Volume I Part 4 (2/2)

answered that such had not been the intention of Synod. Haste and lack of time had caused him to write it thus without previous careful consideration; therefore, now everything had to be governed and judged according to the majority. But we were of the opinion that it would prove to be a very unreasonable action to reject a const.i.tution which a few years ago, according to a resolution of Synod, had been printed and bound in 1,500 copies, the money being taken from the synodical treasury, and sold at 75 cts. a copy.” (_Tenn. Rep_. 1820, 24.) The question concerning the violation of the const.i.tution would, no doubt, have been settled in favor of the Henkels, if they had not opposed the leaders in their union schemes and charged them with false doctrine and apostasy from the Lutheran Church. Says the aforementioned Tennessee Report: ”Even though the officers with their adherents (die alten Herrn Beamten mit ihrem Zugeh.o.e.r) could perhaps themselves have thought so far [as to realize the arbitrariness of their procedure with reference to the 'Untimely Synod'], yet the desire to organize the General Synod and to bring about a union with all religious bodies, especially with the Presbyterians, was so strong as to outweigh everything else” [even an imminent breach]. The leaders finally admitted that both parties had erred, and declared their willingness to pardon everything if the minority would reunite with them. The Henkels, however, declared that they could have no fellows.h.i.+p with people who were addicted to false doctrines concerning Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and rejected the doctrine of the Augsburg Confession. They also declared their impatience with the contemplated ”general union of all religious denominations,”

saying that such a union was no more possible than to bring together as one peaceful flock into one fold ”sheep, goats, lambs, cows, oxen, horses, bears, wolves, wild cats, foxes, and swine.” At this juncture one of the officers, dissolving the meeting and leaving the church, exclaimed: ”Whoever is a _true Lutheran_, may he come with us to the hotel of J. H.; there we will begin our Synod!” The minority answered: ”Whoever wants to be a true fanatic (Schwaermer), may he go along; for you are no real Lutheran preachers: you are fanatics (Schwaermer) and to them you belong!” A young teacher added: ”According to the testimony of Holy Scripture, it is impossible for us to regard you as anything but false teachers.” Then one of the old ministers, turning toward the a.s.sembly, said: ”Now you yourselves have heard the boldness and impertinence of this young man, who charges us, old and respectable ministers that we are, with false doctrine.” Similar utterances were made by others. The report concludes: ”However, they left the church without defending themselves against such accusations, except that one of the old ministers said at the exit of the church that he was much astonished. But we could not help that.” (_Tenn. Report_ 1820, 27.) As Bell joined the Shober party, his ordination at Buffalo Creek was declared const.i.tutional and ratified as valid. Shober now reported on his cordial reception by the Pennsylvania Synod and on the transaction which led to the adoption of the ”Planentwurf” for the contemplated organization of the General Synod. The doc.u.ment, after its individual paragraphs had been read and discussed, was adopted by the North Carolina Synod by a majority of 15 to 6--a result which Shober had forestalled in a letter to the Pennsylvania Synod a.s.sembled at Lancaster, stating ”that the greatest part of the members of the North Carolina Synod had adopted the so-called Planentwurf,” and expressing the hope that the General Synod might be established. After adopting the ”Planentwurf,” the North Carolina Synod elected Pastors Shober and Peter Schmucker delegates to the convention of the General Synod, which was to convene at Hagerstown, Md., October 22, 1820. Only a few ministers from Tennessee being present, the Henkels resolved not to transact any business at this time. (27.)

