On the Life and Missions of Jacobus Andreae for the Reformation of the Lutheran Church, Part I

after they had been sent to him at Regiomontum Königsberg, he ordered them to keep them secret for four months, so that he might more conveniently settle the disturbances and find time to execute the judgment peacefully.

When these letters of Albert had been delivered to Christophorus among other Princes, he decided that his theologians should be called to him at Tübingen, among whom was Jacobus, the new Superintendent of Gœppingen. Among the responses of the outside theologians, the first was the Wirtemberg Counsel, which, having been given on December 5, was delivered to Albert at Regiomontum at the beginning of January 1552. The author of the Counsel was Brentius, who had indeed made his studies common with others, but whom no one had signed. Duke Christophorus had attached a singular letter, which explained clearly enough that if the Regiomontum theologians studied to promote divine honor rather than indulging their own emotions, a reconciliation between them would be easy. If, however, anyone among them refused to comply, Albert the Duke, a pious, peaceful, and wise prince, would know how to consult his own interests. Brentius, with his characteristic perspicacity, easily perceived that Osiander had not departed from the standard of Lutheran doctrine, but only from Lutheran terminology, and therefore one must fight with him over terms, and consequently, the reconciliation was not so difficult, provided the parties wished it. Excellent are the things Brentius brings forward about his opinion on this matter in his letters, one to Melanchthon and the other to Camerarius u). In the former, he has these words: "When the Prince sought our opinion from us, we preferred to institute a reconciliation rather than to provoke the ulcerated spirits more by the condemnation of a dogma that I, at least, had not yet sufficiently understood, and to give occasion for vomiting forth new execrations; not that we hoped much to obtain anything from those so affected, but that by this occasion, if any monster were being nurtured, it might break forth more manifestly."

u) Both appear in the late Strobel’s Beyträgen zur Literatur des XVI. Jahrh. Contributions to the Literature of the 16th Century, Vol. II, p. 118, 125, and is cited by the venerable Plank, l. c. p. 325.