THIRD DIVISION. (Continued.) (continued 2)

§ 158.3. Art and Poetry (§ 149, 15).―The greatest master of the musical school founded by Palestrina was Allêgri, whose Miserere is performed yearly on the Wednesday afternoon of Passion Week in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The oratorio originated from the application of the lofty music of this school to dramatic scenes drawn from the Bible, for purely musical and not theatrical performance. Philip Neri patronized this music freely in his oratory, from which it took the name. This new church music became gradually more and more secularized and approximated to the ordinary opera style.―In ecclesiastical architecture the Renaissance style still prevailed, but debased with senseless, tasteless ornamentation.―In the Italian school of painting the decline, both in creative power and imitative skill, was very marked from the end of the sixteenth century. In Spain during the seventeenth century religious painting reached a high point of excellence in Murillo of Seville, who died in A.D. 1682, a master in representing calm meditation and entranced felicity.―The two greatest poets of Spain, the creators of the Spanish drama, Lope de Vega (died A.D. 1635) and Pedro Calderon (died A.D. 1681), both at first soldiers and afterwards priests, flourished during this century. The elder excelled the younger, not only in fruitfulness and versatility (1,500 comedies, 320 autos, § 115, 12, etc.), but also in poetic genius and patriotism. Calderon, with his 122 dramas, 73 festival plays, 200 preludes, etc., excelled De Vega in artistic expression and beauty of imagery. Both alike glorify the Inquisition, but occasionally subordinate Mary and the saints to the great redemption of the cross.―Specially deserving of notice is the noble German Jesuit Friedr. von Spee, died A.D. 1635. His spiritual songs show deep love to the Saviour and a profound feeling for nature, approaching in some respects the style of the evangelical hymn-writers. Spee was a keen but unsuccessful opponent of witch prosecution. Another eminent poetic genius of the age was the Jesuit Jac. Balde of Munich, who died in A.D. 1688. He is at his best in lyrical poetry. A deep religious vein runs through all his Latin odes, in which he enthusiastically appeals to the Virgin to raise him above all earthly passions. To Herder belongs the merit of rescuing him from oblivion.

III. The Lutheran Church.

§ 159. Orthodoxy and its Battles.465

The Formula of Concord commended itself to the hearts and intelligences of Lutherans, and secured a hundred years’ supremacy of orthodoxy, notwithstanding two Christological controversies. Gradually, however, a new dogmatic scholasticism arose, which had the defects as well as the excellences of the mediæval system. The orthodoxy of this school deteriorated, on the one hand, into violent polemic on confessional differences, and, on the other, into undue depreciation of outward forms in favour of a spiritual life and personal piety. These tendencies are represented by the Syncretist and Pietist controversies.

§ 159.1. Christological Controversies.

The Cryptist and Kenotist Controversy between the Giessen and Tübingen theologians, in A.D. 1619, about Christ’s state of humiliation, led to the publication of many violent treatises down to A.D. 1626. The Kenotists of Giessen, with Mentzer and Feuerborn at their head, assigned the humiliation only to the human nature, and explained it as an actual κένωσις, i.e. a complete but voluntary resigning of the omnipresence and omnipotence immanent in His divinity (κτῆσις, but not χρῆσις), yet so that He could have them at His command at any moment, e.g. in His miracles. The Cryptists of Tübingen, with Luc. Osiander and Thumm at their head, ascribed humiliation to both natures, and taught that all the while Christ, even secundum carnem, was omnipresent and ruled both in heaven and earth, but in a hidden way; the humiliation is no κένωσις, but only a κρύψις. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to bring about a reconciliation, John George, Elector of Saxony, in A.D. 1623, accepted the Kenotic doctrine. But the two parties still continued their strife.466

The Lütkemann Controversy on the humanity of Christ in death was of far less importance. Lütkemann, a professor of philosophy at Rostock, affirmed that in death, because the unity of soul and body was broken, Christ was not true man, and that to deny this was to destroy the reality and the saving power of his death. He held that the incarnation of Christ lasted through death, because the divine nature was connected, not only with the soul, but also with the body. Lütkemann was obliged to quit Rostock, but got an honourable call to Brunswick as superintendent and court preacher, and there died in A.D. 1655. Later Lutherans treated the controversy as a useless logomachy.

§ 159.2. The Syncretist Controversy.―Since the Hofmann controversy (§ 141, 15) the University of Helmstadt had shown a decided humanistic tendency, and gave even greater freedom in the treatment of doctrines than the Formula of Concord, which it declined to adopt. To this school belonged George Calixt, and from A.D. 1614 for forty years he laboured in promoting its interests. He was a man of wide culture and experience, who had obtained a thorough knowledge of church history, and acquaintance with the most distinguished theologians of all churches, during his extensive foreign travels, and therewith a geniality and breadth of view not by any means common in those days. He did not indeed desire any formal union between the different churches, but rather a mutual recognition, love, and tolerance. For this purpose he set, as a secondary principle of Christian theology, besides Scripture, as the primary principle, the consensus of the first five centuries as the common basis of all churches, and sought to represent later ecclesiastical differences as unessential or of less consequence. This was denounced by strict Lutherans as Syncretism and Cryptocatholicism. In A.D. 1639 the Hanoverian preacher Buscher charged him with being a secret Papist. After the Thorn Conference of A.D. 1645, a violent controversy arose, which divided Lutherans into two camps. On the one side were the universities of Helmstadt and Königsberg; on the other hand, the theologians of the electorate of Saxony, Hülsemann of Leipzig, Waller of Dresden, and Abr. Calov, who died professor in Wittenberg in A.D. 1686. Calov wrote twenty-six controversial treatises on this subject. Jena vainly sought to mediate between the parties. In the Theologorum Sax. Consensus repetitus Fidei vera Lutheranæ of A.D. 1655, for which the Wittenberg divines failed to secure symbolical authority, the following sentiments were branded as Syncretist errors: That in the Apostles’ Creed everything is taught that is necessary to salvation; that the Catholic and Reformed systems retain hold of fundamental truths; that original sin is of a merely privative nature; that God indirecte, improprie, et per accidens is the cause of sin; that the doctrine of the Trinity was first clearly revealed in the New Testament, etc. Calixt died A.D. 1656 in the midst of most violent controversies. His son Ulrich continued these, but had neither the ability nor moderation of his father. Even the peaceably disposed Conference of Cassel of A.D. 1661 (§ 154, 4) only poured oil on the flames. The strife lost itself at last in actions for damages between the younger Calixt and his bitter opponent Strauch of Wittenberg. Wearied of these fruitless discussions, theologians now turned their attention to the rising movement of Pietism.467

§ 159.3. The Pietist Controversy in its First Stage.―Philip Jacob Spener born in Alsace in A.D. 1635, was in his thirty-first year, on account of his spirituality, distinguished gifts, and singularly wide scholarship, made president of a clerical seminary at Frankfort-on-Main. In A.D. 1686 he became chief court preacher at Dresden, and provost of Berlin in A.D. 1691, when, on account of his intense earnestness in pastoral work, he had been expelled from Dresden. He died in Berlin in A.D. 1705. His year’s attendance at Geneva after the completion of his curriculum at Strassburg had an important influence on his whole future career. He there learned to value discipline for securing purity of life as well as of doctrine, and was also powerfully impressed by the practical lectures of Labadie (§ 163, 7) and the reading of the “Practice of Piety” and other ascetical writings of the English Puritans (§ 162, 3). Though strongly attached to the Lutheran church, he believed that in the restoration of evangelical doctrine by the Wittenberg Reformation, “not by any means had all been accomplished that needed to be done,” and that Lutheranism in the form of the orthodoxy of the age had lost the living power of the reformers, and was in danger of burying its talent in dead and barren service of the letter. There was therefore a pressing need of a new and wider reformation. In the Lutheran church, as the depository of sound doctrine, he recognised the fittest field for the development of a genuinely Christian life; but he heartily appreciated any true spiritual movement in whatsoever church it arose. He went back from scholastic dogmatics to Holy Scripture as the living source of saving knowledge, substituted for the external orthodox theology the theology of the heart, demanded evidence of this in a pious Christian walk: these were the means by which he sought to promote his reformation. A whole series of Lutheran theologians of the seventeenth century (§ 159) had indeed contributed to this same end by their devotional works, hymns, and sermons. What was new in Spener was the conviction of the insufficiency of the hitherto used means and the undue prominence given to doctrine, and his consequent effort vigorously made to raise the tone of the Christian life. In his childlike, pious humility he regarded himself as by no means called to carry out this work, but felt it his duty to insist upon the necessity of it, and indicate the means that should be used to realize it. This he did in his work of A.D. 1675, “Pia Desideria.” As it was his aim to recommend biblical practical Christianity to the heart of the individual Christian, he revived the almost forgotten doctrine “Of Spiritual Priesthood” in a separate treatise. In A.D. 1670 he began to have meetings in his own house for encouraging Christian piety in the community, which soon were imitated in other places. Spener’s influence on the Lutheran church became greater and wider through his position at Dresden. Stirred up by his spirit, three young graduates of Leipzig. A. H. Francke, Paul Anton, and J. K. Schade, formed in A.D. 1686 a private Collegia Philobiblica for practical exposition of Scripture and the delivery of public exegetical lectures at the university in the German language. But the Leipzig theological faculty, with J. B. Carpzov II. at its head, charged them with despising the public ordinances as well as theological science, and with favouring the views of separatists. The Collegia Philobiblica was suppressed, and the three friends obliged to leave Leipzig in A.D. 1690. This marked the beginning of the Pietist controversies. Soon afterwards Spener was expelled from Dresden; but in his new position at Berlin he secured great influence in the appointments to the theological faculty of the new university founded at Halle by the peace-loving elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg, in opposition to the contentious universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig. Francke, Anton, and Breithaupt were made professors of theology. Halle now won the position which Wittenberg and Geneva had held during the Reformation period, and the Pietist controversy thus entered upon a second, more general, and more critical epoch of its history.468―Continuation, § 166, 1.

