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he induced the Belgian deputies to attend the extraordinary session of the states-general which had been convoked at the Hague. Having returned to Belgium in consequence of the events in Brussels, he became a member of the committee charged with drafting a new constitution, and was elected a member, and, a little later, president of the congress. In this capacity he headed the deputation which offered the crown to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, to whom he afterward, as president of the chamber of representatives, administered the oath on the constitution. In 1832, at the reorganization of the courts of justice, he was made president of the court of cassation. In 1839 he accepted a mission to the conference of London to make proposals for the settlement of the territorial differences with Holland. He is a prominent leader of the Catholic party in Belgium. His principal work is Histoire du royaume des Pays-Bas depuis 1814 jusqu'en 1830 (2d and enlarged edition, Brussels, 1842). GERMAN CATHOLICS (Deutschkatholiken), the name of a religious denomination, formed in 1844 by secession from the Roman Catholic church of Germany. It owed its origin mainly to a letter, written Oct. 1, 1844, by Johannes Ronge, an excommunicated priest of Silesia, to Bishop Arnoldi of Treves, in which the exhibition of the holy coat of Treves was called an idolatrous festival, and the bishop was called upon to suppress it. In the Prussian province of Posen another Catholic priest, Johann Czerski, had already declared on Aug. 22 his secession from the Roman Catholic church, and had attempted the foundation of a Christian apostolic Catholic congregation. After the publication of the letter of Ronge these two united, and a number of congregations, who called themselves German Catholics, sprang up within a short time. The "Confession of Schneidemühl," drawn up by Czerski Oct. 19, and presented to the government Oct. 27, rejected as unscriptural, and as merely human ordinances, the reception by the priests alone of the Lord's supper in both kinds, the canonization and invocation of the saints, indulgences and purgatory, fasting, the use of the Latin language in divine service, mass, and vespers; the celibacy of priests, the prohibition of mixed marriages, the supremacy of the pope, and other points. They declared themselves determined to sever their connection with the pope, to receive the Lord's supper in both kinds, and to recognize the Bible as the only rule of faith. They retained the 7 sacraments and the mass, which they celebrated in the vernacular language. The "Confession of Breslau," which set forth the views of Ronge, not only rejected the same ordinances as that of Schneidemühl, but claimed free investigation of the Bible and freedom of belief for every individual member. It admitted as essential doctrines only the belief in God, the creator and ruler of the world; in Jesus Christ, who, by his doctrine, his life, and his death, redeemed men from servitude and

sin; and in the influence of a Holy Spirit upon earth. Of the sacraments of the Catholic church it retained only baptism and the Lord's supper. A council which met at Leipsic, March 22, 1845, and in which Ronge, Czerski, and the delegates of 20 congregations took part, adopted (March 26) a new creed, mostly based on the "Confession of Breslau." From this time the principles of German Catholicism spread very rapidly. In Silesia alone the number of German Catholics was estimated in June, 1845, at nearly 50,000; and toward the end of that year the number of congregations in Germany rose to 298. Not only many Catholic priests and professors, as Dr. Theiner and Dr. Regenbrecht of Breslau, and Dr. Schreiber of Freiburg, joined the movement, but also many Protestant clergymen. The attitude of the governments with regard to German Catholicism was very diverse. In Austria and Bavaria it was even forbidden to use the name; in Prussia the question whether they ought to be counted among the tolerated denominations was not definitely decided, but provisional decrees were published concerning their baptisms, burials, and marriages. Great rigor was employed against them by the governments of Baden and the electorate of Hesse, while majorities of nearly all the legislative assemblies declared their sympathy with them. A more serious obstacle to the growth of the new religious denomination than the disfavor of the governments was found in their internal dissensions. There had been from the beginning a radical disagreement between Ronge and Czerski. The latter agreed in general with the doctrines of orthodox Protestantism, while the former adopted almost all the views of the Protestant rationalists. Czerski issued a circular ("New Confession of Schneidemühl”) against those who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, An attempt to unite both parties on a common platform was made in an assembly at Rawicz, Feb. 3, 1846, in which Ronge, Czerski, and Theiner took part; but it had not the desired effect. The congregations sympathizing with Czerski held a meeting at Schneidemühl, July 22-24, 1846, but were not able to effect a closer organization, as they themselves differed among themselves on many points. Among the congregations which followed Ronge there was also a great deal of dissension, so that the interest in German Catholicism began to decrease in 1847. The council of Berlin, held in May, 1847, was attended by deputies of only 151 congregations, and made new efforts to secure a permanent union of the two parties in the church. The revolutions of 1848 seemed to be very favorable. Austria and Bavaria opened their doors to German Catholicism, and congregations were at once formed in Vienna, Munich, and many of the important towns of both countries. Many of the congregations, however, declared themselves dissatisfied with the part which Ronge took in the politics of Germany. After the defeat of the revolution, German Catholicism was again forbidden in Austria

