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Design of the Tract.—Occasion for inquiry.—Importance and solemnity of the subject.

It is proposed to institute a free inquiry into the merits of the Anxious Bench, as it has been enlisted extensively of late years in the service of religion. My object will be to show that the measure is adapted to obstruct rather than to promote the progress of true godliness, and that it deserves to be discouraged on this account.

No one needs to be informed what is meant by the Anxious Bench. Its nature and design have come to be as familiar to most people as the nature and design of the pulpit itself. Even among those who dislike it there are few perhaps who have not had the opportunity at one time or another of witnessing its operation, while all are well acquainted with it at least in the way of description and report.

It will be understood that the Anxious Bench is made to stand, in this case, as the type and representative of the entire system of what are technically denominated in our day “New Measures.” It is not meant by this, of course, that it is so bound to the system as never to be separated from other parts of it in actual practice. It may be in use where no new measures besides are tolerated; and it is possible, on the other hand, that it may not be employed by some who in other respects are wholly in this interest. But still it may very fairly be exhibited as a type of the system at large. These measures form properly a system; and it is only in this view that it is possible to estimate rightly their nature and character. It is not uncommon to class with them things of a different nature altogether; and then advantage is taken of the confusion thus produced to evade the point of objections urged against new measures in the proper sense. This, however, is sophistry of a very shallow order. The idea of New Measures is just as well defined in itself and as generally intelligible in the American Church as the idea of popery, Methodism, Presbyterianism, or almost anything else of the same general character that might be named. It is only by a gross and palpable abuse that some wish to make it include the best things in the Church. New measures, in the technical modem sense, form a particular system, involving a certain theory of religious action, and characterized by a distinctive life, which is by no means difficult to understand. Of this system the Anxious Bench is a proper representative. It opens the way naturally to other forms of aberration in the same direction, and may be regarded in this view as the threshold of all that is found to follow, quite out to the extreme verge of fanaticism and rant. The measure belongs to the system, not in the name simply, but in its life and spirit. At the same time, it is the most favorable aspect in which the cause of New Measures can be presented to our view. The simple Anxious Bench, as it is often used in a sober way, is the most moderate and plausible shape the system can well take. If this then be found unworthy of confidence, the whole system will be shorn of its title to confidence at the same time. If the Anxious Bench can claim no indulgence, it must be idle to put in a plea for its kindred measures. All beyond this is only something worse.

It is well too that we can thus deal with our subject. If there be no room, as some pretend, for treating it in a clear and satisfactory way under the title of New Measures, by reason of the confusion with which that term is used, it is so much the more important that we should substitute the particular for the general; and we have reason to congratulate ourselves on finding a single, well known form of action that can be taken fairly as the representative of the whole system. In this way our argument will not be abstract and vague, but pointed and clear. Whatever dust it might be contrived to raise with regard to the proper sense of the term New Measures, all know at least the meaning of the Anxious Bench. Here then we have a tangible, concrete subject with which to deal. Let it serve as a specimen of the system to which it belongs. In this way the system is characterized and distinguished. It includes things of the same general constitution and spirit with the Anxious Bench. In trying the merits of this, we try at the same time all these kindred practices and nothing more.110 If any choose to incorporate with their idea of New Measures, things of a different constitution and spirit entirely, it cannot be helped. But they can have no right to force any view of this sort upon the present argument. Our business is with New Measures in the proper sense; and that we may not seem to run uncertainly, or beat the air, we characterize the system by one of its most familiar exhibitions. It stands before us in the type of the Anxious Bench.

Here too is the proper point for grappling with the heresy of New Measures. It can answer no purpose to discountenance the system in general, if we lend our influence theoretically or practically to uphold a measure forming like this a legitimate stepping stone to all the system is found to embrace. No satisfactory line can be drawn between this and the more advanced forms of extravagance for which it prepares the way. They will be found to involve in the end the same principle. That is a false position, therefore, by which some excellent men allow themselves to speak freely against noise and disorder and bodily exercises in public worship under other forms, while at the same time the Anxious Bench is not only spared, but treated with honor and confidence, as though it had come to form part of the accredited and regular service of God’s House. Men who occupy this position may preach or write an abundance of wholesome advice on the subject of false excitement in religion; but their advice is not likely to carry much weight with it in the end, as not going after all to the ground of the error against which it is directed. If we would utter an intelligible and consistent testimony against New Measures, we must make no exception, openly or tacitly, in favor of the Anxious Bench. Here precisely is the proper point at which to grapple with the whole system.

