where they have their own bishop. So long as Abbas lived, who was a magnanimous prince and much attached to his people, these exiles enjoyed great prosperity: but after his death, they were involved in calamities and persecutions. And hence, not a few of them have apostatized to Muhammedism; and it is to be feared that this portion of the Armenian church will become wholly extinct. On the other hand, the Asiatic Armenians have, undoubtedly, derived no little advantage from the permanent settlement of very many of their nation, during this century, for commercial purposes, in most of the countries of Europe, as at Marseilles in France, and in London, Amsterdam, and Venice'. For not to mention other things, this has afforded them an opportunity to print the bible, and many other books, especially religious books, in the Armenian character, in Holland particularly, and in England; and these books, being sent to the Armenians living under the Persians and Turks, doubtless tend to prevent the nation, which is rude and inclined to superstition, from losing all knowledge of the christian religion.

§ 8. The disunion among the Nestorians, which rent that church in the preceding century, could not be healed at all in this. Among the patriarchs of Mosul, Elias II. sent his envoy to Rome, in the year 1607, and again in the year 1610, to obtain the friendship of the pontiff; and in a letter to Paul V., he avowed himself ready to sanction a union between the Nestorians and the Romans. Elias III., though at first extremely averse to the Romish rites, yet in the year 1657, addressed a letter to the Congregation de propaganda fide, signifying his willingness to join the Romish church, provided the pontiffs would grant to the Nestorians a place of worship at Rome, and would not corrupt or disturb

See Jo. Chardin, Voyage en Perse tom. ii. p. 106, &c. Gabr. du Chinon, Nourelles Relations du Lerant, p. 206, &c.

5 Of the Armenians residing at Marseilles, and the books they have printed there, see Rich. Simon's Lettres Choisies, tom. ii. p. 137. Of their Bible, printed in Holland, he likewise treats, ibid. tom. iv. p. 160. So also does Jo. Joach. Schroeder, in his Thesaurus Lingua Armenica; or rather in the

at all the tenets of the sect'.

Diss. de Lingua Armenica, which is prefixed to this Thesaurus, cap. iv. p. 60. The other Armenian books printed at Venice, Lemburg, and especially at Amsterdam, are enumerated by this very learned man, loc. cit. cap. ii. § xxv, &c. p. 38, &c.

Jos. Sim. Asseman, Biblioth. Orient. Clement. Vaticana, tom. i. p. 543. tom. ii. p. 457. tom. iii. pt. i. p. 650.

7 Asseman, loc. cit. tom. iii. pt. ii. p. cml.

But the Romans doubtless perceived that a union formed on the terms here stated, would be of no use or advantage to their cause for we have no information, that the Nestorians were at that time received into the Romish communion, or that the prelates of Mosul afterwards were again solicitous to conciliate the Roman pontiff. The Nestorian patriarchs of Ormus, who all bore the name of Simeon, likewise made two proposals, in 1619 and 1653, for renewing their former alliance with the Roman pontiffs, and sent to Rome a tract explanatory of their religious sentiments. But either these prelates did not offer satisfactory terms to the Romans, or, on account of their poverty and very slender power, they were despised at Rome: for it appears, that from the year 1617, the prelates at Ormus were in a very low state, and no longer excited the envy of those at Mosul'. There was however, a little poor congregation of Roman catholics formed among the Nestorians, about the middle of this century; whose bishops or patriarchs reside in the city of Amida or Diarbekir, and all bear the name of Joseph'. The Nestorians inhabiting the coast of Malabar, and who are called christians of St. Thomas, so long as the Portuguese possessed those regions, were miserably harassed by the Romish priests, especially by the Jesuits; and yet no vexations, nor menaces, nor artifices, could bring them all to prefer the Romish worship before that of their fathers'. But when Cochin was conquered by the Dutch, in 1663, and the Portuguese were expelled from those regions, their former liberty of worshipping God in the manner of their ancestors, was restored to that oppressed people; and they continue to enjoy it to the present time. At the same time, the Dutch give no trouble to those among them who choose to continue in the Romish religion; provided they will treat kindly and peacefully those who differ from them.

8 Asseman, loc. cit. tom. i. p. 531. tom. ii. p. 457. tom. iii. pt. i. p. 622. 9 Peter Strozza, Præfatio ad Librum de Chaldæorum Dogmatibus.

1 See Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, tom. ii. p. 1078.

2 Of these, Matur. Veisse la Croze treats largely, Histoire du Christianisme des Indes, liv. v. p. 344, &c.

3 Gautier Schouten, Voyage aux Indes Orientales, tom i. p. 319, &c. p. 466, &c.

PART II.

THE HISTORY OF THE MODERN CHURCHES.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH.

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

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

VOL. IV.

M

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

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

harmony. When the Formula of Concord produced so much disturbance in Saxony and Upper Germany, and threatened to destroy the peace which Hesse had hitherto enjoyed, the Hessian princes published an edict in 1572, by which they endeavoured to preserve the union. Also in the general synods of Treysa in 1577, of Marpurg in 1578, and of Cassel in 1579, the Hessian clergy were required to subscribe certain articles, designed to preserve the union. But under the Landgrave Maurice, the state of things changed. He had been drawn over to the side of the Reformed, by some French Reformed noblemen's sons, whom his father had procured through Beza to be his son's associates; and after the death of his father's brother, the Landgrave Lewis, at Marpurg in 1604, he endeavoured to introduce the Reformed religion, by means of a Catechism: and in the year 1605, he dismissed all the teachers at Marpurg, and in half the upper principality of Hesse, (which had fallen

§ 2. Not long after, in the year 1614, John Sigismund also, the elector of Brandenburg, left the communion of the Lutherans, and went over to the Reformed: yet with different views from those of Maurice, and with different results. For he did

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

to the house of Cassel,) because they would not subscribe the result of the Synod without some limitation; and he established Reformed teachers in their place. The dismissed teachers, among whom the famous Balthazar Manzer was the most distinguished, were afterwards received by the Landgrave of Darmstadt, Lewis: and a part of them were established in the newly erected university of Giessen, and the rest were beneficed elsewhere. As is generally the case when human passions become enlisted in religious

contests, there were faults on both sides, which no impartial man, at the present day, will approve. The Lutherans adhered too strenuously, and too wilfully, to certain subtle doctrines of the schools, and to external rites which are not of the essence of christianity and the Reformed, who had the court on their side, misused the power which was in their hands, to the injury of the ancient rights of a community, whose brethren they pretended to be. Schl.]

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