdom, in
deference to provincial uses. The Lutherans, fearing
the loss of their confessional status, offered increased
resistance. But the king was inexorable. Dr. Scheibel,
professor in Breslau, and others of the Lutheran clergy
who had refused to accept the new liturgy, were sus-
pended from their offices. For several years a fierce
persecution raged against the "Old Lutherans", espe-
cially in Silesia and the Grand Duchy of Posen.
Preacher Hahn headed the troops which were sent to
subdue the recusant villagers by seizure of their goods,
imprisonment, and all manner of violence. Minister
von Altenstein justified these measures on the prin-
ciple that it was the Government's duty to protect
these blind sectarians against the consequences of
their own folly. Thousands of the recusants were
driven to emigrate to America and Australia. Not a
voice was raised in their defence; the whole Liberal
press lauded the energy of the Prussian Government.
By a royal decree of 28 Feb., 1834, all Lutheran wor-
ship was declared illegal.
Frederick William III ruled his Church as summus episcopus, as a pope without a fixed deposit of faith to guard, or a hierarchy Divinely ordained to co-operate with him. The result was arbitrariness in the rule, disorganization in the ruled. The king's first royal decrees aimed at the conciliation of religion with the prevailing rationalistic philosophy, but the misfor- tunes of the year 1806 and the death of his beloved consort turned his mind more and more to the religion of revelation and mysteries. Considering himself the protector and leader of the Church in Germany he en- deavoured to raise it from degradation by forcing unity upon it with a strong hand ; unity not in dogma, for he disliked theologians "who pretend to be more Christian than Christ", but in liturgy, wherein his sincere piety found sufficient satisfaction. In 1831 he surprised Superintendent Eylert with an essay on the power of the keys and the binding and loosing power in the Church; it contained an attempt to re- introduce auricular confession and the old church dis- cipline. All his efforts, however, only ended in greater division. At his death, in 1840, the Church of his creation was still a chaos of warring sects, irre- sponsive to the brooding of the royal mind and restive to the royal arm.
Frederick William IV immediately set free the im- prisoned Lutheran clergy and allowed the formation of separate congregations. The Old Lutherans now founded a "separate Lutheran Church" at Breslau under the direction of the lawyer Huschke. By the "general concession" of 1845 they were recognized as Dissenters with legal status but without pecuniary support from the State. The new sect was, however, wanting in union and cohesion: Diedrich opposed Huschke and the Oberkirchencollegium (supreme ec- clesiastical council); frictions among members were of frequent occurrence. But few of the discontented clergymen had left the established Evangelical Church to join the Old Lutherans; the majority re- mained at their posts for various reasons: within the Union they had a better opportunity for working its destruction than without; they were unwilling to sacrifice their incomes from the State and consequent independence from the financial support of their pa-