and Bavaria. The second council of Leipsic, which met May 22, 1850, had soon, on account of the interference of the police, to be transferred to Köthen; it proposed an alliance with the Free congregations, which had formed themselves by secession from the Protestant churches, and the election of a joint executive committee from both denominations, which was to act as a presiding board until the meeting of a triennial diet (Tagsatzung). These propositions were adopted by nearly all German Catholic congregations, and the first diet was fixed for 1852; but it did not meet. Since that time German Catholicism has been on the decline in nearly all parts of Germany, partly in consequence of the measures adopted against it by the governments, partly in consequence of the continual disagreement among its members. Many congregations disbanded; many others joined the Protestant church in a body. At a conference held at Gotha, Sept. 10, 1858, 42 representatives of the Free congregations and German Catholic congregations appeared, among them Czerski, Uhlich, Rupp, Wislicenus, Baltzer, and nearly all the other prominent leaders. New hopes were raised by the change of government in Prussia in Nov. 1858, which enabled them to reorganize their congregations in several Prussian towns.-The fullest history of German Catholicism is given by Kampe, Geschichte der religiösen Bewegungen der neueren Zeit (vol. iii., Leipsic, 1856). The current history of the denomination is given in various weekly journals: Der Dissident (Berlin), Die Kirchenfackel (Ulm), Sonntagsblatt (Gotha), Deutschkatholisches Sonntagsblatt (Wiesbaden), and Königsberger Sonntagspost (Königsberg).

1006.

GERMAN OCEAN. See NORTH SEA. GERMAN SILVER, or ARGENTANE, an alloy resembling silver, made of variable proportions of its ingredients according to the uses for which it is designed. A composition of 8 parts of copper to 3 each of nickel and zinc is recommended as making a close imitation of silver of 750 The two latter metals are also used in the proportions of 4 each to 8 of copper. By using a larger proportion of copper the alloy is more easily rolled into plates, but the copper sooner becomes apparent in use. Iron used in the proportion of 2 to 24 per cent. renders the composition whiter but more brittle. The genuine German silver, made from the original ore of Hildburghausen in Henneberg, analyzed by Keferstein, was found to consist of copper 40.4 per cent., nickel 31.6, zinc 25.4, iron 2.6.

GERMAN THEOLOGY. As the theology of the Catholic church of Germany, before as well as after the reformation, forms an inseparable part of the Roman Catholic system, the phrase German theology is commonly restricted to the doctrines of Protestant Germany. The theology of the Roman Catholic church during the middle ages, in the controversies with dissenting systems, both of those seceding from and of those remaining within the church, had more and mere recognized the doctrine of the infallibility

