Schwenkfeld, CASPAR VON, founder of a Protestant sect, was born of noble family in 1490 at Ossig near Liegnitz in Lower Silesia, studied two years at Cologne and elsewhere, and, before retiring into private life in 1521 to a constant study of the Scriptures, served at various courts with Duke Charles of Münsterberg, and as aulic counsellor with Duke Frederick II. of Liegnitz. He became acquainted with the views of John Huss, from his youth up had been a student of Tauler, and was permanently won over to the Reformation by the noble courage of Luther at Worms. About 1525 he openly declared for Luther, and went to Wittenberg to converse with him, but found his views widely divergent on baptism and the eucharist. Still further, he found himself unable to accept any confessions of faith except such as followed closely the letter of Scripture, and in his profound conviction that the new movement should proceed from within outwardly, and not from without inwardly, he disagreed with the Lutherans in their policy of linking the Reformed Church with the state, instead of waiting passively for the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit, the sole fountain of sanctification. Schwenkfeld did not himself partake of the Lord's Supper, although he did not forbid it to others, for he held that there could be no right participation without the exclusion of unbelievers, and that the true Lord's Supper is kept through faith inwardly in the soul as often as a man receives divine sweetness in Christ. He did not approve of infant baptism, yet without admitting the Baptist view of the importance of the baptism of adults. His views coincide with those of George Fox in the doctrine of the Inward Light, the Immediate Revelation, and the inability of mere outward bodily acts, such as partaking of the Lord's Supper or baptism, to give the inward and spiritual reality and power of the Lord's 'body' and 'blood,' or that of the spiritual 'washing of regeneration.' Schwenkfeld's views in that intolerant time brought him the hatred of Lutherans and Catholics alike. The influence of the Emperor Ferdinand forced the Duke of Liegnitz to banish him in 1529, and he thereafter travelled to Ulm, Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Strasburg, everywhere gaining disciples. Luther fiercely denounced him, and many untrue charges were brought against him by others, but all the violence of his antagonists the much-enduring man received with saintly patience. He died at Ulm, 10th December 1561. Schwenkfeld wrote ninety distinct works, most of which were burned, if not answered, by both Protestants and Catholics. One of the most important was his Bekandtniss und Rechenschaft von den Hauptpunkten des Christlichen Glaubens (1547). By means of personal teaching and his books a group of earnest disciples more than 4000 strong was formed all over Germany, but mostly in Swabia and Silesia, who separated themselves under the name of Confessors, or Followers of the Glory of Christ. They were persecuted in Silesia in his lifetime, and many emigrated to Holland, some to England. The Jesuit mission established in Silesia in 1719 persecuted the remnant still further, and some joined the Protestant churches, some fled to Saxony, where they were protected by Count Zinzendorf. In 1734 forty families emigrated to England, and finally thence to Pennsylvania, where, as Schwenkfeldians, they have maintained a distinct existence to this day, and in 1890 numbered 306 members, with six churches.
See H. W. Erdkam, Geschichte der Protestantischen Sekten im Zeitalter der Reformation (Hamburg, 1848); Kadelbach, Geschichte Schwenkfelds und der Schwenkfeldianer (Lauban, 1861); and Robert Barclay, The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth (Lond. 1876).