The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

JACOB ANDREAE, (1528-1590,) Professor and Chancellor of the
University at Tübingen, and Provost of the Church of St. George. He was
the pupil, friend, and colleague of Brentius. "He was," says one who had
no reason to tempt him to extravagance of eulogy, “a man of excellent
genius, of large soul, of rare eloquence, of finished skill--a man whose
judgments carried the greatest authority with them." 217 At the age of
eighteen he was Dean at Stuttgart -and when, on the capture of that city by
the Spaniards, the Protestant preachers were driven out, Andreae remained,
and exercised an influence in moderating the victors. He resigned, at the
age of twenty, his earliest place as a clergyman, rather than accept the
Interim, with its concessions to Romanism. His labors as a Reformer, both
in doctrine and discipline, and afterward as a Conservator of the
Reformation, were unwearied. He was "in journeyings oft," and all his
journeyings were directed to the good of the Church, and the glory of
God. The estimate which Planck makes of Andreae, is confessedly an
unkind and unjust one, yet he says: "Andreae belongs not merely to the
learned, but to the liberal-minded theologians of his era... It was not in his
nature to hate any man merely because that man was not orthodox. It was
not only possible for him to be just, at least at the beginning, toward those
who were in error, but he felt a something to which it is not easy to give a
name, which attracted him to those that erred." "His writings," says
Hartmann, "over one hundred and fifty in number, are among the most
interesting memorials of the characteristics of the theological effort of the
era. He was a man of rich erudition, and of unflagging diligence. His
eloquence bore his hearers resistlessly with it. As a preacher, he was full of
fire and life. His sermons were pre-eminently practical. In negotiations, he
was skilful and captivating."
3. Worthy of association with the venerable names of Augustus and
Andreae, is that of CHEMNITZ, (1522-1586,) Melanchthon's greatest
pupil. At the age of fourteen, already revealing "a peculiar genius," he was
sent to school at Wittenberg.
217 Weismann: H. S. N. T. i. 1455. See Andreae, in Herzog's R. E. i. 310, by Hartmann. Planck: Gesch. d. Protest.
Theol. vi. 372.