of the church as its central dogma. As the Catholic theology knew of no regular way to secure salvation except through the one visible church, so there was no assurance of divine truth to be obtained except through the infallible decisions of the same body. Every apologist of that church had to fall back on this doctrine as his strongest and last fortress; every conviction that any doctrine of the Catholic church was unchristian had first of all to destroy this bulwark. Every attempt to establish a new theology had therefore to be preceded by the rejection of the formal principle of the Catholic theology, the infallibility of the church. The belief in this doctrine must have been shaken in many minds at the beginning of the 16th cen tury, as we meet with so many attempts independent of each other to establish new systems of Christian theology on the ruins of the Catholic church. Foremost among the German reformers stands Martin Luther. He had early arrived at a theory of justification which contained the germ of dissent from the Catholic theology. The celebrated 95 theses, which on Oct. 31, 1517, he affixed to the gate of the Castle church of Wittenberg, were a challenge to the church authorities, but contain no evidence that their author was conscious of the necessity of an entirely new theology. But when, at the diet of Worms (April 17, 1521), he declared: "Unless I am refuted and convinced by proofs from the Holy Scriptures, I yield my faith neither to the pope nor to the councils alone," the necessity of founding a new basis for theology was proclaimed. Next in prominence was Ulrich Zwingli of Zürich, who, even before Luther (in (1516), had begun to preach against what he considered unevangelical in the doctrines and practices of the church. The reformation of Calvin does not properly belong to Germany, though it was not without great influence on the Protestant theology of Germany and of German Switzerland. In 1529 Luther published in his two catechisms an outline of his new doctrinal system. In the following year, the "Confession of Augsburg" was drawn up at the request of the emperor Charles V., as a full exposition of the views of the Protestants, and presented at the diet of Augsburg. In 1531 Melanchthon composed the "Apology of the Confession of Augsburg." These 3 works soon became for the Latheran states an established basis of unity, and received an authoritative character as symbolical books. To them were added in 1537 the "Articles of Smalkald," which drew more distinctly the line of demarcation between the Catholic and the Protestant theologies; and later, in 1577, the "Form of Concord," which was directed against dissensions within the Lutheran church, and against the doctrines of Calvin. All these symbolical books were united in the "Book of Concord," which has ever since constituted the great charter of German Lutheranism. The Reformed (Calvinist) churches issued a large number of confessions of faith, of which, however, very few received more than a local

and temporary recognition as symbolical books. Three of them, the Confessio Tetrapolitana, the Confessio Basiliensis, and the first "Helvetic Confession," originated before the reformatory labors of Calvin; all those that followed show traces of his influence, though the German churches and their confessions of faith generally softened down the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination. The symbolical books of both the Lutherans and the Reformed, and of all the other reformers who independent of them attacked the Catholic theology during the 16th century, agree in recognizing the Bible as the only rule of faith. This implied the rejection of tradition as a second rule of faith, the rejection of the necessity of an infallible interpreter of the Bible, and the rejection of an authoritative translation (the Vulgate) sharing the inspired character of the original, and to be received as an ultimate appeal in theological controversies. So also in regard to the number of books constituting the Bible, the new theology differed from the Cath olic, rejecting from the canon the apocryphal books, though Luther and with him the Lutheran chur ches considered them as books so "useful and good to read," that they kept them in their editions of the Bible as an appendix. As soon as the Scriptures were recognized as the only rule of faith, and the visible church was divested of its claim of infallibility, the question came up for decision, What is the Christian church? The whole theology of the reformation agreed in defining the church, so far as it is an object of faith, as the invisible communion of real Christians with Christ as the only head of the church. The Lutheran theology, however, introduced another element by defining it as the invisible communion of those to whom the gospel is rightly taught and the sacraments rightly administered. Zwingli viewed the church as the society of the elect. The most difficult question for the reformers to solve was, by what marks the true church could be recognized. Their true meaning became a subject of controversy, and has remained so to the present day. (Ritschle "On the Visible and the Invisible Church," in Studien und Kritiken, April, 1859.) The new theology having thus answered the inquiry, How to arrive at a knowledge of the Christian revelation, the second great question was, How is the salvation of man brought about? Here also the immediate relation of God to man and of man to God was substituted for the mediation of the church, and the leading principle of the biblical theology was found in the justification of man by faith alone. Closely connected with the doctrine of justification are the doctrines of original sin, grace, and predestination. The new theology taught that the state of perfect righteousness, holiness, and immortality, in which man was created after the image of God, was originally his true nature, and not an unessential gift added by God to his natural endow ments (donum superadditum); that by the fall human nature became entirely corrupt, and lost all freedom of the will and all ability to do VOL. VIII.-13