§ 159.4. Theological Literature (§ 142, 6).―The “Philologia Sacra” of Sol. Glassius of Jena, published in A.D. 1623, has ranked as a classical work for almost two centuries. From A.D. 1620 till the end of the century, a lively controversy was carried on about the Greek style of the New Testament, in which Lutherans, and especially the Reformed, took part. The purists maintained that the New Testament idiom was pure and classical, thinking that its inspiration would otherwise be endangered. The first historico-critical introduction to the Scriptures was the “Officina Biblica” of Walther in A.D. 1636. Pfeiffer of Leipzig gained distinction in biblical criticism and hermeneutics by his “Critica Sacra” of A.D. 1680 and “Hermeneutica” of A.D. 1684. Exegesis now made progress, notwithstanding its dependence on traditional interpretations of doctrinal proof passages and its mechanical theory of inspiration. The most distinguished exegetes were Erasmus Schmidt of Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1637: he wrote a Latin translation of New Testament with admirable notes, and a very useful concordance of the Greek New Testament, under the title Ταμεῖον, which has been revised and improved by Bruder; Seb. Schmidt of Strassburg, who wrote commentaries on several Old Testament books and on the Pauline epistles; and Abr. Calov of Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1686, in his 74th year, whose “Biblia Illustrata,” in four vols., is a work of amazing research and learning, but composed wholly in the interests of dogmatics.―Little was done in the department of church history. Calixt awakened a new enthusiasm for historical studies, and Gottfried Arnold (§ 159, 2), pietist, chiliast, and theosophist, bitterly opposed to every form of orthodoxy, and finding true Christianity only in sects, separatists, and heretics, set the whole theological world astir by his “Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzer-historie,” in A.D. 1699 (§ 5, 3).

§ 159.5. The orthodox school applied itself most diligently to dogmatics in a strictly scholastic form. Hutter of Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1616, wrote “Loci communes theologici” and “Compendium Loc. Theol.” John Gerhard of Jena, who died in A.D. 1637, published in A.D. 1610 his “Loc. Theologici” in nine folio vols., the standard of Lutheran orthodoxy. J. Andr. Quenstedt of Wittenberg, who died A.D. 1688, exhibited the best and worst of Lutheran scholasticism in his “Theol. didactico-polemica.” The most important dogmatist of the Calixtine school was Conrad Horneius. Calixt himself is known as a dogmatist only by his lectures; but to him we owe the generally adopted distinction between morals and dogmatics as set forth in his “Epitome theol. Moralis.”―Polemics were carried on vigorously. Hoë von Hoënegg of Dresden (§ 154, 3, 4) and Hutter of Wittenberg were bitter opponents of Calvinism and Romanism. Hutter was styled by his friends Malleus Calvinistorum and Redonatus Lutherus. The ablest and most dignified polemic against Romanism was that of John Gerhard in his “Confessio Catholica.” Nich. Hunnius, son of Ægid. Hunnius, and Hutter’s successor at Wittenberg, from A.D. 1623 superintendent at Lübeck, distinguished himself as an able controversialist against the papacy by his “Demonstratio Ministerii Lutherani Divini atque Legitimi.” Against the Socinians he wrote his “Examen Errorum Photinianorum,” and against the fanatics a “Chr. Examination of the new Paracelsist and Weigelian Theology.” His principal work is his “Διάσκεψις de Fundamentali Dissensu Doctrinæ Luth. et Calvin.” His “Epitome Credendorum” went through nineteen editions. The most incessant controversialist was Abr. Calov, who wrote against Syncretists, Papists, Socinians, Arminians, etc.―Continuation, § 167, 4.

§ 160. The Religious Life.

The attachment of the Lutheran church of this age to pure doctrine led to a one-sided over-estimation of it, often ending in dead orthodoxy. But a succession of able and learned theologians, who recognised the importance of heart theology as well as sound doctrine, corrected this evil tendency by Scripture study, preaching, and faithful pastoral work. A noble and moderate mysticism, which was thoroughly orthodox in its beliefs, and opposing orthodoxy only where that had become external and mechanical, had many influential representatives throughout the whole country, especially during the first half of it. But also separatists, mystics, and theosophists made their appearance, who were decidedly hostile to the church. Sacred song flourished afresh amid the troubles of the Thirty Years’ War; but gradually lost its sublime objective church character, which was poorly compensated by a more flowing versification, polished language, and elegant form. A corresponding advance was also made in church music.

§ 160.1. Mysticism and Asceticism.―At the head of the orthodox mystics stands John Arndt. His “True Christianity” and his “Paradiesgärtlein” are the most widely read Lutheran devotional books, but called forth the bitter hostility of those devoted to the maintenance of a barren orthodoxy. He died in A.D. 1621, as general superintendent at Celle. He had been expelled from Anhalt because he would not condemn exorcism as godless superstition, and was afterwards in Brunswick publicly charged by his colleague Denecke and other Lutheran zealots with Papacy, Calvinism, Osiandrianism, Flacianism, Schwenckfeldism, Paracelsism, Alchemism, etc. As men of a similar spirit, anticipators of the school of Spener, may be named John Gerhard of Jena, with his “Meditationes Sacræ” and “Schola pietatis,” and Christian Scriver, whose “Gotthold’s Emblems” is well known to English readers. Rahtmann of Danzig maintained that the word of God in Scripture has not in itself the power to enlighten and convert men except through the gracious influence of God’s Spirit. He was supported, after a long delay, in A.D. 1626 by the University of Rostock, but opposed by Königsberg, Jena, and Wittenberg. In A.D. 1628, the Elector of Saxony obtained the opinion of the most famous theologians of his realm against Rahtmann; but his death, which soon followed, brought the controversy to a close.―The Württemberg theologian, John Valentine Andreä, grandson of one of the authors of the Formula of Concord, was a man of striking originality, famous for his satires on the corruptions of the age. His “Order of Rosicrucians,” published at Cassel in A.D. 1614, ridiculed the absurdities of astrology and alchemy in the form of a satirical romance. His influence on the church of his times was great and wholesome, so that even Spener exclaimed: “Had I the power to call any one from the dead for the good of the church, it would be J. V. Andreä.” His later devotional work was almost completely forgotten until attention was called to it by Herder.469

§ 160.2. Mysticism and Theosophy.―A mystico-theosophical tendency, partly in outward connexion with the church, partly without and in open opposition to it, was fostered by the alchemist writings of Agrippa and Paracelsus, the theosophical works of Weigel (§ 146, 2) and by the profound revelations of the inspired shoemaker of Görlitz, Jacob Boehme, philosophus teutonicus, the most talented of all the theosophists. In a remarkable degree he combined a genius for speculation with the most unfeigned piety that held firmly by the old Lutheran faith. Even when an itinerant tradesman, he felt himself for a period of seven days in calm repose, surrounded by the divine light. But he dates his profound theosophical enlightenment from a moment in A.D. 1594, when as a young journeyman and married, thrown into an ecstasy, he obtained a knowledge of the divine mysteries down to the ultimate principles of all things and their inmost quality. His theosophy, too, like that of the ancient gnostics, springs out of the question about the origin of evil. He solves it by assuming an emanation of all things from God, in whom fire and light, bitter and sweet qualities, are thoroughly tempered and perfectly combined, while in the creature derived by emanation from him they are in disharmony, but are reconciled and reduced to godlike harmony through regeneration in Christ. Though opposed by Calov, he was befriended by the Dresden consistory. Boehme died in A.D. 1624, in retirement at Görlitz, in the arms of his family.470―In close connexion with Boehmists, separatists, and Pietists, yet differing from them all, Gottfried Arnold abused orthodoxy and canonized the heretics of all ages. In A.D. 1700 he wrote “The Mystery of the Divine Sophia.” When Adam, originally man and woman, fell, his female nature, the heavenly Sophia, was taken from him, and in his place a woman of flesh was made for him out of a rib; in order again to restore the paradisiacal perfection Christ brought again the male part into a virgin’s womb, so that the new creature, the regenerate, stands before God as a “male-virgin;” but carnal love destroys again the connexion thus secured with the heavenly Sophia. But the very next year he reached a turning-point in his life. He not only married, but in consequence accepted several appointments in the Lutheran church, without, however, signing the Formula of Concord, and applied his literary skill to the production of devotional tracts.

§ 160.3. Sacred Song (§ 142, 3).―The first epoch of the development of sacred song in this century corresponds to the period of the Thirty Years’ War, A.D. 1618-1648. The Psalms of David were the model and pattern of the sacred poets, and the profoundest songs of the cross and consolation bear the evident impress of the times, and so individual feeling comes more into prominence. The influence of Opitz was also felt in the church song, in the greater attention given to correctness and purity of language and to the careful construction of verse and rhyme. Instead of the rugged terseness and vigour of earlier days, we now find often diffuse and overflowing utterances of the heart. John Hermann of Glogau, who died in A.D. 1647, composed 400 songs, embracing these: “Alas! dear Lord, what evil hast Thou done?” “O Christ, our true and only Light;” “Ere yet the dawn hath filled the skies;” “O God, thou faithful God.” Paul Flemming, a physician in Holstein, who died in A.D. 1640, wrote on his journey to Persia, “Where’er I go, whate’er my task.” Matthew Meyffart, professor and pastor at Erfurt, who died in A.D. 1642, wrote “Jerusalem, thou city fair and high.” Martin Rinkart, pastor at Eilenburg in Saxony, who died A.D. 1648, wrote, “Now thank we all our God.” Appelles von Löwenstern, who died A.D. 1648, composed, “When anguished and perplexed, with many a sigh and tear.” Joshua Stegmann, superintendent in Rinteln, who died A.D. 1632, wrote, “Abide among us with thy grace.” Joshua Wegelin, pastor in Augsburg and Pressburg, wrote, “Since Christ is gone to heaven, his home.” Justus Gesenius, superintendent in Hanover, who died in A.D. 1673, wrote, “When sorrow and remorse.” Tob. Clausnitzer, pastor in the Palatinate, who died A.D. 1648, wrote, “Blessed Jesus, at thy word.” The poets named mostly belong to the first Silesian school gathered round Opitz. A more independent position, though not uninfluenced by Opitz, is taken up by John Rist, who died in A.D. 1667. He composed 658 sacred songs, of which many are remarkable for their vigour, solemnity, and elevation; e.g. “Arise, the kingdom is at hand;” “Sink not yet, my soul, to slumber;” “O living Bread from heaven;” “Praise and thanks to Thee be sung.” At the head of the Königsberg school of the same age stood Simon Dach, professor of poetry at Königsberg, who died in A.D. 1659. He composed 150 spiritual songs, among which the best known are, “O how blessed, faithful souls, are ye!” “Wouldest thou inherit life with Christ on high?” The most distinguished members of this school are: Henry Alberti, organist at Königsberg, author of “God who madest earth and heaven;” and George Weissel, pastor in Königsberg, who died in A.D. 1655, author of “Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates.”

