,
merely retaining the name Lutheran. At the convention in Rheinbeck,
1797, Dr. Kunze being the leading spirit and president, the New York
Ministerium passed the notorious resolution: "Resolved, That, on account
of the intimate relation subsisting between the English Episcopalian and
Lutheran Churches, the identity of their doctrine, and the near approach
of their church-discipline, this consistory will never acknowledge a
newly erected Lutheran church in places where the members may partake of
the services of the said English Episcopal Church." (628.) Seven years
later this resolution was rescinded, not, indeed, for confessional
reasons, but in the interest of expediency and policy, because in 1804
G. Strebeck, with a part of his English congregation in New York, had
been received by the Episcopalians. Spaeth remarks with respect to the
Rheinbeck resolution: "A fitting parallel to this resolution is found in
the advances made by the Mother Synod of Pennsylvania toward a union
with the German Reformed Church, first in 1819 for the joint
establishment of a common Theological Seminary, and afterward, in 1822,
for a general union with the Evangelical Reformed Church. See Minutes of
1822." (_C.P. Krauth,_ 1,320.)

30. President Quitman the Rationalist.--The unionism and indifferentism
of the New York Ministerium naturally developed and merged into
Socinianism and Rationalism under its liberal, but most able and
influential leader, Dr. F. H. Quitman (1760-1832). "Quitman," says
Graebner, "was a stately person, over six feet in height and of
correspondingly broad and powerful build. Already at his entrance in
Halle, one of the professors greeted the nineteen-year-old giant with
the words, 'Quanta ossa! Quantum robur! What bones! What power!'" In his
subsequent intercourse with the polite world Quitman acquired a fine
tact and measured, dignified ways. At the same time he was a man of
excellent parts, a master at repartee, with a keen intellect and a firm
will, and in every respect a born leader." (532.) He was the only
Lutheran minister who ever received, and perhaps desired [?] [tr. note:
sic!] to receive, the degree of D. D. from Harvard University. Quitman,
a disciple of Teller and of Semler in Halle, was a determined
protagonist of German Rationalism. In 1807 this outspoken and consistent
Socinian was elected president of the New York Ministerium, remaining in
this office till 1825. When Quitman accepted the call to the S