CHAP. Menius. Schnepfius. his friends on the blessed hope of eternal life, and on the prospects opening to posterity. After offering up fervent prayers, and frequently repeating the words, "This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent," he slept in peace, April 20, 1558, in the seventy-third year of his age. 1 Justus Menius had for many years laboured successfully at Saxe-Gotha: but the year before his death he sought, at Leipsig, some retreat from the contests raised by Flacius. 2 Schnepfius was of a good family at Hailbrun, and was by a pious mother devoted to the service of God and religion from his infancy. He at first, however, applied himself to jurisprudence, and with those flattering prospects of success which a profession, immediately conversant with property, and men's temporal interests, never fails to hold out to talents and industry: but he was prevailed upon by the entreaties of his mother to turn his back upon the splendid visions of earthly riches and honours, and to fulfil her original wishes respecting him. After he began to apply to theology he continued for six years involved in the labyrinths of papal error; but at length he arrived at the knowledge of the truth, by means of the light which Luther had been the instrument of diffusing. This was soon after the year 1520. After labouring usefully at some other places, he was called to the offices of a preacher at Marpurg, and a professor in the university which the landgrave of Hesse had founded there. In that situation he acquired great weight and influence: but he was at length 1 Melch. Ad. i. 150-154. His death was felt as a great loss by Melancthon. Camer. Vit. Mel. § 109. 2 Melch. Ad. i. 154. 3 Vol. i. 7, 177. induced to exchange it for the important post of pastor of Stutgard, under Ulric of Würtemberg, in 1535. In 1543, he removed to Tübingen, under the same prince, and continued there till driven away, to the great grief of the citizens, by the means taken to enforce the Interim. He was then made rector of the new university of Jena, by the sons of John Frederic; and filled his office with honour till his death, in the sixtythird year of his age, November 1, 1558.-He had attended most of the diets and conferences held on the subject of religion; and, in particular, had been Bucer's coadjutor in his disputations with Malvenda, at Ratisbon, in 1546. 1 1 The death of Melancthon himself, as we shall see, took place in 1560. A. D 1555. Joachim Morlin, first driven from Prussia Morlin. for his opposition to Osiander, but afterwards recalled and made a bishop there; John Auri- Aurifaber. faber,3 late of Breslaw but now of Jena; Paul 4 Eber, successor to Forster in the citadel church, and afterwards to Justus Jonas as chief pastor of Wittemberg; John Brentius, formerly of Halle in Suabia but latterly of Stutgard'; John Pfeffinger of Leipsig; and George Major of Pfeffinger. Wittemberg survived to a later period, and died between the years 1566 and 1574. Some account of each of them is given by Melchior Adam. The persecutions which Brentius suf- Brentius. fered on account of the Interim have been already noticed. His history furnishes a warning to students, he having contracted a distressing and injurious habit of sleeplessness, which continued to the end of his days, by accustoming himself to rise soon after midnight to pursue his studies.-Eber excites our sympathy by having been crippled in early youth by a fall, the cirstances of which were concealed from his parents, and the opportunity thus lost of using means which might have prevented or alleviated its consequences. He lived, however to become not only a very excellent, but an eminent and highly useful character.-For Major a painful interest is excited by his heavy domestic afflictions; which he bore with Christian constancy and resignation. The notice of these excellent and eminent men, (for none but eminent men have been recounted,) however brief it may have been, cannot but be gratifying, if it were only for their number -which shews how remarkably God had at that period visited his church, and replenished it with able faithful pastors and reformers. The only circumstances which excite our regret are, finding so great a number of such men removed in the course of twenty years, and so many of them in the very midst of their days and their usefulness. The latter of these circumstances, in particular, impresses upon us the necessity of "working while it is day," seeing the night so soon cometh "wherein no man can work." But the Son of God "holdeth the stars-the angels of the churches-in his right hand," and disposeth of them as seemeth him good.-We cannot however but feel and lament, that the succession of men coming up in the Lutheran church were deteriorating, and attained not the level of their predecessors in simplicity and devotedness. Many of them were "turning aside to vain jangling." We shall therefore gladly withdraw our attention from scenes of growing secularity and contention, to fix it again on those earlier stages of a reformed church, which we may hope to find marked with greater spirituality. One or two other subjects must however detain us somewhat longer, in winding up this account of the Lutheran reformation, before we turn to that effected in other quarters by the agency of Zwingle, Ecolampadius, and Calvin, A. D. 1555. CHAPTER XII. CHAP. tions of Me lancthon. REMAINDER OF MELANCTHON'S LIFE-HIS LETTERS-HIS COMMON PLACES. THE character and services of Melancthon, his intimate connexion with the reformation during Remaining the whole of its progress, and the leading transac- station which he occupied ever after the death of Luther, all peculiarly entitle him to our high regard, and render it proper that we should not quit this portion of our history, without attending him to the close of his course-though it somewhat outran the limit which we have otherwise assigned ourselves. Some further notice also of certain parts of his writings will be found interesting and instructive. Melancthon survived the peace of religion five years, which were laboriously employed, as the preceding thirty-seven had been, in the service of sound learning and divine truth. He continued to the last involved in those controversies, which we have lamented as dividing and deforming the Lutheran church after the death of its founder: but our notice of his writings in that department has been already so far extended into these last years of his life, that we shall have little occasion to recur to them. In this his closing stage we find him, from the change of circumstances produced by the peace now established, less engaged than formerly in |