II. The Churches of the Reformation.

§ 140. THE DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF THE

LUTHERAN CHURCH.[402]

In the Lutheran Church, that specifically German type of Christianity

which from the days of Charlemagne was ever panting after independent

expression reached its maturity and full development. The sacred

treasure of true catholicity, which the church of early times had

nurtured in the form of Greek-Roman culture, is taken over freed from

excrescences, and enriched by those acquisitions of the Middle Ages

that had stood the proof. Its vocation was to set forth the “happy

mean” between the antagonistic ecclesiastical movements and struggles

of the West, and to give its strength mainly to the development of

sound doctrine. And if it has not exerted an equal influence in all

departments, paying most attention to the worship and least to matters

of constitution, it cannot, on the other hand, be denied that even

in those directions an effort has been made to modify the violent

contradiction of extremes (§ 142, 1, 2).

=The Mediate and Mediating Attitude of the Lutheran Church=

shows itself in its fundamental conception of the essence of

Christianity as the union of the Divine and human, of which the

prototype is found in the Person of Christ, and illustrations of

it in the Scriptures, the church, the sacraments, the Christian

life, etc. In the varied ways in which this union is conceived

of lies the deepest and most inward ground of the divergence

that exists between the three western churches. The Catholic

church wishes to _see_ the union of the Divine and human;

the Lutheran, wishes to _believe_ it; the Reformed, wishes to

_understand_ it. The tendency prevails in the Catholic church

to confound these two, the Divine and the human, and that indeed

in such a way that the human loses its human character, and its

union with the Divine is regarded as constituting identity. The

Reformed church, again, is prone to separate the two, to look

upon the Divine by itself and the human by itself, and to regard

the union as a placing of the one alongside of the other, as

having not an objective but a merely subjective, not a real but

a merely ideal, connection. But the Lutheran church, guarding

itself against any confusion as well as any separation of the

two elements, had sought to view the union as the most vital,

rich, and inward communion, interpenetration, and reciprocity.

In the view of the Catholic church the human and earthly, which

is so often a very imperfect vehicle of the Divine, in which the

Divine often attained to a very incomplete development, is to be

regarded as in and by itself already the Divine. So is it in the

idea of the church, and hence the doctrine of a merely external

and visible church, which as such is only the channel of

salvation. So is it in the historical development of the church,

and hence the absolute authority of tradition and the reversal

of the true relations between Scripture and tradition. So too

is it with the doctrine of the sacraments, and hence the idea

of an _opus operatum_ and of transubstantiation. So in regard

to the priesthood, hence hierarchism; so in regard to the idea

of sanctification, and hence semipelagianism and the doctrine

of merits. Thoroughly antagonistic to all this was the view of

the Reformed church. It was inclined rather to sever completely

the Divine in Christianity from its earthly, visible vehicle,

and to think of the operation of the Divine upon man as merely

spiritual and communicated only through subjective faith.

It renounced all tradition, and thereby broke off from all

historical development, whether normal or abnormal. In its

doctrine of Scripture, the literal significance of the word

was often exalted above the spirit; in its doctrine of the

church, the significance of the visible church over that of the

invisible. In its doctrine of the Person of Christ, the human

nature of the glorified Saviour was excluded from a personal

full share in all the attributes of His divinity. In the

doctrine of the sacraments, supernatural grace and the earthly

elements were separated from one another; and in the doctrine

of predestination the Divine foreknowledge of man’s volitions

was isolated, etc. The Lutheran church, on the other hand, had

at least made the effort to steer between those two extremes,

and to bind into a living unity the truth that lies at the

foundation of both. In the Scripture it wishes as little to

see the spirit without the word, as the word without the spirit;

in history it recognises the rule and operation of the Spirit

of God within the human and ecclesiastical developments; and it

rejects only the false tradition which has not had its growth

organically from Holy Scripture, but rather contradicts it.

In its doctrine of the church it holds with equal tenacity to

the importance of the visible church and that of the invisible.

