the firsl to give to them much pr inence. His main
endeavor of life was the " dissipation of prejudices" from every field of though! or inquiry, and the criterion of his efforts was a prudential regard for the "useful;" and as the only judge of the "useful" was the so-called com- mon-sense of the educated classes, it is plain that the rationalistic foundation was already fully laid. But the name rationalism was as yel almost wholly unknown. and in outward form the authority of the Scriptures was still almost universally admitted.
Inside of the German Church of the 17th century, i to the middle of the 18th, there prevailed
el streams of life the subjective devoti i
pietism, and a subjective proclivity to individual crit- icism both of them having this in common, thai they opposed the objective validity of formal orthodoxy. On the pari ol pietism, this opposition was not consciously intended; bul in laying such exclusive emphasis on the Bible as opposed to creeds, and on the witness of the Spirit as opposed to priestly guidance,il actually did so in fact Thus the venerable Michael Lang, of Altdorf, allowed himself, in his t al for vital piety, to Btigmatize the orthodox symbols as ape-Bibles and sectarian doc-
uments. Speiier found the yoke of these symbols In- supportable in some points: Joachim Lange and others actually disregarded them on occasion. Haferung se- riously objects to the formula that good works spring from faith. The pious Rambach virtually undermines tin orthodox theory of inspiration. The form ofdogmafe n to undergo a change. Breithaupl (1700) and Freylinghausen | 17u:'>i purposely avoided the tradition- al phraseology in their systems of theology. And this tendency from within the Church was promoted by in- fluences which came now from England and Holland. The force of this influence may be judged of by t lie opposition it at lirst met with. I.ilienthal mentions, between 1680 and 1720, no less than forty-six works againsl atheism, twenty-seven against rationalism, and fifteen against indifferentism. The forms of the oppo- sition varied all the way from a natural desire for a (dear understanding of the grounds of faith to an ab- solute indifference, or even a frivolous atheism. The eminent Leipsic pastor Zeidler i 1735) thought to hon- or the Bible by the utmost conn nipt of systems of doc- trine. Out of pietism there -prang a number of warm- hearted mystics, who laid ex< lusive stress on the "in- ner spark, the inner word." thus opening the path to every sort of vagary. Under the guidance of this '-in- ner word," Dippel presented, in 1697, a very free criti- cism of the dogmas of inspiration and atonement. Li3- scher complained, in 17_'.">. that even good theologians were falling into the danger of insisting simply on < hris- tian love and morals, and forgetting the danger from as- saults of false teachers. In the same year, an eminent publicist called for a consolidation of the Lutheran and Reformed confessions, asserting that, after all. piety and love were the only things essential. Edelmann began, in 1735, with slighl variations from strict orthodoxy, and ended, with Spinoza, in denying the personality of God and the immortality of the souL The aged Lii- schcr sorrowfully laments, in 1746, that, after his forty- seven years of faithful ministry, the condition of theol- ogy ami of the Church was only growing w.>r-e and worse; and sadder still is the lament of Koch, in 1754, that the Bible had almost lost all respect on the part of the cultured classes, and that it was abandoned to the ignorant as a collection of childish fables.
All the preceding inroads upon orthodox tradition had been carried out under the demands of the so-called sound human understanding. It was mostly tie work of non- theologians. Bul from the beginning of the 18th century, a definite philosophical system was made to serve the interests of rationalism. Leibnitz and Wolff threw out thoughts that powerfully contributed to ends which their authors were very far from intending. Leibnitz's distinction of doctrines into those w bich can be rationally proved and those which are above reason was used to cast positive suspicion upon the whole of the latter class. Wolff's distinction of theology into the two parts, natural and revealed, was turned to the same service. As natural theology could give a reason for its dicta, and revealed theology could not, it came to pass that almost the whole stress was laid upon the former. But this incipient undermining process was as yet hardly felt outside of the professional circles. The pulpit remained almost unaffected. The most eminent example of the union of the old with the new tenden- cies was in the case of Matthew Pfaff, professor in Tu- bingen (1716), then in Giessen 1 1756 i, who died in 1700. Holding fast to the chief old landmarks, he yel relaxed
much from confessional rigidity, and earnestly labored for the union of the two < ierinau . hurches. The men- tion of Pfaff brings us to the close of this tirst phase of German rationalism.
•J. /'//. Period of Historical d-itici n. ["he condition of theology, and, indeed, of science and art also, about the middle of the 18th century, was that of a mummy- like stillness and a shallow -v steiiial i/.ation. The vital
contest which had broken out in Spener's time between pietism and orthodoxy had lost its vigOI and died away.