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Chapter Six Not Permitting Any Godless People The Prussian Ban The kingdom of Prussia was fast becoming the premier continental Protestant state. It included the electoral principality of Brandenburg and several other territories, most of them in northern Germany. Although it was still a few years away from attaining the status of a great European power, it had already begun to make its influence felt in the empire by maintaining a first-rate army and sound finances. Its ruling house had long been the leading political representative of the Reformed or Calvinist church. In recent years, with the collapse of Swedish power and the conversion of the electoral prince of Saxony to Roman Catholicism in order to gain the Polish throne, Prussia had become the leading protector of German Protestant interests in general. Though electoral Saxony retained the ceremonial position of moderating the Protestant caucus at the imperial diet, the Corpus Evangelicorum, Prussia had taken over the practical leader- . ship of that body. The only other Protestant power able to challenge Prussia's position in Germany was the electoral principality of Hanover CBraunschweig-Luneburg), whose ruler was also king of Great Britain, George II Cr. 1727-60). However, the regency council, which supervised the British king's German possessions during his frequent and long absences, tended to follow Prussia's lead in religious matters . Prussia's position became all the more unassailable in this area because of the striking personal piety of its ruler, Friedrich Wilhelm I Cr. 1713-40), and his impassioned engagement in the religious affairs of his own territories as well as the empire.1 At the time the Wertheim Bible appeared, Friedrich'Wilhelm was in the midst of reconsidering his earlier ban on Wolff and his philosophy. When pietists denounced Schmidt's book to the king and insisted that it was a product of Wolff's thought, Wolff and his supporters denied any relationship. Eventually the king accepted their assurances. Ironically, at the very time he was rehabilitating Wolff's II? lI8 CHAPTER SIX philosophy, the Prussian king publicly banned the Wertheim Bible, which owed so much to it. The passionate concern of Friedrich Wilhelm to maintain his \ concept of religious orthodoxy had led to his original expulsion of Wolfffrom Prussian territories in 1723 and his condemnation ofWolff's philosophy. The low point in the fortunes of Wolff's supporters in Prussia came in 1727 with the issuance of three related royal edicts2 defining Wolff's philosophical and ethical writings as atheist, and demanding the suppression of their trade, sale, or even university instruction about them. However, in the months preceding the publication of Schmidt's book, Friedrich Wilhelm had been reconsidering his banishment of Wolff and suppression of his published works. Family members as well as close advisers were encouraging him in this direction. On November 17, 1733, he offered Wolff an appointment, again at the University of Halle, along with the honorary titles of privy counselor and vice chancellor of the university. Wolff refused, alleging that his gratitude to the landgrave of Hessen-Kassel was too great for him to abandon his present position in Marburg. Besides, he feared, his return would only incit~ Joachim Lange, the pietist publicist who had led the tall for Wolff's original expulsion and had since continued to wage a war of the quill on Wolff and his philosophy. At the beginning of 1734, Friedrich Wilhelm lifted his ban on teaching or selling Wolff's works. A few months later, inJune, he ordered Lange to cease publishing writings on the subject.3 For Lange and his allies, the appearance of the Wertheim Bible in the spring of 1735 offered a golden opportunity to reopen the battle against Wolff. If they could convince the king that this work was heretical and a rotten fruit of Wolff's own thought, then they could reverse the tide that seemed to be moving so inexorably in the philosopher's favor at the Prussian court. They made use of a network of pietist correspondents centered in Halle and reaching out to a variety of courts. The son and successor of the founder of the pietist institutions in Halle, Gotthilf August Francke; his colleagues in the theological faculty at the university , including Joachim Lange; and local Prussian officials, such as a court counselor named Ludwig Johann Cellarius, maintained close contacts and cooperation with each other, Halle-trained pietists, and sympathetic officials and rulers throughout the empire. Among their most active correspondents was Anton Heinrich...

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