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CHUIiCH AND RELIGION.
327
of national revival, and after the Riksdag of Västerås (1527) he transferred the
property and political power of the Church to the Crown. Through the influence
of his statesmanlike Chancellor, Laurentius Andreæ, a certain liberty of action
was, nevertheless, left to the Church in conjunction with the retention of the
episcopate; an attempt of Gustavus (about 1540) to introduce consistorial
government on the German Lutheran model was unsuccessful, and the original line of
development was maintained by Laurentius Petri (archbishop 1531 — 73), a man
revered as one of the Fathers of the Church. Esthetic interests and
Philippis-tic traditionalism impelled John III to introduce a semi-Catholic liturgy; against
his son, Sigismund, a thoroughly Jesuitical reactionary, the Swedish people rose
up under the lead of Duke Charles, and after the clergy, at the Synod of
Uppsala (1593), had given the signal, took its stand as one man on the Confession
of Augsburg, in spite of the Duke’s Calvinistic tendencies.
The Swedish people emerged from these contests inspired with a deep and
youthful devotion for the Gospel of Christ, a devotion that, in spite of their
numerical weakness and their poverty, gave them the power to vanquish,
under Gustavus II Adolphus, the mighty league working for Catholic reaction, to
defend, in Luther’s own land, the work of Luther, and to preserve for mankind
its most precious possession — an achievement that bears comparison with any
other that the history of the world has to show.
The Evangelical cause was one of the foundations of Swedish politics; its
position as a bulwark of Protestantism is evinced, for example, by the
importance which the Swedish Embassy church in Paris assumed for French
Protestantism, and by the Treaty of Altranstädt, 1707, by which Charles XII
procured from the Emperor freedom in religion for Silesian Protestants. Political
expansion broadened the operations of the Church; that of the Baltic Provinces
was reorganized, and Luther’s smaller catechism was translated into an Indian
language in the New Sweden of America. In fact, her most glorious period the
Swedish church had, like the State, in the 17th century. Influential bishops,
Johannes Rudbeckius, Laurentius Paulinus, and others devoted intense energy to
the fostering of the people’s religion and morals and the raising of the standard
of education. The highest representative body of the Church was the Estate of
the Clergy assembled in the Riksdag (consistorium regni). During the second
half of the century, orthodoxy became severer and more narrow-minded; the most
notable developments of this period were in organization (the Ecclesiastical Law
of 1686) — which . made the Book of Concord an exposition of the creed of
the Church and placed the Church in closer dependence than before upon the
State —, the Book of Church Ritual, 1693, the Hymn-book, 1695; the most
prominent men were bishops Hakvin Spegel and Jesper Svedberg, the latter of
whom, under the influence of Arndt, prepared the way for the Pietistic
movement.
This movement was brought over from Germany in the early decades of the
18th century, first in an older, moderate shape, later as an extreme of mystical
emotion," which soon glided into the calmer waters of Moravianism. Its most
prominent advocate was Erie Tollstadius, a rector in Stockholm, who died in 1759.
Though the Church at first opposed it with legal proceedings and edicts
(konven-tikelplakatet, the Conventicle Act, 1726), it achieved later a good deal of
influence, directly and indirectly. A representative of orthodox pietism was the
widely read and edifying author, A. Nohrborg, who died in 1767. Catechizing in
the home was ordered by the Conventicle Act, confirmation was instituted, and
the christianizing of the Lapps completed.
Rationalistic ideas entered into the literature of the 18th century with Olof von
Dalin; they were the fashion under Gustavus III. They strongly influenced
leading circles within the church, e. g., the eloquent bishop Lehnberg. Moral
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