There is occasion for the inquiry here proposed. It is true, indeed, that throughout a large portion of the country the Anxious Bench, after having enjoyed a brief reputation, has fallen into discredit. It has been tried, and found wanting; and it might have been trusted that this experiment would be sufficient to drive it completely out of use. But unfortunately this has not been the case. Over a wide section of the land we find it still holding its ground, without any regard to the disgrace with which it has been overtaken in the North and East. Peculiar circumstances have conspired to promote its credit on this field.

It is within the range particularly of the German Churches that a new life may be said to have been communicated latterly to the system of New Measures. No field is more interesting at this time than that which is comprehended within these limits. A vast moral change is going forward upon it, involving consequences that no man can properly calculate. From various causes a new feeling is at work everywhere on the subject of religion. As usual, the old struggles to maintain itself in opposition to the new, and a strong tendency to become extreme is created on both sides. The general mind unhappily has not been furnished thus far with proper protection and guidance in the way of full religious teaching; and the result is that in these interesting circumstances it has become exposed more or less at almost every point to those wild fanatical influences which in this country are sure to come in like a desolating flood wherever they can find room. Upstart sects have set themselves to take possession, if possible, of the entire field in this way, on the principle that the old organizations are corrupt and deserve to be destroyed. Their reliance, of course, in this work of reformation, is placed largely on New Measures! Thus a whole Babel of extravagance has been let loose upon the community far and wide in the name of religion, one sect vying with another in the measure of its irregularities. In these circumstances it has not been easy for the friends of earnest piety always in the regular churches to abide by the ancient landmarks of truth and order. The temptation has been strong to fall in, at least to some extent, with the tide of fanaticism as the only way of making war successfully on the dead formality that stared them in the face in one direction, and the only way of counteracting the proselyting zeal of these noisy sects in the other.

This and other considerations have had the effect of opening the way for the use of New Measures to some extent in the German Reformed Church, and to a much greater in the Lutheran. It is well known that a large division of this last denomination has identified itself openly and zealously with the system, both in doctrine and practice. The Lutheran Observer,111 which has a wide circulation and great influence, has lent all its authority to recommend and support the Anxious Bench with its accompaniments, taking every occasion to speak in its favor and making continually the most of its results. The “revivals” of the Church latterly have been very generally carried forward with the use of New Measures, as may be perceived from the reports of them published from time to time in the Observer. The great awakening of last winter, pronounced by the editor of that paper to have been probably the greatest since the days of the Apostles, seems almost everywhere to have involved the free use of this method. Thus ministers and congregations have become extensively committed in its favor; so that with many the use of the Anxious Bench, and a zeal for evangelical godliness, are considered to be very much the same thing. It might seem indeed as though all the interests of religion, in the case of the German community, were to the view of a large class suspended on the triumphant progress of New Measures.112 These are with them emphatically the “great power of God,” which may be expected to turn and overturn, till old things shall fairly pass away and all things become new. 113 And it must be acknowledged that the system bids fair at present to go on conquering and to conquer in its own style within the limits at least of this widely extended and venerable denomination. It seems to bear down more and more all opposition. It has become an interest too strong to be resisted or controlled. What are to be its ultimate issues and results, time only can reveal.

All this is within the reach of the most common observation. And no one reflecting on the actual state of things at this time on the field occupied by the German Churches can well fail to perceive that there is full occasion for calling attention to the subject which it is here proposed to consider. An inquiry into the merits of the Anxious Bench and the system to which it belongs is not only seasonable and fit in the circumstances of the time, but loudly called for on every side. It is no small question that is involved in the case. The bearing of it upon the interests of religion in the German Churches is of fundamental and vital importance. A crisis has evidently been reached in the history of these Churches; and one of the most serious points involved in it is precisely this question of New Measures. Let this system prevail and rule with permanent sway, and the result of the religious movement which is now in progress will be something widely different from what it would have been under other auspices. The old regular organizations, if they continue to exist at all, will not be the same Churches. Their entire complexion and history in time to come will be shaped by the course of things with regard to this point. In this view the march of New Measures at the present time may well challenge our anxious and solemn regard. It is an interest of no common magnitude, portentous in its aspect, and pregnant with consequences of vast account. The system is moving forward in full strength, and putting forth its pretensions in the boldest style on all sides. Surely we have a right, and may well feel it a duty, in such a case, to institute an examination into its merits.

