Petrus van Mastricht
Peter van Maestricht (also: Petri of Mastrigt, Pieter van Maesticht, Petro, Peter; * November 1630 in Cologne, † February 10, 1706 in Utrecht ) was a German philologist and Reformed theologian.
Life
The son of the Reformed preacher Thomas of mast Rich and his wife Jeanne de la Planque came from a family who came from the Netherlands. His grandfather Cornelius Schoning fled with his family in the reign of the Duke of Alba from Maestricht to Cologne, where the family took the surname of Maestricht. After receiving the Baptist baptism on 23 December 1630, he grew up in the environment of the Reformed church " under the cross " in Cologne- Mülheim, where he had participated in at a young age catechism of John Hoornbeek. Here he suffered an accident that mangled his leg, so that he had to live with limitations from now on.
He received at the Latin School in Duisburg, where he was a fellow student of Theodor Undereyck His first academic training. In 1647 he entered the University of Utrecht in order to complete a degree in theology. Here beside Hoornbeek, Gisbert Voetius and Carolus de Maets his formative teachers were in the field of theological sciences. So he had these guided with the Old and New Testament in depth and learned the didactic theological dogmatics at the Orthodox representatives of the immediate reformation. In 1650 he joined in Utrecht with the theological disputation De esu sanguinis et suffocati ad Act. XV. in appearance.
He is said to have operated at the University of Heidelberg and at the University of Leiden further studies. However, his name does not show in the registers of the universities. After a short stay in England, he returned to Cologne, where he was taken under the theological candidates. In the same year was a call from the Reformed church in Xanten, where he got a job as a vicar in 1653 and acted in an environment which was based very much of the theological direction of Johannes Cocceius. Although he remained with the Cologne - Mühlheimer community in contact, but he refused an appeal there from.
1655 joined the former theology professor at the newly founded University of Duisburg Christoph Wittich ( 1625-1687 ) with a defense Theologica de Stylo Scripturae Quem adhibet cum de rebus naturalibus sermonem instituit (Duisburg 1655) on the Cartesian philosophy of René Descartes, which he gave a lot of sympathy. Then Maestricht came with his first work Vindicae veritatis et autoritatis sacrae scripturae in rebus philosophical matters adversus Dissertationes D. Christopori Wittichii (Utrecht 1655) in appearance, in which he first established himself as an orthodox Calvinist theologian.
1662 he followed a call to the Reformed congregation in Gluckstadt. There he found an ecumenically -tolerant environment. It was a place where Jews, Arminianism, Gegenremonstranten and Mennonites worked together with each other. This place inspired him to publish his work Theologiae didactico - elenchtico - practicae Prodomus tribus speciminibus (Amsterdam, 1666, 2 vols ). 1667 sought the Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg contact to Maestricht and offered him a professorship of Hebrew and associate professor of practical theology at the Prussian Reformed University of Frankfurt (Oder).
This offer he accepted in 1668, and he resigned the office with the speech Perpetua praxeos cum theoria in theologicis pariter et theo logis Συμβιβασις, oratione inaugurali lectionibus Hebraeo - theologicis praemissa. . . accedit. . . programma invitatorium (Frankfurt (Oder), 1668 ) on. In order to acquire the necessary for academic degrees, he went in 1669 to the University of Duisburg, where he earned the academic degree of Master of Philosophy and received his doctorate in theology. To this end, he had held the disputation De Naturae Theologiae and the speech De Nomine et Omine Doctoris Theology. Little is known about the further effect time of Maestricht in Frankfurt. Because he was not there long operate.
In 1670 he became a follower of Martin Dog ( 1624-1666 ) as professor of theology and Hebrew at the University of Duisburg. In Duisburg, he became in 1673 Rector of the Academy. He wrote here his work De fide salvifica syntagma theoretico - practicum, in quo de fidei salvifatione membris Ecclesiae visiblis, admittendis seu, seu rejicendis (Duisburg 1671) and Novitatum Cartesianarum Gangrena, corpis theologici nobiliores plerasque partes arrodens; seu theologia Cartesiana Detecta (Amsterdam 1677, under the title: . Theologia cartesiana Detecta, seu Gangraena cartesiana, nobiliores plerasque corpis theological loci partes arrodens et exedens Deventer 1716).
After his old teacher Voetius died 1676 in Utrecht, he received on June 12, 1677 an appointment as his successor at the University of Utrecht. This passage, he joined with the speech Oratio de Academiae ultrajectinae voto symbolico on September 7, 1677: at such justitiae illustra nos (Utrecht 1677). In Utrecht he participated also at the organizational tasks of the Academy and was 1682/83 Rector of the Alma Mater. Originated in Utrecht his then not insignificant works Theoretico - practica theologia, qua, per capita Theologica, pars exegetica, dogmatica, elenchtica et practica, perpetua successione conjugantur (Amsterdam 1682-1687, 2 vols ) and Editio nova, priori multo emendatior, et tertia parte saltem auctior. Accedunt: Historia ecclesiastica plena fere, quanquam compendiosa: Idea Theologiae moralis hypotyposis theologiae asceticae et c. Proin opus quasi novum (Utrecht 1698, 1715, 1724).
In his last years he was able to enforce his beliefs of the Calvinist orthodoxy very limited. On the one hand he suffered from the infirmity of his age, on the other hand increasingly established itself as a aufklärischer context in the Netherlands. After a fall of the kitchen stairs he died thereby had moved injury. On February 24, 1706, his body was in the St. Catherine's Cathedral in Utrecht, in which his teacher Voetius was buried, buried and Henricus Pontanus ( 1662-1714 ) held the funeral oration. The remained unmarried Maestricht left by testamentary disposition 500 guilders for Utrecht deacons and 24,000 guilders as scholarships for Reformed theology students at the Utrecht University.