RESULTS OF 2 the way of scientific investigation, it was the result of the Roman Catholic remnant remaining in it, and contrary to its own true EDUCATIONAL principles. From the very first Luther insisted upon THE REFOR- public instruction for children. Pastors and sacrisMATION. tans were to teach the catechism and song. Würtemberg provided as early as 1559 for a German school in every village, and in 1619 Weimar introduced the principle of universal education for boys and girls alike.' On the other hand, Bavaria under the Jesuits did all it could to prevent the spread of intelligence among the masses. In the evangelical States numberless higher institutions were put into operation, while universities which have been an untold power in the life of the intellectual world were organized under reformatory influences: in Marburg (1527), Strasburg (1538), Königsberg in Prussia (1544), Jena (1557), Altorf (1575), Helmstädt (1576), Giessen (1607), Rinteln (1619), Zurich, the collegium carolinum (1521), Lausanne, the theological academy (1537), Geneva (1558), Leyden (1575), Franeker (1585), Hardewyk (1600), Groningen (1614), Utrecht (1636). In France academies were established in Montauban (1562), Sedan (1562), Saumur (1601); while between 1578 and 1685 thirty-two colleges were established throughout the kingdom by Protestants. These institutions provided courses of study extending over a period of seven years each.' While at first the number of those who were suitably educated for the evangelical ministry was small, and the clergy had to be drawn generally from the artisan class, and many unworthy persons were ordained, the number of students at the universities increased until there was no difficulty in securing an educated ministry. PUBLIC The important parts of the public services in the Lutheran Church were the preaching and the sacraments, but the Lord's Supper was considered necessary to a complete religious service. The pericopes were retained because there were so many untrained pastors, notwithstanding Luther saw great defects in the selection and arrangement. Altars, lights, pictures, organs, and priestly garments were held to have an educating influence, both religiously and æsthetically. Sunday was not at first based upon the fourth commandment, although the 1 Zweynert rightly denies to Luther the praise of having been the herald of compulsory education.-Luthers Stellung, p. 19. 2 See Möller, iii, 392. 3 Bulletin de la société de l'histoire du protestantisme français, 1856, pp. 497-511, 582-595. See also Gieseler, iv, 561, 562. keeping of it was regarded as necessary from both the religious and social standpoint. But the abuses of freedom which followed, to the great detriment of the religious services of the Lord's Day, occasioned the ecclesiastical legalization of the day before the close of the sixteenth century. The Lutheran Church, preserving as it did the singing of hymns by the congregation, raised up a large number of hymn writers and produced a rich hymnody. Luther LUTHERAN set the example, but he was followed by many others only less able than himself. Nicolas Hovesch (Decius) wrote the German Gloria, "To God alone be glory in the highest," and the German Agnus Dei, Michael Weysse wrote "O spotless Lamb of God." "Let us now the body bury," and translated and published a collection of one hundred and fiftyfive hymns of the Bohemian Brothers (1531). John Poliander (†1541) wrote the hymn, "My soul now praises God;" Lazarus Spengler, of Nuremberg (†1534), "Our ruin is complete by Adam's fall;" and Paul Speratus (†1551), "Salvation to us now hath come." During the bitter strifes of the theologians in the last half of the sixteenth century the spirit of religious song maintained its existence and produced some of the best of the German hymns. Bartholomew Ringwaldt (†1598) wrote "Lord Jesus Christ, thou Highest Good;" Nicolaus Selnecker (†1598), "Let me be thine and thine remain ;" Hans Sachs, the master singer of Nuremberg (†1576), "O thou my heart, who so disturbed?" and Melissander (†1591), "Send me, O Lord, whate'er thou wilt." In the first half of the seventeenth century, in part under the terrors of the Thirty Years' War, Philip Nicolai (†1608) wrote "Dear Jesus, what hast thou done amiss?" Paul Fleming also, although a lyric poet, deserves mention among the hymn writers for his VALENTINE "In all my deeds." The profound interest in dogmatic themes which distinguished very many of the Lutherans in the latter part of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century was not universal. Partly in revolt from this dogmatism, but chiefly as a result of the need of an inner experience of the truths of religion, arose the mystical writings of such men as Weigel, Böhme, and others. Valentine Weigel, pastor in Zschoppau, Meissen, where he died in 1588, held many ideas which he did not make known during his lifetime, but whose publication after his death aroused immense excitement. By subscription to the Formula of Concord he had escaped the inevitable assault for himself.' He distinguished mystically between the outer and the inner man, was a Quietist, taught the fundamentally divine nature of man, and thereby prepared the way for a complete overthrow of historical Christianity. The posthumous publication of his writings led to the name Weigelism, by which all those were characterized who held to these mystical and theosophical opinions. Jacob