In its doctrine of the Person of Christ it affirms the perfect

humanity and the perfect divinity in the living union and richly

communicating reciprocity of the two natures. In its doctrine

of the sacraments it gives full weight as well to the objective

Divine fact which heavenly grace presents in earthly elements

as to the subjective condition of the man, to whom the sacrament

will prove saving or condemning according as he is a believer

or an unbeliever. And, finally, it expresses the belief that

in the Divine decree the apparent contradiction between God’s

foreknowledge and man’s self-determination is solved, while it

regards predestination as conditioned by the foreknowledge of

God; whereas Calvinism reverses that relation.

§ 141. DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES IN THE

LUTHERAN CHURCH.[403]

Even during Luther’s lifetime, but much more after his death,

various doctrinal controversies broke out in the Lutheran church.

They arose for the most part upon the borderlands either of Calvinism

or of Catholicism, and were generally occasioned by offence taken at

the attitude of the more stiff and dogged of Luther’s adherents by

those of the Melanchthonian or Philippist school, who had irenical

and unionistic feelings in regard to both sides. The scene of these

conflicts was partly in the electorate of Albertine Saxony and in the

duchy of Ernestine Saxony. Wittenberg and Leipzig were the headquarters

of the Philippists, and Weimar and Jena of the strict Lutherans.

There was no lack on either side of rancour and bitterness. But if

the Gnesio-Lutherans went far beyond the Melanchthonians in stiffnecked

irreconcilableness, slanderous denunciation, and outrageous abuse, they

yet showed a most praiseworthy strength of conviction, steadfastness,

and martyrlike devotion; whereas their opponents not infrequently laid

themselves open to the charge, on the one hand, of a pusillanimous and

mischievous pliability, and, on the other hand, of using unworthy means

and covert, deceitful ways. Their controversies reached a conclusion

after various alternations of victory and defeat, with often very

tragic consequences to the worsted party, in the composition of a new

confessional document, the so called _Formula Concordiæ_.

§ 141.1. =The Antinomian Controversy=, A.D. 1537-1541,

which turned upon the place and significance of the law under

the Christian dispensation, lay outside the range of the

Philippist wranglings. =John Agricola=, for a time pastor

in his native town of Eisleben, and so often called Master

Eisleben, in A.D. 1527 took offence at Melanchthon for having

in his visitation articles (§ 127, 1) urged the pastors so

earnestly to enjoin upon their people the observance of the

law. He professed, indeed, for the time to be satisfied with

Melanchthon’s answer, which had also the approval of Luther,

but soon after he had, in A.D. 1536, become a colleague of both

in Wittenberg, he renewed his opposition by publishing adverse

theses. He did not contest the pedagogical and civil-political

use of the law outside of the church, but starting from the

principle that an enjoined morality could not help man, he

maintained that the law has no more significance or authority

for the Christian, and that the gospel, which by the power

of Divine love works repentance, is alone to be preached.

Melanchthon and Luther, on the contrary, held that anguish

and sorrow for sin are the fruits of the law, while the saving

resolution to reform is the effect of the gospel, and insisted

upon a continued preaching of the law, because from the

incompleteness of the believer’s sanctification in this world

a daily renewing of repentance is necessary. After several years

of oral and written discussion, Agricola took his departure from

Wittenberg in A.D. 1540, charging Luther with having offered him

a personal insult, and was made court preacher at Berlin, where,

in A.D. 1541, having discovered his error, he repudiated it in

a conciliatory exposition. The reputation in which he was held

at the court of Brandenburg led to his being at a subsequent

period made a _collaborateur_ in drawing up the hated Augsburg

Interim (§ 136, 5). As his antinomianism every now and again

cropped up afresh, the _Formula Concordiæ_ at last settled

the controversy by the statement that we must ascribe to

the law, not only a _usus politicus_ and _usus elenchticus_

for terrorizing and arresting the sinner, but also a _usus

didacticus_ for the sanctifying of the Christian life.

