e been sustained by nothing else than the statement
that Halle Pietists were not orthodox Lutherans; and secondly, that
Muehlenberg alleged that the Lutheran Church had some imperfections.
Beside this charge of heterodoxy was another of life and conduct
unworthy a Christian, which, from the proof, seems to have consisted in
not estimating the complainer sufficiently highly and not treating him
as he thought he deserved. But the wounded vanity of Raus had at least
the good results that it caused to be written the statement in which
Muehlenberg, with indignation repels the outrageous charge. From this
statement, preserved with the other papers in the case in the Archives
at Halle, and copied for the new edition of the Halle Reports, I
quote this passage: "Ich biethe dem Satan und seinen dienstbaren
Luegen-Geistern Trutz um etwas auf mich zu beweisen, das wider der
Lehre der Apostel und Propheten und unserer Symbolischen Buecher
streiten sollte. Ich habe oft und vielmals gesagt und geschrieben das
ich an unsere Evangelische Lehre, nach dem Grunde der Apostel und
Propheten und unserer Symbolischen Buecher, keinen Irrthum, Fehler oder
Mangel faende." "I defy Satan, and all the lying spirits who serve him,
to prove against me anything in conflict with the doctrine of the
Apostles and Prophets and of our Symbolical Books. I have often and
again said and written that I have found in our Evangelical doctrine,
founded on the Apostles and Prophets, and set forth in our Symbolical
Books, neither error, fault or anything wanting." If these words are
not clear enough and strong enough to answer any charge of confessional
disloyalty, it would be difficult to say how it could be done.

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.

Until his twenty-second year he lived at Eimbeck, formerly a free city,
but then in the Grubenhagen Principality of the Duchy of
Brunswick-Lueneburg. The church at Eimbeck had been reformed and set in
order by Nicholas Amsdorf, but long before Muehlenberg's time, it had
come under the jurisdiction of the Lueneburg KO. The edition issued by
Frederick Duke of Br. Luen., in 1643, being in force during
Muehlenberg's youth. Afterward at Goettingen, though the city had its
own Ordnung, originally prefaced an