Historical Preface of Arndt's

...the Latin version of Arndt (which Melchior Prelerus a seventeenth-century scholar and translator is said to have prepared) was printed in full. Some of these were also printed in the German language, first in the Frankfurt edition by Spener Philipp Jakob Spener, 1635 to 1705, the father of Lutheran Pietism in 1674, and subsequently in other editions of True Christianity alongside the Vindiciae Varenianae Varenian Defenses. Most of these have also been included in the present edition. Finally, the list of Arndt’s apologists includes most of those who edited and adorned his True Christianity with new prefaces.

A hand-drawn manicule points to the following footnote block.

(*) original: "In literis ad ARNDIUM d. 6. Jul. 1620. Hanc mercedem a mundo reportamus pro nostris laboribus. Nam nec mihi parcunt, sed in publicis concionibus eorum errorum peragunt reum, qui ne in mentem quidem unquam venerunt." In a letter to Arndt dated July 6, 1620: This is the reward we receive from the world for our labors. For they do not spare me either, but in public sermons they find those guilty of errors that never even entered their minds.

(**) original: "Sic exerceror a fratribus, quos numquam verbo vel facto læsi." Thus I am harassed by brothers whom I never harmed in word or deed.

§. 22. Not only individuals, but also entire theological faculties took up the cause of the dear Arndt and gave him a testimony of orthodoxy. The Responsa formal legal or theological responses of the theological faculties at Königsberg, Wittenberg, and Jena deserve to be read in the Apologeticis Arndianis Arndtian Defenses. In the Wittenberg response from May 12, 1620, it states, among other things: As far as we have read in his writings, it seems to us that although he uses special phrases from Tauler Johannes Tauler, a fourteenth-century German mystic and the "German Theology" original: "Teutſcher Theologie", it cannot be concluded from this that he errs in core matters or is a Weigelianer a follower of Valentin Weigel, often accused of mysticism and heresy. Rather, his intent is highly to be praised, etc. The theological faculty at Königsberg testified in its response from July 15, 1620: Because Arndt appeals to the Symbolic Books the official confessional documents of the Lutheran Church, and in the article on the justification of a poor sinner, sets

Such supporters include the late Dr. Fischer in the Riga edition of 1679; Dr. Frohn in a Nordhausen edition of 1698; Dr. Pritius Johann Georg Pritius in the Latin edition of 1704; and Mr. Boehm likewise in a Latin edition printed in London in 1708. Also Dr. Diecmann in the Stade edition of 1706; Inspector Knopf in the Minden edition; Dr. Buddeus Johann Franz Buddeus in the Leipzig edition of 1715; and Dr. Lange in the Berlin edition, etc.

Christ’s merit alone, seized with true faith, as the foundation of our righteousness before God; and because he also explains that he wrote his books not for the un-Christian, but for Christians, specifically the justified, and thus his actual and foremost purpose is to promote the Christian life; therefore, one must accept this as known and recognize Johann Arndt as a fellow brother in Christ.

§. 23. These protective writings were so effective that, gradually, the offense taken at some of Arndt’s ways of speaking and the fear of a hidden poison vanished. On the other hand, the esteem for this book rose to such an extent, after God himself distinguished it through so many singular events, that almost no one can show even a suspicion or mistrust against it without placing themselves under suspicion of being a hidden enemy and persecutor of true

Person and True Christianity.

Christianity. (*) If one wishes to form a Christian and sound judgment of this book, one must observe the following:

1. One must imagine the state of the church and the nature of the times in which the late Arndt lived. The late Luther, the great and chosen instrument of God, had made it his main work to highlight justifying faith in the best way. Although he everywhere, and especially in his beautiful preface to the Epistle to the Romans, described faith as a living, busy, active thing that always does good works and practices love; yet many of his degenerate followers had devised for themselves a dead "brain-faith" that leaves the heart unchanged and the old Adam the sinful human nature unhurt. To eradicate this shameful deceit from hearts and to topple this Dagon a Philistine idol, representing here a false god of a dead faith, God had to awaken an Arndt. Arndt took up the voice of James referencing James 2:18: "Show me your faith by your works." He insisted on the necessity of a holy life flowing from faith, and of true self-denial and denial of the world. Beyond this, the teachers of the Evangelical Church were entangled in many violent disputes at that time. (**) The holy simplicity which the late Luther sought to reintroduce into theology was almost suppressed again by a multitude of Scholastic academic and overly technical art-words. People fell into bickering and disputing, in which all sorts of impure emotions were mixed. Just as in the eleventh and twelfth centuries original: "Seculo", the sterile way of treating theology, where people fell into useless and subtle questions and did not think of the inner improvement of the will amidst school

quarrels, gave occasion for some good souls—who could find no taste in those unfruitful bickerings of the Scholasticorum Scholastics—such as Bernardus Bernard of Clairvaux, Tauler, Rusbrochius Jan van Ruusbroec, Harphius Henry Herp, and others to seek out and practice mystical theology; so it may well have happened to the late Arndt. Out of a secret disgust for those highly driven disputes, he turned to the reading of Johann Tauler, Thomas Hämmerlein (who is usually called Thomas à Kempis author of The Imitation of Christ after his birth-city Kempen in the Cologne region), Johann Staupitz, and others. He made himself familiar with them alongside the Holy Scriptures and sought to find something better in them. This is all the more to be granted to him, as he had before him the greatest words of praise that Luther, Melanchthon, Weller, Neander, etc., had bestowed upon the writings of Tauler and the "German Theology." (***) They elevated Tauler very highly, recommending his reading most highly to all lovers of truth, and assuring that his equal had not arisen since the time of the Apostles, and that one would find more pure divine teaching therein than in all the books of the school-teachers. Such praises from Luther were sufficient to awaken a special high esteem for Tauler and other mysticorum mystics in Arndt. Yet he read them with a judicio discretivo discerning judgment, testing everything according to God’s Word and keeping the best. And thus he laid the foundation for a true improvement of Theologiæ mysticæ mystical theology.