§ 141.2. =The Osiander Controversy, A.D. 1549-1556.=--Luther

had, in opposition to the Romish doctrine of merits, defined

justification as purely an act of God, whose fruit can be

appropriated by man only by the exercise of faith. But he

distinguished from justification as an act of God _for_ man,

sanctification as the operation of God _in_ man. The former

consists in this, that Christ once for all has offered Himself

up on the cross for the sins of the whole world, and that

now God ascribes the merit of the sacrificial death of Christ

for every individual as though it had been his own, _i.e._

juridically; the believer is thus declared, but not made

righteous. The believer, on the ground of his having been

declared righteous, is made righteous by means of a sanctifying

process penetrating the whole earthly life and constantly

advancing, but in this world never absolutely perfect, which

is effected by the communication of the new life which Christ

has created and brought to light. =Andrew Osiander= proposed

a theory that diverged from this doctrine, and inclined

toward that set forth in the Tridentine Council (§ 136, 4),

but distinguished from the Romish view by decided attachment

to the Protestant principle of justification by faith alone.

He had been from A.D. 1522 pastor and reformer at Nuremberg,

and had proclaimed his ideas without thereby giving offence.

This first happened when, after his expulsion from Nuremberg

on account of the interim, he had begun to announce his

peculiar doctrine in the newly founded University of Königsberg,

where he had been appointed professor by Duke Albert of

Prussia in A.D. 1549 (§ 126, 4). Confounding sanctification

with justification, he wished to define the latter, not

as a declaring righteous but as a making righteous, not as

a juridical but as a medicinal act, wrought by an infusion,

_i.e._ a continuous influx of the righteousness of Christ.

The sacrificial death of Christ is for him only the negative

condition of justification, its positive condition rests upon

the incarnation of Christ, the reproduction of which in the

believer is justification, which is therefore to be referred not

to the human but rather to the Divine nature in Christ. Along

with this, he also held by the conviction that the incarnation

of God in Christ would have taken place in order to complete

the creation of the image of God in man even had the fall

never happened. The main point of his opposition was grounded

upon this: that he believed the juridical theory to have

overlooked the religious subjective element, which, however, is

still present in faith as the subjective condition of declaring

righteous. The keen and bitter controversy over these questions

spread from the university among the clergy, and thence to the

citizens and families, and soon came to be carried on on both

sides with great passionateness and heat. The favour publicly

shown to Osiander by the duke, who set him as Bishop of Samland

at the head of the Prussian clergy, increased the bitterness

felt toward him by his opponents. Among these was Martin

Chemnitz, a scholar of Melanchthon, and from A.D. 1548 rector

of the High School at Königsberg. Also Professor Joachim Mörlin,

a favourite pupil of Luther, Francis Staphylus, who afterwards

went back to the Romish church (§ 137, 8), and Francis Stancarus

of Mantua, a man who bears a very bad reputation for his

fomenting of quarrels, were among Osiander’s most inveterate

foes. Stancarus carried his opposition to Osiander so far

as to maintain that Christ has become our righteousness only

in respect of His human nature. The opinions received from

abroad were for the inmost part against Osiander. John Brenz,

of Württemburg [Württemberg], however, clined rather to favour

Osiander’s view than that of his opponents, while Melanchthon,

in giving utterance to the Wittenberg opinion, endeavoured by

removing misunderstandings to reconcile the opposing parties,

but on the main point decided against him. Even Osiander’s death

in A.D. 1552 did not put an end to the controversy. At the head

of his party now appeared the court preacher, John Funck, who,

standing equally high in favour with the duke, filled all

positions with his own followers. In his overweening conceit

he mixed himself up in political affairs, and put himself in

antagonism with the nobles and men of importance in the State.

A commission of investigation on the Polish sovereignty at

their instigation found him guilty of high treason, and had

him beheaded in A.D. 1566. The other Osiandrianists were deposed

and exiled. Mörlin, from A.D. 1533 general superintendent of

Brunswick, was now honourably recalled as Bishop of Samland,

reorganized the Prussian church, and in conjunction with

Chemnitz, who had been from A.D. 1554 preacher in Brunswick,

where he died in A.D. 1586 as general superintendent, composed

for Prussia a new doctrinal standard in the _Corpus doctrinæ

Pruthenicum_ of A.D. 1567.[404]

