and the theosophy of Oetinger, the dominion of the meiliicvalism of the seventeentli century was broken. Under the infiuence of rationalism, at the end of the eighteenth century, tlie points of distinction between the Lutheran and the Reformed churches, both in Church life and in theology, lost more and more their significance. Efforts at miion, which were vigorous without being in any high sense earnest, were made, especially in Westphalia and on the Rhine. These ef- forts resulted in very little until after the Wars of Lib- eration. From that great series of struggles went forth an intense religious feeling through aU Germany. It was felt alike in both the Protestant churches. It stood in strong opposition to the shallow spirit of ra- tionalism, but was, in the nature of the case, more in- terested at the beginning in the great common princi- ples of the religious life of the whole Protestant move- ment than with particular, and stiU more than with spe- cific distinctive doctrines. Prussia now took steps for a " union" of all the Protestants. By tlie Lutheran con- servatives this new movement was looked upon with distrust. The union, they held, depended for its moral power upon a depreciation in part of the confession. It had been made possible by rationalism; but its per- plexity was that, if it remained true to what was in so large a part its original source, it lost its power on men in proportion as their convictions were heightened and intensified ; if, on the other hand, it abandoned the mild laxity of rationalism, it at once helped to restore the way to a strict confessionalism. It is impossible for men to be intelligently earnest, either as Reformed or Lutheran, and regard the differences of the two churches as of little importance. Claus Harms, in his theses, treated the union as a rationalistic volatilization of the verj- substance of the faith. Among the people of conservative stamp also, the changes in the liturgy, the hymn-books, and in the Church usages of various kinds, were regarded with suspicion and dislike as an assaidt upon the religion of the fathers. Under these circumstances, the " Old Lutheran" movement, under the leadership of Scheibel, in Breslau, Huschke, the distin- iTuished jurist, and StefFens, the natural philosopher, separated itself from connection with the State Church and formed an independent communion. See Old Lu- THERAXisjr. The religious life of the Church continued to suflTer from the evils which in the coiu-se of her his- tory had been fixed upon German Lutheran Protest- antism. Prominent among them were the hampering of tlie congregational life — a life which was demanded by tlie principles of Lutheranism — and the repression of public life which characterized the first half of the nineteenth century. The newly -awakened religious life withdrew itself, in consequence, very largely into the smaller religious circles, and derived from them more or less of a pietistic hue. See Pietism. These circles themselves drew more and more toward the an- cient orthodoxy. To this they were impelled by the unionistic efforts, and the havoc created bv infidelity and rationalism. The new theological tendencies were met bj' the system set forth in the Confessions. The feel- ing grew that without a restoration of the old relations of fealty on the part of ministers to the great Church .standards there would be no internal harmony in the Church. This opposition to union first embodied itself in the Lutheran Conferences held at Leipzig in 1843, and subsequently. Rudelbach was the earliest leader of this movement. He was succeeded by Harless. It gained strength by the civil commotions of 1848, so that at that time it demanded of the members of the confer- ences a subscription to tlie symbolical books. Under this tendency were formed the provincial associations, which united with the Lutheran Conventions at AVit- tenberg in 1849 and 1851. Iji these conventions, as well as in a great variety of publications, a strong opposition to the " union" was developed. It was evident that the conservatives were a unit on the two points — the dis- solution of the state uniyu and the complete re-estab-
lishment of the Lutheran Church. The prevailing po- litical current in Prussia from 1852 favored this tenden- cy. (See below, under Ritual and Worship.) In the different lands and provinces of Germany, the efforts in the one direction of emancipation and restoration bore the common character of earnestness and vigor, but in forms and modes shaped by circumstances. In Ba- varia the leaders were Lcihe, Thomasius, and Harless. In ]\Iecklenburg its great representatives were Kliefoth and Krabbe. In Hanover its chief organs were the Conference at Stade, and Petri, Miinchmeier {Dof/ma of the Invisible and Visible Church, 1854), and Uhlhorn ; on the Rhine itself, and in W^estphalia, Ravensbcrg. The " New Lutheranism" was not, indeed, an internal unit in all its views. Among its great theologians, Hoffmann and Kahnis completely alienated their early friends. In Bavaria, Lcihe (died 1872), in carrying through his principles, came into conflict with the government in the Lutheran Church.
Efforts were made to annul the union and restore gen- uine Lutheranism. Dr. Ferdinand Christian Baur, who will be considered above any suspicion of sj-mpathy with the distinctive theology of Lutheranism, gives the history and characteristics of the two doctrinal tenden- cies, the unionistic mediating and the Lutheran, which come into conflict at this point : '• The controversies arising from the question of the union have had this result in dogmatics, that no man can defend the Church doctrine without either taking position with the doc- trines held in common — the consensus-dogmatik — or taking the strictly confessional position. As the chief opponents of the union are the Lutheran theologians, who, with aU their strength, give force to their confes- sional interest, the main opposition to the dogmatik of the consensus is offered by the Lutheran dogmatik. On the side of the consensus the main representatives are theologians of the school of Schleiermacher, among whom are Nitzsch, Llicke, J. Miiller, Dorner, and others. To relieve the union from the charge of lacking confes- sional character, they find it necessary to maintain a dis- tinct dogmatical system. But as it is essential to the idea of the union to set aside the particular distinctive doctrines which sunder the confessions, the system of the theologians of the union can only accept the ground common to both. In this spirit Nitzsch, in the Urkun- denbuch d. Evanf/elischen Union (1853), and J. 51 tiller. The Evangelical Union, its Nature and divine Right (1854), have attempted to present, in the different articles, a formula exhibiting the agTcement of the confessions. The consensus, however, can only be brought about by a limiting and tempering of the two doctrines to a me- dium in which the sharpness of the antithesis is lost. This method of union may be applicable to a certain set of doctrines, but it goes to pieces of necessity on the dis- tinctive doctrines which can allow of no modification without loss of their essential character. The principle on which the theology of the consensus rests is that that alone is essential in Protestantism in which the two confessions agree. Schleiermacher was the first to maintain this, but his object was by it to neutralize and render indifferent both systems, in order to set them aside as antiquated, and to substitute for them a point of view in consonance with modern culture. With all the care which Schleiermacher takes to give himself the appearance of complete harmony with the ancient sys- tem, it is easy to see that the new form of consciousness breaks through the old, and that the old is retained sim- ply to introduce the new, and to smooth the way for it. In the case of these doctrinaries of the union, however, the dogmatics of the consensus is a mere illusion, which has no ground except in their lack of mental freedom. They find the particidarism of the confessional systems too narrow for them ; they are urged by something within them to sustain a freer relation to those systems; and there is no ignoring the fact that they take a posi- tion which has gone beyond them. But they are not willing to confess this to themselves; instead of looking