Books Fatal to Their Authors by P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield
page 39 of 161 (24%)
page 39 of 161 (24%)
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festival" at the Gathering of Lutherans and Calvinists_, which
sufficiently attests his insanity. The following is a specimen of the lucidity of his works: "The more I continued my doctrines, the more opposition I received, so that also the higher world of light with which I am illuminated, in their light I was enlightened, or shadowed, when I proceeded, and in their light lit I up brighter lights." A fitting companion to Kuhlmann was John Tennhart, a barber of Nuremberg, born in 1662, who used to speak continually of the visions, dreams, and colloquies which he had with God, and boasted that the office of a scribe was entrusted to him by the Divine Will. He endeavoured to persuade all men that the words he wrote were verily and indeed the words of God. The world was not disposed to interfere with the poor barber who imagined himself inspired, but in an evil hour he published a book against the priests, entitled _Worte Gottes, oder Tractaetlein an den so genannten geistlichen Stand_, which caused its author great calamities. He was cast into prison by order of the senate of the Nuremberg State. On his release he again published his former work, with others which he also believed to be inspired, and again in 1714 was imprisoned at Nuremberg. His incarceration did not, however, last long, and Tennhart died while he was journeying from the city which so little appreciated his ravings to find in Cassel a more secure resting-place. Amongst the fanatics of the seventeenth century may be classed Jeremiah Felbinger, a native of Brega, a town in the Prussian State of Silesia, who was an early advocate of the heresy of the Unitarians. For some years he was a soldier, and then became a schoolmaster. He wrote _Prodromus demonstrationis_, published in 1654, in which he attempted to prove his Unitarian ideas. Shortly before this, in 1653, he wrote _Demonstrationes Christianae_, and finally his _Epistola ad Christianos_, published at |
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