Nor is it any reason for silence in the case that we may have suffered as yet comparatively little in our own denomination from the use of New Measures. We may congratulate ourselves that we have been thus favored, and that the impression seems to be steadily growing that they ought not to be encouraged in our communion. Still, linked together as the German Churches are throughout the land, we have reason to be jealous here of influences that must in the nature of the case act upon us from without. In such circumstances there is occasion, and at the same time room, for consideration. It might answer little purpose to interpose remonstrance or inquiry if the rage for New Measures were fairly let loose, as a sweeping wind, within our borders. It were idle to bespeak attention from the rolling whirlwind. But with the whirlwind in full view, we may be exhorted reasonably to consider and stand back from its destructive path. We are not yet committed to the cause of New Measures in any respect. We are still free to reject or embrace them as the interests of the Church, on calm reflection, may be found to require. In such circumstances precisely may it be counted in all respects proper to subject the system to a serious examination.

It has been sometimes intimated that it is not safe to oppose and condemn the use of New Measures, because of their connections and purpose. Their relation to the cause of revivals is supposed to invest them with a sort of sacred character which the friends of religion should at least respect, even if they may not be able in all cases to approve. The system has taken hold of the “horns of the altar,” and it seems to some like sacrilege to fall upon it there, or to force it away for the purposes of justice to any other place.114 It is a serious thing, we are told, to find fault with any movement that claims to be animated by the Spirit of God. By so doing we render it questionable whether we have ourselves any proper sympathy with revivals, and furnish occasion to the world also to blaspheme and oppose everything of the kind. But this is tyrannical enough to take for granted the main point in dispute, and then employ it as a consideration to repress inquiry or to silence objection. If New Measures can be shown to proceed from the Holy Ghost, or to be identified in any view with the cause of revivals, they may well demand our reverence and respect. If they can be shown even to be of adiaphorous115 character with regard to religion, harmless at least if not positively helpful to the Spirit’s work, they may then put in a reasonable plea to be tolerated in silence, if not absolutely approved. But neither the one nor the other of these positions can be successfully maintained. It is a mere trick unworthy of the gospel for any one to confound with the sacred idea of a revival things that do not belong to it in truth at all for the purpose of compelling a judgment in their favor. The very design of the inquiry now proposed is to show that the Anxious Bench, and the system to which it belongs, have no claim to be considered either salutary or safe in the service of religion. It is believed that instead of promoting the cause of true vital godliness, they are adapted to hinder its progress. The whole system is considered to be full of peril for the most precious interests of the Church. And why then should there be any reserve in treating the subject with such freedom as it may seem to require? We may well feel indeed that the subject is solemn. All that relates to the interests of revivals, and the welfare of souls, is solemn; and it becomes us to approach it in a serious way. But this is no reason why we should close our eyes against the truth, or refuse to call things by their proper names. This would be to trifle with sacred things truly.

And it should be born in mind that the danger against which we need to be warned in this case is not confined by any means to one side. It is a serious thing to profane the worship of God by offering upon His altar strange fire.116 Those who recommend and practice New Measures should see well to it that they be not themselves chargeable with the very sin which they are too prone to charge upon such as withstand their views. It is surely not a case in which men can be justified in taking up a judgment lightly and with little or no reflection. Mighty interests are concerned in the question whether such means should be employed in the service of God’s sanctuary or not. A great responsibility is involved in urging the system upon a congregation, or in trying to give it currency and authority in a religious community. If it should be found after all to be not the wisdom and power of God unto salvation, but the fruitful source of error and confusion in religion, an occasion of reproach to the gospel and of ruin to the souls of men, it would be a heavy account surely to answer for any part taken in its favor.

