The First Years of Trinity Congregation Freistadt, Wisconsin

During the 17nth and 18nth centuries in Germany Pietism and Rationalism had been opposing the principles founded in the Reformation, which demanded a separation from error. Thus for a long time the Lutherans had kept themselves separate from the errors of the Reformed. Yet thru Pietism, which stressed the outward life instead of doctrine, and thru Rationalism, which set human reason above the revelation of God, this principle of Lutheranism was being undermined, and the punch was being taken out of Lutheran orthodoxy