Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs / Translated by John Kelly

by Paul Gerhardt

Paul Gerhardt was the next minister who was called on to subscribe the edict. The Elector was convinced that, next to Reinhardt, he was the most vehement opponent of peace between the Lutheran and Reformed. When Reinhardt was reproached in the Consistory with inciting his colleagues to resistance, Gerhardt said, with some warmth, that it was not so, that he had encouraged Reinhardt when he showed a disposition to yield; he was older in years, and had been longer in office, and he should be sorry to follow others. It was also said, that during an illness which befell him, he sent for his colleagues, and earnestly warned them not to subscribe the bond pledging them to observance of the edict. These things were, at least, carried to the Elector, and prejudiced him against Gerhardt. On the same day that Lilius was reinstated in office, Gerhardt was cited to appear before the Consistory (Feb. 6th, 1666), and called upon to sign. Eight days were allowed him for consideration, and in the first instance he accepted the delay, but before the rising of the same session, he declared that he had had ample time for consideration, and that he could not change his mind, whereupon he was deposed from office, in the name of the Elector.

Great as was the agitation produced in the public mind by the deposition of Lilius and Reinhardt, the sensation occasioned by Gerhardt's was much more profound. He was the most beloved, as well as most celebrated, of all the ministers. Measures were immediately taken by the community in his favour. The citizens and the guilds of the cloth-makers, bakers, butchers, tailors, and pewterers, united to petition the magistrates in favour of exemption for Gerhardt. They said that every one knew that he had never spoken against the faith and the co-religionists of the Elector, much less vituperated them, but that he had sought to lead every one to true Christianity, and had never attacked any one in word or deed.

The magistrates, on presenting this representation to the Elector, on the 13th of February, added:—“He has not thought of the Reformed, much less insulted them; he has maintained a blameless walk, giving offence to no one, so much so, that his Highness, without any suspicion, had admitted his songs into the hymn-book for the Mark, in 1658. Should a man so pious, so intellectual, so celebrated in many lands, leave the town, it was to be feared that grave thoughts would be excited in the minds of foreigners, and that God would visit them for it. If he refused subscription, it would not be imputed to disobedience, but to scruples of conscience, seeing that before the publication of the edict he had fulfilled its object by his modest behaviour.” The Prince, in reply, stated that he had sufficient grounds for enforcing the provisions of the edict, and that Gerhardt must comply with them, or bear the penalty.

A second petition was got up in his favour, in which, in addition to the above guilds, the carpenters, cutlers, armourers, and coppersmiths joined. As this petition also was unfavourably received, the States of the Mark took up the cause of the deposed. “The dismissal of Gerhardt,” they informed the Elector, on the 27th of July, 1666, “excited great fear in the country for religion, for this man is recognized by the adherents of both confessions as a pious, exemplary, and, without doubt, a peace-loving theologian, against whom no charge can be brought save his refusal to subscribe the edicts.”

The Elector yielded at length. After his return from Cleve, he summoned the magistrates to appear before him, on January 9th, 1667, at three o'clock in the afternoon; and through the Lord President, Otto von Schwerin, in presence of several privy councillors, made the desired, but hardly expected announcement, that as there was no complaint against Paul Gerhardt, save that he refused to subscribe the edicts, his Electoral Highness must believe that he has misunderstood the purport of them; he, therefore, restored him to his office, and absolved him from the necessity of subscription.

Immediately after the audience, the Elector sent a private secretary to Gerhardt, to convey the intelligence to him, and to say at the same time that his Highness cherished the confident expectation that he would act conformably to the edicts, without subscription, and continue to manifest his known moderation. Next day the magistrates, delighted with the grace of the Prince, hastened to inform Gerhardt of his unconditional restoration to office, and on the 12th of January, the joyous event was announced in the Sunday Mercury, a weekly paper very much read in Berlin at that time. But the private message from the Elector threw Gerhardt into fresh distress of mind. He felt hampered by the condition still attached to his restoration to office, and he applied to the magistrates to aid him in discovering the exact terms of his restoration. In his letter to the magistrates, he expressed his earnest desire to spend the remainder of his life among his flock, if he could do so with a good conscience, saying how wretched a thing it was to hold office with an uneasy conscience. He knew the anxieties incident to the faithful discharge of the pastoral office, and said, that he would be the most wretched man on earth if to them were added the reproaches of a guilty conscience. His desire was not in the very least to appear to depart from his previous mode of teaching, and from the customs of his church, which, as a Lutheran clergyman, he had sworn to maintain. Referring to the moderation which had been so commended in him, he said, “I have never understood it, and never can understand it otherwise, than that I shall be permitted to remain faithful to my Lutheran confessions of faith, and especially to the ‘Formula Concordiae,' and that I am not required to regard any of them, or permit others to regard any one of them, as a dishonourable, injurious, or blasphemous book.”

The magistrates sent him a copy of the decree reinstating him in office, hoping thereby to remove his scruples. He made a further representation to the magistrates on the 26th of January, 1667. In this he pointed out how the decree ascribed his refusal to a misunderstanding of the edicts, and that, though absolved from subscription, he was bound by them still; that he could only understand the edicts literally; that he could not re-enter his office with any other conscience than he had first entered it with; he could not inflict on himself the wound on re-entrance into office which he had, in the strength of the Holy Ghost, patiently and silently endured a year's suspension to avoid; that if his conscience permitted him to yield obedience he would subscribe the edicts, “for,” said he, “what I can do with a good conscience, I can easily consent and promise to do.” He begged them to intercede for him with the Prince, that he might be absolved from obedience to the edicts on resuming office. In everything else he promised all possible hearty and humble obedience. He begged that he might be permitted to adhere to his Lutheran Confessions and “Formula Concordiae;” that he might so instruct his flock, and pledge himself to no other moderation than was rooted in these confessions. Only on these terms, he said, could he consent to preach. Gerhardt also wrote to the Elector to the same effect.

The magistrates resolved once more to apply to the Elector. They briefly stated the case, and begged his Highness to relieve Gerhardt's scruples. The Elector, on the very same day, returned their statement to the magistrates, with these words written on the margin:—“If the preacher, Paul Gerhardt, will not resume the office so graciously vouchsafed to him again, by his Serene Electoral Highness, for which he will have to answer to the Most High God, let the magistrates of Berlin, at their earliest convenience, invite some other able and peace-loving persons to preach as candidates; but let them not call any one until they have first humbly made known his qualifications to his Serene Highness.—Cöhl-on-the-Spree, Feb. 4th, 1667.—(Signed) Friederich Wilhelm.”

Gerhardt resigned his office, and so ended his ministry in Berlin. So great was the love his former flock bore to him that they still continued to contribute to his support.

It is commonly believed, that after his deposition in Berlin, he was invited to Saxe-Merseberg by Duke Christian, and that, on refusing the offer, the Duke granted him a pension. Otto Schultze, one of his biographers, and seemingly the most careful and thorough of them, says that he was unable to find any certain testimony to either of these facts. It seems strange that he should refuse to go to Saxe-Merseberg, when, a short time after, he unhesitatingly accepted an invitation from the magistrates of Lübben, which was in the territories of Duke Christian; and in his correspondence with the magistrates of Lübben there is no reference to such an invitation from the Duke. The fact of his refusal, in the first instance, and his ready acceptance in the second, might be accounted for, however, by the death of his wife, which took place in March, 1668, whereby one very strong tie that bound him to Berlin was severed.