§ 160.4. From the middle of the seventeenth century sacred song became more subjective, and so tended to fall into a diversity of groups. No longer does the church sing through its poets, but the poets give direct expression to their individual feelings. Confessional songs are less frequent, and their place is taken by hymns of edification with reference to various conditions of life; songs of death, the cross and consolation, and hymns for the family become more numerous. With objectivity special features of the church song disappear in the hymns of the period; but some of its essential characteristics remain, especially the popular form and contents, the freshness, liveliness, and simplicity of diction, the truths of personal experience, the fulness of faith, etc. We distinguish three groups:

The Transition Group, passing from objectivity to subjectivity. Its greatest masters, indeed after Luther the greatest sacred poet of the evangelical church, is undoubtedly Paul Gerhardt, who died A.D. 1676, the faith witness of the Lutheran faith under the wars and in persecution (§ 154, 4). In him we find the new subjective tendency in its noblest form; but there is also present the old objective style, giving immediate expression to the consciousness of the church, adhering tenaciously to the confession, and a grand popular ring that reminds us of the fulness and power of Luther. His 131 songs, if not all church songs in the narrower sense, are almost all genuine poems: e.g. “All my heart this night rejoices;” “Cometh sunshine after rain;” “Go forth, my heart, and seek delight;” “Be thou content: be still before;” “O world, behold upon the tree;” “Now all the woods are sleeping;” and “Ah, wounded head, must thou?” based on Bernard’s Salve, caput cruentatum. To this school also belongs George Neumark, librarian at Weimar, who died in A.D. 1681, author of “Leave God to order all thy ways.” Also John Franck, burgomaster at Guben in Lusatia, who died A.D. 1677, next to Gerhardt the greatest poet of his age. His 110 songs are less popular and hearty, but more melodious than Gerhardt’s; e.g. “Redeemer of the nations, come;” “Ye heavens, oh haste your dews to shed;” “Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness.” George Albinus, pastor at Naumburg, died A.D. 1679, wrote: “Not in anger smite us, Lord;” “World, farewell! Of thee I’m tired.”

The next stage of the sacred song took the Canticles instead of the Psalter as its model. The spiritual marriage of the soul is its main theme. Feeling and fancy are predominant, and often degenerate into sentimentality and trifling. It obtained a new impulse from the addition of a mystical element. Angelus Silesius (§ 156, 4) was the most distinguished representative of this school, and while Protestant he composed several beautiful songs; e.g. “O Love, who formedst me to wear;” “Thou holiest Love, whom most I love;” “Loving Shepherd, kind and true.” Christian Knorr v. Rosenroth, who died at Sulzbach A.D. 1689, wrote “Dayspring of eternity.” Ludämilie Elizabeth, Countess of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, who died in A.D. 1672, wrote 215 “Songs of Jesus.” Caspar Neumann, professor and pastor at Breslau, died A.D. 1715, wrote, “Lord, on earth I dwell in pain.”

Those of Spener’s Time and Spirit, men who longed for the regeneration of the church by practical Christianity. Their hymns are for the most part characterized by healthy piety and deep godliness. Spener’s own poems are of slight importance. J. Jac. Schütz, Spener’s friend, a lawyer in Frankfort, who died A.D. 1690, composed only one, but that a very beautiful hymn: “All praise and thanks to God most high.” Samuel Rodigast, rector in Berlin, died A.D. 1708, wrote, “Whate’er my God ordains is right.” Laurentius Laurentii, musical director at Bremen, died A.D. 1722, wrote, “Is my heart athirst to know?” “O thou essential Word.”―Gottfried Arnold, died A.D. 1714, wrote, “Thou who breakest every chain;” “How blest to all thy followers, Lord, the road!”―In Denmark, where previously translations of German hymns were used, Thomas Kingo, from A.D. 1677 Bishop of Fünen, died A.D. 1703, was the much-honoured founder of Danish national hymnology.471―Continuation, § 167, 6.

§ 160.5. Sacred Music (§ 142, 5).―The church music in the beginning of the seventeenth century was affected by the Italian school, just as church song was by the influence of Opitz. The greatest master during the transition stage was John Crüger, precentor in the church of St. Nicholas in Berlin, died A.D. 1662. He was to the chorale what Gerhardt was to the church song. We have seventy-one new melodies of his, admirably adapted to Gerhardt’s, Hunnius’s, Franck’s, Dach’s, and Rinkart’s songs, and used in the church till the present time. With the second half of the century we enter on a new period, in which expression and musical declamation perish. Choir singing now, to a great extent, supersedes congregational singing. Henry Schütz, organist to the Elector of Saxony, died A.D. 1672, is the great master of this Italian sacred concert style. He introduced musical compositions on passages selected from the Psalms, Canticles, and prophets, in his “Symphoniæ Sacræ” of A.D. 1629. After a short time a radical reform was made by John Rosenmüller, organist of Wolfenbüttel, died A.D. 1686. A reaction against the exclusive adoption of the Italian style was made by Andr. Hammerschmidt, organist at Zittau, died A.D. 1675, one of the noblest and most pious of German musicians. By working up the old church melodies in the modern style, he brought the old hymns again into favour, and set hymns of contemporary poets to bright airs suited to modern standards of taste. The accomplished musician Rud. Ahle, organist and burgomaster at Mühlhausen, died A.D. 1673, introduced his own beautiful airs into the church music for Sundays and festivals. His sacred airs are distinguished for youthful freshness and power, penetrated by a holy earnestness, and quite free from that secularity and frivolousness which soon became unpleasantly conspicuous in such music.―Continuation, § 167, 7.

§ 160.6. The Christian Life of the People.―The rich development of sacred poetry proves the wonderful fulness and spirituality of the religious life of this age, notwithstanding the many chilling separatistic controversies that prevailed during the terrible upheaval of the Thirty Years’ War. The abundance of devotional literature of permanent worth witnesses to the diligence and piety of the Lutheran pastors. Ernest the Pious of Saxe-Gotha, who died A.D. 1675, stands forth as the ideal of a Christian prince. For the Christian instruction of his people he issued, in the midst of the confusion and horrors of the war, the famous Weimar or Ernestine exposition of the Bible, upon which John Gerhard wrought diligently, along with other distinguished Jena theologians. It appeared first in A.D. 1641, and by A.D. 1768 had gone through fourteen large editions. A like service was done for South Germany by the “Württemberg Summaries,” composed by three Württemberg theologians at the request of Duke Eberhard III., a concise, practical exposition of all the books of Scripture, which for a century and a half formed the basis of the weekly services (Bibelstunden) at Württemberg.―Continuation, § 167, 8.

§ 160.7. Missions.―In the Lutheran church, missionary enterprise had rather fallen behind (§ 142, 8). Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden carried on the Lapp mission with new zeal, and Denmark, too, gave ready assistance. A Norwegian pastor, Thomas Westen, deserves special mention as the apostle of the mission. A German, Peter Heyling of Lübeck, went on his own account as a missionary to Abyssinia in A.D. 1635, while several of his friends at the same time went to other eastern lands. Of these others no trace whatever has been found. An Abyssinian abbot who came to Europe brought news of Heyling. At first he was hindered by the machinations of the Jesuits; but when these were expelled, he found favour at court, became minister to the king, and married one of the royal family. What finally came of him and his work is unknown. Toward the end of the century two great men, the philosopher Leibnitz and the founder of the Halle Orphanage, A. H. Francke, warmly espoused the cause of foreign missions. The ambitious and pretentious schemes of the philosopher ended in nothing, but Francke made his orphanages, training colleges and centres from which the German Lutheran missions to the heathens were vigorously organized and successfully wrought.―Continuation, § 167, 9.

IV. The Reformed Church.

§ 161. Theology and its Battles.

The Reformed scholars of France vied with those of St. Maur and the Oratory, and the Reformed theologians of the Netherlands, England, and Switzerland were not a whit behind. But an attempt made at a general synod at Dort to unite all the Reformed national churches under one confession failed. Opposition to Calvin’s extreme theory of predestination introduced a Pelagianizing current into the Reformed church, which was by no means confined to professed Arminians. In the Anglican church this tendency appeared in the forms of latitudinarianism and deism (§ 164, 3); while in France it took a more moderate course, and approximated rather to the Lutheran doctrine. It was a reaction of latent Zwinglianism against the dominant Calvinism. The Voetian school successfully opposed the introduction of the Cartesian philosophy, and secured supremacy to a scholasticism which held its own alongside of that of the Lutherans. In opposition to it, the Cocceian federal school undertook to produce a purely biblical system of theology in all its departments.

§ 161.1. Preliminaries of the Arminian Controversy.―In the Confessio Belgica of A.D. 1562 the Protestant Netherlands had already a strictly Calvinistic symbol, but Calvinism had not thoroughly permeated the church doctrine and constitution. There were more opponents than supporters of the doctrine of predestination, and a Melanchthonian-synergistic (§ 141, 7), or even an Erasmian-semipelagian, (§ 125, 3) doctrine, of the freedom of the will and the efficacy of grace, was more frequently taught and preached than the Augustinian-Calvinistic doctrine. So also Zwingli’s view of the relation of church and state was in much greater favour than the Calvinistic Presbyterial church government with its terrorist discipline. But the return of the exiles in A.D. 1572, who had adopted strict Calvinistic views in East Friesland and on the Lower German Rhine, led to the adoption of a purely Calvinistic creed and constitution. The keenest opponent of this movement was Coornhert, notary and secretary for the city of Haarlem, who combated Calvinism in numerous writings, and depreciated doctrine generally in the interests of practical living Christianity. Political as well as religious sympathies were enlisted in favour of this freer ecclesiastical tendency. The Dutch War of Independence was a struggle for religious freedom against Spanish Catholic fanaticism. The young republic therefore became the first home of religious toleration, which was scarcely reconcilable with a strict and exclusive Calvinism.―Meanwhile within the Calvinistic church a controversy arose, which divided its adherents in the Netherlands into two parties. In opposition to the strict Calvinists, who as supralapsarians held that the fall itself was included in the eternal counsels of God, there arose the milder infralapsarians, who made predestination come in after the fall, which was not predestinated but only foreseen by God.

