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forms may be prayed with the heart, so as to come out from the heart. Persons who are for praying always from ( the heart/ as they call it, may, and do, come insensibly to use what amounts to forms.” As to church music, he says, u When not plain and simple, it may delight the ear and imagination, but it obstructs the true melody of the heart.”
On the divisions between Lutherans and Calvinists he writes, cc Were Paul himself to descend from Paradise upon a mission to Protestant Christendom, he would find far other work to do, than that of effecting a civil coalescence between them. A unity of the Spirit cannot be wrought out among so many, while so few of them have the Spirit. The division itself I regard as a fatherly rebuke, not without its beneficial effects. For whereas we Lutherans reject the notion of absolute, unconditional decrees, we constrain its advo- cates to hold out representations more moderate, and more con- ducive to their own experimental piety ; but, on the other hand, if ever the doctrine of decrees in general should fall into disregard among ourselves, the majority of us will decline into what is no better than mere rationalism, having by and by lost all belief in God’s universal grace.”
As A writer, his works were numerous, including, besides his Editions of various ancient authors, about thirty original publica- tions of his own. Yet he held it as a principle, that u we ought to be very careful about composing new books ;” for that u every book should add something to the reader’s information, or at least to the improvement of his heart.” He had a remarkable power of con- densation, which was by no means characteristic of writers of his day or his nation. u It has long been my rule (he said) to write nothing, which at my dying hour I might have to repent of.” What most pained him was, that in the case of some of his works, he had to endure not only the attacks of the worldly, but also the suspicions of the really spiritual. “ It is well (said he) to be conscious on such occasions, that the countenance of fallible men was not the thing we had reckoned on, and to be able to say, ‘ All is under God’s direction.’ ”
The earliest of his larger publications was a new Edition of Cicero’s Epistles ad Familiares (Stuttgart, 1719). Conscientious attendance to apparent minutiae, as leading to most important exegeti- cal results, characterized him in his classical, as in his theological writ- ings. He closed his Ed. of Cic. Epistles with an Appendix on the advantages of studying this work, and the right uses to be made of it. In this he warns against the danger to personal Christianity of undue devotedness to philological study. u Even Scriptural researches may, without needful discretion, occasion in learned men indifference to true godliness, instead of nourishing it. Mercury is as much op- posed to Christ, as is Plutus or Mammon. The spirit of heathen wisdom ever was, and ever must be, a spirit of presumption, vanity, worldliness, selfishness, and sensuality ; yet there is in it something
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