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tus. Those who would commend the man for ingenuity, piety, veracity, and honesty, may do it without hindrance from us: but those who would honour him with the title of a man taught of God, or even of a sound and wise philosopher, must themselves lack knowledge; for he so confuses every subject, with chemical metaphors, and with such a profusion of obscure terms, that it would seem as if he aimed to produce jargon. The heat of his exuberant fancy, if I do not mistake, led him to believe, that divine grace operates according to the same laws as prevail in the physical world; and that men's souls are purified from their pollution and vices, in the same way in which metals are purged from dross. He formerly had, and he still has, a greater number of followers; among whom, in this century, the most noted and famous were John Lewis Gifttheil, John Angelus von Werdenhagen, Abraham von Franckenberg, Theodore con Tzetsch, Paul Felgenhauer, Quirinus Kuhlmann, John James Zimmermann, and others. Some of these were not altogether destitute of modesty and good sense: but others were entirely beside themselves, and excited the compassion of intelligent men; as e. g. Kuhlmann, who was burnt in Muscovoy, A. D. 1684, and afterwards Gichtel and not one of them managed their affairs so praiseworthily and dexterously, as to procure for the sect or its founders any degree of commendation and respectability, with persons of the slightest discernment 5.

§ 41. Next after Boehmen, it appears, should be mentioned those, whom a sort of intellectual weakness rendered so daring, that they boasted of being prophets, divinely raised up, and endued with the power of foretelling future events. A large number of such persons existed in this age, and particularly

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It is not necessary here to cite authorities for the works of Boehmen are in every body's hands; and the books which confute him, are no where scarce. What can be said in favour of the man and his followers, may be seen in Arnold, who is always most full in extolling and lauding those whom others censure. Concerning Kuhlmann, and his execution, see the Unschuldige Nachrichten, A. D. 1748. p. 905. and in many other places.—

["Boehmen, however, had the good fortune to meet with, in our days, a warm advocate and an industrious disciple in the late well-meaning, but gloomy and visionary Mr. William Law, who was, for many years, preparing a new edition and translation of Boehmen's works, which he left behind him ready for the press, and which have been published in 2 vols, 4to. since his death." Macl.]

during the times when the Austrians were contending for supremacy against the Germans, the Swedes, and the French: for long experience shows, that there is never a greater number of diviners or prophets, than when great revolutions seem about to take place, or when great and unexpected calamities occur. The most noted of these were Nicholas Drabez, Christopher Kotter, Christina Poniatowsky, (who have found an eloquent patron in John Amos Comenius,) also Joachim Greulich, Anna Vetteria, Eva Maria Frölich, George Reichard, and some others. But as no one of them was the cause of any great commotions, and as the progress of events very soon divested their predictions of all their authority, it is sufficient to have shown, generally, that there were among the Lutherans of this age, some disordered minds, that affected the honours and the authority of ambassadors of heaven “.

§ 42. I would give a somewhat more distinct account of some, who were not indeed so wholly beside themselves as to claim to be prophets of God, yet sadly deceived themselves and others by marvellous and strange opinions. Esaias Stiefel and Ezekiel Meth, both of Thuringia, not long after the commencement of the century, expressed themselves so unusually and so improperly, that they were thought by many, to arrogate to themselves divine glory and majesty, to the great dishonour of God and our Saviour. I can believe, that though they greatly lacked sound sense, yet they were not so far beside themselves : but they foolishly imitated the lofty and swollen phraseology of the mystical writers. Thus they may serve as examples, to show how much cloudiness and folly the constant reading of mystical books may spread over uncultivated and feeble minds'. Paul Nagel, a professor at Leipsic, who had some

6 Godfrey Arnold has done the world service, by accurately collecting the visions and acts of these people, in the second and third parts of his Kirchen- und Ketzer-historie. For now, such as have occasion to investigate the subject, have the ready means of ascertaining with certainty, what was in itself most probable beforehand, that what these persons deemed divine communications, were the fictions of their own minds, led away by their imaginations. There was an honest, illiterate man at Amsterdam, in the

middle of the seventeenth century, Benedict Bahnsen of Holstein, who was so captivated with such writings and prophecies, that he carefully collected and published them all. His Index Bibliothecæ, was printed after his death, Amsterd. 1670. 4to. embracing a great number of chemical, fanatical, and prophetical writings.

7 See Christ. Thomasius, Historie der Weisheit und Narrheit, vol. i. pt. iii. p. 150. Godfr. Arnold's Kirchen- und Kazer-historie, pt. iii. ch. iv. p. 32.

tincture of mathematical knowledge, conjectured from the stars future occurrences both in church and state; and among other things, professed to be certain, from their indications, that a very holy and heavenly kingdom of Christ was to be set up on the earth.