§ 161.2. The Arminian Controversy.―In A.D. 1588, James Arminius (born A.D. 1560), a pupil of Beza, but a declared adherent of the Ramist philosophy (§ 143, 6), was appointed pastor in Amsterdam, and ordered by the magistrates to controvert Coornhert’s universalism and the infralapsarianism of the ministers of Delft. He therefore studied Coornhert’s writings, and by them was shaken in his earlier beliefs. This was shown first in certain sermons on passages from Romans, which made him suspected of Pelagianism. In A.D. 1603 he was made theological professor of Leyden, where he found a bitter opponent in his supralapsarian colleague, Francis Gomarus. From the class-rooms the controversy spread to the pulpits, and even into domestic circles. A public disputation in A.D. 1608, led to no pacific result, and Arminius continued involved in controversies till his death in A.D. 1609. Although decidedly inclined toward universalism, he had directed his polemic mainly against supralapsarianism, as making God himself the author of sin. But his followers went beyond these limits. When denounced by the Gomarists as Pelagians, they addressed to the provincial parliament of Holland and West Friesland, in A.D. 1610, a remonstrance, which in five articles repudiates supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, and the doctrines of the irresistibility of grace, and of the impossibility of the elect finally falling away from it, and boldly asserts the universality of grace. They were hence called Remonstrants and their opponents Contraremonstrants. Parliament, favourably inclined toward the Arminians, pronounced the difference non-fundamental, and enjoined peace. When Vorstius, who was practically a Socinian, was appointed successor to Arminius, Gomarus charged the Remonstrants with Socinianism. Their ablest theological representative was Simon Episcopius, who succeeded Gomarus at Leyden in A.D. 1612, supported by the distinguished statesman, Oldenbarneveldt, and the great jurist, humanist, and theologian, Hugo Grotius of Rotterdam. Maurice of Orange, too, for a long time sided with them, but in A.D. 1617 formally went over to the other party, whose well-knit unity, strict discipline, and rigorous energy commended them to him as the fittest associates in his struggle for absolute monarchy. The republican-Arminian party was conquered, Oldenbarneveldt being executed in 1619, Grotius escaping by his wife’s strategem. The Synod of Dort was convened for the purpose of settling doctrinal disputes. It held 154 sessions, from Nov. 13th, 1618, to May 9th, 1619. Invitations were accepted by twenty-eight theologians from England, Scotland, Germany, and Switzerland. Brandenburg took no part in it (§ 154, 3), and French theologians were refused permission to go. Episcopius presented a clear and comprehensive apology for the Remonstrants, and bravely defended their cause before the synod. Refusing to submit to the decisions of the synod, they were at the fifty-seventh session expelled, and then excommunicated and deprived of all ecclesiastical offices. The Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession were unanimously adopted as the creed and manual of orthodox teaching. In the discussion of the five controverted points, the opposition of the Anglican and German delegates prevented any open and manifest insertion of supralapsarian theses, so that the synodal canons set forth only an essentially infralapsarian theory of predestination.―Remonstrant teachers were now expelled from most of the states of the union. Only after Maurice’s death in A.D. 1625 did they venture to return, and in A.D. 1630 they were allowed by statute to erect churches and schools in all the states. A theological seminary at Amsterdam, presided over by Episcopius till his death, in A.D. 1643, rose to be a famous seat of learning and nursery of liberal studies. The number of congregations, however, remained small, and their importance in church history consists rather in the development of an independent church life than in the revival of a semipelagian and rationalistic type of doctrine.472

§ 161.3. Consequences of the Arminian Controversy.―The Dort decrees were not accepted in Brandenburg, Hesse, and Bremen, where a moderate Calvinism continued to prevail. In England and Scotland the Presbyterians enthusiastically approved of the decrees, whereas the Episcopalians repudiated them, and, rushing to the other extreme of latitudinarianism, often showed lukewarm indifferentism in the way in which they distinguished articles of faith as essential and non-essential. The worthiest of the latitudinarians of this age was Chillingworth, who sought an escape from the contentions of theologians in the Catholic church, but soon returned to Protestantism, seeking and finding peace in God’s word alone. Archbishop Tillotson was a famous pulpit orator, and Gilbert Burnet, who died A.D. 1715, was author of a “History of the English Reformation.” In the French Reformed church, where generally strict Calvinism prevailed, Amyrault of Saumur, who died A.D. 1664, taught a universalismus hypotheticus, according to which God by a decretum universale et hypotheticum destined all men to salvation through Jesus Christ, even the heathen, on the ground of a fides implicita. The only condition is that they believe, and for this all the means are afforded in gratia resistibilis, while by a decretum absolutum et speciale only to elect persons is granted the gratia irresistibilis. The synods of Alençon, A.D. 1637, and Charenton, A.D. 1644, supported by Blondel, Daillé, and Claude, declared these doctrines allowable; but Du Moulin of Sedan, Rivetus and Spanheim of Leyden, Maresius of Groningen [Gröningen], and others, offered violent opposition. Amyrault’s colleague, De la Place, or Placæus, who died A.D. 1655, went still further, repudiating the unconditional imputation of Adam’s sin, and representing original sin simply as an evil which becomes guilt only as our own actual transgression. The synods just named condemned this doctrine. Somewhat later Claude Pajon of Saumur, who died A.D. 1685, roused a bitter discussion about the universality of grace, by maintaining that in conversion divine providence wrought only through the circumstances of the life, and the Holy Spirit through the word of God. Several French synods condemned this doctrine, and affirmed an immediate as well as a mediate operation of the Spirit and providence.―Genuine Calvinism was best represented in Switzerland, as finally expressed in the Formula Consensus Helvetica of Heidegger of Zürich, adopted in A.D. 1675 by most of the cantons. It was, like the Formula Concordiæ, a manual of doctrine rather than a confession. In opposition to Amyrault and De la Place, it set forth a strict theory of predestination and original sin, and maintained with the Buxtorfs, against Cappellus of Saumur, the inspiration of the Hebrew vowel points.

§ 161.4. The Cocceian and Cartesian Controversies.―If not the founder, certainly the most distinguished representative in the Netherlands of that scholasticism which sought to expound and defend orthodoxy, was Voetius, who died A.D. 1676, from A.D. 1607 pastor in various places, and from A.D. 1634 professor at Utrecht. A completely different course was pursued by Cocceius of Bremen, who died A.D. 1669, professor at Franeker in A.D. 1636, and at Leyden in A.D. 1650. The famous Zürich theologian, Bullinger (§ 138, 7), had in his “Compend. Rel. Chr.” of A.D. 1556, viewed the whole doctrine of saving truth from the point of view of a covenant of grace between God and man; and this idea was afterwards carried out by Olevianus of Heidelberg (§ 144, 1) in his “De Substantia Fœderis,” of A.D. 1585. This became the favourite method of distribution of doctrine in the whole German Reformed church. In the Dutch church it was regarded as quite unobjectionable. In England it was adopted in the Westminster Confession of A.D. 1648 (§ 155, 1), and in Switzerland in A.D. 1675, in the Formula Consensus. Cocceius is therefore not the founder of the federal theology. He simply gave it a new and independent development, and freed it from the trammels of scholastic dogmatics. He distinguished a twofold covenant of God with man: the fœdus operum s. naturæ before, and the fœdus gratiæ after the fall. He then subdivided the covenant of grace into three economies: before the law until Moses; under the law until Christ; and after the law in the Christian church. The history of the kingdom of God in the Christian era was arranged in seven periods, corresponding to the seven apocalyptic epistles, trumpets, and seals. In his treatment of his theme, he repudiated philosophy, scholasticism, and tradition, and held simply by Scripture. He is thus the founder of a purely biblical theology. He attached himself as closely as possible to the prevailing predestinationist orthodoxy, but only externally. In his view the sacred history in its various epochs adjusted itself to the needs of human personality, and to the growing capacity for appropriating it. Hence it was not the idea of election, but that of grace, that prevailed in his system. Christ is the centre of all history, spiritual, ecclesiastical, and civil; and so everything in Scripture, history, doctrine, and prophecy, necessarily and immediately stands related to him. The O.T. prophecies and types point to the Christ that was to come in the flesh, and all history after Christ points to his second coming; and O. and N.T. give an outline of ecclesiastical and civil history down to the end of time. Thus typology formed the basis of the Cocceian theology. In exegesis, however, Cocceius avoided all arbitrary allegorizing. It was with him an axiom in hermeneutics, Id significan verba, quod significare possunt in integra oratione, sic ut omnino inter se conveniant. Yet his typology led him, and still more many of his adherents, into fantastic exegetical errors in the prophetic treatment of the seven apocalyptic periods.

§ 161.5. A controversy, occasioned by Cocceius’ statement, in his commentary on Hebrews in A.D. 1658, that the Sabbath, as enjoined by the O.T. ceremonial law, was no longer binding, was stopped in A.D. 1659 by a State prohibition. Voetius had not taken part in it. But when Cocceius, in A.D. 1665, taught from Romans iii. 25, that believers under the law had not full “ἄφεσις,” only a “πάρεσις,” he felt obliged to enter the lists against this “Socinian” heresy. The controversy soon spread to other doctrines of Cocceius and his followers, and soon the whole populace seemed divided into Voetians and Cocceians (§ 162, 5). The one hurled offensive epithets at the other. The Orange political party sought and obtained the favour of the Voetians, as before they had that of the Gomarists; while the liberal republican party coalesced with the Cocceians. Philosophical questions next came to be mixed up in the discussion. The philosophy of the French Catholic Descartes (§ 164, 1), settled in A.D. 1629 in Amsterdam, had gained ground in the Netherlands. It had indeed no connexion with Christianity or church, and its theological friends wished only to have it recognised as a formal branch of study. But its fundamental principle, that all true knowledge starts from doubt, appeared to the representatives of orthodoxy as threatening the church with serious danger. Even in A.D. 1643 Voetius opposed it, and mainly in consequence of his polemic, the States General, in A.D. 1656, forbad it being taught in the universities. Their common opposition to scholasticism, however, brought Cocceians and Cartesians more closely to one another. Theology now became influenced by Cartesianism. Roëll, professor at Franeker and Utrecht, who died A.D. 1718, taught that the divinity of the Scriptures must be proved to the reason, since the testimonium Spir. s. internum is limited to those who already believe, rejected the doctrine of the imputation of original sin, the doctrine that death is for believers the punishment of sin, and the application of the idea of eternal “generation” to the Logos, to whom the predicate of sonship belongs only in regard to the decree of redemption and incarnation. Another zealous Cartesian, Balth. Bekker, not only repudiated the superstitions of the age about witchcraft (§ 117, 4), but also denied the existence of the devil and demons. The Cocceians were in no way responsible for such extravagances, but their opponents sought to make them chargeable for these. The stadtholder, William III., at last issued an order, in A.D. 1694, which checked for a time the violence of the strife.

