influence to prevent his obtaining it, and wrote to Würtemberg, how it was rumoured among the Ebersdorf Herrnhuters that "Steinhofer had left them, only that he might raise communities in Würtemberg for Zinzendorf, and consign them over to him, as he had done themselves." Happily for Steinhofer, neither Bilfinger, Fischer, Bengel, nor the other authorities in the Würtemberg church, paid much attention to these insinuations. They cited, indeed, Steinhofer before them, but finding nothing against him, merely required him to subscribe a declaration, (dated Jan. 31, 1749,) that he had no design of introducing the Herrnhut system into the church of his own country. They also enjoined him to hold no private meetings; but allowed him to visit families, as a minister of edification; and gave him without hesitation the parochial charge of Dettingen-under-Urach ; leaving it at his own option to publish any explanation as to why he had left the Herrnhuters. The Halle party, however, boisterously insisted on his doing this; but some of the Würtemberg dignitaries abovementioned, privately advised him to let it drop.* Bengel undertook to appease the party at Halle, as appears from the following extracts of his letters to Urlsperger, the senior of the Augsburg consistory :-" June 16, 1749.-I beg you to mention to abbot Steinmetz, that I have endeavoured, in the best manner I could, to effect a right understanding respecting Steinhofer, and that I shall continue to do so. I am confident that he has withdrawn in earnest (from the Herrnhuters.") "Aug. 4, 1749.-Steinhofer continues at his post, as if he had never left us. He has withdrawn from the Count in earnest, and has gained much experience."

Moser, however, wrote to Steinhofer a very harsh letter, in which he told him, that it was his bounden duty to make a

* Steinhofer speaks of this, in a letter (22 June) to Weissensee, as follows:-" When I proposed the question, in the proper place, whether I ought to publish an account of my reasons for withdrawing from the Hernnhuters, I found myself directed to make no stir about it, but composedly to leave all to the quiet working of that church order and superintendence of my station, to which, by God's providence, I had returned. One of them, whom I consulted, said, that he would not have me at present express any dissatisfaction against the Count; neither would he have the Count exposed to the world by my publishing in print what had been already inquired into by himself and his colleagues, enough for every official purpose.-Another said, 'What our consistory have agreed to think of you upon the subject, is a stronger testimony in your favour than a hundred publications of your own. Besides, it is a matter which concerns only ourselves and the Würtemberg church, and upon which we do not allow others to prescribe for us. Therefore if any are not satisfied with the careful consideration we have given it, and with the decision we have agreed upon, let them apply to us for their further satisfaction.' All this confirmed my resolution to decline printing any thing upon the subject."

public retractation; but the latter persisted in his silence, being encouraged by his consistorial superiors to follow his own peaceful inclinations, and to prove the orthodoxy of his faith, by publishing works of edification rather than controversy. In such works he has beautifully combined the erudition of a true Würtemberg divine with that spirituality and love, for which the Brethren's church had always been remarkable.

We have already observed, that Bengel, in the year 1745, had determined to print nothing relative to the Brethren's church, unless some particular occasion should require it. Such an occasion, however, had now appeared; for, in 1747, he had been informed, that a report prevailed among the United Brethren, that he had absolutely pledged himself to publish no remarks respecting them. As such a report seemed rather to expose himself to suspicion and obloquy, he thought it a duty he owed to the protestant Church to testify, that among Lutherans there still existed many, who had been preserved from adopting the sentiments of natural-religionists; yes, and who knew and confessed the grace of God in truth, although they had not yet joined the church of the United Brethren. Moreover, he considered himself especially called upon to justify the true interpretation and legitimate use of the Apocalypse, against the sentiments of this community. Bilfinger likewise had desired him to draw up a statement of the principal points at issue between the Brethren and the Lutheran church, that the former might have occasion to explain themselves. Steinhofer also had requested him (in 1750,) "not to relinquish the treatise (upon the Brethren's principles and proceedings) which he had undertaken several years before; especially as the doctrinal system at Hernnhut had now assumed a form very different from that of their predecessors, and contained many assertions of a more liberal but lax description, which no one hitherto had ventured to examine, and which might be the more beneficially inquired into by Bengel, because his manner of writing was not of a controversial tone, but scriptural, edifying, and practical." Thus was he induced to renew his attention to a work he had long ago begun, so as to remould and commit it to the press, with the additional information he had in the meantime received; all of which he applied to the purpose with his usual and characteristic discretion. The work * consisted of two parts: the first, in three

*It was entitled, "A Sketch of (or Remarks on) the Community, denominated 'The Church of the United Brethren ;' in which their doctrine and general constitution