§ 141.3. Of much less importance was the =Æpinus Controversy=

about Christ’s descent into hell, which John Æpinus, first

Lutheran superintendent at Hamburg, in his exposition of the

16th Psalm, in A.D. 1542, interpreted, after the manner of the

Reformed theologians, of His state of humiliation, and as the

completion of the passive obedience of Christ in the endurance

of the pains of hell; whereas the usual Lutheran understanding

of it was, that it referred to Christ’s triumphing over the

powers of hell and death in His state of exaltation. An opinion

sent from Wittenberg, in A.D. 1550, left the matter undetermined,

and even the Formula of Concord was satisfied with teaching

that Christ in His full personality descended into hell in

order to deliver men from death and the power of the devil.--An

equally peaceful settlement was brought about in the =Kargian

Controversy=, A.D. 1563-1570, about the significance of the

active obedience of Christ, which the pastor of Anspach, George

Karg or Parsimonius, for a long time made a subject of dispute;

but afterwards he retracted, being convinced of his error by the

Wittenberg theologians.

§ 141.4. =The Philippists and their Opponents.=--Not long after

the Augsburg Confession had been accepted as the common standard

of the Lutheran church two parties arose, in which tendencies of

a thoroughly diversant character were gradually developed. The

real basis of this opposition lay in the diverse intellectual

disposition and development of the two great leaders of the

Reformation, which the scholars of both inherited in a very

exaggerated form. Melanchthon’s disciples, the so-called

Philippists, strove in accordance with their master’s example

to make as much as possible of what they had in common, on the

one hand, with the Reformed and, on the other hand, with the

Catholics, and to maintain a conciliatory attitude that might

aid toward effecting union. The personal friends, scholars,

and adherents of Luther, on the contrary, for the most part

more Lutheran than Luther himself, emulating the rugged decision

of their great leader and carrying it out in a one-sided manner,

were anxious rather to emphasise and widen as far as possible

the gulf that lay between them and their opponents, Reformed

and Catholics alike, and thus to make any reconciliation and

union by way of compromise impossible. Luther attached himself

to neither of these parties, but tried to restrain both from

rushing to extremes, and to maintain as far as he could the

peace between them.--The modification of strict Augustinianism

which Melanchthon’s further study led him to adopt in the

editions of his _Loci_ later than A.D. 1535 was denounced by

the strict Lutherans as Catholicizing, but still more strongly

did they object to the modification of the tenth article of the

Augsburg Confession which he introduced into a new rendering

of it, the so-called _Variata_, in A.D. 1540. In its original

form it stood thus: _Docent, quod corpus et sanguis Domini

vere adsint et distribuantur vescentibus in cœna Domini et

improbant secus docentes_. For these words he now substituted

the following: _Quod cum pane et vino vere exhibeantur corpus

et sanguis Christi vescentibus in cœna Domini_. This statement

was indeed by no means Calvinistic, for instead of _vescentibus_

the Calvinists would have said _credentibus_. Yet the arbitrary

and in any case Calvinizing change amazed the strict Lutherans,

and Luther himself bade its author remember that the book

was not his but the church’s creed. After Luther’s death the

Philippist party, in the Leipzig Interim of A.D. 1519, made

several other very important concessions to the Catholics

(§ 136, 7), and this led their opponents to denounce them as

open traitors to their church. Magdeburg, which stubbornly

refused to acknowledge the interim, became the city of refuge

for all zealous Lutherans; while in opposition to the Philippist

Wittenberg, the University of Jena, founded in A.D. 1548 by the

sons of the ex-elector John Frederick according to his desire,

became the stronghold of strict Lutheranism. The leaders on

the Philippist side were Paul Eber, George Major, Justus Menius,

John Pfeffinger, Caspar Cruciger, Victorin Strigel, etc. At

the head of the strict Lutheran party stood Nicholas Amsdorf

and Matthias Flacius. The former lived, after his expulsion

from Naumburg (§ 135, 5), an “exul Christi,” along with the

young dukes at Weimar. On account of his violent opposition to

the interim, he was obliged, in A.D. 1548, to flee to Magdeburg,

and after the surrender of the city he was placed by his ducal

patrons in Eisenach, where he died in A.D. 1565. The latter,

a native of Istria, and hence known as Illyricus, was appointed

professor of the Hebrew language in Wittenberg in A.D. 1544,

fled to Magdeburg in A.D. 1549, from whence he went to Weimar

in A.D. 1556, and was called to Jena in A.D. 1557.