§ 161.6. Theological Literature.―Biblical oriental philology flourished in the Reformed church of this age. Drusius of Franeker, who died A.D. 1616, was the greatest Old Testament exegete of his day. The two Buxtorfs of Basel, the father died A.D. 1629, the son A.D. 1664, the greatest Christian rabbinical scholars, wrote Hebrew and Chaldee grammars, lexicons, and concordances, and maintained the antiquity and even inspiration of the Hebrew vowel points against Cappellus of Saumur. Hottinger of Zürich, who died A.D. 1667, vied with both in his knowledge of oriental literature and languages, and wrote extensively on biblical philology, and besides found time to write a comprehensive and learned church history. Cocceius, too, occupies a respectable place among Hebrew lexicographers. In England, both before and after the Restoration, scholarship was found, not among the controversial Puritans, but among the Episcopal clergy. Brian Walton, who died A.D. 1661, aided by the English scholars, issued an edition of the “London Polyglott” in six vols., in A.D. 1657, which, in completeness of material and apparatus, as well as in careful textual criticism, leaves earlier editions far behind. Edm. Castellus of Cambridge in A.D. 1669 published his celebrated “Lexicon Heptaglottum.” The Elzevir printing-house at Amsterdam and Leyden, boldly assuming the prerogatives of the whole body of theological scholars, issued a textus receptus of the N.T. in A.D. 1624. The best established exegetical results of earlier times were collected by Pearson in his great compendium, the “Critici Sacri,” nine vols. fol., London, 1660; and Matthew Pool in his “Synopsis Criticorum,” five vols. fol., London, 1669. Among the exegetes of this time the brothers, J. Cappellus of Sedan, who died A.D. 1624, and Louis Cappellus II. of Saumur, who died A.D. 1658, were distinguished for their linguistic knowledge and liberal criticism. Pococke of Oxford and Lightfoot of Cambridge were specially eminent orientalists. Cocceius wrote commentaries on almost all the books of Scripture, and his scholar Vitringa of Franeker, who died A.D. 1716, gained great reputation by his expositions of Isaiah and the Apocalypse. Among the Arminians the famous statesman Grotius, who died A.D. 1645, was the greatest master of grammatico-historical exposition in the century, and illustrated Scripture from classical literature and philology. The Reformed church too gave brilliant contributions to biblical archæology and history. John Selden wrote “De Syndriis Vett. Heb.,” “De diis Syris,” etc. Goodwin wrote “Moses and Aaron.” Ussher wrote “Annales V. et N.T.” Spencer wrote “De Legibus Heb.” The Frenchman Bochart, in his “Hierozoicon” and “Phaleg,” made admirable contributions to the natural history and geography of the Bible.

§ 161.7. Dogmatic theology was cultivated mainly in the Netherlands. Maccovius, a Pole, who died A.D. 1644, a professor at Franeker, introduced the scholastic method into Reformed dogmatics. The Synod of Dort cleared him of the charge of heresy made against him by Amesius, but condemned his method. Yet it soon came into very general use. Its chief representatives were Maresius of Groningen [Gröningen], Voetius and Mastricht of Utrecht, Hoornbeck [Hoornbeeck] of Leyden, and the German Wendelin, rector of Zerbst. Among the Cocceians the most distinguished were Heidanus of Leyden, Alting of Groningen [Gröningen], and, above all, Hermann Witsius of Franeker, whose “Economy of the Covenants” is written in a conciliatory spirit. The most distinguished Arminian dogmatist after Episcopius was Phil. Limborch of Amsterdam, who died A.D. 1712, in high repute also as an apologist, exegete, and historian. The greatest dogmatist of the Anglican church was Pearson, who died A.D. 1686, author of “An Exposition of the Creed.” The Frenchman Peyrerius obtained great notoriety from his statement, founded on Romans v. 12, that Adam was merely the ancestor of the Jews (Gen. ii. 7), while the Gentiles were of pre-Adamite origin (Gen. i. 26), and also by maintaining that the flood had been only partial. He gained release from prison by joining the Catholic church and recanted, but still held by his earlier views.―Ethics, consisting hitherto of little more than an exposition of the decalogue, was raised by Amyrault into an independent science. Amesius dealt with cases of conscience. Grotius, in his “De Veritate Relig. Chr.” and Abbadie, French pastor at Berlin, and afterwards in London, who died A.D. 1727, in his “Vérité de la Rel. Chrét.,” distinguished themselves as apologists. Claude and Jurieu gained high reputation as controversialists against Catholicism and its persecution of the Huguenots.―The Reformed church also in the interests of polemics pursued historical studies. Hottinger of Zürich, Spanheim of Leyden, Sam. Basnage of Zütpfen, and Jac. Basnage of the Hague, produced general church histories. Among the numerous historical monographs the most important are Hospinian’s “De Templis,” “De Monachis,” “De Festis,” “Hist. Sacramentaria,” “Historia Jesuitica;” Blondel’s “Ps.-Isidorus,” “De la Primauté de l’Egl.,” “Question si une Femme a été Assisse au Siège Papal” (§ 82, 6), “Apologia sent. Hieron. de Presbyt.” Also Daillé of Saumur on the non-genuineness of the “Apostolic Constitutions” and the Ps.-Dionysian writings, and his “De Usu Patrum” in opposition to Cave’s Catholicizing over-estimation of the Fathers. We have also the English scholar Ussher, who died A.D. 1656, “Brit. Ecclesiarum Antiquitates;” H. Dodwell, who died A.D. 1711, “Diss. Cyprianicæ,” etc.; Wm. Cave, who died A.D. 1713, “Hist. of App. and Fathers,” “Scriptorum Ecclst. Hist. Literaria,” etc.―Special mention should be made of Eisenmenger, professor of oriental languages at Heidelberg. In his “Entdecktes Judenthum,” two vols. quarto, moved by the over-bearing arrogance of the Jews of his day, he made an immense collection of absurdities and blasphemies of rabbinical theology from Jewish writings. At his own expense he printed 2,000 copies; for these the Jews offered him 12,000 florins, but he demanded 30,000. They now persuaded the court at Venice to confiscate them before a single copy was sold. Eisenmenger died in A.D. 1704, and his heirs vainly sought to have the copies of his work given up to them. Even the appeal of Frederick I. of Prussia was refused. Only when the king had resolved, in A.D. 1711, at his own expense to publish an edition from one copy that had escaped confiscation, was the Frankfort edition at last given back.

§ 161.8. The Apocrypha Controversy (§ 136, 4).―In A.D. 1520 Carlstadt raised the question of the books found only in the LXX., and answered it in the style of Jerome (§ 59, 1). Luther gave them in his translation as an appendix to the O.T. with the title “Apocrypha, i.e. Books, not indeed of Holy Scripture, but useful and worthy to be read.” Reformed confessions took up the same position. The Belgic Confession agreed indeed that these books should be read in church, and proof passages taken from them, in so far as they were in accord with the canonical Scriptures. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer gives readings from these books. On the other hand, although at the Synod of Dort the proposal to remove at least the apocryphal books of Ezra or Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Bel and the Dragon, was indeed rejected, it was ordered that in future all apocryphal books should be printed in smaller type than the canonical books, should be separately paged, with a special title, and with a preface and marginal notes where necessary. Their exclusion from all editions of the Bible was first insisted on by English and Scotch Puritans. This example was followed by the French, but not by the German, Swiss, and Dutch Reformed churches.―Continuation, § 182, 4.

§ 162. The Religious Life.473

The religious life in the Reformed church is characterized generally by harsh legalism, rigorous renunciation of the world, and a thorough earnestness, coupled with decision and energy of will, which nothing in the world can break or bend. It is the spirit of Calvin which impresses on it this character, and determines its doctrine. Only where Calvin’s influence was less potent, e.g. in the Lutheranized German Reformed, the catholicized Anglican Episcopal Church, and among the Cocceians, is this tendency less apparent or altogether wanting. On the other hand, often carried to the utmost extreme, it appears among the English Puritans (§§ 143, 3; 155, 1) and the French Huguenots (§ 153, 4), where it was fostered by persecution and oppression.

§ 162.1. England and Scotland.―During the period of the English Revolution (§ 155, 1, 2), after the overthrow of Episcopacy, Puritanism became dominant; and the incongruous and contradictory elements already existing within it assumed exaggerated proportions (§ 143, 3, 4), until at last the opposing parties broke out into violent contentions with one another. The ideal of Scottish and English Presbyterianism was the setting up of the kingdom of Christ as a theocracy, in which church and state were blended after the O.T. pattern. Hence all the institutions of church and state were to be founded on Scripture models, while all later developments were set aside as deteriorations from that standard. The ecclesiastical side of this ideal was to be realized by the establishment of a spiritual aristocracy represented in presbyteries and synods, which, ruling the presbyteries through the synods, and the congregations through the presbyteries, regarded itself as called and under obligation to inspect and supervise all the details of the private as well as public life of church members, and all this too by Divine right. Regarding their system as alone having divine institution, Presbyterians could not recognise any other religious or ecclesiastical party, and must demand uniformity, not only in regard to doctrine and creed, but also in regard to constitution, discipline, and worship.474―On the other hand, Independent Congregationalism, inasmuch as it made prominent the N.T. ideas of the priesthood of all believers and spiritual freedom, demanded unlimited liberty to each separate congregation, and unconditional equality for all individual church members. It thus rejected the theocratic ideal of Presbyterianism, strove after a purely democratic constitution, and recognised toleration of all religious views as a fundamental principle of Christianity. Every attempt to secure uniformity and stability of forms of worship was regarded as a repressing of the Spirit of God operating in the church, and so alongside of the public services private conventicles abounded, in which believers sought to promote mutual edification. But soon amid the upheavals of this agitated period a fanatical spirit spread among the various sects of the Independents. The persecutions under Elizabeth and the Stuarts had awakened a longing for the return of the Lord, and the irresistible advance of Cromwell’s army, composed mostly of Independents, made it appear as if the millennium was close at hand. Thus chiliasm came to be a fundamental principle of Independency, and soon too prophecy made its appearance to interpret and prepare the way for that which was coming. From the Believers of the old Dutch times we now come to the Saints of the early Cromwell period. These regarded themselves as called, in consequence of their being inspired by God’s Spirit, to form the “kingdom of the saints” on earth promised in the last days, and hence also, from Daniel ii. and vii., they were called Fifth Monarchy Men. The so called Short Parliament of A.D. 1653, in which these Saints were in a majority, had already laid the first stones of this structure by introducing civil marriage, with the strict enforcement, however, of Matthew v. 32, as well as by the abolition of all rights of patronage and all sorts of ecclesiastical taxes, when Cromwell dissolved it. The Saints had not and would not have any fixed, formulated theological system. They had, however, a most lively interest in doctrine, and produced a great diversity of Scripture expositions and dogmatic views, so that their deadly foes, the Presbyterians, could hurl against them old and new heretical designations by the hundred. The fundamental doctrine of predestination, common to all Puritans, was, even with them, for the most part, a presupposition of all theological speculation.

