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2. THREE OBJECTS OF PIETISM. 3*9
tive Christianity, and led men to dwell on the world-wide
mission of the kingdom, and on Christ s second coming.
Hence it was in many minds connected with Chiliasm,
4
a
doctrine of some sort of millennium.
The new idea of the Church was that of an active body
of believers, all of whom were alive to their duty, all in
conscious possession of the Holy Spirit, each feeling it
right to take part in spreading the kingdom of God.
Hence arose, as I have said, the first interest in home and
foreign missions in the Protestant Church of Germany,
and the call to laymen to take a much more prominent part
in Church affairs than they had been used to do amongst
Lutherans. According to the teaching of Pietism, says
Dorner,
"
the abyss between clergy and laity must become
simply a distinction between those who teach and have the
care of souls entrusted to them, and their brethren who
are to be, or who have already been, instructed in prac
tical Christianity, that they may be their fellow-workers.
The Christian laity possess not only the right of offering
to God the sacrifice of prayer, both for themselves and
others, they may also exercise their priestly office, whether
at home or among friends, may help to edify the Church
in their house, have the right mutually to edify each other
especially under the direction of their minister from
4
Cp. I. A. Dorner :
System of Christian Doctrine, E. T., iv.,
p. 392, Edinb., 1882: "As there was no thought of a new
world-historical mission of the Evangelical Church [in the i6th
and the first half of the i7th century], so especially there was no
thought of the conversion of heathens and Jews, despite the
words of Christ and His Apostles. It is sufficient, the Dog
matists thought, if only a sample is saved from every nation.
A different tone of thought has prevailed in the
Evangelical Church only since Spener s days. In his case,
Evangelical faith, inspired with new life, advanced, as in early
Christian days, to hope ;
and since hope sketches for itself
ideals of the period of consummation, this hope kindled the mind
for the world-historical mission of the Church, and, as in the
beginning, the Christian spirit turned from eschatology to the
Church s work of love in the earth, to Foreign and some also.
to Home Missions.."
1
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