Andreas, James

, a celebrated Lutheran divine of the sixteenth century, was born at Waibling, a town in the duchy of Wmemberg, March 25, 1528. His father, whose name was James Endris, was a smith. He applied himself to letters with great success for three years; but his parents, being poor, had resolved to bring him up to some mechanical profession, and had agreed with a carpenter for that purpose, when several persons of distinction, who discovered marks of genius in him, contributed to support him in the prosecution of his studies, in which he made a considerable advance. In 1545, he took his master’s degree at Tubingen, and studied divinity and the Hebrew language at the same university. In 1546 he was appointed minister of the church of Stutgard, the metropolis of the duchy of Wirtemberg; and his sermons were so well approved of, that his fame reached the duke, who ordered him to preach before him, which he performed | with great applause. The same year he married a wife at Tubingen, by whom he had nine sons and nine daughters, nine of which children survived him. During the war in which Germany was about the same time involved, he met with great civilities even from the emperor’s party, till he was obliged upon the publication of the Interim to retire to Tubingen, where he executed the function of minister. In the year 1553 he took his degree of doctor of divinity, and was appointed pastor of the church of topping, and superintendant of the neighbouring churches. He was afterwards sent for to several parts; and in 1557 he wot to the diet of Ratisbon with Christopher duke of Wirtemberg, and was appointed one of the secretaries at the conference at Worms between the papists and the divines of the Augustan confession. The same year he published his first work on the Lord’s Supper, in which he proposed a method of agreement upon that difficult point of controversy. In June the same year he went with the duke above-mentioned to Francfort upon the Maine, where he preached a sermon, though he was publicly opposed by a Romish priest. In 1558 he replied to Staphylus’s book against Luther, which was entitled “Epitome trimembris Theologise Lutheranse,” and in which he had collected the opinions of several sects, and ascribed them all to that reformer, as the original author of them. In 1559 he was sent to Augsburg, where the diet of the empire was held; and, during the same, preached two sermons before all the princes of the Augustan confession, one on justification, the other on the Lord’s supper; both printed at Tubingen, and very popular. In 1561 he was sent to Paris, in order to be present at the conference of Poissi, which was broken up before he came thither. Some time after his return he was made chancellor and rector of the university of Tubingen. In the beginning of the year 1563 he went to Strasburg, where Jerom Zanchius had propagated several opinions accounted new, and particularly this, that the regenerate and believers could not possibly fall again from grace, or lose the faith, though they had committed sins against the light of their conscience. Our author at last engaged him to sign a form of confession, which he had drawn up. In 1565 he was invited to establish a church at Hagenaw, an imperial city, where he preached a great many sermoni upon the principal points of the Christian religion, which were afterwards printed. In 1568 he assisted Julius, duke | of Brunswick, in reforming his churches. In 1569 he took a journey to Heidelberg and Brunswick, and into Denmark. In 1570 he went to Misniaancl Prague, where the emperor Maximilian II. had a conversation with him upon the subject of an agreement in religion. In 1571 he went to visit the churches at Mompelgard; and upon his return had a conference with Flaccius Illyricus at Strasburg, in which he confuted his paradoxical assertion, that sin is a substance. He took several journies after this, and used his utmost efforts to effect an union of the churches of the Augustan confession. In 1583 he lost his first wife, with whom he had lived thirty-seven years; and about an year and half after he married a second wife, who had voluntarily attended her former husband, when he was obliged to leave his country on account of religion. About the same time he wrote a controversial piece, in which he maintained the ubiquity or presence of the whole Christ, in his divine and human nature, in all things. In 1586 he was engaged in a conference at Mompelgard with Theodore Beza concerning the Lord’s supper, the person of Christ, predestination, baptism, the reformation of the popish churches, and Adiaphora or indifferent things; but this had the usual event of all other conferences, which, though designed to put an end to disputes in divinity, are often the occasion of still greater. In 1537 he was sent for to Nordling upon church affairs; and upon his return fell sick, and published his confession of faith, in order to obviate the imputations of his adversaries; but he afterwards recovered, and was sent for again to Ratisbon, and then to Onolsbach by Frederick marquis of Brandenbourg. Upon the publication of the conference at Mompelgard abovementioned, he was accused of having falsely imputed some things to Beza, which the latter had never asserted; he therefore went to Bern to clear himself of the charge. His last public act was a conference at Baden in November 1589 with John Pistorius, who then inclined to Calvinism, and afterwards revolted entirely to the Papists. He had a very early presentiment of his death; and when he found it drawing near, he made a declaration to several of his friends of his constancy in the faith, which he had asserted, and shewed the most undoubted signs of cordial belief, till he expired on the seventh of January 1590, being sixtyone years and nine months old. His funeral sermon was preached by Luke Osiander, and afterwards published. | Several false reports were propagated concern ing his death. The Popish priests in the parts adjacent publicly declared from the pulpit, that before his death he had recanted and condemned all the doctrines which he had maintained in word or writing. Besides, there was a letter dispersed, in which they affirmed, with their usual assurance, that he desired very anxiously before his death, that a Jesuit might be sent for immediately, to administer the sacraments to him; which request being denied him, he fell into despair, and expired under all the horrors of it. Of this not a syllable was true, his dying words and actions entirely coinciding with his life and doctrines. His works were extremely numerous, but his biographers have neglected to give a list, or to notice any but his “Treatise on Concord,” 1582, 4to. His life was written by the subject of the next article, 1630. ¹