§ 141.5. =The Adiaphorist Controversy=, A.D. 1548-1555, as

to the permissibility of Catholic forms in constitution and

worship, was connected with the drawing up of the Leipzig

Interim. That document described most of the Catholic forms

of worship as _adiaphora_, or matters of indifference, which,

in order to avoid more serious dangers, might be treated

as allowable or unessential. The Lutherans, on the contrary,

maintained that even a matter in itself unessential under

circumstances like the present could not be treated as

permissible. From Magdeburg there was poured out a flood

of violent controversial and abusive literature against the

Wittenberg renegades and the Saxon apostates. The altered

position of the latter from A.D. 1551 hushed up in some measure

the wrath of the zealots, and the religious Peace of Augsburg

removed all occasion for the continuance of the strife.

§ 141.6. =The Majorist Controversy, A.D. 1551-1562.=--The

strict Lutherans from the passing of the interim showed toward

the Philippist party unqualified disfavour and regarded them

with deep suspicion. When in A.D. 1551, George Major, at that

time superintendent at Eisleben, in essential agreement with

the interim, one of whose authors he was, and with Melanchthon’s

later doctrinal views, maintained the position, that good

works are necessary to salvation, and refused to retract

the statement, though he somewhat modified his expressions

by saying that it was not a _necessitas meriti_, but only

a _necessitas conjunctionis s. consequentiæ_; and when also

Justus Menius, the reformer of Thuringia, superintendent

at Gotha, vindicated him in two tractates,--Amsdorf in the

heat of the controversy set up in opposition the extreme

and objectionable thesis, that good works are injurious to

salvation, and even in A.D. 1559 justified it as “a truly

Christian proposition preached by St. Paul and Luther.”

Notwithstanding all the passionate bitterness that had mixed

itself up with the discussion, the more sensible friends of

Amsdorf, including even Flacius, saw that the ambiguity and

indefiniteness of the expression was leading to error on both

sides. They acknowledged, on the one hand, that only faith,

not good works in themselves, is necessary to salvation, but

that good works are the inevitable fruit and necessary evidence

of true, saving faith; and, on the other hand, that not good

works in themselves, but only trusting to them instead of

the merits of Christ alone, can be regarded as injurious to

salvation. Major for the sake of peace recalled his statement

in A.D. 1562.

§ 141.7. =The Synergistic Controversy,

A.D. 1555-1567.=--Luther in his controversy with Erasmus

(§ 125, 3), as well as Melanchthon in the first edition of his

_Loci_, in A.D. 1521, had unconditionally denied the capacity

of human nature for independently laying hold upon salvation,

and taught an absolute sovereignty of Divine grace in conversion.

