PART II.

THE HISTORY OF THE MODERN CHURCHES.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH.

§ 1. Adverse events in the Lutheran church. Hesse becomes reformed.—§ 2. Brandenburg reformed.§ 3. Attempted union between the Lutherans and Reformed.§ 4. Decree of Charenton. Conference at Leipsic.-§ 5. Conferences at Thorn and Cassel.-§ 6. Pacific acts of John Duræus.-§ 7. John Matthiæ and George Calixtus.—§ 8. External advantages of the Lutherans. —§ 9. Literature every where cultivated.-§ 10. State of Philosophy. Aristotelians every where reign.§ 11. Liberty in philosophizing gradually increases.-§ 12. Excellences and defects of the teachers.-§ 13. The faults of the times, often, rather than of the persons. § 14. Ecclesiastical government: divine right. -§ 15. The more distinguished Lutheran writers.§ 16, 17. History of the Lutheran religion. — § 18. Dogmatic Theology.-§ 19, 20. Commotions in the Lutheran church.§ 21. Commencement of the Calixtine controversies.-§ 22. Continuation and issue.§ 23. The doctrines of Calixtus.-§ 24. Contests with the divines of Rinteln and Königsberg.-§ 25. With those of Jena. -§ 26. Origin of the Pietists.§ 27. Commotions at Leipsic. — § 28. Their progress.—§ 29. Rise of the controversies with Spener and the divines of Halle. -§ 30, 31. Their increase.-§ 32. Some sought to advance piety at the expense of truth: Godfrey Arnold. § 33. John Conrad Dippel.-§ 34. Fictions of Jo. Will. Petersen.§ 35. Jo. Casp. Schade, and Jo. Geo. Boesius. — § 36. Contests on the omnipresence of Christ's body, between the divines of Tübingen and Giessen. —§ 37. Herman Rathmann.—§ 38. Private controversies, —§ 39. Those of Prætorius and Arndt. § 40. Jac. Bochmen. -§ 41. Prophets of this age. § 42. Ezek. Meth. Esaias Stiefel, and Paul Nagel.-§ 43. Christ. Hoburg, Fred. Breckling, and Seidenbecher. -§ 44. Martin Seidelius.

§ 1. THE evils and calamities which the Roman pontiffs, or the Austrians, (often too obsequious to the pleasure of the pontiffs in things pertaining to religion,) either brought or endeavoured to bring upon the Lutherans, in various ways, during this century, have been already mentioned, in the history of the Romish church. We shall therefore now mention only certain other things, by which the Lutheran church lost some

thing of its splendour and amplitude. Maurice, landgrave of Hesse, of the Cassel family, a very learned prince, seceded from the Lutheran church: and he not only himself went over to the Reformed, but also, in the year 1604, and subsequently, both at the university of Marpurg, and throughout his province, he displaced the Lutheran teachers who firmly resisted his purpose, and commanded the people to be thoroughly taught the reformed doctrines, and public worship to be conducted in the Genevan manner. This design was prosecuted with the greatest firmness, in the year 1619, when he ordered select theologians to proceed to the Dutch council of Dort, and commanded the decrees there made to be publicly assented to by his church. The Reformed maintained, formerly, that nothing was done in this affair, which was inconsistent with equity and the highest moderation. But perhaps all impartial men, in our day, will admit without difficulty, that many things would have been ordered somewhat differently, if that excellent prince had been less disposed to gratify his own will and pleasure, and more attentive to those precepts, which the wisest of the Reformed themselves inculcate, respecting our duty towards those who differ from us in matters of religion.1

1 See Helv. Garth's Historischer Bericht von dem Religionswesen im Fürstenthum Hessen, 1606, 4to. Ern. Solom. Cyprian's Unterricht von kirchlicher Vereinigung der Protestanten, p. 263, and in the Appendix of Documents, p. 103, and the public Acts, which were published in the Unschuldigen Nachrichten, A.D. 1749, p. 25, &c. Here should be consulted, especially the writings that passed between the divines of Cassel and Darmstadt, which have a public character, Cassel, 1632, fol. Marpurg, 1636, fol. Giess. 1647, fol. of which Christ. Aug. Salig treats in his Historie der Augsburg. Confession, vol. i. book iv. ch. ii. p. 756, &c. [Even from the time of the reformation onwards, there were individuals in Hesse, who were inclined towards the doctrines of the Reformed; but the outward tranquillity was not thereby destroyed. Philip the Magnanimous, and his successors, some of whom were not obscurely favourable to the Reformed opinions, used all care to preserve this harmony. When the Formula of Concord produced so much disturbance in Saxony and Upper Ger

