between the ordained clergy and the laity, the so-called laypeople could scarcely avoid being lazy. The result of this was a woeful ignorance leading to irreligion. Such neglect of the spiritual priesthood also meant that ministers were able to do whatever they pleased without fear of effective control or even criticism. Yet it was the duty of Christians to edify their neighbours and for the parson to play a part in this. If the clergyman were negligent he should be admonished in a brotherly way. Spener’s third proposition was intended to remind his readers that ‘for Christian people it [was] not enough to have some knowledge about Christianity, but they should rather put it into prac-tice’. Consequently, he believed that religious controversies should not be

doi:10.4324/9780203166505-32

Chapter

between the ordained clergy and the laity, the so-called laypeople could scarcely avoid being lazy. The result of this was a woeful ignorance leading to irreligion. Such neglect of the spiritual priesthood also meant that ministers were able to do whatever they pleased without fear of effective control or even criticism. Yet it was the duty of Christians to edify their neighbours and for the parson to play a part in this. If the clergyman were negligent he should be admonished in a brotherly way. Spener’s third proposition was intended to remind his readers that ‘for Christian people it [was] not enough to have some knowledge about Christianity, but they should rather put it into prac-tice’. Consequently, he believed that religious controversies should not be

Chapter

between the ordained clergy and the laity, the so-called laypeople could scarcely avoid being lazy. The result of this was a woeful ignorance leading to irreligion. Such neglect of the spiritual priesthood also meant that ministers were able to do whatever they pleased without fear of effective control or even criticism. Yet it was the duty of Christians to edify their neighbours and for the parson to play a part in this. If the clergyman were negligent he should be admonished in a brotherly way. Spener’s third proposition was intended to remind his readers that ‘for Christian people it [was] not enough to have some knowledge about Christianity, but they should rather put it into prac-tice’. Consequently, he believed that religious controversies should not be

ABSTRACT

In the writing of Pia Desideria, with its plea for a reformation of the church, Spener was able to call upon his experiences with the groups that met for private devotion – the so-called collegia pietatis. Some who listened to his sermons had asked him urgently to commence religious exercises on Sundays. They wanted to practise their faith by means of private devotion instead of normal Sunday amusements. The prototypes for these religious exercises were the devotional conventicles found within the Dutch Reformed Church. Some members of Spener’s congregation had attended one of these conventicles and wanted to introduce the practice to Frankfurt. Thus the collegia pietatis were started at the instigation of certain prominent laymen in Spener’s congregation. At first the group gathered in his house. In that way the meeting avoided suspicion and allowed him to forestall any potential separation within his flock. The motor of the process was a lawyer named Johann Jakob Schütz (1640-90). Schütz had been educated in Lutheran dogmatics but, as he puts it, only his head had been touched and not his heart. While reading Johann Tauler, he had experienced a religious awakening as he discovered Tauler’s way of using a spiritual key in order to understand God’s word in the Bible.27 From that point Schütz wanted to develop his own religious experience and to share it with others of like mind.