hen, was inevitable:
the doctrinal and spiritual gap between Shober and his compeers on the
one hand and the Henkels and their adherents on the other hand being
just as wide and insurmountable as that between Zwingli and Luther at
Marburg 1529. The leaders of the North Carolina Synod were not only
unionistic, but, in more than one respect, Reformed theologians. The
ministers who soon after united in organizing the Tennessee Synod
declared with respect to the North Carolina Synod: "If they would adopt
the name of what we believe they really are, and in this way withdraw
from us, then we and other people would know what our relation was
toward them. But if they intend to remain in our household, they shall
also submit to its authority [Augsburg Confession], or we will have
nothing to do with them." (31.)
GOTTLIEB SHOBER.
75. Harbors Reformed Views on Lord's Supper.--The charges against
David Henkel as to his teaching the Romish doctrine of
transubstantiation, referred to above, had been lodged with Pastor
Shober, then secretary of the North Carolina Synod. When David Henkel
complained that his accusers were not named, Shober, who had never
forsaken his Moravian views, wrote him a letter, dated October 20, 1818,
which at the same time reveals that, as to the Lord's Supper, his were
the views of the Reformed. For here we read: "Your very long epistle,
proving that Christ is with His body every where present, is excellent
on paper, but not so in the pulpit, where seven-eighths of the hearers
will gaze at the profound erudition and one-eighth of such as reason
will shake heads at a thing to be believed, but not explainable, and to
none will it effect conviction of the necessity of spiritual
regeneration and of adopting Him as their God and Savior crucified." "I
must assure you that creditable people of our Church and the Reformed
have not only heard you advance that whosoever is baptized and partakes
of the Supper wants no other and further repentance, but also that
whosoever teaches other doctrine, he is a false teacher. This, my dear
sir, is making people secure in forms and not in realities. How easy is
it to go to heaven, for an adulterous heart to be absolved by Mr.
Henkel, and as a seal to receive from Mr. Henkel the Sacrament, who by
his few words made bread body and wine blood--and such a holy divine
body, without limitation of space, as is compelled to enter into all
substances and beings, whether they will or
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