Five years of almost total quiet ensued, interrupted only by slight agitations in Brandenburg, where the Lutheran preacher Samuel Pomarius (q. v.) was suspend- ed for preaching against the Reformed and the syncre- tists. This period was followed, however, by
2, Renewed Conflicts (1661-69), — The immediate oc- casion of strife was found in the measures taken by the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, William VI, to secure a religious constitution for his land which should be suf- ficiently broad and generous to comprehend both Lu- therans and Reformed under its operation. His endeav- ors culminated in a convention which met at Cassel, consisting of two members of the (Reformed) University of Marburg and two theologians belonging to the (Lu» theran) faculty of Rinteln, A declaration was drawn up which recognised existing divergencies of opinion be- tween the parties, but at the same time showed an agreement between them on all essential matters, and on the ground of such consent urged the exercise of brotherly love and the recognition of both parties as belonging to one Church, sliaring in a common faith and looking towards a common heaven. The appear- ance of this declaration roused the Wittenbergers to ac- tion, Tliey issued a circular asking the su|)port of all good Lutherans against the Cassel colloquy, and in- duced the faculties of Jena and Leipsic to unite with them in admonishing the theologians of Rinteln con-
SYNCRETISTIC CONTROVERSIES 87
SYNEDRIANS
ceniing the lapse of which they had been guilty. A fusilade of papers in Latin and German, aimed at both the learned world and the public, was now kept up un- til after the death of William YI, in lOGO, when the zeal of IJinteln became much cooler in consequence of benetits conferreti on the Keformcd at the expense of the Lutheran party.
The renewal of the dispute in Hesse soon reacted upon Brandenburg, whose duke was brother-in-law to the landgrave, and thoroughly in sj-mpathy with his |)lans. The government issued a manifesto deprecating the custom of discussing points of controversy in tlie pulpit and before mixed audiences, and soon afterwards (Aug. 21. IGtiS) a colloquy was summoned to lierlin for the purpose of " inaugurating a state of fraternal uni- ty." The Lutherans, however, proved unyielding, the poet Paul Gerhardt (q. v.) in particular being fixed in his opposition to any compromise, and tiie colloquy ended without result. Various orders now followed in quick succession, by which preachers were forbidden to a|)ply opprobrious names to their opponents in the pid- pit, and also to attribute to them doctrines inferred from their principles, but not avowed by them. The Lutherans refused to sign a pledge of obedience to these edicts, this being in their eyes tantamount to a formal abandonment of their position. The government event- ually compelled them to yield, though many chose dep- osition from ofHce and exile ratlicr than submission.
A new phase of the dispute began in ](j()4 with the publication of a great collection of Consilia Theologica Witeberr/eima, which included a multitude of judgments against Calixtus and the syncretists, and also the Con- sensus JRepeii/us Fidei vere Lutheranae, The exclusion of the syncretists was now less aimed at than the rally- ing of all strict Lutherans about the Consensus as a new confession of faith. Tlie terms of the Consensus, how- ever, implicitly condemned Calixtus and his adherents as non-Lutheran and heretical : and the new movement accordingly drew out the son of Calixtus, Frederick Ul- ric, who from this time made it the object of his life to resist the persistent attacks of Calovius on his father's character and work. Both were extremists, and could not substantiate all the assertions they put forth ; but the party of Calovius triumphed over Calixtus for a time through the etfbrts of a new combatant whom they had gained to their support — the youthful Strauch, professor of history and assessor in theology at Witten- berg. Tlie University of Helmstiidt, on the other liand, enlisted the services of Herman Conring (q. v.), a schol- ar and statesman of European fame, and he succeeded in so presenting to view the danger to the peace of the Church and to the liberty of teaching which grew out of the attempt to force the Consensus upon the Church as a confession of faith, that universities and princes were alarmed, and a period of quiet was secured, 1669.
3. Final Conflict. — Calovius reopened the war in 1675 with accustomed energy; and although the temper of the time was changing, and disgust with the intermin- able quarrel began to be manifested, he was able, by 1679, to comjiel the entire University of Jena to dis- avow all sympathy with syncretism. This, however, proved to be his last victory. His aged patron, the elec- tor Johann Georg H of Saxony, died in the folkiwing year, and the new ruler was not so fond of controversy as the old one had been. In 1682 the llistoria Si/ncr., which Calovius had made a storehouse of the details of his life-long contest, and published anonymously to evade the law forbidding such publications, was bought up and prevented from circulating among the people by the government. He died of apoplexy Feb. 21, 1686. No considerable features in connection with the syn- cretistic controversy apjiear after tlie death of Calovius. Lutherans and members of the Keformed Church in Germany neither desired nor sought fraternity with each other during more than another century. When the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes occurred, in 1685, only the Keformed population in Germany welcomed