many, and threatened to destroy the peace which Hesse had hitherto enjoyed, the Hessian princes published an edict in 1572, by which they endeavoured to preserve the union. Also in the general synods of Treysa, in 1577, of Marpurg in 1578, and of Cassel in 1579, the Hessian clergy were required to subscribe certain articles, designed to preserve the union. But under the Landgrave Maurice, the state of things changed. He had been drawn over to the side of the Reformed, by some French Reformed noblemen's sons, whom his father had procured through Beza to be his son's associates; and after the death of his father's brother, the Landgrave Lewis, at Marpurg in 1604, he endeavoured to introduce the Reformed religion, by means of a Catechism: and in the year 1605, he dismissed all the teachers at Marpurg, and in half the upper principality of Hesse, (which had fallen to the house of Cassel,) because they would not subscribe the result of the Synod without some limitation; and he established Reformed teachers in their place. The dismissed teachers, among

§ 2. Not long after, in the year 1614, John Sigismund also, the elector of Brandenburg, left the communion of the Lutherans, and went over to the Reformed: yet with different views from those of Maurice, and with different results. For he did not embrace all the doctrines by which the followers of Calvin are distinguished from the Lutherans; but, in addition to the Genevan form of worship, he only considered the Reformed doctrines respecting the person of Christ, and the presence of his body and blood in the eucharist, as more correct and tenable than the Lutheran views: but what they inculcate respecting the nature and order of divine grace, and the decrees of God, he did not adopt. And hence, he did not send deputies to the synod of Dort, nor would he have their decrees respecting these difficult points to be received. The same sentiments were so far retained by the sovereign princes of Brandenburg who reigned after him, that they never required Calvin's doctrine of absolute decrees to be taught in the Reformed churches of their dominions, as the public and received doctrine. It is also justly accounted an honour to John Sigismund, that he gave his subjects full liberty, either to follow the example of their prince or to deviate from it; nor did he exclude from posts of honour and power, those who deemed it wrong to abandon the religion of their fathers. Yet this moderation was not satisfactory to the violent temper of that age, which was in many respects too rigid: for not a few thought it intolerable and improper in the prince to order that the professors of both religions should enjoy equal rank and rights; that odious terms and comparisons should be abstained from in disputation; that religious controversies should be either wholly omitted, or explained very modestly, in public discourses to the people; and lastly, that those who disagreed should live together as friends and interchange kind offices. And from these views originated not

whom the famous Balthazar Manzer was the most distinguished, were afterwards received by the Landgrave of Darmstadt, Lewis; and a part of them were established in the newly-erected university of Giessen, and the rest were beneficed elsewhere. As is generally the case when human passions become enlisted in religious contests, there were faults on both sides, which no impartial man, at the present day, will approve.

The Lutherans adhered too strenuously and too wilfully to certain subtle doctrines of the schools, and to external rites which are not of the essence of Christianity: and the Reformed, who had the court on their side, misused the power which was in their hands, to the injury of the ancient rights of a community, whose brethren they pretended to be. Schl.]

only bitter contests, but also at times rash and seditious commotions in the state; in allaying which, many years were consumed in vain. The neighbouring divines of Saxony, and particularly those of Wittemberg, undertook to defend the side of the Lutherans in these tumults; and undoubtedly with sincere and upright intentions, but, according to the custom of the times, in a style too coarse, and not sufficiently temperate. And hence, not only was the Formula of Concord excluded from a place among the books by which the public religion of the Lutherans is regulated, in the Brandenburg territories, but likewise the citizens of Brandenburg were forbidden to study theology in the university of Wittemberg.2