§ 162.2. At the same time with the Saints there appeared among the Independents the Levellers, political and social revolutionists, rather than an ecclesiastical and religious sect. They were unjustly charged with claiming an equal distribution of goods. Over against the absolutist theories of the Stuarts, all the Independents maintained that the king, like all other civil magistrates, is answerable at all times and in all circumstances to the people, to whom all sovereignty originally and inalienably belongs. This principle was taken by the Levellers as the starting-point of their reforms. As their first regulative principle in reconstructing the commonwealth and determining the position of the church therein they did not take the theocratic constitution of the O.T., as the Presbyterians did, nor the biblical revelation of the N.T., as the moderate Independents did, nor even the modern professed prophecy of the “Saints,” but the law of nature as the basis of all revelation, and already grounded in creation, with the sovereignty of the people as its ultimate foundation. While the rest of the Independents held by the idea of a Christian state, and only claimed that all Christian denominations, with the exception of the Catholics (§ 153, 6), should enjoy all political rights, the Levellers demanded complete separation of church and state. This therefore implied, on the one hand, the non-religiousness of the state, and, on the other, again with the exception of Catholics, the absolute freedom, independence, and equality of all religious parties, even non-Christian sects and atheists. Yet all the while the Levellers themselves were earnestly and warmly attached to Christian truth as held by the other Independents.―Roger Williams (§ 163, 3), a Baptist minister, in A.D. 1631 transplanted the first seeds of Levellerism from England to North America, and by his writings helped again to spread those views in England. When he returned home in A.D. 1651 he found the sect already flourishing. The ablest leader of the English Levellers was John Lilburn. In A.D. 1638, when scarcely twenty years old, he was flogged and sentenced to imprisonment for life, because he had printed Puritan writings in Holland and had them circulated in England. Released on the outbreak of the Revolution, he joined the Parliamentary army, was taken prisoner by the Royalists and sentenced to death, but escaped by flight. He was again imprisoned for writing libels on the House of Lords. Set free by the Rump Parliament, he became colonel in Cromwell’s army, but was banished the country when it was found that the spread of radicalism endangered discipline. Till the dissolution of the Short Parliament his followers were in thorough sympathy with the Saints. Afterwards their ways went more and more apart; the Saints drifted into Quakerism (§ 163, 4), while the Levellers degenerated into deism (§ 164, 3).

§ 162.3. Out of the religious commotion prevailing in England before, during, and after the Revolution there sprang up a voluminous devotional literature, intended to give guidance and directions for holy living. Its influence was felt in foreign lands, especially in the Reformed churches of the continent, and even German Lutheran Pietism was not unaffected by it (§ 159, 3). That this movement was not confined to the Puritans, among whom it had its origin, is seen from the fact that during the seventeenth century many such treatises were issued from the University Press of Cambridge. Lewis Bayly, Bishop of Bangor A.D. 1616-1632, wrote one of the most popular books of this kind, “The Practice of Piety,” which was in A.D. 1635 in its thirty-second and in A.D. 1741 in its fifty-first edition, and was also widely circulated in Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, and Polish translations.―Out of the vast number of important personages of the Revolution period we name the following three:

In John Milton, the highly gifted poet as well as eloquent and powerful politician, born A.D. 1608, died A.D. 1674, we find, on the basis of a liberal classical training received in youth, all the motive powers of Independency, from the original Puritan zeal for the faith and Reformation to the politico-social radicalism of the Levellers, combined in full and vigorous operation. From Italy, the beloved land of classical science and artistic culture, he was called back to England in A.D. 1640 at the first outburst of freedom-loving enthusiasm (§ 155, 1), and made the thunder of his controversial treatises ring over the battlefield of parties. He fought against the narrowness of Presbyterian control of conscience not less energetically than against the hierarchism of the Episcopal church; vindicates the permissibility of divorce (in view, no doubt, of his own first unhappy marriage); advanced in his “Areopagitica” of A.D. 1644 a plea for the unrestricted liberty of the press; pulverized in his “Iconoclastes” of A.D. 1649 the Εἰκὼν βασιλική, ascribed to Charles I.; in several tracts, “Defensio pro Populo Anglicano,” etc., justified the execution of the king against Salmasius’s “Defensio Regia pro Carolo I.;” and, even after he had in A.D. 1652 become incurably blind, he continued unweariedly his polemics till silenced by the Restoration. The “Iconoclastes” and “Defensio” were burned by the hangman, but he himself was left unmolested. He now devoted himself to poetry. “Paradise Lost” appeared in A.D. 1665, and “Paradise Regained” in A.D. 1671. To this period, when he had probably turned his back on all existing religious parties, belongs the composition of his “De doctrina Christiana,” a first attempt at a purely biblical theology, Arian in its Christology and Arminian in its soteriology.475

Richard Baxter, born A.D. 1615, died A.D. 1691, was quite a different sort of man, and showed throughout a decidedly ironical tendency. At once attracted and repelled by the Independent movement in Cromwell’s army, he joined the force in A.D. 1645 as military chaplain, hoping to moderate, if not to check, their extravagances. A severe illness obliged him to withdraw in A.D. 1647. After his recovery he returned to his former post as assistant-minister at Kidderminster in Worcestershire, and there remained till driven out by the Act of Uniformity of A.D. 1662 (§ 155, 3). Those fourteen years formed the period of his most successful labours. He then composed most of his numerous devotional works, three of which, “The Saint’s Everlasting Rest,” “The Reformed Pastor,” “A Call to the Unconverted,” are still widely read in the original and in translations. At first he hoped much from the Restoration; but when, on conscientious grounds, he refused a bishopric, he met only with persecution, ill treatment, and imprisonment. Through William’s Act of Toleration of A.D. 1689, he was allowed to pass the last year of his life in London. On the doctrine of predestination he took the moderate position of Amyrault (§ 161, 3). His ideal church constitution was a blending of Presbyterianism and Episcopacy, by restoring the original episcopal constitution of the second century, when even the smaller churches had each its own bishop with a presbytery by his side.476

John Bunyan, born A.D. 1628, died A.D. 1688, was in his youth a tinker or brazier, and as such seems to have led a rough, wild life. On the outbreak of the Civil War in A.D. 1642, he was drafted into the Parliamentary army.477 At the close of the war he married a poor girl from a Puritan family, whose only marriage portion consisted in two Puritan books of devotion. It was now that the birthday of a new spiritual life began to dawn in him. He joined the Baptist Independents, the most zealous of the Saints of that time, was baptized by them in A.D. 1655, and travelled the country as a preacher, attracting thousands around him everywhere by his glorious eloquence. In A.D. 1660 he was thrown into prison, from which he was released by the Indulgence of A.D. 1672 (§ 155, 3). He now settled in Bedford, and from this time till his death, amid persecution and oppression, continued his itinerant preaching with ever-increasing zeal and success. “The Pilgrim’s Progress” was written by him in prison. It is an allegory of the freshest and most lively form, worthy to rank alongside the “Imitation of Christ” (§ 114, 7). In it the fanatical endeavour of the Saints to rear a millennial kingdom on earth is transfigured into a struggle overcoming all hindrances to secure an entrance into the heavenly Zion above. It has passed through numberless editions, and has been translated into almost all known languages.478

§ 162.4. The Netherlands.―From England the Reformed Pietism was transplanted to the Netherlands, where William Teellinck may be regarded as its founder. After finishing his legal studies he resided for a while in England, where he made the acquaintance of the Puritans and their writings, and was deeply impressed with their earnest and pious family life. He then went to Leyden to study theology, and in A.D. 1606 began a ministry that soon bore fruit. He was specially blessed at Middelburg in Zealand, where he died A.D. 1629. His writings, larger and smaller, more than a hundred in number, in which a peculiar sweetness of mystical love for the Redeemer is combined with stern Calvinistic views, after the style of St. Bernard, were circulated widely in numerous editions, eagerly read in many lands, and for fully a century exerted a powerful influence throughout the whole Reformed church. Teellinck in no particular departed from the prevailing orthodoxy, but unwittingly toned down its harshness in his tracts, and with the gentleness characteristic of him counselled brotherly forbearance amid the bitterness of the Arminian controversy. In spite of much hostility, which his best efforts could not prevent, many university theologians stood by his side as warm admirers of his writings. It will not be wondered at that among these was the pious Amesius of Franeker (§ 161, 7), the scholar of the able Perkins (§ 143, 5); but it is more surprising to find here the powerful champion of scholastic orthodoxy, Voetius of Utrecht, and his vigorous partisan, Hoornbeeck of Leyden. Voetius especially, who even in his preacademic career as a pastor had pursued a peculiarly exemplary and godly life, styled Teellinck the Reformed Thomas à Kempis, and owned his deep indebtedness to his devout writings. He opened his academic course in A.D. 1634 with an introductory discourse, “De Pietate cum Scientia conjungenda,” and year after year gave lectures on ascetical theology, out of which grew his treatise published in A.D. 1664, “Τὰ Ἀσκητικὰ s. Exercita Pietatis in usum Juventutis Acad.,” which is a complete exposition of evangelical practical divinity in a thoroughly scholastic form.

§ 162.5. During the controversy in the Dutch Reformed Church between Voetians and Cocceians, beginning in A.D. 1658, the former favoured the pietistic movement. In the German Pietist controversy the Cocceians were with the Pietists in their biblical orthodoxy joined with confessional indifferentism, but with the orthodox in their liberality and breadth on matters of life and conduct. The earnest, practical piety of the Voetians, again, made them sympathise with the Lutheran Pietists, and their zeal for pure doctrine and the Church confession brought them into relation with the orthodox Lutherans. As discord between the theologians arose over the obligation of the Sabbath law, so the difference among the people arose out of the question of Sabbath observance. The Voetians maintained that the decalogue prohibition of any form of work on Sabbath was still fully binding, while the Cocceians, on the ground of Mark ii. 27, Galatians iv. 9, Colossians ii. 16, etc., denied its continued obligation, their wives often, to the annoyance of the Voetians, sitting in the windows after Divine service with their knitting or sewing. But the opposition did not stop there; it spread into all departments of life. The Voetians set great value upon fasting and private meditation, avoided all public games and plays, dressed plainly, and observed a simple, pious mode of life; their pastors wore a clerical costume, etc. The Cocceians, again, fell in with the customs of the time, mingled freely in the mirth and pastimes of the people, went to public festivals and entertainments, their women dressed in elegant, stylish attire, their pastors were not bound by hard and fast symbols, but had full Scripture freedom, etc.―Continuation, § 169, 2.

§ 162.6. France, Germany, and Switzerland.―The Reformed church of France has gained imperishable renown as a martyr-church. Fanatical excesses, however, appeared among the prophets of the Cevennes (§ 153, 4), the fruits of which continued down into the eighteenth century, and appeared now and again in England, Holland, and Germany (§ 160, 2, 7).―In Germany the Reformed church, standing side by side with the numerically far larger Lutheran church, had much of the sternness and severity that characterized the Romanic-Calvinistic party in doctrine, worship, and life greatly modified; but where the Reformed element was predominant, as in the Lower Rhine, it was correspondingly affected by a contrary influence. The Reformed church in Germany in its service of praise kept to the psalms of Marot and Lobwasser (§ 143, 2). Maurice of Hesse published Lobwasser’s in A.D. 1612, accompanied by some new bright melodies, for the use of the churches in the land. Lutheran hymns, however, gradually found their way into the Reformed church, which also produced two gifted poets of its own. Louisa Henrietta, Princess of Orange, wife of the great elector, and Paul Gerhardt’s sovereign, wrote “Jesus my Redeemer lives;” and Joachim Neander, pastor in Bremen, wrote, “Thou most Highest! Guardian of mankind,” “To heaven and earth and sea and air,” “Here behold me, as I cast me.”―In German Switzerland the noble Breitinger of Zürich, who died A.D. 1645, the greatest successor of Zwingli and Bullinger, wrought successfully during a forty years’ ministry, and did much to revive and quicken the church life. That the spirit of Calvin and Beza still breathed in the church of Geneva is proved by the reception given there to such men as Andreä (§ 160, 1), Labadie (§ 163, 7), and Spener (§ 159, 3).

