Pia Desideria
Spener’s “pious wishes” for the improvement of the Evangelical church, first written in 1675 as a preface to Johann Arndt’s sermons. It describes the faults of the Lutheran church of his day and makes six proposals for mending them.
Read the text at deutschestextarchiv.de ↗Page images and transcription, beginning of the six proposals (p. 94) ↗
The full title is Pia Desideria, or heartfelt longing for a God-pleasing improvement of the true Evangelical church, together with some Christian proposals simply aimed at it. Its title page calls Spener preacher and senior at Frankfurt am Main. In the prefatory address to the pastors of the Evangelical church, dated 8 September 1675, he explains that a publisher had asked him half a year earlier for a preface to a new edition of Arndt’s Postil and that readers who could not afford that volume, or already owned an earlier edition, asked for the preface by itself. The main text is dated 24 March 1675, and two other theologians’ opinions on it are printed after it.
The first part describes the faults Spener saw in the church of his day; the second holds out hope of an improvement; the third gives six proposals. See Spener’s Pia Desideria and the Rise of Pietism.
Cited in
- 1675, firm date