Fraternity-Testvériség, 1960 (38. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1960-10-01 / 10. szám
FRATERNITY 17 District Synods, and even had a voice in the election of the bishop. However, the task of the layman was still primarily that of the defence of the Church against the State. He never meddled with the ordering of public worship, but left such matters entirely to the minister. Again in this 18th century that we have under review, three Books of Order appeared in print in the years 1733, 1787 and 1788, though it must he admitted that few ministers adopted them, cleaving rather to the old ways of the previous century, and so making it impossible to unify the worship of the Reformed Church throughout the land. Ministers, however, were now more and more preparing their own sermons and prayers, and not relying on published works as most had done before the period of the Puritan revival. We are told óf an interesting difference between the preaching normally heard in the cities and that heard in the country pulpits. A high- flown style was now regularly used in the cities, rhetoric was prized, and an allegorical interpretation of Scripture the customary one. But in the country there always seems to have been more simplicity and sincerity in the pulpit. The rite of Confirmation was unknown in the 18th century Reformed Church of Hungary, though we read that the Hungarian Church envied foreign Protestant Churches the practice of such a rite. Instead of it, ministers preached courses of sermons in preparation for Holy Communion, and urged the parents of children to instruct them soundly both in the articles of the Faith and in the meaning of the Lord’s Supper; if the parents did not feel capable of the task, we are told, they were to send their children to the minister to be instructed. Th roughout this century, as in the 17th, large numbers of theological students studied abroad, especially in Germany, Switzerland, Holland and England. All of these countries offered scholarships to Hungarian students, some of which were liberal enough to cover fees, full board and a generous supply of books, while the Swiss,