In his later edition of the _Loci_, from A.D. 1535, and in

the Augsburg Confession of A.D. 1540, however, Melanchthon

had admitted a certain co-operation or synergism of a remnant

of freewill in conversion, and more exactly defined this in

the edition of the _Loci_ of A.D. 1548 as the ability to lay

hold by its own impulse of the offered salvation, _facultas se

applicandi ad gratiam_; and though even in the Leipzig Interim

of A.D. 1549 the Lutheran shibboleth _solê_ was constantly

recurring, it was simply with the object of thoroughly excluding

any claim of merit on man’s part in conversion. Luther with

indulgent tolerance had borne with the change in Melanchthon’s

convictions, and only objected to the incorporation of it

in the creed of the church. But from the date of the interim

the suspicion and opposition of the strict Lutherans increased

from day to day, and burst forth in a violent controversy when

John Pfeffinger, superintendent at Leipzig, also one of the

authors of the detested interim, published, in A.D. 1555, his

_Propositiones de libero arbitrio_, in defence of Melanchthon’s

synergism. The leaders of the Gnesio-Lutherans, Arnsdorf in

Eisenach, Flacius in Jena, and Musacus in Weimar, felt that

they durst not remain silent, and so they maintained, as alone

the genuine Lutheran doctrine, that the natural man cannot

co-operate with the workings of Divine grace upon him, but

can only oppose them. By order of the Duke John Frederick

they prepared at Weimar, in A.D. 1559, as a new manifesto of

the restored Lutheranism, a treatise containing a refutation

of all the heresies that had hitherto cropped up within the

Lutheran church. One of those invited to take part in the work,

Victorin Strigel, professor at Jena, was made to suffer for

the sympathy which he evinced for synergism by enduring close

and severe imprisonment. The duke, however, soon again became

more favourable to Strigel, who in A.D. 1560 vindicated himself

at a public disputation in Weimar against Flacius, and was soon

afterwards called to Leipzig. When in A.D. 1561 the duke set up

a consistory in Weimar, and transferred to it the right hitherto

exclusively exercised in Jena of ecclesiastical excommunication

and the censorship of theological books, and the Flacian party

opposed this “Cæsaro-papism” with unmeasured violence, all the

adherents of the party were driven out of Jena and out of the

whole territory, and their places filled with Melanchthonians.

This victory of Philippism, however, was of but short duration.

In order to regain the lost electoral rank, the duke allowed

himself to be beguiled into taking part in the so-called

Grumbach affair. He was cast into the imperial prison, and

his brother John William, who now assumed the government,

hastened, in A.D. 1567, to restore the overthrown theological

party. Even in electoral Saxony interest in the Catholicizing

synergism, at least, after Melanchthon’s death, in A.D. 1560,

was gradually lost sight of in proportion as the controversy

about the Calvinistic doctrine of the Lord’s Supper gradually

gained prominence.

§ 141.8. =The Flacian Controversy about Original Sin=,

A.D. 1560-1575.--In the heat of the controversy with Strigel

at the conference at Weimar, in A.D. 1560, Flacius had

committed himself to the statement that original sin in man

is not something accidental, but something substantial. His

own friends now urged him to retract this proposition, which

his opponents had branded as Manichæan. Its author had not

indeed intended it in the bad sense which it might be supposed

to bear. Flacius, however, was of a character too dogged and

obstinate to agree to recall what he had uttered. Expelled

with the rest of the Lutherans in A.D. 1562, and not recalled

with them in A.D. 1567, he wandered without any fixed place of

abode, driven away from almost every place that he entered, until

shortly before his death he recalled his overhasty expression.

He died in the hospital at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, in A.D. 1575.

In him a powerful character and an amazing wealth of learning

were utterly lost in consequence of unpropitious circumstances,

which were partly his fault and partly his misfortune.

§ 141.9. =The Lutheran Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.=--The

union effected by the Wittenberg Concord of A.D. 1536 (§ 133, 8)