§ 3. So many evils resulting from the discords of those who with equal sincerity and fortitude had renounced papal servitude, that is, of the Lutherans and Reformed, might suggest to some of the principal men, and the most famous theologians of both parties, to look about them, anxiously, for some means of uniting in bonds of mutual affection the communities rent asunder and severed by their religious sentiments. No wise man could be so ignorant of human nature as to expect that all difference of opinion between them could be removed, or that either party would adopt the sentiments of the other. And therefore those who undertook this business agreed that their only aim should be, to persuade the disputants, that there was little or nothing of any importance to true religion and piety, in all the points controverted between the parties; that the fundamental truths, on which the plan of salvation rests, are safe on both sides; and that their controversies related, partly, to things recondite and inexplicable, and partly to things indif

2 The laws and edicts both of John Sigismund and his successors, in relation to this famous affair, have been sometimes printed together. There is likewise extant a great number of books and pamphlets, from which a knowledge of these proceedings may be derived; and of which I would rather refer to others for a full catalogue, than give an imperfect one myself. Such a catalogue is extant in the Unschuldige Nachrichten, A. D. 1745, p. 34, &c. and A. D. 1746, p. 326. See also, Jo. Charles Köcher, Bibliotheca Theol. Symbolica, p. 312, &c. Those who wish to understand and form an estimate of the whole transaction, may consult Godf. Arnold's Kirchen- und Ketzer

historie, pt. ii. book xvii. ch. vii. p. 965. Ern. Solom. Cyprian's Unterricht von der Vereinigung der Protestanten, p. 75, and the Appendix of Documents, p. 225. The Unschuldige Nachrichten, A. D. 1727, p. 1069, and A. D. 1732, p. 715. Those who would persuade us, that the hope of extending his power and influence was not the least motive with the prince for this change, conjecture, rather than demonstrate and prove; for they do not support their opinion with valid arguments. Yet it must be confessed, by such as carefully inspect the history of those times, that they do not conjecture altogether irrationally and without plausibility.

ferent and far removed from the supreme object of a Christian. Those who could admit these things to be true, must also admit, that the existing difference of sentiment was no just impediment to fraternal intercourse between the dissentients. And most of the Reformed were readily brought to concede that the Lutherans erred but moderately and lightly, or did not greatly corrupt any one of the primary doctrines of Christianity: but most of the Lutherans perseveringly maintained, that they had the most weighty reasons for not judging in the same manner of the Reformed, and that a great part of the dispute related to the groundwork of all religion and piety. It is not strange, that this perseverance of the Lutherans was branded by the opposite party with the odious names of moroseness, superciliousness, arrogance, and the like. But those who were taxed with these crimes, brought as many charges against their accusers. For they complained, that they were not treated ingenuously; that the real character of the Reformed principles was disguised, under ambiguous phraseology; and that their adversaries, though cautious and guarded, yet gave much proof that the chief ground of their great inclination for peace, was not so much a desire of the public good, as of their private advantage.

§ 4. Among the public transactions relative to this business of a union, we may justly give the first place to the project of James I., the king of Great Britain; who attempted, in the year 1615, a reconciliation of the Lutherans and Reformed, through the instrumentality of Peter du Moulin, a very celebrated divine among the French Reformed. The next place is lue to the celebrated decree of the Reformed church of France, passed in the synod of Charenton, A. D. 1631; by which the Lutheran religion was declared harmless, holy, and free from all gross errors; and a way was opened for the professors of it to hold sacred and civil communion with the Reformed.4

3 See Mich. le Vassor's Histoire de Louis XIII. tom. ii. pt. ii. p. 21, &c. [and Schroeckh, Kirchengesch. seit der Reform. vol. v. p. 198. Tr.]

Elias Benoit's Histoire de l'Edit de Nantes, tom. ii. p. 524. Jac. Aymon's Actes des Synodes Nationaux des Eglises Réformées de France, tom. ii. p. 500, &c. Thomas Ittig's Diss. de Synodi Carentoniensis Indulgentia erga Lutheranos, Lips. 1705, 4to. [Quick's Synodicon in Gallia Reformata, vol. ii. p. 297. The

words of the decree were these: "The province of Burgundy demanding, whether the faithful of the Augustane (Augsburg) Confession might be permitted to contract marriages in our churches, and to present children in our churches unto baptism, without a precedaneous abjuration of those opinions held by them, contrary to the belief of our churches? This Synod declareth, that inasmuch as the churches of the confession of Augsburg do agree with the other re