HI. Organization and Constitution. — The first fresh impulses of the evangelical life of faith was not allowed to shape a complete congregational life in entire accord- ance with the pure principles which had been restored. Although the early Lutheran princes were, as a bodv, men of devoted piety, yet the interests of the Cluirch in the particular state territories were subjected to po- litical policy. The tendencies of the Romish ideas, which in every department had struck their roots too deeply into European life to be easily eradicated, put forth new vigor in the reactionary after-time. The Lutheran Church -was repressed in one part of her de- velopment, and stimulated to the highest degree by her liberty in another, and by the doctrinal necessities which taxed all her resources. The result was that she matured abnormally — the strength of her polity bore no proportion to the perfection of her doctrinal system. In the organization of the Church an important part was borne by the Church visitation in Saxony in 1529, and resulted in assigning the oversight of the churches and schools to superintendents (q. v.). A Saxon Church Order of Discipline and Worship was prepared, which became, to a very large extent, the model in the organ- ization of the state churches throughout Germany. The Lutheran Church held herself in principle remote from the two extremes of hierarchy, which absorbed the State into the Church, and Ca?saropapacy, which absorbed the Church into the State. The princes and magistrates, in the time of the Church's need, took the position of provisional bishops. They \vere the supreme oliicers in the Church, its highest representatives. In the execu- tion of the duties thus assumed they called to their aid Consistories (q.v.), an official board composed of clergy- men and laymen. A condition of things which had been justified by the immediate necessity of the Church gradually became normal in the "Episcopal system." The provisional became legalized into the fixed, and the head of the State was in effect the chief bishop of the Church. Such a distinction as Rome had made be- tween clergy and laity, and which ignored the great New-Testament doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers, was no longer recognised. The ministry ceased to be a self-perpetuating, independent order, and was regarded as a divine office, with a divine vocation, given by Christ's command, through the Church. A hierarchical division of the clergy, as of divine right, was rejected as at war with the Christianity of the New Testament and of the early Church ; but the propriety and usefulness of grades in the ministry (bishops, su- perintendents, provosts), as of human right only, was acknowledged, and they are retained in some coun- tries. Thus, in Denmark, in the verj^ infancy of Lu- theranism, evangelical bishops took the place of the deposed Roman Catholic prelates; while in Sweden the prelates embracing the Reformed doctrine were contin- ued in office, and thus secured to that country " apostol- ical succession" in the High-Church sense. Very gen- erally the rule of the Church is by consistories, but as these depend upon the instructions of the congregations, the ultimate power lies with the latter. See Consis- tory ; Synod ; Church.
IV. Progress, — The internal history of the Church be- came largely a process of the development of doctrine (see l\m\Aiis,\\a(:^n^, Beitr. z. Kirch.-politik); and in this prog- ress, naturally enough, opposition was encountered, and gave rise to controversies with parties both from witliin and without. In the earliest period of the history of the Lutheran Church, her chief struggles were with Popery, the Anabaptists, and the Sacramentarians. These con- troversies drew the boimdary-lines of her own territory, as biblical over against Rome, historical and conserva- tive over against Anabapt ism and the more radical type of Protestantism. To the fixing of the bounds of her territory succeeded a long series of efforts to bring that territory under complete and harmonious cultivation. To be consistent in general over against systems which, as systems, were indefensible, was not enough. The
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Lutheran system was to bring all its own parts into working harmony, and hence the various dissensions and ditiiculties when it was yet in ita infancy. The most important of the internal controversies which arose during this effort are : 1. The Antinomistic, from 1537 to 1540, on the relation between the Gospel and the law, the use of the law, and its necessity. See Agricola, John. 2. The Osiaiidrian, from 1549 to 1567, on redemp- tion, justification, and sanctification. See Osiaxcer, AxDUEW. 3. The Majoristic, from 1551 to 1562 : Are good works necessary to salvation ? and in what sense ? See Major, Geokge. 4. The Stancarulic,\bb'2: Ac- cording to what nature was Christ's redemptory work WTOught out — the divine, the human, or both? 5. The Synergistic, from 1555 to 1670, on the question whether there is an active co-operation on the part of man be- fore and on his conversion. 6. The Flacian, 1561 : Is original sin substantial or accidental V See Flacius II- i-YRicus. All these controversies had a common aim — they wished to define more perfectly the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith, to show what it pre- supposed and what it involved, to exhibit its objective and subjective aspects. All doctrines were viewed in these controversies in their relations to the central doc- trine, and the great aim was to adjust them to it (see Dorner, Geschichte der Prof. Theologie (1867 ; in English dress, Edinb. 1872, 2 vols. 8vo). A deeper impression was made upon the life of the people by the contro- versies which grew out of the interim in 1548, involv- ing the mode of worshipping God. It touched matters which appealed to the senses as well as to the convic- tions of the worshippers. Out of it arose theAdiaphoris- tic controversy (q.v.) (1550-1555) : Whether the Church could permit certain usages, in themselves indifferent, to be imposed upon her by force or civil policy. The vehement opposition of the Flacians to the Philippists also had a great intluence upon the shaping of the Lu- theran Church. Unfortunately, however, these divi- sions among the Protestants gave the Romanists many advantages ; they tended at the Diet of Augsburg (1566) to change the puUtical situation greatly in favor of the Koman Catholics, and protracted the strife for years (Rauke, Deutsche Geschichte, vii, 63). See Interim. Against Calvinism, the controversy turned especially upon the doctrine of the Lord's Supper and the asso- ciated doctrine of the Person of Christ, and the doctrine of predestination. It involved the whole essential di- versity between Lutheranism and Calvinism; also the Philippistic tendency, so far as it approximated to Cal- vinism in some features {C}-ypto-Culeinism). To com- pose these differences and close up these questions with- in the Church was the aim of the Foi-mula of Concord, which, after various ineffectual efforts in the same gen- eral direction at the Assembly of the Electors in Frank- fort (1558), at the Assembly of the Princes in Naumburg (1561), and at the Altenburg Colloquy (1568), was tinal- ly carried to a successful completion at Cloister Bergen, near Magdeburg, in 1577. See Concord, Formula of. The preparation of the FormiUa of Concord is the last act in the series of events which gave full confessional shape to the doctrines of the Lutheran Church.