74. Doctrinal Dispute at Lincolnton.--The points disputed at Lincolnton did not only refer to the autocratic actions of the leaders of the Synod and their union schemes, but also to the doctrines of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, regarding which the minority charged Stork, Shober, and their followers with holding un-Lutheran and anticonfessional views. The discussions on these doctrines caused James Hill, a Methodist preacher who was present, to address a letter to Synod in which he said: ”For almost thirteen years which I have spent in this county [Lincoln Co., N.C., where David Henkel preached], I have understood that the greatest number of your preachers in the county have taught that the baptism of water effects regeneration, and that the body and blood of Christ is received bodily with the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, so that these doctrines, being so generally taught and confessedly believed, confirmed me in the conviction that they are the orthodox doctrines of the Lutheran Church. Last Monday [at the discussion on floor of Synod], however, I discovered, or believed to discover, that some members of your Rev. Synod entertained different views. . . . Now, in order that I may know how to conduct myself in the future toward so respectable a part of the Church of Christ [North Carolina Synod], I request the opinion of your Synod on the above points.” The answer, formulated by R. J. Miller and Peter Schmucker, and approved of by the ministerium, was: ”We do not say that all who are baptized with water are regenerated and converted to G.o.d, so that they are saved without the operation of the Holy Spirit, or in other words, without faith in Christ.” ”We do not believe and teach that the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are bodily received with the bread and wine in the Holy Supper, but that the true believer receives and enjoys it spiritually together with all saving gifts of His suffering and death, by faith in Jesus Christ.” (681.) According to the report of the Henkels, the doctrine of predestination as taught by the Presbyterians was also touched upon, for in it we read: ”One of the members declared, and sought to maintain, that it was impossible for a man to fall from the grace of G.o.d after he had once been truly converted. Another denied the doctrine of Baptism as laid down in our catechism and in the Second and Ninth Articles of the Augsburg Confession. The offer was made to a third to prove to him from his own handwriting that he denied the doctrine of the Lord's Supper as set forth in the Tenth Article [of the Augsburg Confession]. They offered to have the letter read; but our opponents did not agree to this. A book was placed before him and a pa.s.sage was pointed out to him, in order that he might read what Luther, of blessed memory, himself teaches on this question. He closed it angrily and pushed it away. A fourth put the question: 'Can I not be a [Presbyterian] predestinarian and also a Lutheran?' For he believed that the [Presbyterian] doctrine of predestination could be proven from the Bible. He received the answer: 'If he believed as the Predestinarians believe, then he belonged to them, and might go to them, it did not concern us.'--For these reasons we believed to be all the more certain that they were not true Evangelical Lutheran preachers, and this we also told them without reservation.” (_Tenn. Rep_. 1820, 24 f.) In connection with the doctrine of regeneration by Baptism, the Henkels also referred to the error of the enthusiasts, gaining ground increasingly within the North Carolina Synod, _viz_., that conversion and regeneration was effected by anxious shrieking, united praying, and the exertion of all powers of the body and soul. (32 f.) The rupture, then, 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 G.o.d and Savior crucified.” ”I must a.s.sure 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 s.p.a.ce, as is compelled to enter into all substances and beings, whether they will or not, so that a Belial, when he receives it, must thereby be made an heir of heaven. No, no, I cannot believe in such theories, and as I told you once at my home when you returned from Virginia and asked me on that subject, so I think yet, and say that when Mr. Henkel consecrates bread and wine, it is the body and blood of our Savior to such with whom He can unite; but to those who are not of pure heart and yet partake, and that with reverence, the spirituality of the true essence does not unite with their souls; they eat bread and wine, for they have not such a faith, love, and humility as enables them to possess the divine essence. And those that partake without reverence, light-minded, and during the ceremony disdain the simplicity of the inst.i.tution, mock and deride it, they bring judgment upon themselves for eating and drinking the consecrated elements, but not for partaking [the] body and blood of Jesus, for they have not partaken thereof. G.o.d and Belial cannot unite. Do, pray, reflect deeply on the subject, and a.s.sure to all peace in heart, and those of contrite spirit that the Lord in the Sacrament will unite with them spiritually and seal their heavenly inheritance. But invite them all to come and partake that revere the Savior as G.o.d, and a.s.sure them that, if they approach with reverence, it may be made the means of viewing the condescending love of G.o.d ready to unite with them, and their own depravity, which will or may make them cry, and, if pure in heart, obtain mercy.”

