Pietism

“ Nay, even among the Jesuits we may find the working of this same craving after a new ideal in a cheerless life. In the history of the Christian Church, this Pietism--as the new tendency has been called by its opponents since 1674--has been a transitory impulse, which blossomed and withered in little more than a century. The effect it has exercised on the culture, morals, and spirit of the German people may still be perceived. ”

“ But the feeling should lead to a thought, the thought to a deed, else it is of small value; at any rate, it does not do all of its work for the individual, and nothing for any one beside. This religious sentimentality is called Mysticism or Pietism, in the bad sense of those two words. In most of the churches which have a serious purpose, and are not content with the mere routine of office, it is a part of the pastor's aim to produce piety, the love of God. That is right, for piety, in its wide sense, is the foundation of all manly excellence. ”

“ All in all, when we consider German Pietism from the point of view important for us, we must admit a vacillation and uncertainty in the religious basis of its asceticism which makes it definitely weaker than the iron consistency of Calvinism, and which is partly the result of Lutheran influences and partly of its emotional character. ”

“ Heppe and Ritschl—have included under it nearly all religious tendencies amongst Protestants of the last three centuries in the direction of a more serious cultivation of personal piety than that prevalent in the various established churches. Ritschl, too, treats Pietism as a retrograde movement of Christian life towards Catholicism. Some historians also speak of a later or modern Pietism, characterizing thereby a party in the German Church ¢h1ch was probably at first influenced by some remains of Spener’s Pietism in Westphalia, on the Rhine, in Wurttemberg, and at Halle and Berlin. ”

“ Thomasius, though not personally connected with Pietism, gave it all his influence. He was Director of the University of Halle, and defended the Pietists from the standpoint of statesmanship. He believed Pietism the only means of uprooting the long-existing corruptions of education, society, and religion. ”

“ Pietism, though it ceased its aggressive power after Francke and Thomasius, was destined to exert a reproductive power long afterwards. From their day to the present, whenever there has arisen a great religious want, the heart of the people has been directed towards this same agency as a ground of hope. Whatever be said against it, it cannot be denied that it has succeeded in finding a safe lodgment in the affections of the evangelical portion of the German church. ”

“ MUHLENBBERG'S PIETISM. 47. Subjectivism of Halle Pietists.—Following are some of the aberrations of the Pietists in Halle: That doctrine was of minor importance for, and as compared with, piety; that sanctification was not contained in, but must be added to, faith; that repentance and conversion were urged in such a manner as if man himself could force them; that such Christians as could not tell of certain peculiar penitential struggles and sensations of grace were regarded as unconverted ”

“ The The Ideal of Culture.—The Humanitarian Ideal.143 education of Pietism endeavored, by means of a carefully arranged series of representations, to create in its disciples the feeling of their absolute nothingness, vileness, godlessness, and abandonment by God, in order to displace the torment of despair as to themselves and the world by a warm, dramatic, and living relation to Christ—a relation in which all the Eroticism of the mystical passion of the begging-friars was renewed in a somewhat milder form and with a strong tendency to a sentimental sweetishness. ”

“ The seventeenth century was characterized on the Protestant side as the age of orthodoxy, in which confessionalism obtained undivided supremacy, deteriorating however in doctrine and life into a frigid formalism, which called forth the movement of Pietism as a corrective; but, on the Roman Catholic side, it was characterized as a period of continued successful restoration. In the eighteenth century begins the struggle against the dominant church and the prevailing conceptions of Christianity in the forms of deism, naturalism, and rationalism within both the Protestant and Catholic churches. ”

“ After Pietism had won the favour of persons of distinction and the governing powers, it became a remunerative concern, a fashionable thing, an assistance to very worldly objects. Generally those who received the holiest revelations were tender, weak natures, whom one could not suppose capable of the strenuous work which is necessary for worldly service ”

“ In the regenerate clergy, who held the souls of weak nobles and gentry in their hands, might be found all the faults peculiar to ambitious favourites, pride and mean selfishness. Soon also the morality of many came into ill repute, and when, after the decease of a devout lord, a society of ambitious Pietists were expelled, a feeling of malicious pleasure was generally excited.
Thus an opposition to Pietism arose on all sides, equally among the orthodox, the worldly, and the learned, and finally in the sound common sense of the people. ”

“ Besides this, the pietists held the doctrine of a day of grace, assigned to each one within the limit of his earthly life (terminism) . The Church and the Pastorate. Orthodoxy regarded word and sacrament and the ministry which administered them as the basis and foundation of the church; pietism held that the individual believers determined the character and existence of the church. ”

“ The main difference between the new Pietistic school and the orthodox Lutherans arose from the conception of Christianity as chiefly consisting in a change of heart and consequent holiness of life, while the orthodox Lutherans of the time made it to consist mainly in correctness of doctrine. ”

“ That they can do bravely. It is indeed a Piece of Piety to fly from wicked Parents to Christ: But to fly from pious Parents to a Monkery, that is (as it too often proves) to fly from ought to stark naught. What Pity is that I pray? Although in old Time, he that was converted from Paganism to Christianity, paid yet as great a Reverence to his idolatrous Parents, as it was possible to do without prejudice to Religion itself. ”

“ It is curious to see all these solemnities—many of them doubtless of Pagan origin—dear to the people, and therefore preserved and christianised by the Popes—and to reflect, that such, for many, many centuries, was the chief link fostered by religion between man and the Divinity. We have obliterated all this among ourselves. No doubt the impulse of piety in the heart is a truer and purer oblation; but Catholics reason that these are aids and supports to enable weak humanity—a creature half matter, half soul—to sustain itself in its pious ecstacies. ”

