Beyond the limits of Prussia the Union gave rise to animated discussion;
but within the space of five years it was effected in Nassau, Rhenish
Bavaria, the Palatinate, Rhenish Hesse, and Dessau. It encountered the
most decided opposition in the person of Harms, a pastor of the city of
Kiel. He was not opposed to any movement which he thought would conduce
to the advantage of Christ's kingdom, but it was his opinion that a
return to the old Lutheran orthodoxy was more needed than the union of
the two churches. The faith of the fathers, and not the union of
Rationalistic divines, was, in his view, the only method of deliverance.
Harms was little known outside his own province until the publication of
his ninety-five _Theses_ in connection with the original ninety-five
nailed by Luther to the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg. He was
the son of a plain Holstein miller, and had been indoctrinated into the
Lutheran catechism during his early youth. His first lessons in Latin
and Greek were received at the hands of a Rationalistic pastor in his
native town, but he assisted his father in the mill until he was
nineteen years of age.
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