# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1860_S213
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The So-Called Millennial Kingdom. 213

-logy evaded in so violent a manner — though guided by a sound instinct —
was nevertheless drawn by Spener, whereas he would have done better to
remove that error regarding the Babylon of the Apocalypse. On the other hand, Spener's
sound and sober judgment preserved him from accepting a resurrection
before the resurrection. He declared that he did not know what kind of
resurrection the Apocalypse spoke of. A bodily resurrection it could not
be, for it is ascribed to souls, and no mention at all is made of bodies.
The thousand years, he thought, were an indefinite designation of a long
span of time. The whole of it, for him, came down to this: that a
magnificent awakening was to be expected.

These Spenerian views found entrance in wide circles and were adopted
in particular by the entire theological faculty at Halle, which was really
founded for the very purpose of representing the freer Spenerian standpoint
over against the strictly churchly orthodox one, and especially of
serving as a bulwark against Wittenberg. But as in many other points, so
here too there was no lack of those who broke through the bounds set by
Spener's moderation and drove the opposition to the Church's doctrine to
an extreme. The head of these was Dr. J. W. Petersen, superintendent
in Lüneburg. In him was verified the saying of Spener in his Theological
Scruples, "that the love for the opinion of Chiliasm, once it has settled
into a mind, so takes hold of people that they cannot restrain themselves
from talking of it everywhere." It is, in fact, a peculiarity of the doctrine
of the millennial kingdom that it still shows itself to this very day. It is
explained by the fact that the awareness of its unscriptural and untenable
character stirs in the innermost depths of the soul, and that a person, once
resolved not to yield to it, must then muster everything to provide new
props for his opinion, until at last the whole of Scripture is drawn into the
whirlpool of Chiliasm. With Petersen this was indeed the case. He became
more and more a fanatic, whose waking thought and whose dream by
night was Chiliasm, together with the doctrine of the restoration of all
things that goes hand in hand with it. His zealous fellow-combatant was
his wife Eleonore, born von und zu Merlau, who claimed that God had
disclosed to her, by direct communication, the secrets of Revelation. The
visions of a certain Fräulein Rosamunde von Asseburg, who stood under
the influence of the couple, had to serve to confirm the new dogma.
Petersen published them in the year 1715 under the title "Openings of
the Spirit." He went so far as to maintain, "Let no one deny the thousand
years, as those whose torment shall begin therein"; "the veil that lies
before the eyes of the anti-chiliasts is far thicker, and the hardness of
their hearts far greater, than that of the Jews." When several who had
at first held with him drew back, he declared that such weary and drowsy
chiliasts were the five foolish virgins, while he and the rest, who still
carried on the work with spirit, were the five wise virg-