UNITED EVANGELICAL CHURCH 117 kingdom, and recommended it to all the con- gregations of the realm, instead of the conflict- ing and arbitrary forms which had previously heen used in the different provinces. Many objections were raised against the Agenda, es- pecially by the strict Lutherans ; and when in 1834 a royal decree was issued ordering its in- troduction into all non-united as well as united congregations of the kingdom, a number of strict Lutherans seceded from the national church. For several years the government endeavored by the suspension of ministers to coerce them back into the national church ; but in 1845 Frederick "William IV. conceded liberty of worship. They then organized an in- dependent Lutheran church, which numbered in 1871 about 20,000 members. All the rest of the former Lutheran and Reformed churches of Prussia nominally connected themselves with the United Evangelical church. But there was great difference of opinion as to the nature and extent of the union by which the United Evangelical church had been called into exis- tence. One party, generally called the con- federalists, under the leadership of Prof. Heng- stenberg and Dr. Stahl, maintained that the union consisted in a mere external confedera- tion and subjection to the same general church government; that the individual churches re- mained Lutheran, Reformed, or (if they have expressly adopted the union) United ; and that if the right of adhering to the old standards of the Lutheran confession should be curtailed, it would become the duty of the party to secede. A second party, commonly called the consen- sus party, took for its doctrinal basis the Bible and the common dogmas of the Lutheran and Reformed confessions. It controlled the theo- logical faculties of most of the universities, not only in Prussia, but in the other German states. Among its leading men were Nitzsch, Twesten, Hoffmann, Niedner, Tholuck, Julius Mtiller, Jacobi, Dorner, Lange, Liebner, Stier, Ullmann, Umbreit, Ebrard, Herzog, and Rothe. A third party, frequently designated as the union party, rejected the authoritative character of the old symbolical books of both the Lutheran and Re- formed denominations, and based themselves on the Bible simply, claiming at the same time the right of subjecting the authenticity of the Old and New Testaments to critical exami- nation. This party embraced many of the dis- ciples of Schleiermacher, the school of Tubin- gen, and liberal divines of different shades of opinion. The second and third parties agreed in asking for the introduction of a presbyterian church constitution, embracing district, pro- vincial, and general synods ; but their exertions were vigorously resisted by the confederalists. Frederick William IV., who repeatedly de- clared his wish to restore full self-government to the national church, convoked in 1846 a general synod, in order to complete her organi- zation. The work was interrupted by the revolution of 1848, but resumed in 1856 by another general conference. While the gov- ernment of Frederick William IV. had strongly favored the first of these three parties, his successor William I. showed an outspoken sympathy with the second. The supreme ec- clesiastical council tried to check the manifes- tations of the Lutheran clergymen and socie- ties who endeavored to maintain the strict- ly denominational character of the formerly Lutheran section of the church. The annexa- tion to Prussia of Schleswig-Holstein and Han- over, both of which countries had a Lutheran state church that had never accepted the union, created new difficulties in the way of carrying it through. A radical change in the constitu- tion of the church began in 1874, when the state government, in accordance with the laws passed in 1873, substituted the principle of ec- clesiastical self-government for that of the consistorial administration heretofore exercised by the state. Church councils were elected in all congregations, and circuit synods, consisting of delegates of the congregations, were con- voked. In January and February, 1875, pro- vincial synods, composed of delegates of the circuit synods, met in all the eight old prov- inces of Prussia (those belonging to Prussia before the annexations of 1866), and in Novem- ber and December an extraordinary general synod, formed of delegations of the eight pro- vincial synods and members appointed by the king, met in Berlin to make all necessary pre- parations for a transfer of the government of the church to a regular general synod. The Prussian government makes the utmost exer- tions to render it possible for the discordant ecclesiastical parties to live peaceably side by side in the national church, but large numbers, especially of the adherents of strict Lutheran principles, may ultimately prefer secession to a continuance of their church communion with parties which they consider heretical. The example of the king of Prussia in consolida- ting the Lutheran and Reformed churches into a United Evangelical church was followed in other German states. Thus the union was in- troduced, either by resolution of synods or by a general vote, in Nassau (1817), the Bavarian Palatinate (1818), Baden (1821), and even in Wurtemberg (1827), where the Reformed church had hardly an existence. The union may be considered permanently established in the Bavarian Palatinate and in Baden, in both of which the church has a presbyterian con- stitution, inclusive of a general synod, which in both churches is unanimous in maintain- ing the union. Saxony, the bulk of Bavaria proper, Mecklenburg, Brunswick, and several other states were too exclusively Lutheran, Switzerland too exclusively Reformed, to fall in with the movement. In many of the small states the views of the people on the sub- ject of union could not be ascertained, as the church was without a synodal constitu- tion and entirely controlled by the govern- ment. The introduction of the synodal con- stitution, which in 1875 had been completed