Böhme, philosophus teutonicus, the philosophic shoemaker of Görlitz († 1634), wrote independently of Weigel, but was 1 He complained of the necessity of subscription, and said that he complied because the formula intended to express the doctrines of the Apostles' Creed, but that the theologians of the schools did not know Christ. influenced both by Paracelsus' and Schwenkfeld. Speculatively and devotionally he was richer than Weigel. His Aurora, or the Rising Dawn, was circulated at first in manuscript (after 1612), but was printed in 1634. Having JACOB been forbidden to write other works he kept silence, from 1612 to 1619, when he again began his literary activity, and after much difficulty was finally acquitted in Dresden. In his works he gave expression to the longings of the heart after the inner satisfaction which the theology of the schools could not give. He taught the doctrine of the inner light, but coupled his theories with gnostic speculations and unfortunately confused piety with the esoteric and miraculous, while he believed in the power of the philosopher's stone and the secrets of alchemy. JOHANN In 1614 appeared at Cassel a work entitled The Universal and General Reformation of the Whole World, together with the Fama Fraternitatis of the Praiseworthy Order of Rosicrucians; in 1615 the Confession of the Fraternity of Rosicrucians; and in 1616 the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz, anno 1459. They excited immense interest. They were in part, at least, the work of Johann Valentine Andreæ, who was born in 1586, became deacon of Vaihingen 1614, superintendent at Calw 1620, court preacher and consistorial councilor at Stuttgart 1639, abbot of Bebenhausen 1650, and of Adelberg 1654, where he died in the same year. He was a man of large outlook, who had no sympathy with the dead orthodoxy and formality of his time. Comprehensive and multifarious studies had not destroyed in him the feeling of the necessity for a religious and moral awakening in the Church. He declared that all his efforts to bring about a rejuvenation were met with hindrances insurmountable. Yet if Herder's opinion is correct that these works were written to ridicule the credulity of the mystics, he was as little in sympathy with them as with the scholastics. Although the Order of Rosicrucians was but a myth, yet many there were who took it for a reality and organized accordingly, while others combined to carry out in fact the pleasantry.' 2 1Paracelsus, a mystic who died in Salzburg, 1541, was a physician whose ideas were first applied by his followers in the practice of medicine, but which were afterward wrought out in opposition to the Protestant scholasticism of the seventeenth century. He said that anyone who undertook to lead a correct life was sure to be called an enthusiast, a Schwenkfeldian, or an Anabaptist. 3 There is a lodge of the Order of Rosicrucians in Boston, Mass. ARNDT'S TIANITY. Johann Arndt, pastor in Badeborn in Anhalt, in Quedlinburg, Braunschweig, and Eisleben, and superintendent in Celle, where he died in 1621, was also destined to bear the abuse of TRUE CHRIS- the scholastics. His work on True Christianity taught the necessity of sanctification, the ideal of personal Christian perfection, and the cultivation of fellowship with God. These ideas were attacked as detrimental to the doctrine of justification by faith and as fanatical enthusiasm. The Reformed Church was ever willing to effect a union with the Lutherans, and although the latter were generally bitter in their opposition to such a union there were enough of a contrary mind to mark a distinct phase in the church life of the period. In the same way it was that from the Palatinate in which the Reformed tendency prevailed came efforts at union. Francis Junius favored the cessation of strife about points which had been sufficiently discussed, particularly because of the dangers to which the Protestants were exposed (1592 and 1606). Still later (1614) David Pareus, professor in Heidelberg, declared that nothing should be held obligatory which did not necessarily proceed from the Bible, and that in fundamentals the two communions agreed. In 1628, under the pseudonym of Rupertus, Mildenius called attention to the losses which Protestantism was sustaining on account of theological strifes. This writer was probably the first to employ the expression, "In essentials unity; in nonessentials liberty; in both charity." But it was of no avail. The Lutherans refused these offers of peace. 1 The colloquy at Leipzig in 1631, in which Saxon, Brandenburg, and Hessian theologians discussed the question as to how far the two communions agreed, accomplished nothing. And the efforts of the Scotchman, John Dury (Duræus), who strove to the end of his life for union, were also fruitless, except that he aroused the cooperation of George Calixtus,' professor at the University of Helmstedt. His studies in church history had widCALIXTUS. ened his intellectual horizon until he was ready to include Romanists, Reformed, and Lutherans in one great Christian community. But his irenic spirit suggested a syncretism which the dogmatism of the period would not tolerate. He was no more successful in bringing about a union than others had been. DURY AND 1In necessariis unitas, in non necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas. See a lengthy and valuable note on these words in Schaff, vi, 650–653. Born 1586, died 1656. |