with the South German cities, which originally favoured Zwinglian

views, had been in many cases threatening to dissolve again,

and the attacks of the men of Zürich obliged Luther in A.D. 1544

to compose his last “Confession of the Holy Sacrament against

the Fanatics.” The breach with the Zwinglians was now seen

to be irreparable, but it appeared as if it were yet possible

to come to an understanding with the more profound theory

of the Lord’s Supper set forth by Calvin. To carry out this

union was a thought very dear to the heart of Melanchthon. He

had the conviction, not indeed that the Lutheran doctrine of

the real presence of the body and blood in the bread and wine

is erroneous, but rather that by the Calvinistic doctrine of

a spiritual enjoyment of the body and blood of Christ in the

supper by means of faith no essential element of religious truth

was lost, and so he sought thereby to get over the difference

in confession and doctrine. But with this explanation the

strict Lutherans were by no means satisfied, and long continued

and extremely passionate discussions were carried on in the

various Lutheran countries, especially in Lower Saxony, in

the Palatinate, and in the electorate. But the controversy

was not restricted to the question of the supper; it rather

went back upon a deeper foundation. Luther, carrying out the

principles of the third and fourth œcumenical councils, had

taught that the personal connection of the two natures in Christ

implies a communication of the attributes of the one to the

other, _communicatio idiomatum_, that therefore Christ, since

He has by His ascension entered again upon the full exercise

of His attributes, is, as God-Man, even in respect of His body,

omnipresent, _ubiquitas corporis Christi_, and refused to allow

himself to be perplexed by the incomprehensibility for the human

understanding of an omnipresent body. It is here that we come

upon the radical distinction between Luther’s view and that of

Zwingli and Calvin, according to which the body of Christ cannot

be at one and the same time in heaven at God’s right hand and

on the earth in bread and wine. But Calvin, as well as Zwingli,

from his very intellectual constitution, could only regard

the Lutheran doctrine of the ubiquity of the glorified body

of Christ as an utter absurdity, and so, repudiating the

_communicatio idiomatum_, he taught that the glorification

of Christ’s body is restricted to its transfiguration, and

that now in heaven, as before upon the earth, it can be present

only in one place. A necessary consequence of this view was the

rejection of His corporeal presence in the supper, and at the

very most the admission of a communication in the sacrament to

believers of a spiritual influence from the glorified body of

Christ.--The ablest vindicator of the Lutheran doctrine of the

supper in this aspect of its development was the Württemberg

reformer John Brenz (§ 133, 3). In the _Syngramma Suevicum_

of A.D. 1525 (§ 131, 1), he has taken his place most decidedly

on the side of Luther, and this he had also done again,

in A.D. 1529, at the Marburg Conference (§ 132, 4). Then

in A.D. 1559, as provost in Stuttgart, in consequence of the

doubtful attitude of a Swabian pastor on the question of the

supper, he summoned a synod at Stuttgart, before which he laid

a confession which expressed the doctrine of the supper and the

ubiquity in strict accordance with Lutheran views. In defence

of the idea of ubiquity he quoted Ephesians iv. 10, as affording

sufficient Scripture support. The synod unanimously adopted

it, and the duke gave approval to this _Confessio et doctr.

theologor. et ministror. Verbi Dei in Ducatu Wirtb. de vera

præsentia Corp. et sang, J. Chr. in Cœna Domini_, by ordering

that all preachers should adopt it, and that it should

have symbolic authority throughout the Württemberg church.

Melanchthon, who had hitherto been on particularly intimate

terms with Brenz, was very indignant at this “unseasonable”

creed-making in “barbarous Latin.” Brenz, however, would not

be deterred from giving more adequate expression and development

to the objectionable dogma, and for this purpose published,

in A.D. 1560, his book, _De personali unione duarum natur.

in Christo_.

§ 141.10. =Cryptocalvinism in its First Stage,

A.D. 1552-1574.=--The struggle of the Gnesio-Lutherans

against Calvin’s doctrine of the supper, and the secret favour

shown toward it by several Lutheran theologians, was begun in

A.D. 1552 by Joachim Westphal, pastor in Hamburg. Calvin and

Bullinger were not slow in giving him a sharp rejoinder. In

a yet more violent form the dispute broke out in Bremen, where

the cathedral preacher Hardenberg, and in Heidelberg, where the

deacon Klebitz, entered the lists against the Lutheran dogma.

In both cases the struggle ended in the defeat of Lutheranism

(§ 144, 1, 2). In Wittenberg, too, the Philippists George Major,

Paul Eber, Paul Crell, etc., supported by the very influential

court physician of the electoral court of Saxony, Caspar Peucer,

Melanchthon’s son-in-law, from A.D. 1559 successfully advanced

the interests of Cryptocalvinism. Melanchthon himself, however,

was not to live to see the troubles that arose over this,

a truly gracious dispensation of Providence on behalf of a

man already sorely borne down and trembling with hypochondriac

fears, to have him thus delivered _a rabie theologicorum_.

He died on 19th April, A.D. 1560. While the Elector Augustus,

A.D. 1553-1586, intended that his Wittenberg should always be

the main stronghold of strict Lutheranism, the Philippists were

always coming forward with more and more boldness, and sought

to prepare the way for themselves by getting all places filled

with members of their party. They persuaded the elector to give

a nominative authority throughout Saxony to a collection of

Melanchthonian doctrinal and confessional documents compiled

by them, _Corpus doctrinæ Philippicum s. Misnicum,_ 1560.

