SPENER, PHIL. JAM, an illustrious German reformer, and the founder of the sect known as Pietists, was born at Rappoltsweiler (Fr. Ribeauville) in Upper Alsace, Jan. 25, 1635. His father was legal adviser to the Count von Rappoltsweiler. At an early age Speller showed deep religious susceptibilities. After studying the classics at Colmar, he betook himself in 1651 to Strasburg, where the professors Dannhauer and Sob. Schmidt inspired him with a profound love of the Scriptures, not as a heap of dry theological bones, but as a fountain of life and spiritual thought. From 1659 to 1662 he attended the universities of Basel, Tubingen, Freiburg, Geneva, and Lyons. In the following year he became a preacher at Strasburg, where the unction of his sermons exercised a power ful influence on his hearers. At the age of 31 lie was transferred to Frankfort as first pastor; and here, as elsewhere, the profound spiritualism of the man, springing out of a free, simple, untheological faith in the Bible, made itself apparent in his preaching and life. Yet Spencr was the very opposite of what is called a mystic. The de votions which he sought to excite were not to show themselves in transcendental ecstasies, amid which common sense is apt to swoon away, but in acts of piety, humility, and charity.. The " Sermon on the :Mount" was the medium through which he gazed upon the "truth as it is in Jesus." He had a strong aversion to what goes by the name of theology, which he considered a hateful caricature of the free word of life; and he com menced in year 1670, at his house, meetings for the cultivation of evangelical moral ity. These were the famous collegia pietatis, whose influence for good on the German character, in those days of stony and barren orthodoxy, cannot easily be overvalued. At the same time he took pains to reorganize the method of catechising, and to improve the religious instruction given to children. His conduct in all this was marked by such prudence and discernment, that he long escaped the animadversions of the "high and dry" Lutherans; but in 1679, a preface which lie wrote for a new edition of the Postale of Arndt, in which he censured the morals of the upper classes, made him the target for their envenomed shafts; and after some years, lie was fain to accept the invitation to become court-preacher at Dresden, and member of the upper consistory. In this ca
pacity he effected important ameliorations in the theological teaching of the university of Leipsic, and in the system of religions catechising practiced throughout Saxony; but in 1689 lie fell into disgrace for having addressed a temperate but energetic remonstrance to the elector Johann Georg III. on the subject of his personal vices, was attacked by Carpzow, who coveted his place at court, and by other orthodox theologians, and in 1691 went to Berlin as provost of the church of St. Nicholas, and consivtorial inspector, offices which he retained to the end of his life. The elector of Brandenburg encouraged his efforts after religious reform, and intrusted theological instruction in the new university of Halle to Frake, Breithaupt, and other disciples of Spener—a matter that excited great irritation in the theological faculties of Wittenberg and Leipsic, which had formally censured as heretical no less than 264 propositions drawn from Spener's writings. Spener died at Berlin, Feb. 5, 1705, leaving behind hint a reputation for piety, wisdom, and practical Christian energy, which.all the excesses of the later pietists have not obscured. His writings are numerous; the chief are Pia Desideria (Frankf. 1675), Dos geistliehe Priesterthnm (Frankf. 1677), Christliche Leichenpredigten (13 vols., Frankf. 1677), Des theitigen Christenthums Nothwendigkeit (Frankf. 1679), Klagen fiber dos rerdarbene Christen thum (milia. 1684), Evangelisehe Glaubenslehre (Frankf. 1688), and Theologische Bedenken (Halle, 5 vols., 1700-21). See Hossbach's Jak. Spener rend seiner Zeit (2 vols., Berl. 1828); Thilo's Spener ala Katechet (Scutt. 1841); and Wildenhahn's Phil. Jak. ,Spener (Leip. 1842-47).