Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/180

162 the time between the year in which he became professor of theology and that in which he was raised to the episcopal dignity. His dogmatical works written in Latin also enjoyed great reputation abroad, while his most important Danish book, a family postil, was widely read long after his death, and was translated into several foreign languages. The Wittenberg school of theology is exclusively represented in his numerous works, which, judged by themselves, are both learned and important, and embrace subjects from every department of theology. During his stay abroad, where he devoted himself exclusively to the study of the humanities, he seems to have remained an entire stranger to the more liberal tendencies, which were at that time cropping out in theology, and which, particularly in Holland, received the support of the mighty intellect of Hugo Grotius. At the time when circumstances made him the theological leader in Denmark, the Lutheran orthodoxy had already gained the supremacy and he became one of its most scrupulous adherents. Thus he did not found any new school, but by his superior faculties and vast learning he distinguished himself in many directions within the limits of his individuality and circumstances, and his chief work, "Universæ Theologiæ Systema," on which his reputation is based in the whole Lutheran church, must be regarded as a particularly excellent work of its kind. His strong points are the subtlety with which each dogma is discussed in all its bearings, and the dialectic acumen, with which he meets real and imaginary objections on the part of his adversaries.

The constitute an important part of the religious literature of this period, not, indeed, so much on account of their quality as on account of their great quantity. These books, like the very elaborate funeral sermons then in vogue, consisted chiefly in Bible passages strung together in the most astonishing and tasteless manner. By