His father was a cloth merchant. He received his primary education at the
Katharineum then, in 1655, began to study law at the universities in
Rostock and
Helmstedt. Two years later, he switched to theology and enrolled at the
University of Altdorf. From 1660, he was at
Leiden University. After graduating, he became a rural preacher. He first gained wider recognition in 1665, when he translated the works of
Richard Baxter. It also put him at odds with
Lutheran orthodoxy. The following year, it attracted the attention of
Christian Augustus, Count Palatine of Sulzbach, who brought him there as a
deacon. Within two years, he was promoted to local
Superintendent. In 1673, he was appointed to the same position for all of
Livonia; a province of Sweden which, at that time, included much of the
Baltic region. With the support of King
Charles XI, he reformed the church system, despite the continuing influence of
Prussia. In 1678, he was named the General Superintendent, which gave him the power to act on his own. Over the next few years, he created state-funded church schools throughout the region. He also founded a printing shop in
Riga. He became an advocate for
absolutism in 1687, and was awarded a lifetime income from the royal estates in Lindenhof (now
Priekuļi Municipality). Three years later, he was named Professor of Theology at the
Academia Gustavo-Carolina, although the Swedish Church Law of 1686 placed severe limits on the activities of
Baltic-Germans. In 1693, he became an Honorary Doctor in the Theology Faculty at
Uppsala University. The increasing likelihood of war with the
Russian Empire led him to leave Livonia in 1699. He returned to Lübeck, where he was one of six candidates for Superintendent of the , but failed to win the necessary votes. Through the influence of some old friends, he was able to obtain an appointment as General Superintendent of the
Duchy of Magdeburg. ==References==