29. Eliminating Confession.--In 1786 the New York Ministerium was
organized in Albany, N. Y., by Pastors Kunze, of New York City, H.
Moeller, of Albany, and J. S. Schwerdfeger, of Fellstown, and two lay
delegates, one from New York, the other from Albany. Eight of the eleven
pastors in this district took no part in the organization. Six years
elapsed before another meeting convened. The minutes of the first
convention state: "In view of the fact that only three pastors and two
delegates appeared, those present considered it advisable to look upon
themselves only as a committee of the Lutheran Church in the State of
New York." The _Lutheran Cyclopaedia_ says: "Though no records prior
to the meeting at Albany are extant, Dr. Kunze stated in 1795, and
again in 1800, that the New York Ministerium, revived in 1786, had been
organized as early as 1773 by F. A. C. Muhlenberg, then pastor in New
York." (490.) _Dr. Jacobs:_ "Concerning the fact that any meeting was
actually held, we are in ignorance; but Dr. Kunze, who ought to be most
competent authority, declares: 'To the late Dr. Henry Muhlenberg
belongs the immortal honor of having formed in Pennsylvania a regular
ministry, and, what is somewhat remarkable, to one of his sons, who
officiated as Lutheran minister from the year 1773 to 1776 in the city
of New York, that of having formed the Evangelical Ministry of New York
State.' The thought was carried out in 1786." (300.) In a letter to his
father, then visiting in Georgia, F. A. C. Muhlenberg mentions a
meeting of the Lutheran ministers in the Province of New York, planned
for April, 1774. (Graebner, 450.) The Ministerium organized at Albany
was a duplicate of the Pennsylvania Ministerium. According to the
Minutes a resolution was adopted to regard "the constitution of the Ev.
Luth. Church of Pennsylvania as their law." (469.) In 1792 the New York
Ministerium adopted the new constitution of the Pennsylvania Synod,
which contained no reference to the Lutheran Confessions whatever,
merely retaining the name Lutheran. At the convention in Rheinbeck,
1797, Dr. Kunze being the leading spirit and president, the New York
Ministerium passed the notorious resolution: "Resolved, That, on account
of the intimate relation subsisting between the English Episcopalian and
Lutheran Churches, the identity of their doctrine, and the near approach
of their church-discipline, this consistory will never acknowledge a
newly erected Lutheran church in places where the members may partake of
the services of the said English Episcopal Church." (628.) Seven years
later this resolution was rescinded, not, indeed, for confessional
reasons, but in the interest of expediency and policy, because in 1804
G. Strebeck, with a part of his English congregation in New York, had
been received by the Episcopalians. Spaeth remarks with respect to the
Rheinbeck resolution: "A fitting parallel to this resolution is found in
the advances made by the Mother Synod of Pennsylvania toward a union
with the German Reformed Church, first in 1819 for the joint
establishment of a common Theological Seminary, and afterward, in 1822,
for a general union with the Evangelical Reformed Church. See Minutes of
1822." (_C.P. Krauth,_ 1,320.)
30. President Quitman the Rationalist.--The unionism and indifferentism
of the New York Ministerium naturally developed and merged into
Socinianism and Rationalism under its liberal, but most able and
influential leader, Dr. F. H. Quitman (1760-1832). "Quitman," says
Graebner, "was a stately person, over six feet in height and of
correspondingly broad and powerful build. Already at his entrance in
Halle, one of the professors greeted the nineteen-year-old giant with
the words, 'Quanta ossa! Quantum robur! What bones! What power!'" In his
subsequent intercourse with the polite world Quitman acquired a fine
tact and measured, dignified ways. At the same time he was a man of
excellent parts, a master at repartee, with a keen intellect and a firm
will, and in every respect a born leader." (532.) He was the only
Lutheran minister who ever received, and perhaps desired [?] [tr. note:
sic!] to receive, the degree of D. D. from Harvard University. Quitman,
a disciple of Teller and of Semler in Halle, was a determined
protagonist of German Rationalism. In 1807 this outspoken and consistent
Socinian was elected president of the New York Ministerium, remaining in
this office till 1825. When Quitman accepted the call to the Schoharie
congregations, which he served beginning with the year 1795, he vowed
that he would preach the truth according to the Word of God and "our
Symbolical Books." Before long, however, he began to reveal the true
inwardness of his character. In his revised edition of Kunze's
catechism, which appeared in 1804, authorized by Synod, the 94th of the
"Fundamental Questions," which treated of the real presence of the body
and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper, was omitted. Ten years later,
1814, in his own catechism, which was likewise published with the
approval of Synod, he omitted and denied such fundamental doctrines as
those of the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, the Vicarious Atonement,
Justification for the sake of Christ, etc. In this book Quitman and the
New York Ministerium declare: "The Gospel teaches us that Christ
suffered and died in order to seal with His blood the doctrine which He
had preached." (533.) Two years later a "Lutheran Hymn-book" appeared,
containing an un-Lutheran order of service, the Union formula of
distribution, a rationalistic order for the celebration of the Lord's
Supper, rationalistic prayers to the "great Father of the Universe,"
etc. Also this book appeared "by order of the Ev. Luth. Ministerium of
the State of New York," and with a preface signed by President Quitman
and Pastor Wackerhagen. (535.) When the tercentenary of the Reformation
was celebrated, Quitman, again by order of the New York Ministerium,
published several sermons bearing on this event. Here he says: "Reason
and Revelation are the only sources from which religious knowledge can
be drawn, and the norms according to which all religious questions ought
to be decided. . . . Are not both, Reason and Revelation, from heaven,
always in agreement and the one supporting the other?" Again: "The true
sense which the Reformers connected with the term 'faith' is still more
apparent from the XX. Article of the Augsburg Confession, where they
explicitly declare that faith 'which is productive of good works
justifies man before God.'" (653.) This rank Socinianism and
Rationalism of Quitman and the Ministerium became firmly intrenched and
was protected from attack by the constitution of 1816, which contained
the paragraph: "And we establish it as a fundamental rule of this
association that the person to be ordained shall not be required to make
any other engagement than this, that he will faithfully teach, as well
as perform all other ministerial duties, and regulate his walk and
conversation, according to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as
contained in Holy Scriptures, and that he will observe this constitution
while he remains a member of this Ministerium." (655.) Within the New
York Ministerium, therefore, ministers could no longer be required by
their congregations to pledge themselves on the Lutheran Confessions.
According to the constitution doctrinal discussions were permitted on
the floor of Synod, but only with the express proviso "that the
fundamental principle of Protestantism, the right of free research, be
not infringed upon, and that no endeavor be made to elevate the
Ministerium to an inquisitorial tribunal." (679.) Thus the entire
heritage of the Reformation, together with its Scriptural principle and
cardinal doctrine of justification by faith, had gone by the board, the
unionism and indifferentism of the Halle pastors having served as the
first entering wedge--just as in Halle Pietism and subjectivism, an
essentially Reformed growth, foreign to sound objective Lutheranism, had
given birth to the ugly child, afterwards, when grown up, named
_Rationalismus Vulgaris_.