It is truly strange how one-sided the patrons of this system show themselves, as a general thing, in their views and feelings with regard to the point now presented. They affect an extraordinary interest in the cause of revivals, and seem to have a pious dread of sinning against it in any way. But the danger of doing so is all, to their view, in one direction. The idea of opposing the work of God is terrible. Whatever claims to be His work, then, must be respected and reverenced. No matter what irregularities are attached to it, so long as it stands before us in the holy garb of a revival, it is counted unsafe to call it to account. The maxim Prove all things117 must be discarded, as well as the caution Believe not every spirit.118 No room must be allowed to criticism where the object proposed is to rescue souls from hell. To stand upon points of order in such a case is to clog the chariot wheels of salvation. Meanwhile the disastrous consequences of false excitement, in the name of religion, are entirely overlooked. No account is made comparatively of the danger of bringing both the truth and power of God into discredit by countenancing pretentions to the name of a revival where the thing itself is not present. The danger itself is by no means imaginary. Spurious excitements are natural and common. Gross irregularity and extravagance, carried often to the point of downright profanity, are actually at work in connection with such excitements on all sides. The whole interest of revivals is endangered by the assumption impudently put forward that these revolting excesses belong to the system. False and ruinous views of religion are widely disseminated. Thousands of souls are deceived into a false hope. Vast obstructions are thrown in the way of true godliness. But of all this no account is made by those who are so sensitively jealous of danger on the other side. The only alternative they seem to see is Action or No action. But the difference between right action and wrong action, one would think, is fully as important, to say the least, as the difference between action and no action.

We are told however that the term “New Measures” is vague, covering in the view of some more than it covers in the view of others; so that there is danger of encouraging prejudice and opposition against the best things as well as the worst in venturing to criticize and censure the general system. In the German community in particular it is well known that great confusion prevails with regard to the subject in this view. With many all active efforts in favor of serious evangelical piety are branded with the reproach of new measures. Protracted meetings, prayer meetings, the doctrine of the new birth, special efforts for the salvation of sinners, revivals in the true and proper sense, tract societies, missionary societies, and benevolent operations, generally, all are regarded with suspicion, or it may be actually opposed as belonging to the same system of extravagance that includes the Anxious Bench and its natural connections. To oppose the latter, then, we are told is virtually to oppose the former. People will not distinguish. By exposing the nakedness of the Anxious Bench, we must expect to strengthen the hands of those who cry out against all active religion. Better to be silent than to incur so heavy a responsibility. Especially at this juncture should we observe such sacred caution, it is intimated, when the German Churches are waking from the sleep of years and passing the crisis of a great spiritual revolution whose consequences no one can measure.

Most certainly in such circumstances caution does become us all. We should tremble to touch the ark of God with unhallowed hand. It were only to be wished that this might be seriously laid to heart by the champions of the Anxious Bench themselves, as well as by others.

It has been already stated that the Anxious Bench is made the direct object of regard in this tract rather than New Measures in general for the very purpose of cutting off occasion, as much as may be from those who seek occasion, for confounding in this way things that are entirely distinct. The particular is made to stand for the general in the way of specimen or type, so as to exclude all that is not of the same complexion and spirit. If any choose notwithstanding to take the idea of New Measures in a wider sense, they have a right to please themselves in so doing if they see proper; but they can have no right surely to obtrude their own arbitrary view on the present discussion. There is a broad difference between New Measures in the one sense, and the New Measures in the other sense. It is overbearing impudence to pretend that a protracted meeting or a meeting for social prayer is of the same character with the anxious bench, or the various devices for theatrical effect with which this is so frequently linked. Such meetings lie in the very conception of Christian worship and are as old as the Church. The assertion sometimes heard that the idea of protracted meetings now so familiar and so generally approved is one of recent origin for which we are indebted to the system of New Measures, serves only to expose the ignorance of those by whom it is made. It is no less an abuse of terms as well as of common sense to include in this system tract societies, the cause of missions, and the benevolent agencies in general, by which the Church is endeavoring to diffuse the knowledge of the truth throughout the world. All these things are natural, direct utterances of the spirit of Christianity itself, and have no affinity whatever with the order of action represented by the Anxious Bench. The same thing may be said of revivals. They are as old as the gospel itself. Special effusions of the Spirit the Church has a right to expect in every age, in proportion as she is found faithful to God’s covenant; and where such effusions take place, an extraordinary use of the ordinary means of grace will appear, as a matter of course. But still a revival is one thing, and a Phrygian dance another; even though the Phrygian dance should be baptized into Christian Montanism.119 Life implies action, but all action is not life. It is sheer impudence to say that new measures and revival measures are the same thing.

