Rare first and only edition of this influential plea for evangelical union in Sweden.
Johannes Matthiae Gothus (1592-1670) was a Swedish Lutheran Bishop and an Uppsala University professor, the rector of the Collegium illustrious in Stockholm (1626-1629) and the most eminent teacher in Sweden during the seventeenth century. He was Bishop of Strängnäs from 1643 to 1664.
Johannes Matthiae embodies like no other Swedish clergyman during the confessional era the continuity and renewal of the Reformed Evangelical humanist tradition in Sweden. He had close connections with the Swedish royal house and with European reform circles; he was a keen friend of Comenius, and he exerted influence on the so-called folk teaching (school order 1649) and on church organizational issues. In particular, he was the spokesman for a so-called ecumenical, European religious policy. He was also appointed court pastor. In this capacity he accompanied king Gustav Adolph during the German campaign as field bishop in the Thirty Years' War in 1630-32. After the king's death, he was appointed, by the chancellor Axel Oxenstierna as his daughter Christinas governor and teacher who taught her classical languages, science, history and religion. Christina was queen from 1632 till her abdication in 1654. Johannes Matthiae continued his connections with the next Sweden king Charles X Gustave to whom he also sent this letter asking him to promote a universal and unifying religion in order to be able to compete successfully with other countries. Tiele, II, 4480; not in Knuttel.