The Reformed church was influenced and impelled by it, and even
England and the Netherlands indicated a strong sympathy for its
practical and evangelical features. No higher tribute can be paid it
than that of Tholuck, who avers, "_that the Protestant church of Germany
has never possessed so many zealous Christian ministers and laymen as in
the first forty years of the eighteenth century_."
There are two names intimately connected with Pietism in its better
days, which it would be improper to pass over. Arnold, the historian of
Pietism, and Thomasius, the eminent jurist. They were both alike
dangerous to the very cause they sought to befriend. The former, in his
_History of Churches and Heretics_, took such decided ground against the
existing church system that he was fairly charged with being a
Separatist. He attached but little importance to dogmatics, despised
orthodoxy, and inveighed against the church as if she were the veriest
pest in the land. While a student at Wittenberg he applied himself to
the study of Mysticism, and now claimed that its incorporation with
Pietism was the only salvation of Christianity.
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