good (on this point, however, Zwingli maintained a different opinion); that the sinner is justified by faith alone; that this faith is not merely a belief in historic facts and in promises, but one which embraces, recognizes, and appropriates to itself the merits of Christ. The sacraments were not alone recognized as the means of grace, but these combined with the word of God, and their number was reduced from seven to two. The means of grace were regarded not as causæ efficientes, but as causa instrumentales; not as containing grace within themselves, but merely as conveying it, since the effect was made dependent on the faith of the receiver. They were, however, considered as essential. In opposition to the Anabaptists, both the Lutherans and Reformed denied that the Holy Spirit could be given without the external word. The difference between the Protestant and Catholic theologies in the doctrine of the sacraments showed itself especially in the sacrament of the Lord's supper, all the schools of Protestant theology unanimously rejecting transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass. The Catholic doctrines on the veneration of the saints and images, on purgatory and indulgences, so closely connected with the Catholic view of the church, were rejected with equal unanimity. While the two great reformatory schools of Germany agreed in recognizing the Bible as the only rule of faith, and while they further agreed in designating among the doctrines of the Catholic theology those which were to be regarded as unscriptural, they from the beginning disagreed as to a few particular points of scriptural_doctrine. These points were especially the Lord's supper, the person of Christ, and predestination. Luther defined the Lord's supper as "the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, in and under bread and wine." He insisted on the real and actual presence of Christ in the eucharist. Some theologians of the Reformed church, with Zwingli and Ecolampadius, understood the words, "This is my body," as meaning "This signifies my body," regarding the celebration of the Lord's supper merely as a commemorative service; others, with Calvin, regarded it as a partaking of the spiritual body of Christ. With regard to the person of Christ, the Reformed strictly retained the doctrine of the two natures in one person, and confined the presence of the humanity of Christ to heaven. The Lutherans, on the other hand, assumed a real transition of the one nature into the other, a true and real though supernatural and undefinable union of the two natures, in consequence of which each, without losing its peculiarity, shares in the properties of the other (communicatio idiomatum); and from this they inferred the ubiquity of the body of Christ. The doctrine of predestination remained subject to many variations. Both Luther and Zwingli rejected the freedom of the will; but the absolute predestination of some to salvation and of others to eternal damnation received its consistent development only in the

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system of Calvin. Melanchthon taught (after 1535) that election or damnation was dependent only upon the different relation of the will to divine grace operating upon it; but in opposition to this, many Lutheran divines revived the opinion that predestination was independent of the doings of men. The differences of belief thus manifesting themselves between the leading theologians of Germany were at first not considered on any side as an insurmountable obstacle to a union. Several attempts to harmonize them were made, but failed. The symbolic determination of the Lutheran doctrine, and the doctrinal line of demarcation separating the Lutheran creed from the Reformed, gave rise to many controversies within the Lutheran churchThe Antinomian controversy, commenced during the lifetime of Luther and renewed in 1556, related to the obligatory character of the Mosaic law. The Osiandrian controversy, on justification and its relation to sanctification, originated with Andrew Osiander in 1550. The synergistic controversy, on the relation of human freedom to grace, was caused in 1555 by a work of Pfeffinger, renewing an opinion of Melanchthon. The controversy on good works, com menced in 1559, was carried on between George Major and Nicolas von Amsdorf, the former maintaining that with a justifying faith good works must necessarily be connected. The so called Crypto-Calvinistic controversy was carried on after 1559 with the orthodox Lutherans concerning the Lord's supper. The Flacian controversy, between Strigel and Flacius, dating from 1560, related to the essence of original sin. It was generally considered as right that the highest authorities in the church should put an end to these and all other controversies, by declaring which was the true doctrine of the Bible. This was attempted by the "Form of Concord," in 1577, but with only partial success, as many of the state churches refused to accept it. Yet it became, in union with the other books, now clothed with symbolic authority, the basis of a Lutheran orthodoxy, which reigned in the larger portion of Protestant Germany with undisputed sway until the middle of the 17th century. The only interruption in the consolidation of the Lutheran theology toward the close of this period was caused by George Calixtus of Helmstädt, who in the spirit of Melanchthon sought for a more unfettered form of theology, and even thought that Catholic and Protestant theologies might once more be united by returning to the cecumenical synods of the first 5 centuries, which plan was called by his Lutheran opponents syncretism. The further development of the Reformed church took place mostly in other countries, and affected German theology but little, the most important event in which was the adoption of the catechism of Heidelberg, which gave prominence to the doctrine of divine predestination only so far as it seemed needful to console the Christian with the certainty of redemption, and to that of the eucharist only to impart an assurance of