76. Slandering David Henkel.--What the Henkels, as early as 1809, had taught on the Lord's Supper, appears from a pamphlet published in that year at New Market, in the printery of Henkel. Here we read as follows: ”But Paul teaches us that the bread which we break in the Lord's Supper is the communion of the body of Christ, and the cup of blessing with which we bless is the communion of the blood of Christ. If our bread and wine has communion with the body and blood of Christ, then it also must be what our dear Lord Himself calls it in the inst.i.tution: His body and His blood.” (680.) This genuinely Lutheran doctrine it was that also David Henkel had been preaching, and which his opponents who charged him with Roman aberrations called transubstantiation, impanation, or consubstantiation. And true to his Reformed traditions, Shober continued in his endeavors to slander David Henkel as a Crypto-Papist. This compelled Henkel to make the following explanation in 1827: ”The ministry of the North Carolina Synod are charged with denying the most important doctrine of the Lutheran Church, and have been requested to come to a reciprocal trial, which they have obstinately refused. . . . Those ministers, as it plainly appears, entertain a strong personal prejudice against me, and have a.s.serted many charges with respect to my personal conduct, as well as with respect to my doctrines. What shall I say? Have I not heretofore offered them a reciprocal trial, even as it respects personal conduct?

Why did they not accede to it? They are truly injuring their own reputation when they speak many evil things of me, in order to render me ridiculous, and an object of persecution, and yet are unwilling to confront me and prove their accusations by legal testimony. . . . I wish a reciprocal forgiveness. But as it respects the difference with respect to doctrines, it is necessary to be discussed, as that respects the Lutheran community. Mr. Shober has most confidently charged me with teaching 'that if a man only is baptized and partakes of the Lord's Supper, [he] is safe; and that I call those enthusiasts and bigots who insist upon further repentance and conversion.' Again he charges me with openly supporting the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation, and of forgiving sins like the papists pretend to do. Now I positively deny these charges as being true, and if Mr. Shober does not confront me and prove these charges by a legal testimony or testimonies, what can I otherwise, agreeably to the truth, call him but a calumniator, or one who bears false witness against his neighbor? I do not believe that any man in the United States (or, at least, I have never heard of any) teaches that, if a person only is baptized and receives the Lord's Supper, [he] is safe exclusive of repentance. What a puerile conduct some men manifest in trying to prove that the doctrine with which Mr.

Shober has charged me is erroneous, when no man nor cla.s.s of men contend for it! They are all the while fighting their own shadows. If the reader will take the trouble to read my book ent.i.tled, '_Answer to Mr. Joseph Moore, the Methodist;_ with a Few Fragments on the Doctrine of Justification,' he may readily see whether I maintain the doctrines with which I am charged, or whether I deny regeneration and the influence of the Holy Spirit. Again, as little as I believe the doctrine of transubstantiation, so little do I believe that of consubstantiation. A perusal of the book just now mentioned will also satisfy the reader on this subject.” (_Tenn. Rep_. 1827, 48.)

NORTH CAROLINA RUPTURE.

77. Charges Preferred by Tennessee Synod.--The report of the committee which the Tennessee Synod appointed in 1824 to discuss the doctrinal differences with the North Carolina Synod charged them with the following statements of un-Lutheran doctrine which they quoted from their writings: ”1. 'Jesus says, without being baptized; and furthermore He says: He that believeth not shall be d.a.m.ned--hence, baptized or not baptized, faith saves us.' See the committee's appendix to the proceedings of said North Carolina connection of the year 1822, p.4, --2.

The President of said connection [Stork] says in his _English Review_, p.46, 'that none but idiots could believe that the body of Christ fills all s.p.a.ce.' See also their proceedings of 1820, p. 18.” (_Tenn. Rep_.

1824, Appendix.) Accordingly the charges lodged by Tennessee against the North Carolina Synod were that they rejected the distinctive doctrines of Lutheranism. In keeping herewith Tennessee refused to acknowledge the North Carolina Synod as Lutheran, and declined to grant her this t.i.tle, speaking of her as a connection ”which _calls_ itself a Lutheran synod.”

