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Sartorius, Ernst Wilhelm Christian

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Sartorius, Christoph Friedrich

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Sartorius, Friedrich Wilhelm

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One of the ablest, most fruitful, and genial theologians of modern orthodox Lutheranism, was born at Darmstadt, May 10, 1797, and died at Kö nigsberg June 13,1859. While studying at Gö ttingen (1815-18), he fell under the earnest religious influence of Planck. In 1819 he began to lecture in the University, and to produce the first of those numerous genial writings which have induced some to call him the St. John of Lutheranism. The first that appeared was three essays — one on the Purpose of Jesus in Founding the Church; the second on the Origin of the Gospels (afterwards disavowed); and the third on the Doctrine of Grace and Faith. Next followed (1821) the Lutheran Doctrine of Human Inability, in which he opposed Schleiermacher. In 1821 he became professor of theology at Marburg. Here he issued two works, The Doctrine of Protestants as to the Respect due to the Civil Magistracy, and Religion Outside of the Limits of Mere Reason. In 1824 he received the doctorate and accepted a call to Dorpat. Here appeared successively his Contributions to Evangelical Orthodoxy, in which he opposed Rö hr, Bretschneider, and Rationalism in general. In 1831 he issued his Discussion of the Person and Work of Christ, which speedily passed through seven editions, and was translated into other languages. These two works attracted to him very general attention, as did also his contributions to Hengstenberg's Church Journal, in which appeared from 1834 to 1836 his vigorous assaults upon Mö hler's Symbolik. After eleven years of academic labor at Dorpat, he was called to Prussia in 1835, and appointed to the position of superintendent-general of the province of Prussia and director of the royal consistory. He entered upon his duties with a sermon in the royal court-church at Kö nigsberg in December. In 1840 he began his work on moral theology, Die Lehre von der heiligen Liebe, which, with its modifications and its revisions for new editions, occupied him until 1856, and which he justly regarded as his chief title to a place in the world of theology. The movements of the fanatical ‘ Friends of Light' induced Sartorius to issue, in 1845, a work on the Necessity and Obligatoriness of the Creeds. In 1852 appeared his work on Primitive Worship, the Priesthood, and the Sacraments; in 1853 his Defence of the Augsburg Confession; and in 1855 his Meditations on the Glorious Manifestations of God in his Church and on the Presence of the Glorified Body of Christ in the Eucharist. After a ministry of twenty-four years, he died in the midst of his labors. The day before his decease he had labored upon a large polemical work against Romanism, published afterwards (1860) by his son, under the title Soli Deo Gloria! A Comparison of Lutheranism and Romanism in the Light of the Augsburg and the Tridentine Confessions, with Special Reference to Mö hler's Symbolik. Up to the end of his life he was a zealous contributor to Hengstenberg's Church Journal. Some of his later papers were of a very severe polemical character. Only a few of his sermons have been printed. See Kurtz, Church History (Eng. transl.), 2, 372; Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 2, 374; Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 13, 426-428; Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines, 2, 414, 406, 494. (J.P.L.)