communion with Christ. One of the doctrines of both the two great reformatory schools, padobaptism, was rejected as unscriptural by Thomas Münzer (died 1525) and the Anabaptists; and after their views had been suppressed by force, the peaceful community of Mennonites perpetuated the opposition to pædobaptism, though not to the formal principle of the German reformation, which they fully adopted. The Socinian theology belongs only in part to Germany. Its advocates generally recognized the Scriptures as the rule of faith, but demanded at the same time that every opinion contrary to reason should be rejected, thus at least virtually making the Bible interpreted by reason the rule of faith.-A theological principle differing from the Lutheran and Reformed systems, as well as from Socinianism, was developed by Protestant mysticism, which placed by the side of the Bible (in which it emphatically distinguished between the spirit and the letter, frequently identifying the former with Christ) a continuous direct revelation of God in the human soul, as a source of knowledge, and which made the living union with God by means of contemplation and asceticism its most important and central doctrine. It showed itself mostly within the Lutheran church, with which many of its chief representatives strove to remain in external connection, though they never escaped the charge of heterodoxy, and often expressly rejected some of the Lutheran doctrines, and especially justification by faith. The chief representatives of Protestant mysticism, among the contemporaries of Luther, were Münzer, Carlstadt, Schwenkfeld, and Sebastian Frank; later appeared Valentin Weigel, and the greatest of Protestant mystics, Jacob Boehm, whose theosophic system has exercised a marked influence on both the theological and philosophical literature of Germany, even to the present day. -A new movement in German theology arose in the second half of the 17th century through Philipp Jacob Spener, the founder of pietism. Though not openly attacking the dogma in the symbolical form which it had obtained in the prevailing Lutheran theology, pietism considered the stress which had been laid on the theological definition and symbolical determination of the Christian doctrines as ill agreeing with the simplicity of the gospel, and as estranging Christianity from life; and it strove to free it from this estrangement by a return to a practical, biblical, and more inward piety. The central principle of pietism was that Christianity was first of all life, and that the strongest proof of the truth of its doctrines was to be found in the religious experience of the believing subject. As Lutheran orthodoxy grounded Christian theology on the Bible as explained by the symbolical books, so Spener based it on the Bible confirmed and explained by individual religious experience. The theology of the Lutheran schools with almost one voice exclaimed against pietism as a new sect, and the theological faculty of Wittenberg designated in the writings of Spener about 300

