“Whereas, then, it is required by our Church Ordinances of 1552 and 1602 (1650) that the Christian doctrine shall be taught ‘pure and unchanged,’ as it is contained in Holy Writ, the general symbols of the Christian Church, in Dr. Luther’s Catechism and Confession, and in the Augsburg Confession of 1530, and that, if an academical teacher fall away from these, he shall be proceeded against; whereas, further, in Articles II. to IV. of the Reversals of 1621, the sovereigns gave the States the assurance that in the University of Rostock there should be neither appointed nor tolerated any other teachers but such as should be attached to the Augsburg Confession and the Lutheran religion:  the establishment of the University of Rostock on the pure doctrine of the Christian symbols and of the Augsburg Confession has been repeated in Sec. 4 of the Regulations upon the relations of the town of Rostock to the State University of 1827, and once again in Sec. 1 of the Statutes of the University of 1837; no less do the statutes of the Theological Faculty of Rostock of 1564, and the later Regulation as to this Faculty of 1791, bind the members of the Faculty to expound the writings of the Prophets and the Apostles in the sense laid down in the general Christian symbols, in the Augsburg Confession, the Smalkald Articles, and the writings of Dr. Luther; your appointment of 31st August, 1850, referred you to the Statutes of the University and of the Theological Faculty, and also directed you to comport yourself in accordance with the rule and line of the revealed word of God, the unchanged Augsburg Confession, the formula concordia, and all the other symbolic books received in our (lands) country, as well as with the Mecklenburg Church Ordinances relating to these, without any innovation; you also on your induction on the 19th of Oct., 1850, bound yourself by oath to the duties contained in your appointment and to the Statutes of the University and of the Theological Faculty.”

[Removal of Baumgarten from Rostock.]

“We can the shorter time entrust you with the vocation of an academic teacher of the Evangelical-Lutheran Theology as you have united with your backslidings in theological doctrine at the same time political doctrines of the most delicate kind, deduced relatively from those; and we will, therefore—­after hearing of our High Consistory, and after the foregoing resolution of our ministry according to Sec. 10, Lit.  H. of the Ordinance of 4th April, 1853, relating to the organisation of the Ministers—­hereby remove you from the office, hitherto filled by you, of an ordinary Professor of Theology in our State University of Rostock.”

* * * * *

In Prussia, the Clergy, and especially the University Professors of Theology, enjoy more liberty than in Mecklenburg; but they are not wholly secure from the attempts of the Church Courts to enforce discipline against heretical teaching.  The following are recent cases.