American Lutheranism, page 49 by Friedrich Bente
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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 Schoharie congregations, which he served beginning with the year 1795, he vowed that he would preach the truth according to the Word of God and "our Symbolical Books." Before long, however, he began to reveal the true inwardness of his character. In his revised edition of Kunze's cate