chapters, treats,-1. Of the doctrinal system of the Brethren, according to its gradual development, since the year 1741; here it is shown in what respects Count Zinzendorf, in his discourses and hymns, had departed from Scripture, and from the Lutheran church. 2. Of the Büdingen New Testament, especially its second edition; and how far the Count had sought to accommodate his translation of the New Testament to private views, by departing from the exact meaning of the text. 3. Of the Brethren's way of interpreting the Apocalypse; showing, that their appeal to many passages of it in support of their own sentiments, was in consequence of their not rightly understanding this sacred book.—In the second part, after noticing the Count's particular object, and the danger to be apprehended by the evangelical church from the present position of the Herrnhut community, he adds a wish that the Count might prove really serious in his late modified statements and expressions. He next notices the bands, (i. e. the arrangement of the Brethren's church into companies, under the denominations of Moravian, Lutheran, and Reformed,) and shows, that by this arrangement the medley of religious professions was remedied only in appearance. For if each individual member were left to the particular and private persuasion which he had brought with him to Herrnhut, it would be needful to form besides, he knew not how many subdivisions; whereas the real object of the Count was, after all, 、 to assimilate the whole heterogeneous mass to a mould of his own; so that the appointment of these three bands was a mere specious contrivance. Bengel concluded with expressing what he thought was likely to be the result; but recommended that no further animadversions should be made upon points which Spangenberg, in his last public explanation, had omitted or retracted; that forbearance of this kind might help to bring them round into the right direction; and that it would be well if, in framing their doctrinal system, the Brethren's church would generally prefer Spangenberg to their other advisers. The appendix contains Bengel's earlier reflections and remarks upon this church. Nor can we omit to notice, that Bengel, in his preface to the work, addresses particularly all devout members of their congregations; and adds a few words to "the children of this world." He tells the latter, that in all these concerns there

is examined; the good parts of each distinguished from their opposites; and Spangenberg's Declaration carefully considered. By John Albert Bengel: In two parts. Stuttgard; published by John Benedict Metzler, 1751."

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was nothing for them either to ridicule or to be offended with; but that their business was seriously to consider, that trials and temptations of a heavier and far severer kind might await them. He begged they would maturely reflect on that declaration in Scripture, If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?' That they needed a renewed mind to enable them to judge of matters like these; and he hoped they would consider and apply what they read in this work of his to their own amendment.-To the former he says, "Hear me, that God may hear you. It is not an enemy, but a sincere friend, that holds out to us the truth for its own sake. I would hope to be made manifest in your consciences, though by ever so slow degrees. Be not afraid to read and examine this Sketch' of remarks upon your church, lest you should have to answer to God for inattention to truth which it contains. Peace and mercy be with you! How shall I rejoice to be found hereafter to have been one of the helpers of your joy!"

As to the effect of this publication, some, even of the Brethren's church themselves, widely differed in sentiment upon its contents. Frohberger, in his "Letters upon Herrnhut,” p. 67, says—“ The noblest and best deserving opponent of Count Zinzendorf was the honest and pious abbot Bengel. He drew up a treatise on the Brethren's church, with much more meekness, love, and conciliation than belong to other controversial works on the subject; and there was reason to think it was useful to the church of the Brethren." On the other hand, pastor Böttinger, in the year 1759, says of it-" Bengel's Sketch' of remarks is a very dangerous work; it goes to undermine the doctrine of Christ's atonement. Scripture, according to his showing, speaks of other means against sin, besides the sufferings and blood of Jesus." Another, and still different opinion of the work, was expressed by Fresenius, a senior at Frankfort, and an adherent to the school of Halle. He says-" The 'Sketch' of remarks is quite to the purpose, and contains many well-pointed observations; but I can hardly help thinking, that in some places it handles the Count rather too tenderly."

Neither the Count, nor Spangenberg, nor any member of the Brethren's church, undertook roundly to answer it. Here,

* This refers to p. 91 of the "Sketch," where it is said, "There are other efficient means for extinguishing evil and unclean imaginations, besides representing to the senses our Saviour's scourging and crucifixion; inasmuch as every beam of scripture truth carries its own influence for enlightening us in the knowledge of God and of ourselves; for humbling, cheering, and invigorating us," &c.

however, it is but justice to observe, that from the year 1740 to 1750 was certainly a most critical period to that church; and that serious endeavours were made by its members gradually to return from their various aberrations. Spangenberg, in his life of the Count,* speaks of several siftings by the great adversary, against which, principally after the year 1748, the Count saw himself obliged to make his stand. He also relates, that the Count this same year resolved upon avoiding whatever was peculiar, eccentric, or at all likely to give unnecessary offence,-indeed, upon making as little display of every thing as possible :† and that he declared to the public, (in the 8th number of the "Dresden Literary Notices," p.127,) that "he could from this time no longer authorise his own writings hitherto published, till they had been reprinted with his amendments, remarks, and explanations." He assigned

as his reason for this, that "it had been his own case, like many other writers, to publish thoughts which he was quite taken with at first, but which he was afterwards ashamed of and retracted; and that it was not in his power to correct the whole so entirely at their first revisal as he would have done." He condemned and destroyed all the copies which he could collect of the twelfth supplement to the hymns, and gave this public testimony upon the doctrine of the Trinity,-" That from the moment he saw how his expressions relative to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, were taken, he was shocked at it, and abandoned every expression of the sort. He desired that wherever such were found in his writings, they might be erased, and that no one in future would repeat them. That he abhorred unscriptural speculations upon the mystery of the Godhead, and was thankful to the Saviour of all men, that he had escaped the fire uninjured.” And now the Brethren's church, in a formal and solemn manner, declared to the Saxon Lutheran Commissioners deputed to its synod in 1748, to the British Government in 1749, and to that of Russia in 1762, its adherence to the Augsburg Confession; and it published at length by Spangenberg, in 1778, what the Würtemberg divines had so often wished to see,-a particular and

* Pp. 1682, 1755, 1769, 1914, 1941.

+ P. 1739.

To the same effect Spangenberg says in a letter to prelate Roos, A. D. 1781, that 'Bengel's work could now prove nothing further against the Brethren, as it every where related to the writings of the Count, all of which, so far as they were left unrevised by himself. he had renounced, some years before his death; and that it was his opinion that Bengel, were he now living, would write nothing more against the Brethren."