IDEA FIDEI FRATRUM ODER KURZER BEGRIF DER CHRISTLICHEN LEHRE IN DEN EVANGELISCHEN BRUDERGEMEINEN.

Barby, Christian Friedrich Laux, und in Leipzig in Commission bey Weidmanns Erben und Reich. 1782., 1782 pp. 592, (64). Small 8vo. 185 mm. One leaf has a lower corner torn out effecting 9 lines of text. The binding's clasps have worn the preliminary and end leaves, without loss of text. Early full leather binding; with remains of the original clasp mountings. Slight loss to top 1" of spine. Early pencil ownership of Abraham P. Moyers. August Gottlieb Spangenberg (1704-1792) was Count Zinzendorf's successor, and bishop of the Moravian Brethren. In 1728 Count Zinzendorf visited Jena, and Spangenberg made his acquaintance. In 1730 he visited the Moravian colony at Herrnhut. A "Collegium Pastorale Practicum" for the care of the sick and poor was in consequence founded by him at Jena, which the authorities at once broke up as a "Zinzendorfian institution." Later, his free lectures in Jena met with much acceptance, and led to an offer from Gotthilf Francke of the post of assistant professor of theology and superintendent of schools connected with his orphanage at Halle. He accepted the offer, and took up his duties in September 1732. But differences between the Pietists of Halle and himself soon became apparent. He found their religious life too formal, external and worldly, and they could not sanction his comparative indifference to doctrinal correctness and his incurable tendency to separatism in church life. After some false starts Spangenberg went to Herrnhut and found amongst the Moravians his life-work. He became its theologian, its apologist, its statesman and corrector, through sixty long years. For the first thirty years (1733-1762) his work was mainly devoted to the superintendence and organization of the extensive missionary enterprises of the body in Germany, England, Denmark, the Netherlands, Suriname, Georgia and elsewhere. During the second half of this missionary period of his life he superintended as bishop the churches of Pennsylvania. There he defended the Moravian colonies against the Indians, became their apologist against the attacks of the Lutherans and the Pietists, and did much to moderate the mystical extravagances of Count Zinzendorf. In 1777 Spangenberg was commissioned to draw up the Idea Fidei Fratrum, or "Compendium of the Christian Faith of the United Brethren" , which became the accepted declaration of the Moravian belief. As compared with Zinzendorf's own writings, this book exhibits the finer balance and greater moderation of Spangenberg's nature, while those offensive descriptions of the relation of the sinner to Christ in which the Moravians at first indulged are almost absent from it. - From Wiki. GER-GER1 Language: eng. Hardcover. Good.