THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
doctrinal and confessional position of those fathers was unequivocally that of the historical standards of the Lutheran Church. The h'tmgj^, adopted at the first meeting of the synod, which was made obligatory for all pastors and congregations, was based on the Saxon and North German orders with which Muhlenberg had been familiar in Germany, such as those of Luneburg 1564, Calenberg 1569, Saxony 1712, and Brandenburg-Magdeburg 1739. From 174S to 17S6 this first Pennsylvania agenda existed only in manuscript form. 'From 1754 to 1760 no regular meetings were held and the young synod seemed to be threatened with extinction. But in 1760, particularly through the influence of the Swedish Provost Karl Magnus Wrangel, the intimate friend of Muhlenberg, the body was revived and from that time on there is no break in its regular meetings. 'The constitution of the Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of North America gradually took shape and was entered in the minute book in the year 1781. In those years Muhlenberg also prepared the first constitution for the mother congregation in Philadelphia (St. Michael's) which was formally adopted in 1762 and became the model for most of the Lutheran congregations in the East, giving the administration of congregational affairs into the hands of the church council, consisting of pastors, elders, and deacons. In 1766 Muhlenberg encouraged the Philadelphia congregation to undertake the erection of a new church, Zion's, which was completed in 1769, and, with its 2,500 sittings, was considered the lai^est-and-Biost beautiful sanctuary in North, -America. In this building (JoHgiess held its memorial service for George Washington. Before the death of Muhlenberg the second Lutheran Synod in America, the Ministerium of New York, was founded by his son, Frederick August Conrad Muhlenberg, pastor of the German Lutheran Christ Church in New York City (1773). Muhlenberg's son-in-law, the scholarly John Christopher Kunze (q.v.), took a leading position in this body, over which he presided from 1785 till his death in 1807.
3. Period of Deterioration, 1787-1820: The prevailing rationalism of the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century did not affect the Lutheran Church of North America quite as strongly as it did the churches of England
and Germany. With few exceptions
1. Effects the Lutheran pastors in America ad-
of Ration- hered to the confession of Christ, the
alism. Son of God, and the Word of the Cross.
The traveling preachers of the mother synod did active missionary work in the West and Southwest, organizing congregations and conferences which formed the nucleus for new synods in Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, Maryland, and western Pennsylvania. Among the tracts and religious literature which they distributed the Augsburg Confession had a prominent place. The parish schools were numerous and in flourishing condition. In the year 1820 not less than 206 parochial schools are reported by eighty-four congregations of the Pennsylvania Ministerium. Nevertheless, there were unmistakable signs that the strict confessionalism of the early Lutherans was
beginning to weaken and to yield to indifferentism and subjectivism. The altered constitution of the Pennsylvania Ministerium of 1792 made no reference to the confessional standards, though the pastors continued to pledge their adherence to the symbolical books at their ordination. After Kunze's death Frederick Henry Quitmann became the leader of the New York Ministerium. He was a pupil of Semler, a decided adherent of the common rationalism, and it was through his influence that the old Lutheran Catechisms, Hymn-books, and Agenda gave way to modern publications, which were to have " due regard to the needs of the rising generation." The same tendency manifested itself in Pennsylvania, where the Hymnbook of 1817 ( Das Gemeinschaftliche Gesangbuch) for the use of Lutheran and Reformed Churches, and the Agenda of 1818 represented a complete falling away not only from the historical, conservative order of service, but also from positive Lutheran doctrine, in the orders for baptism, communion, and ordination. In 1797 the New York Ministerium resolved that, on account of the close relation between the Lutheran and Protestant Episcopal Church and their similarity of doctrine, it would never recognize an English Lutheran church in a locality where the services of the Episcopal church could be attended by the Lutherans. This resolution, which was, however, cancelled after seven years, revealed the strong antagonism of the Germans to the English language.
The conflicts arising in this period through the transition from the use of German to that of English greatly retarded the progress and healthy development of the Lutheran Church. In New York the English became the official language of the ministerium in the vear_1807 and held that position until 1866, when at the formation of the General Council, the English element seceded and the German took the lead. In Philadelphia the language contro-, versy led to a split in the mother congregation. The English element, under the leadership of Peter Muhlenberg, had demanded the appointment of a third pastor who should officiate in the English language. This request being refused, St. John's Church was organized in 1806 as the first EflgM§h^Luth£raii_CQiigF»gation. The Ministerium of Pennsylvania, the decision of which had been asked in the language controversy, resolved in 1805 forever to remain a German-speaking body. But it recommended the formation of English congregations and provided for their admission into the synod on condition that they accept its constitution. In other towns of Pennsylvania the language difficulty adjusted itself in a more peaceful manner. The German congregations first became German-English, with two pastors for the two languages. Gradually the English gained the ascendency and dismissed the German element with sufficient financial assistance, so that new German churches could be built. By this peaceable process of transition the descendants of the old Lutheran families were retained in the church of their fathers, in the English language, while in Philadelphia multitudes were lost to the
2. Change in Language.