In 1825 the Tennessee Synod declared: ”We must here observe that we cannot consistently grant to the Synod of North Carolina this t.i.tle [Lutheran], because we maintain that they departed from the Lutheran doctrine.” (6.) The same convention headed a letter addressed to the North Carolina Synod as follows: ”To the Reverend Synod of North Carolina, who a.s.sume the t.i.tle Lutheran, but which we at this time, for reason aforesaid, dispute. Well beloved in the Lord, according to your persons!” etc. (7.) According to a letter of Ambrosius Henkel, March 24, 1824, Riemenschneider declared: ”The North Carolina Synod must have deviated not only from the Lutheran doctrine, but from the very words of Christ as well, as I have lately, in one of their publications, read the horrible words: Baptized or not baptized, faith saves us. What is that except to declare Baptism unnecessary? One would think that these people were crazy (man sollte denken, diese Menschen waeren verrueckt).” The North Carolina Synod, however, in spite of their avowed unionistic and essentially Reformed att.i.tude, boldly insisted that they were the ”true Lutherans”--a bit of bravado imitated several decades later by Benjamin Kurtz, one of the Reformed theologians of the General Synod, over against Missouri and other synods loyal to the Lutheran Confessions.

78. ”Lutheraner” on Division of North Carolina Synod.--The first unbiased Lutheran estimate and, in all essential points, correct presentation of the division in the North Carolina Synod is found in the _Lutheraner_ of June 5, 1855. Here Theo. Brohm, who attended the thirty-fourth convention of the Tennessee Synod in 1854 as the representative of the Missouri Synod, writes as follows: ”German Lutheran congregations had been organized in the State of North Carolina as early as the middle of the preceding century. About 1798 the first attempts were made to unite these congregations by a regulated synodical bond. However, the removal of a number of pastors resulted in the decay of the church life in this field. After a number of years the congregations increased again, and so the foundation for the Ev. Luth.

Synod of North Carolina was laid in 1803. Paul Henkel was among the charter members. The beginning was weak, but the good cause progressed.

Gradually Lutheran congregations were organized also in Virginia, South Carolina, and in Tennessee, uniting with this synod. As most of the pastors had come from Pennsylvania, cordial unity obtained between the Pennsylvania Synod and the Synod of North Carolina. In the course of time, however, Satan succeeded in sowing tares among the wheat. Two opposing parties sprang up in the synod. The one, to which the great majority belonged, found its expression and embodiment in the General Synod, and is too well known to our readers to require further characterization at this place. The other was the staunch and truly Lutheran party, to which, indeed, but a small minority adhered. The majority, in agreement with a number of influential men in the Pennsylvania Synod, proposed the idea of a General Synod, which, according to their view, was to embody not only the various Lutheran synods of this country, but, if possible, all other religious bodies as well. While the true Lutherans could see nothing but mischief arising from this General Synod, the majority entered upon this unhappy scheme with great enthusiasm. And, in order to carry out their plan, without the let or hindrance of the staunch Lutherans, the friends of the General Synod convened a meeting of synod in 1819 at an unlawful time, and also without notifying all pastors, especially those of Tennessee.

Delegates were elected to the convention of the Pennsylvania Synod in Baltimore, where the plan for the General Synod was to be matured. In order to destroy the influence of one of the most decided opponents, the young David Henkel, he was suspended from office for a period of six months, ostensibly because he was spreading Roman Catholic doctrines, which in reality, however, were none but pure Lutheran doctrines, especially those of the power of Baptism and of the presence of the true body and blood in the Lord's Supper. When the Synod met at Lincolnton, N. C., in the following year, those members of Synod who were dissatisfied with the resolutions of the previous year demanded a thorough investigation of the mooted questions. In answer reference was made to the majority vote, which decision was to be final. Hostility to the Augsburg Confession and especially to the doctrines of Baptism and of the Lord's Supper, as well as the tendency to unite with all religious bodies, became more and more apparent. And when the plan of the General Synod met with the determined opposition of the staunch Lutherans, the other party dissolved the meeting and made the beginning of the General Synod. Those pastors who remained faithful to the Lutheran Confessions, six in number, now united and organized the so-called Evangelical Lutheran Tennessee Synod.” (11, 165.)

