RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Preaching
and penetration, and a method of exposition almost catechetical in type. Friedrich Christian Oetinger (q.v.) by his singular mystic-speculative art won a special place in the history of preaching. Now he interwove great thoughts in apothegmatic method, again he dealt with daily life in naive yet popular fashion, once more soared high above the mental range of his hearers, or, again, he spoke from a lower level of thought and conception. His sermons were collected by K. C. E. Ehmann (5 vols., Reutlingen, 1852-57). The speculative branch of the school of Bengel was represented further by Philipp Matthaeus Hahn (q.v.) and J. L. Fricker of Dettingen (d. 1766). The practical branch is naturally represented by a series of preachers Biblical-Evangelical in type rather than specifically Pietistic. Among them may be named Friedrich Christoph Steinhofer and the less known Immanuel Gottlob Brastberger (qq.v.). A special gift of originality was possessed by Philipp David Burk af Kirchheim (d. 1770), in whose Sammlungen zur Pastor altheologie (new ed. by Oehler, Stuttgart, 1867) are found excellent counsels on homiletic subjects. Similarly, Christian Samuel Ulber of Hamburg (d. 1776) left a rich material in his Erbauliche Denkzetteln (new ed., Kiel, 1847). Karl Heinrich Rieger, son of the Georg Konrad Rieger ilready named, surpassed his father in his appreciation of the essential points of the Gospel. In this company belong the noted exegete, apologete, ind author Magnus Friedrich Roos, Jeremias Fried- -ich Reuss of Tubingen, and the exceedingly original aedagog Johann Friedrich Flattich (qq.v.). From :he Reformed Church should be reckoned here the oious mystic and poet Gerhard Tersteegen (q.v.). A sort of acme of the Halle method, though not svithout elements of disagreement, was achieved oj the preaching of the Moravian Brethren. There ivere certain ideas which received such emphasis in ;he pulpit of the latter that other points of the Christian faith were, so to speak, lost to view.
Some of these ideas were faith in the
M ' .e merits of Christ and his atoning blood,
Pulpit a cnildlike trust in the grace of the
Lord, an assurance of confidence in ;he wounds of the Lamb, and the consciousness of oossession of the Savior and his bride-like love. With this went a disregard of arrangement, a too requent use of certain catchwords, together with ippeals to the emotions. The founder, Count von Zinzendorf (q.v.), was the most significant and original of their pulpit orators, as well as one of the most iiligent. He had many of the qualities of a great speaker — an intense passion for Christ, an excellent sducation, geniality, lively emotions, rich imagination and flow of thought, and great strength of language. His discourses were largely expressions 3f the affections which stirred his soul, and his constant endeavor was to exalt Christ. He was especially eloquent at ordination and consecration services, in which he often carried his congregation into heights of emotion. It is fortunate that the first extravagant period of the Herrnhut community (1743-50), with its creations of religious fantasy md its insipid and effeminate trifling, was only an spisode in the history of the church, with no last-
ing effects. Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenburg (q.v.) was an example of the clear, sober, and worthy sermonizer. One needs only to mention such names as Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, Benjamin Schultze, Christian Friedrich Schwarz, David Zeisberger, Hans Egede, and Thomas von Westen (qq.v.).
Exponents of ecclesiastical orthodoxy made their appearance especially in Saxony, where the battle with Pietism was especially sharp, and among the number were such pious and practical preachers as Johannes and Gottfried Olearius (qq.v.) . Among their opponents were Johann Friedrich Mayer, Samuel Schelwig, Johannes Fecht, and Valentin Ernst Loscher (qq.v.). These diligent and gladly heard men, to whom the work of the pulpit was not a first concern, were not from the old scholasticism. Learned investigations, allegories, mystical comparisons, broke into the instructive formation, though there were present warmth and inspiration. Polemics against the court, which had become Roman Catholic, was a part of the substance. The sermons of Johann August Ernesti were full of conception and illumined by Biblical orientalism, as well as packed with thought. From South Germany mention should be made of the military chaplain Johann Friedrich Flattich, a polemist, fresh and able, against atheism and free thinking. From the Reformed Church in Germany may be named the Berlin court preacher Daniel Ernst Jablonski (q.v.), the Zurich president Johann Jakob Ulrich, and Daniel Stapfer of Bern (q.v.).
4. Reform of the German Pulpit and the Preaching: of Rationalism: In consequence of the influence of the stimulus from England and from France the Germans after Mosheim began to lay new emphasis upon pleasing form. As the Enlightenment (q.v.) made way, the striving became great to use logical arrangement and 1. The Con- method in the pulpit. But the in-
flicting- fluence 0f the Enlightenment covered also the content. Dogmatic propositions, not consonant with " rational " thinking, fell into the background, and the truths of rational verities were put in the front. While the Enlightenment at first combated the ruling supernaturalism (to about 1775), there followed a period when rationalism was in the ascendency (to c. 1810), when a period of emphasis upon Evangelical truths was reached in a reaction partly esthetic and partly Biblical-Evangelical. The period of ruling supernaturalism and germinating rationalism (1740-80) reveals as the starting-point of a better pulpit style Mosheim's translation of selected sermons of Tillotson in 1728. Frederick the Great read to his soldiers his own renderings of the sermons of Bourdaloue, Fleshier, Massillon, and Saurin. To Flechier and Saurin Mosheim did homage. A prophecy of what was coming was furnished by the Basel preaching professor Samuel Werenfels (q.v.), who was estranged from false pathos, elegant, intelligible, and edifying. He and the sensitive Pierre Roques in Basel (d. 1748) and the fiery court pi-eacher of Berlin, Jaquelot, show how soon the better form of sermon of foreign Reformed theologians could domesticate itself in Germany. Yet the movement was not merely imitative. There was a
Preaching1