Methodism,122 Winebrennerism,123 or open war with serious religion, and the spirit of missions, under every form? Is the necessary alternative in their case quackery or death? Rather, in these circumstances, it becomes a solemn duty to take the difficulty by the horns, and reduce it to its proper posture. We owe it to the German Churches not to suffer things so different in a case of such vast moment to be so deplorably confounded. The case is one that calls loudly for light, and it is high time that light should be extended to it without reserve. If it be a reigning error to involve light and darkness in this way, under a common term, in the same sweeping censure, that is not a reason surely why we should try to uphold the darkness for the sake of the light, but a sacred requisition upon us rather to insist on a clear, full discrimination of the one element from the other. If Finneyism and Winebrennerism, the anxious bench, revival machinery, solemn tricks for effect, decision displays at the bidding of the preacher, genuflections and prostrations in the aisle or around the altar, noise and disorder, extravagance and rant, mechanical conversions, justification by feeling rather than faith, and encouragement ministered to all fanatical impressions; if these things, and things in the same line indefinitely, have no connection in fact with true serious religion and the cause of revivals, but tend only to bring them into discredit, let the fact be openly proclaimed. Only in this way may it be hoped that the reproach put upon revivals and other evangelical interests by same, under cover of their pretended connection with this system of New Measures in the true sense, will be in due time fairly rolled away.
The fact, that a crisis has come in the history of the German Churches, and that they are waking to the consciousness of a new life with regard to religion, only makes it the more important that this subject should not be suffered to rest in vague confusion. It is a popish maxim by which ignorance is made to be the mother of devotion. We say rather, “Let there be light.” The cause of the Reformation was more endangered by its own caricature, in the wild fanaticism of the Anabaptists, than by all the opposition of Rome. Luther saved it, not by truckling compromise, but by boldly facing and unmasking the false spirit, so that all the world might see that Lutheran Christianity was one thing, and wild Phrygian Montanism, with its pretended inspiration, quite another. So in the present crisis, the salvation of the old German Churches in this country is to be accomplished, not by encouraging them to “believe every spirit,” but by engaging them, if possible, to “try the spirits, whether they be of God.” Let things that are wrong be called by their right names, and separated from things that are right.
A heavy responsibility, in this case, rests upon the friends of New Measures. The circulation of spurious coin, in the name of money, brings the genuine currency into discredit. So also the surest way to create and cherish prejudice against true piety is to identify it with counterfeit pretences to its name. Popery, in popish countries, is the fruitful source of infidelity. So in the case before us it is sufficiently clear that the zeal which the sticklers for the system of the Anxious Bench display, in pressing their irregularities on the Church as a necessary part of the life and power of Christianity, is doing more at present than any other cause to promote the unhappy prejudice that is found to prevail in certain quarters against this interest in its true form. Many are led honestly to confound the one order of things with the other; and still more, no doubt, willingly accept the opportunity thus furnished to strengthen themselves in their opposition to evangelical interests, under a plausible plea, against their own better knowledge. In either case we see the mischievous force of the false issue which the question of New Measures has been made to involve. The Anxious Bench and its kindred extravagances may be held justly responsible for a vast amount of evil in this view. As a caricature always wrongs the original it is made falsely to represent, so has this spurious system, officiously usurping a name and place not properly its own, contributed in no small degree to bring serious religion itself into discredit, obscuring its true form, and inviting towards it prejudices that might otherwise have had no place. It has much to answer for, in the occasion it has given, and is giving still, for the name of God to be blasphemed, and the sacred cause of revivals to be vilified and opposed.
110. “How can the import of this measure exhibit the character of protracted meetings, both which in many German churches are well known to be included in their idea of New Measures?”—Luth. Obs. [“Notes on ‘The Anxious Bench, by Rev. J. W. Nevin, D. D.,’ No. II,” Lutheran Observer 11, no. 11], Nov. 17, 1843 [p. 3]. Of a truth, it may be replied, not very well; and for this reason precisely it is made to stand here as the representative of the system to which it of right belongs, that every body may be able at once to see and understand that prayer meetings, protracted meetings, and other interests of the same complexion come not in any sense within the scope of the present inquiry. [This is the first reference of many in this tract to Lutheran Observer, edited by Benjamin Kurtz, a frequent critic of Nevin.]
111. [At this point in the first edition, Nevin placed the following note: “The respected Editor of the Observer, it is trusted, will not find fault with the freedom employed towards him and his correspondents, in this tract. The subject involves a great interest for our common Christianity; and his position, relatively in particular to the German field in this country, entitles him to special regard in the present discussion. His paper is known to be a powerful organ, for the support of the system here condemned, and he counts it an honor to be identified with it himself in the most public manner. He may be considered perhaps the most distinguished representative and advocate of the New Measures at this time in the American Church. His views at the same time are public property, and may be said indeed to challenge public attention. In such circumstances, it can be no breach of courtesy, but is only due respect rather, to refer to this paper as is done repeatedly in the course of the present inquiry (Anxious Bench, first ed., 5n, emphasis original).”]
112. “And let me tell you, Sir, that whatever Prof. Nevin may (in the abstraction of his study) have written to the contrary, I am nevertheless strongly convinced, as a pastor, that the so-called ‘anxious bench’ is the lever of Archimedes, which by the blessing of God can raise our German churches to that degree of respectability and prosperity in the religious world which they ought to enjoy.”—Correspondence of the Luth. Obs. [Lutheran Observer 11, no. 11], Nov. 17, 1843 [p. 2].
“Such measures are usually inseparable from great revivals, and if the great luminaries in the Church set themselves up against them, why they must be content to abide the consequences. By the judicious use of such measures, the millennium must be accelerated and introduced; &c.—Luth. Obs. [Lutheran Observer 11, no. 21], Jan. 26, 1844 [p. 3].
113. [The quoted phrase is from Acts 8:10 KJV, referring to the sorcerer Simon; the end of the sentence alludes to Rev 21:1, 5.]
114. [In 1 Kings 1, Adonijah had attempted a coup; when he learned that David had proclaimed Solomon king, he went to the tabernacle and grasped the horns of the altar in a plea for clemency (v. 50).]
115. [I.e., ritually or morally indifferent.]
116. [Num 3:4.]
117. [1 Thes 5:21.]
118. [1 John 4:1.]
119. [According to Phillip Schaff, the followers of Montanus, a self-proclaimed prophet speaking with the voice of the Holy Spirit, were called Montanists, also Phrygians,
