proceeded to pave the way imprudently, (as many of the best men, who were by no means Calixtinians, believed,) for an open schism in the Lutheran church. For a new book was drawn up, entitled: Renewed Consent to the true Lutheran faith (Consensus repetitus Fidei vere Lutherana); which was to be added to those we call Symbolical books, and to be consented to, under oath, by all public teachers; by which, Calixtus, with his followers and friends, was pronounced unworthy of the Lutheran community, and therefore also of the benefits of the peace granted to the Lutherans. The memory or reputation of Calixtus was modestly defended by Gerhard Titius, Joachim Hildebrand, and other theologians of a temperate character. And the most discerning men demonstrated, that the book called Consensus, &c, would be a fire brand, the cause of perpetual dissension, and ruinous to the Lutheran cause: and by their efforts, it was prevented from ever obtaining the least authority. It was opposed, besides others of less note, by Frederic Ulrich Calixtus, the son of George, a man not unlearned, yet much inferior to his father, in genius, polish, and erudition. In favour of the Consensus, appeared and fought, especially Abraham Calovius and Egidius Strauchius. An immense number of books and disputes was produced by the zeal of the two parties, in which, alas! are so many invectives, reproaches, and personal abuses, as to make it manifest, that the disputants contended less for the cause of truth and of Christ Jesus, than for personal glory and revenge. After long continued altercation, the enfeebled age of those who led the two parties, the abolition of the Consensus repetitus, (which would have afforded aliment for ruinous war,) the rise of new controversies among us, with some other causes, near the end of the century, silently put an end to the contest. § 23. The principal of all the charges so odiously alleged against Calixtus, was, his zeal for bringing the three larger com terness and acrimony, that one party commenced an action against the other for abuse; and Calovius wrote his bitter Historia Syncretistica, which was confiscated by the elector of Saxony. Finally, as the Pietistic contest commenced soon after this, so the Calix tine contest was dropped. For the Wittembergers engaged in a new controversy with Dr. Spener, and as they were afraid that the Calixtinians would all join with Spener, so they made a compromise with the divines of Helmstadt. Schl.] munities of European christians, not to unite together, or to become one body, as his opposers interpreted him to mean, but to abstain from their mutual hatred and enmity, and to cultivate mutually love and good will. And this it was, that was generally condemned, under the name of Syncretism*. The opinions which, in addition to this purpose, were charged upon him as faults, respected the less clear knowledge of the doctrine of the Trinity, in the times of the Old Testament; the necessity of good works to salvation; God's being, accidentally, the cause of sin; the visible appearances of the Son of God, I do not espouse the cause of Calixtus; nor maintain, that all he wrote and taught, was faultless: but the love of truth admonishes me to say, that this excellent man fell into the hands of bad interpreters; and that even those, who thought they understood his meaning better than others, erred egregiously. He is commonly represented as advising to a union with the Romish pontiff and his adherents; but entirely without grounds. For he declared, publicly, that with the Romish church, such as it now is, we cannot possibly associate and be in harmony; and that if formerly there was any hope of healing the breach, that hope was wholly extinguished and annihilated, by the denunciations of the council of Trent. He is said, also, to have approved, or excused, all the errors and superstitions which deform the Romish church, or at least very many of them. But, here, not only the numerous writings, in which he refutes the doctrines and opinions of the papists, but also the papists themselves, clear him of fault; for they acknowledge that Calixtus assailed their church more learnedly and ingeniously, than all the other protestant doctors. Instead of all, hear Jac. Benignus Bossuet, in his Traité de la Communion sous les Deux Espèces, pt. i. § 2. p. 12. writes thus of him: "Le fameux George Calixte, le plus habile des Lutheriens de nôtre tems, qui a écrit le plus doctement contre nous." Calixtus taught, indeed, that as to the foundation of the faith, there was no dissension between us and the papists: and I wish he had omitted this altogether, or had expressed it in more fit and suitable terms. But he most constantly maintained, that upon the foundation of religion, the pontiffs and their adherents had based very many things, which no wise and good man should receive. And how much this should deduct from the odium and turpitude of that opinion, is manifest. I omit other aspersions of the memory of this great man, by those who think they ought to listen rather to his accusers, than to the accused. What then, you will say, did he mean?-First, this: that if it could be, that the Romish church should be recovered to the state, in which it was in the first five centuries after Christ, the protestants could then have no just grounds for refusing communion with it: and secondly, this: that among the adherents to the Roman pontiff, though as a body they were polluted with many and intolerable errors, those individuals should not be excluded from all hope of salvation, nor be ranked with heretics, who honestly have imbibed what their fathers and their teachers have taught them, and who are prevented from seeing the truth, either in consequence of their ignorance, or their education, or lastly, by their early prepossessions; provided they believe with simplicity whatever is contained in the Apostles' Creed, and study to conform their lives to the precepts of Christ. As I have already said, I do not stand forth as the patron of these opinions: they have patrons enough, at the present day but this, I suppose, all will concede, that these views are much more tolerable, than those with which he is commonly charged. under the ancient dispensation; and some few others; which were such, that if he really held them, they were of no great consequence, according to the acknowledgment of those whom no one will pronounce