§ 43. Christian Hoburg, of Lüneburg, a man of an unstable and turbulent spirit, under the assumed names of Elias Prætorius and Bernard Baumann, published a vast number of invectives against the whole Lutheran church; and thereby involved himself in various troubles. Yet for a long time, by dissimulation and deception, which he doubtless supposed to be lawful, he led the more charitable to regard him as less faulty than he actually was; and he was accounted a strenuous opposer, not so much of religion itself, as of the licentiousness and vices of those especially who ministered in holy things. At length, he rendered himself universally odious, and went over to the Mennonites. Very similar to him, though superior in petulance and acrimony, was Frederic Breckling: who being ejected from the ministry, which he first exercised in Holstein and afterwards at Zwoll in Holland, he lived to extreme old age, in Holland, connected with no religious sect. Various of his tracts are extant, which, although they vehemently urge and recommend the cultivation of piety, and display implacable hatred against both vice and the vicious, yet show the writer to have beeen destitute of the primary virtues of a truly pious man, namely charity, wisdom, the love of truth, meekness, and patience'. It is strange that such vehement and heated declaimers against the defects of the public religion and its ministers, as they profess to be more discerning than all others, should fail of discovering, what the most simple daily learn by common observation, that nothing is more odious and disgusting than an angry reformer, who is always laying about

Arnold, loc. cit. pt. iii. ch. v. p. 53. Andrew Carolus, Memorabilia Eccles. sec. xvii. pt. i. lib. iii. cap. iv. p. 513.

Arnold, loc. cit. pt. iii. ch. xiii. p. 130. Andrew Carolus, loc. cit. vol. i. p. 1065. Jo. Hornbeck, Summa Controter. p. 535. Jo. Moller, Cimbria Litterata, tom. ii. p. 337, &c.

1 Arnold treats of this man, in his

work so often cited, pt. iii. ch. xiii. p. 148, &c. and pt. iv. p. 1103, &c. and likewise gives us some of his tracts; which abundantly show the extreme fertility of his genius; ibid. p. 1110. A formal account of him is given by John Moller, Cimbria Litterata, tom. iii. p. 72, &c.

him with sword and dagger; and that they should not perceive, that it is scarcely possible, for any one successfully to cure in others, the faults of which he is himself guilty. The expectation of the millennial kingdom, which seldom exists in wellinformed minds and which generally produces extravagant pinions, was embraced and propagated by George Lawrence Selloderier, a preacher in the Saxon region of Eichsfeld: and for this be was deprived of his office *.

§ 44. We shall close the list of this sickly family, (for it is not necessary to name a great number, since they all pursued much the same course.) with the most odious and the worst of them all. Martin Seidelius, a Silesian of Ohlau; who laboured to establish a sect in Poland and the neighbouring countries, near the close of the preceding century and the commencement of this, but whose extreme absurdities prevented his meeting with success even among the Socinians. This most daring of mortals sy posed that God had indeed promised a Saviour or a Messiah to the Jewish nation; but that this Messiah had never appeared, nor ever would appear, because the Jews, by their sins, had rendered themselves unworthy of this so great a deliverer, whom God once promised to their fathers: that of course, Christ was erroneously regarded as the Messiah: that it was his only business and office to explain the law of nature, which had been greatly obscured by the fault of men: and therefore, that whoever shall obey this law, as expounded by Jesus Christ, will fulfil all the religious duties which God requires of him. To render these monstrous opinions more defensible and specious, he audaciously assailed and discarded all the books of the New Testament. The few persons whom he brought over to his views, were called Semi-Judaizers3. If this daring man had lived at the present day, he would have appeared much less odious, than he did in that age. For, if we

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except his singular ideas concerning the Messiah, all the rest of his system would be highly approved by many, at the present day, among the English, the Dutch, and other nations.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF THE REFORMED CHURCH.

§ 1. Enlargement of the Reformed church.-§ 2. Its decrease. Fall of the French church. § 3. Persecutions of the Reformed French church.-§ 4. Revocation of the edict of Nantes.-§ 5. Persecutions of the Waldensians and the Palatines. § 6. State of learning and philosophy.-§ 7. Biblical interpretation.— § 8. Dogmatic theology.-§ 9. State of moral theology.—§ 10. Controversies concerning grace and predestination.-§ 11. The Arminian schism.-§ 12. Its effects. § 13. Singular opinions of the French church.-§ 14. Contest of the hypothetical Universalists.-§ 15. La Place and Cappel.-§ 16. Lewis le Blanc. -§ 17, 18. Claude Pajon.—§ 19. State of the English church under James I. -§ 20. Charles I.—§ 21. The Independents.—§ 22. Cromwell's reign.— § 23. English Antinomians.--§ 24. Latitudinarians.-§ 25. Church of England under Charles II. and his successors.-§ 26. High church or Non-Jurors, among the English.—§ 27. Their opinions.-§ 28. Contests among the Dutch. -§ 29. The Cartesian and Cocceian controversies.-§ 30. The Cartesian.— § 31. The opinion of the Cocceians respecting the holy Scriptures.-§ 32. Their theological opinions.-§ 33. Roellian contest, respecting the use of reason.— § 34. Respecting the generation of the Son of God, &c.-§ 35. Becker.§ 36. Dutch sects. Verschorists, Hattemists.-§ 37. Commotions in Switzerland. The Formula Consensus.

§ 1. THE Reformed church, as has been already remarked, being united not so much by the bonds of a common faith and discipline, as by principles of moderation and candour, it will be proper to consider, first, whatever relates to this very extensive community as a whole, and then the events worthy of notice in the several Reformed countries. The principal enlargements of this community in the seventeenth century, have already been mentioned in our account of the Hessian and Brandenburg commotions, in the chapter on the Lutheran church. We here add, that John Adolphus, duke of Holstein,

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