false doctrines, yet Spener protested that he accepted the whole "Confession of Augsburg." On scientific theology and its development the influence of Spener was not great, and showed itself mostly by shaking the authority of the Lutheran symbols; but the prayer meetings (collegia pietatis) and conventicles (ecclesiola in ecclesia) in which he gathered the awakened, created a popular and strictly biblical theology, which perpetuated itself, especially in Würtemberg, in several sects, and never ceased to have some representatives in the theological literature and in the chairs of theology. The principles of the pietists were in the main also shared by the Moravians, reorganized in 1724 by Count Zinzendorf. They declared their agreement with the "Confession of Augsburg," but expressly rejected all other symbolical books. The centre of their theology was the cleansing power of the blood of Christ; they regarded themselves as a society for awakening piety, and as such were of marked influence in the history of the religious life of Germany, but of little in the history of German theology.-Almost simultaneously with the rise of pietism begins the influence of philosophy on theology, which more than any other agency drew theology into that direction in which it subsequently developed itself. Both influences had this in common, that they were a transition to a standpoint on which the subject, in opposition to the objectivity of the dogma, strove to constitute itself the determining, absolute principle. But pietism sought in the religious feelings only a confirmation of the revealed theology of the Bible; while philosophy, to which Descartes had assigned the task of finding something absolutely true and certain, had gradually the effect of making the belief in the doctrine of the church, in the Scriptures, and in religion itself, dependent upon the judgment of man's reason. The first step toward this transformation of the formal principle of Protestantism was made when Wolf (1679–1754) introduced into theology his distinction between natural and revealed theology, and a number of "rational thoughts," by which he became the father of German rationalism, though he and his adherents defended most emphatically the harmony of their philosophic system with the revealed word. The system of Wolf was adopted by numerous theologians of both the Lutheran and Reformed churches, and thus at once deeply penetrated into theological literature and theological schools. A contemporary of Wolf, J. A. Ernesti, established the historico-critical school of Protestant exegesis by applying the rules of classic philology to the interpretation of the Bible. Though remaining on the whole faithful to the doctrinal system of his church, he made an attempt to define some of its tenets more accurately according to the results of his critical investigations. Semler (1725-'91) distinguished theology from religion (i. e. morality); claimed the right to subject the whole canon to the freest investigation; distinguished between a local,

temporal, and therefore transitory part of the Bible, and the imperishable word of God; and laid down as a supreme principle that the Scriptures are to be regarded as canonical and of divine origin only so far as their contents are of an ethical nature. W. A. Teller (1734-1804) published, on the basis of the biblical studies of Ernesti, Semler, and their followers Michaelis and Eichhorn, a new and purely biblical system of Christian doctrine, and proclaimed a practical religion of reason as the essence of Christianity. A new theory of far-reaching influence was set forth by Töllner (died 1774), who distinguished between Holy Writ and the word of God, the latter of which he found also in all other religions and in reason. He distinguished different degrees in inspiration, and maintained that neither the highest degree belonged to the Scriptures, nor the same degree to all its parts. Against the invasion of this new school the orthodox theology was principally defended by the pietistico-mystic works of Bengel and Crusius, by the theosophic prelate Oettinger, by Zollikofer and Spalding.-English deism was transplanted to German soil by Reimarus (1694-1768) in the celebrated "Wolfenbüttel Fragments," first published by Lessing. He denied the possibility of a revelation, ascribed to Jesus the design of making himself, under the pretext of introducing a new religion, the king of a new Jewish empire, and declared as the principal doctrines of natural religion, which alone he admitted, the doctrines of God, of divine providence, and of the immortality of the soul. The same views as to the truth of natural religion alone we find in the writings of Moses Mendelssohn, a Jew (1729-'86), who declared the happiness of man to be the principal aim of religion. Other writers of the same school, as Steinbart (1738-1809), Basedow (1723-'90), and Bahrdt (1741-'92), endeavored to show that these principal doctrines of natural religion constituted also the essence of Christianity, and frequently made not so much reason as happiness the measure by which the truth of every opinion was to be tested. An important organ of the new theology of " lightenment" (Aufklärung) was the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, published (1765-'92) by Nicolai. Lessing (1729-'81) also partly belonged to this school, though he directed his attacks against the shallowness of the theologians of enlightenment no less than against Lutheran orthodoxy. He maintained that a revelation, to which all men can yield a rational faith, is impossible; that reason alone can determine whether there can and must be a revelation, and which among the many systems that claim to have been revealed is probably a revelation; that revelation gives to man nothing more than reason alone would have sufficiently developed in time; that it is essentially a system of education for mankind, in which the Scriptures are text-books, which may perhaps be superseded when humanity is educated for the reception of the new everlasting gospel.

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