unfit judges of such questions; and did not vitiate the marrow (so to speak) of divine truth. But in order to recommend that harmony among disagreeing christians, which he had in view, this excellent man had to assume two things, which appeared even worse than the design which they were intended to subserve. The first was, that the ground work of christianity, or those first and elementary principles, from which all the other truths flow, remained sound and uncontaminated, in all the three denominations of christians. This ground work, he supposed, was contained in that ancient formula, called the Apostles' Creed. The second assumption was, that whatever is supported by the constant and uniform consent and authority of the ancient christian fathers, who were ornaments to the five first centuries, must be regarded as equally true and certain with what we find recorded in the holy Scriptures. The first of these was the pillar that sustained the whole project he had in view: the second was of use to excuse certain papal institutions and opinions, which were very disagreeable to Lutherans, and to establish harmony among disagreeing christians. § 24. In these commotions and contests, were involved, though in a different way, the divines of Rinteln, Königsberg, and Jena: to say nothing of some others. The divines of Rinteln, especially John Henichius and Peter Musæus, by many things, but most clearly in the conference at Cassel already mentioned, gave evidence, that they approved of the plan of Calixtus for terminating the contests among christians, and especially among protestants. And they too were attacked, in various publications, by the Saxon divines, and such as took sides with them'. At Königsberg, Christ. Dreyer, a very learned man, and John Latermann, both pupils of Calixtus, with Michael Behm, signified pretty clearly, that they favoured See Abrah. Calovius, Historia Syncretistica, p. 618, &c. Jo. Geo. Walch, Introduction to the contests in the Lu theran church, [in German,] vol. i. p. 286, &c. the opinions of their instructor. Against them, hostility was declared, not only by their colleagues, John Behm and Celestine Mislenta, but likewise by the whole body of ministers at Könisberg. And the contest was protracted many years, in such a manner, as brought honour to neither party in the view of posterity. This intestine war being extinguished, partly by the authority of the supreme magistrate, and partly by the death of Behm and Mislenta, Dreyer and his associates had to sustain another and a permanent one, with those foreign divines, who viewed the Calixtine opinions as pernicious, and the defenders of them as enemies to the church: nor can this foreign contest likewise be commended, either for its equity or its moderation". § 26. In these commotions the divines of Jena manifested uncommon prudence and moderation. For while they ingenuously confessed that all the opinions of Calixtus could scarcely be tolerated, and could not be admitted entirely, without injury to the truth; they judged that most of his doctrines were not so very bad as the Saxons supposed them to be ; and that several of them might be tolerated without the least hazard. Solomon Glassius, a man of great mildness, by order of Ernest the Pious, duke of Saxe-Gotha, most equitably examined the importance of the several controverted points in a work expressly on the subject'. John Musœus a man of superior learning and uncommon acuteness, first determined, that it was allowable to say, with Calixtus and Horneius, that in a certain sense, good works are necessary to salvation: afterwards he maintained among his intimate friends, that little or no importance was attached to some of the other questions. These, therefore, the Calixtine divines would not, perhaps, have refused as arbiters. But this moderation was so offensive to the Saxon divines, that they arraigned the school of Jena on suspicion of many errors, and declared, that John 6 Christopher Hartknoch's Preussische Kirchen-historie, book ii. ch. x. p. 602, &c. and others. Möller's Cimbria Litterata, tom. iii. p. 150, &c. The Acts and Documents are in the Unschuldige Nachrichten, A. D. 1740. p. 144. A. D. 1742. p. 29. a. d. 1745. p. 91. and elsewhere. 7 This judgment, drawn up in German, was first published, after the death of Glassius, in 1662; and again, a few years ago, at Jena, in 8vo. It is an example of theological moderation, and most worthy of an attentive perusal. Musaus in particular, had departed in not a few things from the sound faith". § 26. These contests were succeeded, and extinguished, by what are called the Pietistic controversies. These originated from those who, undoubtedly with the best intentions, undertook to aid the cause of languishing piety, and to cure the faults both of the public teachers and of the multitude. But as often happens, these controversies were multiplied and aggravated, by various sorts of persons, whose ill-informed understanding, or heated imagination, or some wrong bias of mind, led them to excite horrible commotions in one place and another, by their singular opinions, their pretended visions, their harsh and unintelligible rules for christian conduct, and their very imprudent clamours about a total change of the form and institutions of the church. The slumbering christians, and also such as bemoaned in secret the progress of irreligion, were first aroused by Philip James Spener, an excellent minister, and very highly esteemed both for his great piety and his extensive learning; when he set up private meetings at Frankfort, for the purpose of exhorting and training the people to piety, and afterwards set forth, in a special treatise, his Pious Desires, (Pia Desideria,) that is, his views of the evils existing in our church, and their remedies. Both met the approbation of very many, who had good and upright dispositions. But as many of them did not apply these remedies for diseased souls, with sufficient caution and skill, and as those religious meetings, (or Colleges of Piety, as they were denominated, in terms borrowed from the Dutch,) enkindled in the minds of the multitude, in several places, a wild and enthusiastic spirit, rather than true love to God; several complaints were soon heard, that, under the pretence of aiding and advancing piety, solid religious knowledge was neglected, and fomentations applied to seditious and ill-balanced minds '. |