d convinced him that it
was impossible to win Electoral Saxony for a truly Lutheran union as
long as the Crypto-Calvinists were firmly seated in the saddle.

277. Andreae's Sermons and the Swabian Concordia.

Abandoning his original scheme, which had merely served to increase the
animosity among the Lutherans and to discredit himself, Andreae resolved
henceforth to confine his peace efforts to true Lutherans, especially
those of Swabia and Lower Saxony, and to unite them in opposition to the
Zwinglians, Calvinists, and Philippists, who, outside of Electoral
Saxony, were by this time generally regarded as traitors to the cause of
Lutheranism. In 1573 he made his first move to carry out this new plan
of his by publishing sermons which he had delivered 1572 on the
doctrines controverted within the Lutheran Church. The title ran: "_Six
Christian Sermons_ concerning the dissensions which from the year 1548
to this 1573d year have gradually arisen among the theologians of the
_Augsburg Confession_, as to what attitude a plain pastor and a common
Christian layman who may have been offended thereby should assume toward
them according to his Catechism." These sermons treat of justification,
good works, original sin, free will, the adiaphora, Law and Gospel, and
the person of Christ. As the title indicates, Andreae appealed not so
much to the theologians as to the pastors and the people of the Lutheran
Church, concerning whom he was convinced that, adhering as they did, to
Luther's Catechism, they in reality, at least in their hearts, were even
then, and always had been, agreed. Andreae sent these sermons to
Chemnitz, Chytraeus, Hesshusius, Wigand, and other theologians with the
request that they be accepted as a basis of agreement. In the preface,
dated February 17, 1573, he dedicated them to Duke Julius of Brunswick
whose good will and consent in the matter he had won in 1568, when he
assisted in introducing the Reformation in his territories. Before this
Nicholas Selneccer, then superintendent of Wolfenbuettel, in order to
cultivate the friendly relations between Swabia and Lower Saxony, had
dedicated his _Instruction in the Christian Religion_ (_Institutio
Religionis Christianae_) to the Duke of Wuerttemberg, praising the
writings of Brenz, and lauding the services rendered by Andreae to the
duchy of Brunswick.

The sermons of Andreae were welcomed by Chemnitz, Westphal in Hamburg,
David Chytraeus in Rostock, and others. Th