LUTHERANS IN VIBGINIA.

79. G. Henkel, Stoever, Klug at Spottsylvania.--In 1754 Muhlenberg and the Pennsylvania Synod sent an appeal to both London and Halle in which they state: ”Many thousands of Lutheran people are scattered through North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, etc.” When the Indians attacked New Bern, N. C., shortly after it had been founded in 1710 by 650 Palatines and Swiss, twelve Lutheran families escaped from the ma.s.sacre and sought refuge in Virginia. Here Governor Spottwood allotted them homes in Spottsylvania County. Gerhard Henkel is said to have been their first pastor; but he served them for a short time only.

Their number was increased by a colony of Alsatians and Palatinates.

They had started for Pennsylvania, but, after various hards.h.i.+ps on the voyage, in which many of their companions died, were purchased by Governor Spottwood, and sent by him to his lands in the same locality, on the upper Rappahannock, ”twelve German miles from the sea.” (Jacobs, 184.) In 1728, after a vacancy of sixteen years, Henkel was succeeded by John Caspar Stoever, Sr., born in Frankenberg, Hesse, who came to America with his younger relative of the same name, the latter being active for many years as a missionary in Pennsylvania. Stoever's salary in Virginia was three thousand pounds of tobacco a year. In 1734 he and two members of his congregation, Michael Schmidt and Michael Holden, went to Europe to collect a fund for the endowment of their church.

”Because the congregation,” as an old report has it, ”ardently desires that the Evangelical truth should not be extinguished with his death, but be preserved to them and their descendants, the said preacher, Rev.

Stoever, toward the close of the year 1734, . . . undertook a voyage to Europe to collect a fund for the continuance of their service, the building of a church and school, and the endowment of the ministry.”

(G., 115.) In London they were cordially received by Ziegenhagen, and recommended to Germany and Holland. Besides a large amount of money, they procured a library of theological books. George Samuel Klug offered his services as a pastor, and, after his ordination at Danzig, August 30, 1736, proceeded to Virginia with one of the laymen. After completing his collections, Stoever returned, in 1838, but died at sea. The contributions which Stoever had collected amounted to three thousand pounds, one-third of which paid the expenses, and the rest the building of a chapel (Hebron Church) and the purchase of farmlands and slaves.

Muhlenberg, Sr., wrote: ”It is said to be a profitable plantation, and owns several slaves to till the land.” (G., 606.) Pastor Klug, who, in order to relieve the monotony of his isolation, made occasional visits to the Lutheran ministers in Pennsylvania, wrote in 1749 that ”the congregation was not in the least burdened by his support.” However, the endowment of the church seems to have been a hindrance rather than an advantage. The congregation lost many members to the Dunkards. Klug continued his ministry till 1761, when he was succeeded by Schwarbach, and later by Frank, both of whom were licensed at Culpeper, the latter for three years, beginning with 1775. Probably also Peter Muhlenberg preached in the old Hebron Church. Later on Paul Henkel, when active as a missionary in Virginia, had the congregation under his supervision.

