SCHWENCKFELD, CASPAR VON

   a Protestant sectary, born in Lower Silesia, of a noble family; as a student of the Scriptures embraced the Reformation, but differed from Luther on the matter of the dependence of the divine life on external ordinances, insisting, as George Fox afterwards did, on its derivation from within; like Fox he travelled from place to place proclaiming this, and winning not a few disciples, and exposed himself to much persecution at the hands of men of whom better things were to be expected, but he bore it all with a Christ-like meekness; died at Ulm; his writings were treated with the same indignity as himself, and his followers were after his death driven from one place of refuge to another, till the last remnant of them found shelter under the friendly wing of COUNT ZINZENDORF (q.v.) (1490-1561).