And there is good reason to believe that the confusion, which is said to prevail with regard to the whole subject, is much less in fact than is sometimes represented. As a general thing, people know very well that there is no affinity or connection between the system represented by the Anxious Bench and such evangelical interests as have now been mentioned. Even in those sections where it has been found convenient to stretch the idea of New Measures over this hallowed territory, there is a better knowledge of the true state of the case probably than is often supposed.120

But allowing the confusion to be as complete among the German Churches as it is represented, shall no effort be made to correct it and put things in their proper light? Admit that the best practices and most important interests are in the eyes of many identified with the system of New Measures in the proper sense, so that to assault the latter is considered an assault at the same time upon the former; still, is that a reason for sparing and sheltering the system under its own bad form? Is there no help for the German Churches in this predicament? Must they have revivals in the way of the Anxious Bench, or no revivals at all? Must it be with them Finneyism,121 Methodism,122 Winebrennerism,123 or open war with serious religion, and the spirit of missions, under every form? Is the necessary alternative in their case quackery or death? Rather, in these circumstances, it becomes a solemn duty to take the difficulty by the horns, and reduce it to its proper posture. We owe it to the German Churches not to suffer things so different in a case of such vast moment to be so deplorably confounded. The case is one that calls loudly for light, and it is high time that light should be extended to it without reserve. If it be a reigning error to involve light and darkness in this way, under a common term, in the same sweeping censure, that is not a reason surely why we should try to uphold the darkness for the sake of the light, but a sacred requisition upon us rather to insist on a clear, full discrimination of the one element from the other. If Finneyism and Winebrennerism, the anxious bench, revival machinery, solemn tricks for effect, decision displays at the bidding of the preacher, genuflections and prostrations in the aisle or around the altar, noise and disorder, extravagance and rant, mechanical conversions, justification by feeling rather than faith, and encouragement ministered to all fanatical impressions; if these things, and things in the same line indefinitely, have no connection in fact with true serious religion and the cause of revivals, but tend only to bring them into discredit, let the fact be openly proclaimed. Only in this way may it be hoped that the reproach put upon revivals and other evangelical interests by same, under cover of their pretended connection with this system of New Measures in the true sense, will be in due time fairly rolled away.

The fact, that a crisis has come in the history of the German Churches, and that they are waking to the consciousness of a new life with regard to religion, only makes it the more important that this subject should not be suffered to rest in vague confusion. It is a popish maxim by which ignorance is made to be the mother of devotion. We say rather, “Let there be light.” The cause of the Reformation was more endangered by its own caricature, in the wild fanaticism of the Anabaptists, than by all the opposition of Rome. Luther saved it, not by truckling compromise, but by boldly facing and unmasking the false spirit, so that all the world might see that Lutheran Christianity was one thing, and wild Phrygian Montanism, with its pretended inspiration, quite another. So in the present crisis, the salvation of the old German Churches in this country is to be accomplished, not by encouraging them to “believe every spirit,” but by engaging them, if possible, to “try the spirits, whether they be of God.” Let things that are wrong be called by their right names, and separated from things that are right.

A heavy responsibility, in this case, rests upon the friends of New Measures. The circulation of spurious coin, in the name of money, brings the genuine currency into discredit. So also the surest way to create and cherish prejudice against true piety is to identify it with counterfeit pretences to its name. Popery, in popish countries, is the fruitful source of infidelity. So in the case before us it is sufficiently clear that the zeal which the sticklers for the system of the Anxious Bench display, in pressing their irregularities on the Church as a necessary part of the life and power of Christianity, is doing more at present than any other cause to promote the unhappy prejudice that is found to prevail in certain quarters against this interest in its true form. Many are led honestly to confound the one order of things with the other; and still more, no doubt, willingly accept the opportunity thus furnished to strengthen themselves in their opposition to evangelical interests, under a plausible plea, against their own better knowledge. In either case we see the mischievous force of the false issue which the question of New Measures has been made to involve. The Anxious Bench and its kindred extravagances may be held justly responsible for a vast amount of evil in this view. As a caricature always wrongs the original it is made falsely to represent, so has this spurious system, officiously usurping a name and place not properly its own, contributed in no small degree to bring serious religion itself into discredit, obscuring its true form, and inviting towards it prejudices that might otherwise have had no place. It has much to answer for, in the occasion it has given, and is giving still, for the name of God to be blasphemed, and the sacred cause of revivals to be vilified and opposed.