§ 162.7. Foreign Missions.―From two sides the Reformed church had outlets for its Christian love in the work of foreign missions; on the one side by the cession of the Portuguese East Indian colonies to the Netherlands in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and on the other side by the continuous formation of English colonies in North America throughout the whole century. In regard to missionary effort, the Dutch government followed in the footsteps of her Portuguese predecessors. She insisted that all natives, before getting a situation, should be baptized and have signed the Belgic Confession, and many who fulfilled these conditions remained as they had been before. But the English Puritans settled in America showed a zeal for the conversion of the Indians more worthy of the Protestant name. John Eliot, who is rightly styled the apostle of the Indians, devoted himself with unwearied and self-denying love for half a century to this task. He translated the Bible into their language, and founded seventeen Indian stations, of which during his lifetime ten were destroyed in a bloody war. Eliot’s work was taken up by the Mayhew family, who for five generations wrought among the Indians. The last of the noble band, Zacharias Mayhew, died on the mission field in A.D. 1803, in his 87th year.479―Continuation, § 172, 5.

V. Anti- and Extra-Ecclesiastical Parties.

§ 163. Sects and Fanatics.

Socinianism during the first decades of the century made extraordinary progress in Poland, but then collapsed under the persecution of the Jesuits. Related to the continental Anabaptists were the English Baptists, who rejected infant baptism; while the Quakers, who adopted the old fanatical theory of an inner light, set baptism and the Lord’s supper entirely aside. In the sect of the Labadists we find a blending of Catholic quietist mysticism and Calvinistic Augustinianism. Besides those regular sects, there were various individual enthusiasts and separatists. These were most rife in the Netherlands, where the free civil constitution afforded a place of refuge for all exiles on account of their faith. Here only was the press free enough to serve as a thoroughgoing propaganda of mysticism and theosophy. Finally the Russian sects, hitherto little studied, call for special attention.

§ 163.1. The Socinians (§ 148, 4).―The most important of the Socinian congregations in Poland, for the most part small and composed almost exclusively of the nobility, was that at Racau in the Sendomir Palatinate. Founded in 1569, this city, since 1600 under James Sieninski, son of the founder, recognised Socinianism as the established religion; and an academy was formed there which soon occupied a distinguished position, and gave such reputation to the place that it could be spoken of as “the Sarmatian Athens.” But the congregation at Lublin, next in importance to that of Racau, was destroyed as early as 1627 by the mob under fanatical excitement caused by the Jesuits. The same disaster befell Racau itself eleven years later. A couple of idle schoolboys had thrown stones at a wooden crucifix standing before the city gate, and had been for this severely punished by their parents, and turned out of school. The Catholics, however, made a complaint before the senate, where the Jesuits secured a sentence that the school should be destroyed, the church taken from “the Arians,” the printing press closed, but the ministers and teachers outlawed and branded with infamy. And the Jesuits did not rest until the Reichstag at Warsaw in 1658 issued decrees of banishment against “all Arians,” and forbad the profession of “Arianism” under pain of death.―The Davidist non-adoration party of Transylvanian Unitarians (§ 148, 3) was finally overcome, and the endeavours after conformity with the Polish Socinians prevailed at the Diet of Deesch in 1638, where all Unitarian communities engaged to offer worship to Christ, and to accept the baptismal formula of Matthew xxviii. 19. And under the standard of this so called Complanatio Deesiana 106 Unitarian congregations, with a membership of 60,000 souls, exist in Transylvania to this day.―In Germany Socinianism had, even in the beginning of the century, a secret nursery in the University of Altdorf, belonging to the territory of the imperial city of Nuremberg. Soner, professor of medicine, had been won over to this creed by Socinians residing at Leyden, where he had studied in 1597, 1598, and now used his official position at Altdorf for, not only instilling his Unitarian doctrines by means of private philosophical conversations into the minds of his numerous students, who flocked to him from Poland, Transylvania, and Hungary, but also for securing the adhesion of several German students. Only after his death in 1612 did the Nuremberg council come to know about this propaganda. A strict investigation was then made, all Poles were expelled, and all the Socinian writings that could be discovered were burned.―The later Polish Exultants sought and found refuge in Germany, especially in Silesia, Prussia, and Brandenburg, as well as in the Reformed Palatinate, and also founded some small Unitarian congregations, which, however, after maintaining for a while a miserable existence, gradually passed out of view. They had greater success and spread more widely in the Netherlands, till the states-general of 1653, in consequence of repeated synodal protests, and on the ground of an opinion given by the University of Leyden, issued a strict edict against the Unitarians, who now gradually passed over to the ranks of the Remonstrants (§ 161, 2) and the Collegiants. Also in England, since the time of Henry VIII., antitrinitarian confessors and martyrs were to be found. Even in 1611, under James I., three of them had been consigned to the flames. The Polish Socinians took occasion from this to send the king a Racovian Catechism; but in 1614 it was, by order of parliament, burned by the hands of the hangman. The Socinians were also excluded from the benefit of the Act of Toleration of 1689, which was granted to all other dissenters (§ 155, 3). The progress of deism, however, among the upper classes (§§ 164, 3; 171, 1) did much to prevent the extreme penal laws being carried into execution.―The following are the most distinguished among the numerous learned theologians of the Augustan age of Socinian scholarship, who contributed to the extending, establishing, and vindicating of the system of their church by exegetical, dogmatic, and polemical writings: John Crell, died 1631; Jonas Schlichting, died 1661; Von Wolzogen, died 1661; and Andr. Wissowatius, a grandson of Faustus Socinus, died 1678; and with these must also be ranked the historian of Polish Socinianism, Stanislaus Lubienicki, died 1675, whose “Hist. Reformat. Polonicæ,” etc., was published at Amsterdam in 1685.

§ 163.2. The Baptists of the Continent.

The Dutch Baptists (§ 147, 2). Even during Menno’s lifetime the Mennonites had split into the Coarse and the Fine. The Coarse, who had abandoned much of the primitive severity of the sect, and were by far the most numerous, were again divided during the Arminian controversy into Remonstrants and Predestinationists. The former, from their leader, were called Galenists, and from having a lamb as the symbol of their Church, Lambists. The latter were called Apostoolers from their leader, and Sunists because their churches had the figure of the sun as a symbol. The Lambists, who acknowledged no confession of faith, were most numerous. In A.D. 1800, however, a union of the two parties was effected, the Sunists adopting the doctrinal position of the Lambists.―During the time when Arminian pastors were banished from the Netherlands, three brothers Van der Kodde founded a sect of Collegiants, which repudiated the clerical office, assigned preaching and dispensation of sacraments to laymen, and baptized only adults by immersion. Their place of baptism was Rhynsburg on the Rhine, and hence they were called Rhynsburgers. Their other name was given them from their assemblies, which they styled collegia.

The Moravian Baptists (§ 147, 3). The Thirty Years’ War ruined the flourishing Baptist congregations in Moravia, and the reaction against all non-Catholics that followed the battle of the White Mountain near Prague, in A.D. 1620, told sorely against them. In A.D. 1622 a decree for their banishment was issued, and these quiet, inoffensive men were again homeless fugitives. Remnants of them fled into Hungary and Transylvania, only to meet new persecutions there. A letter of protection from Leopold I., A.D. 1659, secured them the right of settling in three counties around Pressburg. But soon these rigorous persecutions broke out afresh; they were beset by Jesuits seeking to convert them, and when this failed they were driven out or annihilated. At last, by A.D. 1757-1762, they were completely broken up, and most of them had joined the Roman Catholic church. A few families preserved their faith by flight into South Russia, where they settled in Wirschenka. When the Toleration Edict of Joseph II., of A.D. 1781, secured religious freedom to Protestants in Austria, several returned again to the faith of their fathers, in the hope that the toleration would be extended to them; but they were bitterly disappointed. They now betook themselves to Russia, and together with their brethren already there, settled in the Crimea, where they still constitute the colony of Hutersthal.

§ 163.3. The English Baptists.―The notion that infant baptism is objectionable also found favour among the English Independents. Owing to the slight importance attached to the sacraments generally, and more particularly to baptism, in the Reformed church, especially among the Independents, the supporters of the practice of the church in regard to baptism to a large extent occupied common ground with its opponents. The separation took place only after the rise of the fanatical prophetic sects (§ 161, 1). We must, however, distinguish from the continental Anabaptists the English Baptists, who enjoyed the benefit of the Toleration Act of William III., of A.D. 1689, along with the other dissenters, by maintaining their Independent-Congregationalist constitution (§ 155, 3). In A.D. 1691, over the Arminian question, they split up into Particular and General, or Regular and Free Will, Baptists. The former, by far the more numerous, held by the Calvinistic doctrine of gratia particularis, while the latter rejected it. The Seventh-Day Baptists, who observed the seventh instead of the first day of the week, were founded by Bampfield in A.D. 1665.480―From England the Baptists spread to North America, in A.D. 1630, where Roger Williams (§ 162, 2), one of their first leaders, founded the little state of Rhode Island, and organized it on thoroughly Baptist-Independent principles.481―Continuation, § 170, 6.

§ 163.4. The Quakers.―George Fox, born A.D. 1624, died A.D. 1691, was son of a poor Presbyterian weaver in Drayton, Leicestershire. After scant schooling he went to learn shoemaking at Nottingham, but in A.D. 1643 abandoned the trade. Harassed by spiritual conflicts, he wandered about seeking peace for his soul. Upon hearing an Independent preach on 2 Peter i. 19, he was moved loudly to contradict the preacher. “What we have to do with,” he said, “is not the word, but the Spirit by which those men of God spake and wrote.” He was seized as a disturber of public worship, but was soon after released. In A.D. 1649 he travelled the country preaching and teaching, addressing every man as “thou,” raising his hat to none, greeting none, attracting thousands by his preaching, often imprisoned, flogged, tortured, hunted like a wild beast. The core of his preaching was, not Scripture, but the Spirit, not Christ without but Christ within, not outward worship, not churches, “steeple-houses,” and bells, not doctrines and sacraments, but only the inner light, which is kindled by God in the conscience of every man, renewed and quickened by the Spirit of Christ, which suddenly lays hold upon it. The number of his followers increased from day to day. In A.D. 1652 he found, along with his friends, a kindly shelter in the house of Thomas Fell, of Smarthmore near Preston, and in his wife Margaret a motherly counsellor, who devoted her whole life to the cause. They called themselves “The Society of Friends.” The name Quaker was given as a term of reproach by a violent judge, whom Fox bad “quake before the word of God.” After the overthrow of the hopes of the Saints through the dissolution of the Short Parliament and Cromwell’s apostasy (§ 155, 2), many of them joined the Quakers, and led them into revolutionary and fanatical excesses. Confined hitherto to the northern counties, they now spread in London and Bristol, and over all the south of England. In January, A.D. 1655, they held a fortnight’s general meeting at Swannington, in Leicestershire. Crowds of apostles went over into Ireland, to North America and the West Indies, to Holland, Germany, France, and Italy, and even to Constantinople. They did not meet with great success. In Italy they encountered the Inquisition, and in North America the severest penal laws were passed against them. In A.D. 1656 James Naylor, one of their most famous leaders, celebrated at Bristol the second coming of Christ “in the Spirit,” by enacting the scene of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But the king of the new Israel was scourged, branded on the forehead with the letter B as a blasphemer, had his tongue pierced with a redhot iron, and was then cast into prison. Many absurd extravagances of this kind, which drew down upon them frequent persecutions, as well as the failure of their foreign missionary enterprises, brought most of the Quakers to adopt more sober views. The great mother Quakeress, Margaret Fell, exercised a powerful influence in this direction. George Fox, too, out of whose hands the movement had for a long time gone, now lent his aid. Naylor himself, in A.D. 1659, issued a recantation, addressed “to all the people of the Lord,” in which he made the confession, “My judgment was turned away, and I was a captive under the power of darkness.”

