Full text: The national Church of Sweden

318 VIL.—TIME OF FREEDOM AND NEOLOGY. 
who were dissatisfied with the dryness of the Church life 
of the day—the so-called collegia pietatis. It exhibited 
itself especially under its second great leader, August 
Hermann Francke, at Leipzig, in a renewed study of the 
Bible, in the so-called collegia philobiblica. It obtained 
for itself a refuge, and something more than a refuge, 
from the ill-will, and, indeed, persecution from which 
its adherents suffered, in the newly created University of 
Halle, in the electorate of Brandenburg, of which Spener 
may almost be called the founder. It set before itself 
three noble objects: the regeneration of theology, the 
regeneration of the Church, and the reformation of 
morals.? 
Let me say a few words upon each of them. 
The first of these objects, the regeneration of theology, 
was to be mainly effected by a return to Holy Scripture, 
and by the requirement of a new spirit in theological 
teachers. It was held that they must themselves be re- 
generate in order to have a saving influence on others. 
There was little or no attempt, at any rate at first, to alter 
the current doctrines of Lutheranism. It is clear, how- 
ever, that these two principles, admirable as they are in 
themselves, might easily become mischievous in the hands 
of conceited or narrow-minded men. Bibliolatry was one 
danger of Pietism; cant, hypocrisy and rash judgment 
another. Even in the hands of more cautious and 
humble-minded men restriction of theological study to 
Holy Scripture might be injurious to the proper claims of 
reason, history and science, which assuredly are also chan- 
nels of revelation by which God makes himself known to 
man. Conformity to Scripture is the test of truth, but all 
truth open to men is not in Scripture. 
The second great object of Pietism, the reformation of 
the Church, was of even greater moment, and led Church- 
men into paths of hope which will extend before them to 
the end of time. It restored much of the spirit of primi- 
See esp. I. A. Dorner: Hist. of Prot, Theol., E. T., ii., 
Pp. 203-227.
	        
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