110. “How can the import of this measure exhibit the character of protracted meetings, both which in many German churches are well known to be included in their idea of New Measures?”—Luth. Obs. [“Notes on ‘The Anxious Bench, by Rev. J. W. Nevin, D. D.,’ No. II,” Lutheran Observer 11, no. 11], Nov. 17, 1843 [p. 3]. Of a truth, it may be replied, not very well; and for this reason precisely it is made to stand here as the representative of the system to which it of right belongs, that every body may be able at once to see and understand that prayer meetings, protracted meetings, and other interests of the same complexion come not in any sense within the scope of the present inquiry. [This is the first reference of many in this tract to Lutheran Observer, edited by Benjamin Kurtz, a frequent critic of Nevin.]

111. [At this point in the first edition, Nevin placed the following note: “The respected Editor of the Observer, it is trusted, will not find fault with the freedom employed towards him and his correspondents, in this tract. The subject involves a great interest for our common Christianity; and his position, relatively in particular to the German field in this country, entitles him to special regard in the present discussion. His paper is known to be a powerful organ, for the support of the system here condemned, and he counts it an honor to be identified with it himself in the most public manner. He may be considered perhaps the most distinguished representative and advocate of the New Measures at this time in the American Church. His views at the same time are public property, and may be said indeed to challenge public attention. In such circumstances, it can be no breach of courtesy, but is only due respect rather, to refer to this paper as is done repeatedly in the course of the present inquiry (Anxious Bench, first ed., 5n, emphasis original).”]

112. “And let me tell you, Sir, that whatever Prof. Nevin may (in the abstraction of his study) have written to the contrary, I am nevertheless strongly convinced, as a pastor, that the so-called ‘anxious bench’ is the lever of Archimedes, which by the blessing of God can raise our German churches to that degree of respectability and prosperity in the religious world which they ought to enjoy.”—Correspondence of the Luth. Obs. [Lutheran Observer 11, no. 11], Nov. 17, 1843 [p. 2].

“Such measures are usually inseparable from great revivals, and if the great luminaries in the Church set themselves up against them, why they must be content to abide the consequences. By the judicious use of such measures, the millennium must be accelerated and introduced; &c.—Luth. Obs. [Lutheran Observer 11, no. 21], Jan. 26, 1844 [p. 3].

113. [The quoted phrase is from Acts 8:10 KJV, referring to the sorcerer Simon; the end of the sentence alludes to Rev 21:1, 5.]

114. [In 1 Kings 1, Adonijah had attempted a coup; when he learned that David had proclaimed Solomon king, he went to the tabernacle and grasped the horns of the altar in a plea for clemency (v. 50).]

115. [I.e., ritually or morally indifferent.]

116. [Num 3:4.]

117. [1 Thes 5:21.]

118. [1 John 4:1.]

119. [According to Phillip Schaff, the followers of Montanus, a self-proclaimed prophet speaking with the voice of the Holy Spirit, were called Montanists, also Phrygians, and referred to themselves as spiritual Christians in distinction from psychic or carnal Christians. See Schaff, History of the Christian Church II:109–111. Phrygia was the ancient homeland of the goddess Cybele; her rituals included ecstatic dancing ending with her male devotees castrating themselves (Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., 3:1452; 3:2108–09).]

120. [While Nevin might have been justified in calling for discrimination, he was never able to recognize the historical and spiritual continuities of the older Reformed evangelical piety he approved with the New Measures techniques he abominated. See Layman, general introduction to Born of Water and the Spirit, 4–12.]

121. [Those who adopted and employed Charles Finney’s (1792–1875) pelagian theology and new measures strategies of revivalism. See Finney, Lectures on Revival of Religion.]

122. [Methodism represents a movement within eighteenth-century Protestantism that traces its heritage back to John Wesley (1703–91) and his attempts to reform the Church of England from within.]

123. [John Winebrenner (1797–1860), born in Frederick, Maryland, was a German Reformed pastor who founded the “Church of God,” known for his enthusiastic style, which included support of revivals, tolerance for neighboring Methodist pastors, and vigorous preaching against theatres, balls, lotteries, gambling, horse racing and, above all, slavery. In September 1828 he was removed from the Reformed Church. By October 1830 he had founded his own conservative evangelical denomination called the “Church of God,” a restorationist movement that claimed no creed but the Bible. See Kern, John Winebrenner.]