§ 163.5. The movement of Quakerism in the direction of sobriety and common sense was carried out to its fullest extent during the Stuart Restoration, A.D. 1660-1688. Abandoning their revolutionary tendencies through dislike to Cromwell’s violence, and giving up most of their fanatical extravagances, the Quakers became models of quiet, orderly living. Robert Barclay, by his “Catechesis et Fidei Confessio,” of A.D. 1673, gave a sort of symbolic expression to their belief, and vindicated his doctrinal positions in his “Theologiæ vere Christianæ Apologia” of A.D. 1676. During this period many of them laid down their lives for their faith. On the other side of the sea they formed powerful settlements, distinguished for religious toleration and brotherly love. The chief promoter of this new departure was William Penn, A.D. 1644-1718, son of an English admiral, who, while a student at Oxford, was impressed by a Quaker’s preaching, and led to attend the prayer and fellowship meetings of the Friends. In order to break his connexion with this party, his father sent him, in A.D. 1661, to travel in France and Italy. The frivolity of the French court failed to attract him, but for a long time he was spellbound by Amyrault’s theological lectures at Saumur. On his return home, in A.D. 1664, he seemed to have completely come back to a worldly life, when once again he was arrested by a Quaker’s preaching. In A.D. 1668 he formally joined the society. For a controversial tract, The Sandy Foundation Shaken, he was sent for six months to the Tower, where he composed the famous tract, No Cross, no Crown, and a treatise in his own vindication, “Innocency with her Open Face.” His father, who, shortly before his death in A.D. 1670, was reconciled to his son, left him a yearly income of £1,500, with a claim on Government for £16,000. In spite of continued persecution and oppression he continued unweariedly to promote the cause of Quakerism by speech and pen. In A.D. 1677, in company with Fox and Barclay, he made a tour through Holland and Germany. In both countries he formed many friendships, but did not succeed in establishing any societies. His hopes now turned to North America, where Fox had already wrought with success during the times of sorest persecution, A.D. 1671, 1672, In lieu of his father’s claim, he obtained from Government a large tract of land on the Delaware, with the right of colonizing and organizing it under English suzerainty. Twice he went out for this purpose himself, in A.D. 1682 and 1699, and formed the Quaker state of Pennsylvania, with Philadelphia as its capital. The first principle of its constitution was universal religious toleration, even to Catholics.482

§ 163.6. The Quaker Constitution, as fixed in Penn’s time, was strictly democratic and congregationalist, with complete exclusion of a clerical order. At their services any man or woman, if moved by the Spirit, might pray, teach, or exhort, or if no one felt so impelled they would sit on in silence. Their meeting-houses had not the form or fittings of churches, their devotional services had neither singing nor music. They repudiated water baptism, alike of infants and adults, and recognised only baptism of the Spirit. The Lord’s supper, as a symbolical memorial, is no more needed by those who are born again. Monthly gatherings of all independent members, quarterly meetings of deputies of a circuit, and a yearly synod of representatives of all the circuits, administered or drew up the regulations for the several societies. The Doctrinal Belief of the Quakers is completely dominated by its central dogma of the “inner light,” which is identified with reason and conscience as the common heritage of mankind. Darkened and weakened by the fall, it is requickened in us by the Spirit of the glorified Christ, and possesses us as an inner spiritual Christ, an inner Word of God. The Bible is recognised as the outer word of God, but is useful only as a means of arousing the inner word. The Calvinistic doctrine of election is decidedly rejected, and also that of vicarious satisfaction. But also the doctrines of the fall, original sin, justification by faith, as well as that of the Trinity, are very much set aside in favour of an indefinite subjective theology of feeling. The operation of the Holy Spirit in man’s redemption and salvation outside of Christendom is frankly admitted. On the other hand, the ethical-practical element, as shown in works of benevolence, in the battle for religious freedom, for the abolition of slavery, etc., is brought to the front. In regard to life and manners, the Quakers have distinguished themselves in all domestic, civil, industrial, and mercantile movements by quiet, peaceful industry, strict integrity, and simple habits, so that not only did they amass great wealth, but gained the confidence and respect of those around. They refused to take oaths or to serve as soldiers, or to engage in sports, or to indulge in any kind of luxury. In social intercourse they declined to acknowledge any titles of rank, would not bow or raise the hat to any, but addressed all by the simple “thou.” Their men wore broad-brimmed hats, a plain, simple coat, without collar or buttons, fastened by hooks. Their women wore a simple gray silk dress, with like coloured bonnet, without ribbon, flower, or feathers, and a plain shawl. Wearing mourning dress was regarded as a heathenish custom.483―Continuation, § 211, 3.

§ 163.7. Labadie and the Labadists.―Jean de Labadie, the scion of an ancient noble family, born A.D. 1610, was educated in the Jesuit school at Bordeaux, entered the order, and became a priest, but was released from office at his own wish in A.D. 1639, on account of delicate health. Even in the Jesuit college the principles that manifested themselves in his later life began to take root in him. By Scripture study he was led to adopt almost Augustinian views of sin and grace, as well as the conviction of the need of a revival of the church after the apostolic pattern. This tendency was confirmed and deepened by the influence of Spanish Quietism, which even the Jesuits had favoured to some extent. In the interest of these views he wrought laboriously for eleven years as Catholic priest in Amiens, Paris, and other places, amid the increasing hostility of the Jesuits. Their persecution, together with a growing clearness in his Augustinian convictions, led him formally to go over to the Reformed church in A.D. 1650. He now laboured for seven years as Reformed pastor at Montauban. In A.D. 1657, owing to political suspicions against him spread by the Jesuits, he withdrew from Montauban, and, after two years’ labour at Orange, settled at Geneva, where his preaching and household visitations bore abundant fruit. In A.D. 1666 he accepted a call to Middelburg, in Zealand. There he was almost as successful as he had been in Geneva; but there too it began to appear that in him there burned a fire strange to the Reformed church. The French Reformed synod took great offence at his refusal to sign the Belgic Confession. It was found that at many points he was not in sympathy with the church standards, that he had written in favour of chiliasm and the Apokatastasis, that in regard to the nature and idea of the church and its need of a reformation he was not in accord with the views of the Reformed church. The synod in 1668 suspended him from office, and, as he did not confess his errors, in the following year deposed him. Labadie then saw that what he regarded as his lifework, the restoration of the apostolic church, was as little attainable within the Reformed as within the Catholic church. He therefore organized his followers into a separate denomination, and was, together with them, banished by the magistrate. The neighbouring town of Veere received them gladly, but Middelburg now persuaded the Zealand council to issue a decree banishing them from that town also. The people of Veere were ready to defy this order, but Labadie thought it better to avoid the risk of a civil war by voluntary withdrawal; and so he went, in August, A.D. 1669, with about forty followers, to Amsterdam, where he laid the foundations of an apostolic church. This new society consisted of a sort of monastic household consisting only of the regenerate. They hired a commodious house, and from thence sent out spiritual workers as missionaries, to spread the principles of the “new church” throughout the land. Within a year they numbered 60,000 souls. They dispensed the sacrament according to the Reformed rite, and preached the gospel in conventicles. The most important gain to the party was the adhesion of Anna Maria von Schürman, born at Cologne A.D. 1607 of a Reformed family, but settled from A.D. 1623 with her mother in Utrecht, celebrated for her unexampled attainment in languages, science, and art. When in A.D. 1670, the government, urged by the synod, forbad attendance on the Labadists’ preaching, the accomplished and pious Countess-palatine Elizabeth, sister of the elector-palatine, and abbess of the rich cloister of Herford, whose intimate friend Schürman had been for forty years, gave them an asylum in the capital of her little state.

§ 163.8. In Herford “the Hollanders” met with bitter opposition from the Lutheran clergy, the magistracy, and populace, and were treated by the mob with insult and scorn. They themselves also gave only too good occasion for ridicule. At a sacramental celebration, the aged Labadie and still older Schürman embraced and kissed each other and began to dance for joy. In his sermons and writings Labadie set forth the Quietist doctrines of the limitation of Christ’s life and sufferings in the mortification of the flesh, the duty of silent prayer, the sinking of the soul into the depths of the Godhead, the community of goods, etc. Special offence was given by the private marriage of the three leaders, Labadie, Yvon, and Dulignon with young wealthy ladies of society, and their views of marriage among the regenerate as an institution for raising up a pure seed free from original sin and brought forth without pain. The Elector of Brandenburg, hitherto favourable, as guardian of the seminary was obliged, in answer to the complaints of the Herford magistracy, to appoint a commission of inquiry. Labadie wrote a defence, which was published in Latin, Dutch, and German, in which he endeavoured to harmonize his mystical views with the doctrines of the Reformed church. But in A.D. 1671 the magistrates obtained a mandate from the imperial court at Spires, which threatened the abbess with the ban if she continued to harbour the sectaries. In A.D. 1672 Labadie settled in Altona, where he died in A.D. 1674. His followers, numbering 160, remained here undisturbed till the war between Denmark and Sweden broke out in A.D. 1675. They then retired to the castle of Waltha in West Friesland, the property of three sisters belonging to the party. Schürman died in A.D. 1678, Dulignon in A.D. 1679, and Yvon, who now had sole charge, was obliged in A.D. 1688 to abolish the institution of the community of goods, after a trial of eighteen years, being able to pay back much less than he had received. After his death in A.D. 1707 the community gradually fell off, and after the property had gone into other hands on the death of the last of the sisters in A.D. 1725, the society finally broke up.