80. Peter Muhlenberg and J. N. Schmucker at Woodstock.--Many of the more enterprising of the Germans in Pennsylvania, notably in Montgomery, Berks, Lancaster, and York Counties, pressed toward the frontiers of their State, and then followed the c.u.mberland Valley into Maryland and far beyond into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, their number being constantly increased by immigrants from Germany. To supply their needs, Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, in 1772, was sent to Virginia, Woodstock (Muellerstadt) being his home and the center of his field. Though serving practically none but German Lutherans, he sought and secured the ordination of the Episcopal Church in order to obtain legal recognition of his marriages. In Virginia the Protestant Episcopal Church was firmly established, and dissenters were compelled to pay an annual tribute to the established preachers. Says Muhlenberg, Sr.: ”If dissenting parties were married by their own pastors, this was not legal, and they could not get off any cheaper than by paying the marriage dues to the established county preacher and obtaining a marriage certificate from him.” (G., 606.) Together with W. White, afterward Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania, Peter Muhlenberg was ordained by the Bishop of London, after he had been examined and had subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles. By the indifferentistic Germans and Swedes of those days such ordinations were generally regarded as a favor and comity from the Episcopalians rather than a humiliation and denial on the part of the Lutherans. Dr. Kunze says: ”The bishops of London have never made a difficulty to ordain Lutheran divines, when called to congregations which, on account of being connected with English Episcopalians, made this ordination requisite. Thus by bishops of London the following Lutheran ministers were ordained: Bryselius, Peter Muhlenberg, Illing, Houseal, and Wagner.

The last-mentioned was called, after having obtained this ordination, to an Ev. Lutheran congregation in the Margraviate of Ans.p.a.ch in Germany.”

(Jacobs, 285.) Peter Muhlenberg viewed his Episcopal ordination as a purely civil affair, and, though claimed by the Episcopalians, he always regarded himself as a Lutheran. He died (1807) with the conviction that he had never been anything but a Lutheran. In a circular to the Lutheran churches of Philadelphia, dated March 14, 1804, he said: ”Brethren, we have been born, baptized, and brought up in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Many of us have vowed before G.o.d and the congregation, at our confirmation, to live and die by this doctrine of our Church. In the doctrine of our Church we have our joy, our brightest joy; we prize it the more highly since, in our opinion, it agrees most with the doctrine of the faithful and true witness of our Savior Jesus Christ. We wish nothing more than that we and our children and our children's children and all our posterity may remain faithful to this doctrine.” (284.) Among the friends of Peter Muhlenberg at Woodstock were George Was.h.i.+ngton and the orator of the Revolution, Patrick Henry. The story is well known how, after preaching a sermon on the seriousness of the times and p.r.o.nouncing the benediction, he cast off his clerical robe, appearing before his congregation in the glittering uniform of a colonel.

During the long vacancy which followed Wildbahn, Goering, and J. D.

Kurtz preached occasionally in the old church at Woodstock. In 1805 John Nicholas Schmucker took charge of the field. He was a popular preacher, using, almost exclusively, also in the pulpit, the Pennsylvania German.

”Zu so Kinner,” he said, ”muss mer so preddige.” (G., 608.)

81. Patriotic Activity of Peter Muhlenberg.--Peter was the oldest son of H. M. Muhlenberg. He was sent to the University of Halle for his theological training, where his independent spirit soon brought him into trouble. At one occasion he resented an insult on the part of his instructor with a blow. Forestalling expulsion, the young man enlisted in a German regiment, in which he was known as ”Teufel Piet.” After two years of military training he returned to America, and consented to study theology under his father. After a short pastorate in New Jersey he was transferred to Woodstock. He traveled extensively through the Shenandoah Valley and the mountains to the west, preaching wherever Lutherans could be found. When the Revolution began, Peter Muhlenberg roused the patriotism of his fellow-Germans in Virginia, who were much better established and in closer touch with their English neighbors than those in North Carolina, many of them being acquainted with Lord Fairfax and George Was.h.i.+ngton and holding civil offices in their communities.

Muhlenberg brought about, and was chairman of, the Woodstock Convention, June 16, 1774, at which the Germans united with their Scotch-Irish neighbors in a declaration against British tyranny, nearly a year before the famous Mecklenburg Declaration in May, 1775. The resolutions adopted at Woodstock were prepared by a committee, of which Muhlenberg was chairman. They read, in part, as follows: ”That we will pay due submission to such acts of government as His Majesty has a rig

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