ors which have been especially
committed by the Englishman Cave; he has maintained that the Church of
Christ, with respect to life and conduct, had begun to fall into decay
immediately after the ascension of our Saviour, and still more after the
death of the Apostles, and that this degeneracy had enormously
increased since the age of Constantine the Great."[27]

Thomasius, though not personally connected with Pietism, gave it all his
influence. He was Director of the University of Halle, and defended the
Pietists from the standpoint of statesmanship. He believed Pietism the
only means of uprooting the long-existing corruptions of education,
society, and religion. He opposed the custom of teaching and lecturing
in Latin, warmly advocating the use of French, and subsequently of
German. He wished to cultivate the German spirit, and spared no pains to
accomplish his purpose. While yet a teacher at Leipzig he announced a
course of lectures to be delivered in the German language. The outcry
was great against him; but he persevered, and henceforth delivered all
his lectures in his mother tongue. Since his time the use of Latin, as a
colloquial, has gradually decreased, and at the present day the German
is the chief language employed at the universities. Thomasius was also
the first to combat the system of prosecutions for witchcraft, and the
application of torture in criminal trials. He was a thorough and
indefatigable reformer. His name was a tower of strength in his
generation; and he left a vivid impress upon the German mind of the
eighteenth century. He published many works, some of which were directed
against the ministry because of their neglect of duty.

A new generation of professors arose in Halle. C. B. Michaelis, the
younger Francke, Freilinghausen, the elder Knapp, Callenberg, and
Baumgarten, took the place of their more vigorous predecessors. It is
deplorable to see how Pietism now began to lose its first power and
earnest spirit. The persistent inquiry into scriptural truth passed
over into a tacit acquiescence of the understanding. Reliance was placed
on the convictions, more than on the fruits of study. Spener had blended
the emotions of the mind and heart, reason and faith, harmoniously; but
the later Pietists cast off the former and blindly followed the latter.
Hence they soon found themselves indulging in superstition, and
repeating many of the errors of some of the most deluded Mystics.
Science was frowned