United States or Ghana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For nineteen years he labored in this field. He died in 1751. Berkenmeyer was a scholarly man, a faithful minister, and an impressive personality. He belonged to a different school from that of his great contemporary, Muehlenberg, and the rest of the Halle missionaries, and his correspondence with them frequently savored of theological controversy.
I must avoid any entrance into the personal life of Muehlenberg, but there were influences exerted on him by his surroundings which trained and fitted him for his great life-work as the organizer of the Lutheran Church in America, to which I must allude.
This constitution was wrought out by Wrangel in conference with Muehlenberg, and the mode of selection of officers is almost precisely the same as in the German Constitution of 1762: twice the number are nominated by those in office, and the election is by a majority of votes of the congregation.
Now some of our ministers, as far back as Falckner in the beginning of the century, belonged to the Halle or Francke school of Lutheranism, and the spirit of our church life at this time, as may be seen from the letters of Muehlenberg in the "Hallesche Nachrichten," was not alien to that which the Palatines had imbibed from John Wesley, himself a product of the Pietistic movement of which Halle was the fountain head.
I am strongly inclined to believe that this arrangement at Philadelphia was made chiefly by Brunnholtz, who, since June, 1745, had sole charge of the congregation there. Muehlenberg was, of course, a pastor there also, but in the division of labor, the actual care of the congregation was committed to Brunnholtz.
The need of English had been met in part by the elder Muehlenberg and his successors, Weygand and Hauseal, in Trinity Church, doubtless also by Frederick Muehlenberg in the Swamp Church. After the, Revolution the United Congregations certainly made some provision for English although it was inadequate.
There is no mention made of Vorsteher, except incidentally in Section 7, which is the more astonishing, as the annual settlement of accounts, in the same book, in the handwriting of Muehlenberg, both before and after the adoption of this constitution, mention the settlement as made by the pastor, elders and Vorsteher.
Another great-grandson, General Peter Muehlenberg, was for a time an assistant minister in Zion Church at New Germantown, N. J. He accepted a call to Woodstock, Virginia, where at the outbreak of the Revolution he startled his congregation one Sunday by declaring that the time to preach was past and the time to fight had come.
In Pennsylvania, if my surmise that the Swedish Wicaco Church received its constitution through Fabritius from New York be correct, the Amsterdam constitution underlies the Swedish organization, the influence of which on the German churches we have described. The London book was in the hands of Muehlenberg and the other German pastors in Penna., given to them by Ziegenhagen in London.
These evils must be remedied in the new constitution. The new constitution was prepared by Muehlenberg in consultation, of course, with Handschuh and the elders, and pre-eminently with the Swedish Provost Wrangel. Months were spent in its preparation.
Word Of The Day