“ Piety never more decisively asserts its celestial birth than when it stands unblenched under the frown of the persecutor, or calmly awaits the shock of death. In the second and third centuries an unbelieving world often looked on with wonder as the Christians submitted to torment rather than renounce their faith. ”

“ Piety has not failed and gone out; each age has its own forms thereof; the old and passing can never understand the new, nor can they consent to decrease with the increase of the new. Once, men put their piety into a church, Catholic or Protestant; they made creeds and believed them; they devised rites and symbols, which helped their faith. ”

“ Piety alone is that armour of proof which renders those that wear it safe and invulnerable, and yet, as if the Christian were the only infidel, how few of us are so thoroughly convinced of this great truth as to pursue it with an eagerness proportionate to its value. ”

“ The pealing tones of the organ resound under the touch of the highest masters of art for his simple ear. Listening to those strains, his mind forms a conception of the harmony and beatitude of Heaven!
Even death is not looked upon with horror by the Catholic. If he lose a friend in this life, unlike the Protestant, he does not abandon him in oblivion, but his sympathies still extend to him by offering masses for his soul. And it is because it is so adapted to man’s spiritual nature that the Catholic religion has withstood the shock and surge of ages! ”

“ That they, who had gained their name from their advocacy of the need for personal piety, should have been foremost in opposing a man whose piety was his strongest characteristic, and a people who for three hundred years, in prosperity and adversity, in danger, torture and exile, had held “Christ and Him Crucified” as their Confession of Faith, and pure and simple living for His sake as their object in life, is one of the ironies of history. ”

“ The Papist faith is that subtlest, most fascinating form of art for art’s sake—religion for religion’s sake. From the years it has taken boldly all symbolism that rouses the emotions of its own significance—from its pagan altars to the saying of prayers by rote. Whatever of outward pomp and majesty all other worship has known, whatever of mysticism and of craftsmanship and of artistry all other worship has known, this splendid church has taken into itself. ”

“ Piety too is non-logical, subjective, craving union, but the union it desires is not with humans, its sense of participation is with deity; so long as that sense is intact, piety is unconcerned about human relations. Piety is unconcerned about human relations in themselves, but, as the sense of union with deity is immensely strengthened by the sense of common worship, the pious are in fact concerned about the body of the faithful. What that body is to consist of is a matter of circumstance. ”

“ It is not wonderful that such a life produced a kind of religion which was restrained and below the surface, and that there was little inclination to show outward signs of devotion. The lifelong habit of concealing their priesthood from the knowledge of others could not but tend to blunt the esteem for it in themselves; and it engendered a form of Catholicity which was dry and undemonstrative, to say the least, and wanting in the warmth of devotion which we now rightly look upon as among the most valuable aids to piety. ”

“ Is it possible that a priest can be so ignorant as to assert what no well instructed Catholic child would assert! Only he who lives in the true faith and in true charity with God has the capacity of making meritorious acts of divine faith. And yet the Rev. A. Young, in his unpardonable ignorance, solemnly asserts that a baptized Protestant, or a baptized Jew, or a baptized Mahomedan, or a baptized infidel is as such capable of making meritorious acts of divine faith, because he bears in his soul the indelible mark of baptism. ”

“ I will sacrifice what you ignorantly call my atheism—though it is an entirely different thing—now you must sacrifice what you call your piety—doubtful piety at the best. If we are to understand each other, you must give up your incessant, interminable devotions, your weekly confession—always to the same priest,—and all the scenic accessories to religion. You may go to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, and confess once a year, but without previously selecting your confessor. ”

“ And yet every Roman Catholic priest professes to believe a more startling dogma,—even that he is the creator of God. And yet, instead of calling that insanity, we must, I suppose, call it religion. Seeing, then, the priests are called every day to do things which their senses must tell them are juggles, and to profess their belief in dogmas which their reason must tell them are monstrous and blasphemous absurdities, is it possible, you ask, that the priests in Italy can believe in their own system? ”

“ If only its faith is strong enough the incestuous or parricidal heart knows, feels itself absolved! Oh, in honor at least to the religious sentiment—the divine gift implanted in man's heart, whatever the dogma may be in which it is wrapped—there are Catholic priests of austere morals who, despite their intolerance, have, in these accursed times, indignantly repudiated the monstrous idolatries and savage fetichism that even ancient paganism knew nothing of! ”

“ Piety is love of God as God, and as we only love what we are like, and in that degree, so it is also a likeness to God. Now it is a general doctrine in Christendom that divinity must manifest itself; and, in assuming the highest form of manifestation known to us, divinity becomes humanity. ”

“ Let the mind of the most devout Catholic feed on the writings of the Protestant or sensualist and mark the transformation. See how his soul becomes enervated, his judgment warped and his heart invaded by every temptation. His Catholic principles insensibly vanish, and the standards of paganism replace them. The light of the supernatural dies in his eyes, a film of clay overspreads his vision; he looks on the Church through coloured lenses, and the rankness of earth is upon his life. ”

“ What ground have you for saying that I ought to cast away the universal and ancient faith of the Catholic Church? he has only the answer ready: “For it is written”; and forthwith he produces a thousand testimonies, a thousand examples, a thousand authorities from the Law, from the Psalms, from the Apostles, from the prophets, by means of which, interpreted on a new and wrong principle, the unhappy soul is precipitated from the height of Catholic truth to the lowest abyss of heresy. Then with the accompanying promises, the heretics are wont marvellously to beguile the incautious. ”

“ The community are agreed not only in believing that piety consists primarily in love to God, but that the life of piety is to be commenced by penitence for past sins, and forgiveness, in some way or other, through a Savior. I am aware that one class of theological writers, in the heat of controversy, charge the other with believing that Jesus Christ was nothing more nor less than a teacher of religion, and there are unquestionably individuals who take this view. ”