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dation of the monastic life, was rejected. Since, moreover, the ethical significance of secular toil and of the natural relations of human society was now recognized, their subjection to the visible Church became a thing of the past. None of the Reformers, however, developed these views into a comprehensive system, although Luther often used them in their basal generality and with strong stress on their religious aspect. His Yon der Freiheit einea Christenmensch.en (1520) contains important fundamentals of ethics, while in the discussion of the decalogue in his Catechism he makes naive statements on individual ethical matters.

A stronger and more specific interest in ethics was shown by Melanchthon, not only in his great work on dogmatics, the Loci, but also in his university lectures on Proverbs and in brief individual treatises on ethical subjects. Nevertheless, he gave a systematic presentation only of philosophical ethics, discussing natural law as given by God. His Epitome philosophice mornlis (Strasburg, 1538) and Ethicce doctrine elements (1550) long formed the basis of instruction in ethics in the Lutheran Church. Melanchthon's school produced the first treatise on Christian ethics in Thomas Venatorius' De virtute Christians lxbri tres (1529), which emphasized the moral power of justification by faith. To the same school belong the Reguhe vitae of David ChytrEeus (1555) and the Ethic& doctrinca libri quattuor of P. von Eitzen (1572), both, strictly speaking, only exegeses of the decalogue. The transfer from Lutheran to Reformed ethics was made by the Enckiridion theo logicum of the Dane Niels Hemmingsen (Leipaic, 1568), who was inclined toward Calvinism.

With this school of Melanchthon Reformed theology shared a deep ethical interest, although it was sharply opposed to that school in

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his Syntagma theologise (Geneva, 1610), divided systematic theology into dogmatics proper and ethics; and Keckermann was more explicitly assailed by the Medulla theologica (Amsterdam, 1623) of the Puritan Wi1li=.9mea, who declared that there could be no ethics except what was strictly theological. .A_m~,- ~~-.#endePAy---w4w shown b M. An of the A~,demy-u£..~u~u~,.. m h,s Mm~lo ..~,TOer:o.,.~o (g vole., Saumur, 16521680); but the majority of Reformed ethicists followed Ames in their monotonous exegesis of the decalogue, from which was developed even here a casuistic system (cf. J. H. Aleted's Theologia casuum, Hanau, 1621).

In post-Reformation theology orthodoxy soon became supreme, laying stress on correct dogmatic

opinion rather than on a living faith g. Later of moral efficacy. Ethics accordingly

Protestant declined sharply and was scarcely Ethics. cultivated, except in the barren form

of ascetical theology. An independent scientific system of ethics in the Lutheran Church was first revived by the Helmsti<dt theologian Georg Calixtus, who, in his Epitome theologice moralis (1634), described the Christian life as the preservation of salvation which had been won, thus bringing upon himself the charge of orthodoxy that he had, in Roman Catholic fashion, asserted that good works were necessary to salvation. Calixtua was followed by Darr, Theodor Maier, Rixner, and Johann Andreas Schmidt, while J. W. Baier's Compendium theologise moralis (Jena, 1698) was conducted more in the traditional channels of orthodoxy. The ethics of the eighteenth century was dominated in great part by the rationalism of the Enlightenment (q.v.); although Pietism early gave a fresh impulse to ethics in its practical aspect by laying stress upon the moral fruitfulness of Christian belief. The influence of this tendency on orthodox theology is seen in J. F. Buddeua' Institution" theologise moralis (1711). Pietism, however, gave but a scanty scientific contribution to ethics; and the offshoots of the Pietistic movement led to unLaturaI distortions of the Christian life and to au intensification of the claim of nature to the sphere of ethics, The attempt was accordingly made to formulate a purely human ethics from the philosophical side, positing as the supreme moral requirement the furtherance of the welfare of society (Hugo Grotius, Pufendorf), or of perfection (Christian Wolf). Gradually these tendencies found their way into theology. In his Theologiache Morsel (1738) Siegmund Baumgarten still retained a supernatural point of view, but gave it a philosophical basis; while in his comprehensive Sittenlehre der heiligert Schrift (5 vole., HelinstAdt, 1735-53) J. L. von Mosheim earnestly sought to prove that Biblical and Christian ethics correspond to reason and nature. This interest in the reasonableness of ethics soon became dominant in theology; while, despite the endeavors of Biblically minded theologians, such as C. A. Crusius (Moroltheologie, Leipsie, 1772) and J. F. Reuse (Elemerata theologies moralis, Tiibingen, 1767), an ethical eudemoniam spread through German theology under the in-