The Wittenberg Catechism, _Catechesis, etc., ad usum scholar.

puerilium_, 1571, set forth a doctrine of the sacraments

and the person of Christ so manifestly Calvinistic, that

even the elector was obliged to give way on account of the

strong objections brought against it. The Philippists, however,

succeeded in satisfying him by the _Consensus Dresdensis_,

of 10th Oct., A.D. 1571, to this extent, that after the death

of Duke John William, in the exercise of his authority as regent,

he was induced to expel the Lutheran zealots Wigand and Hesshus

from Jena, and in A.D. 1573 had more than a hundred clergymen

of the duchy of Saxony deposed. In Breslau their interests were

also zealously advanced by the influential imperial physician,

John Krafft, to whom the Emperor Maximilian II. had granted

a patent of nobility in A.D. 1568, with the new name of Crato

von Crafftheim. Another Silesian physician, Joachim Curæus,

also a scholar of Melanchthon, published in A.D. 1574, without

any indication of author’s name, place of publication, or date

of issue, his _Exegesis perspicua controversiæ de cœna_, which

represented Melanchthon’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper as the

only tenable one, controverted that of the Lutherans as popish,

eulogized that of the Reformed church as one most honouring to

God, and urgently counselled union with the Calvinists. The warm

recommendation of this treatise on the part of the Wittenberg

Philippists, however, rather contributed to its failure. For

now, at last, even the elector had become convinced of the

danger that threatened Lutheranism through hints given him by

the princes, and information obtained from intercepted letters.

The Philippists were banished, their chiefs thrown into prison,

Peucer being confined for twelve years, A.D. 1574-1586. A

thanksgiving service in all the churches and memorial medal

celebrated the rooting out in A.D. 1574 of Calvinism, and the

final victory of restored Lutheranism.--In Denmark, Nicholas

Hemming, pastor and professor at Copenhagen, distinguished

alike by adequate scholarship and rich literary activity,

and by mildness and temperateness of character, and hence

designated the Preceptor of Denmark, was the recognised

head of the Melanchthonian school. As a decided opponent

of the doctrine of ubiquity, though otherwise on all points,

and especially in his doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, a

good Lutheran, he fell under the suspicion of the German

Gnesio-Lutherans as a Cryptocalvinist, and was accordingly

opposed by them. In A.D. 1579, by order of the Elector Augustus,

his brother-in-law, the King of Denmark removed him from his

offices in Copenhagen, appointing him to a canonry in the

cathedral at Roeskilde, where in A.D. 1600 he died.

§ 141.11. =The Frankfort Compact, A.D. 1558, and the Naumburg

Assembly of Princes, A.D. 1561.=--After the disgraceful issue

of the Worms Conference of A.D. 1557 (§ 137, 6), the Protestant

princes, the electors Augustus of Saxony, Joachim of Brandenburg,

and Ottheinrich of the Palatinate, with Philip of Hesse,

Christopher of Württemberg, and the Count-palatine Wolfgang,

who were gathered together about the Emperor Ferdinand,

consulted as to the means which they should employ to insure

and confirm the threatened unity of the evangelical church

of Germany. The result of their deliberations was, that they

agreed to sign a statement drawn up by Melanchthon and known

by the name of the =Frankfort Compact=, in which they declared

anew their unanimous attachment to the doctrine set forth in

the _Augustana_, the _Variata_, and the _Saxonica_ (§ 136, 8),

and in regard to controversial questions that had been discussed

within the church expressed themselves in moderate terms as

inclined to the views of Melanchthon. The Flacian party in

Jena hastened to set forth their opposing sentiments in the

manifesto of A.D. 1559, already referred to, in which the strict

Gnesio-Lutheranism was laid down in the hardest and boldest

manner possible.--The divisions that arose within the Lutheran

church after Melanchthon’s death and the imminent reassembling

of the Tridentine Council led the evangelical princes of Germany,

who, with the exception of Philip of Hesse, all belonged to a

new generation, once more to put forth every effort to restore

unity by adoption of a common evangelical confession. At the

=Assembly of Princes= appointed to meet for this purpose at

=Naumburg= in A.D. 1561, most of them appeared personally.

There was no thought of preparing a new confession, because

it was feared that in those times of agitation it might be

impossible to draw up such a document, or that, even if they

succeeded in doing so, it might not close the breach, but

rather widen it. Thus the only alternative remaining was

to attempt the healing of the schism by reverting to the

standpoint of the Augsburg Confession. But then the question

arose whether the original form of statement of A.D. 1530,

or its later elaboration of A.D. 1540, should be taken as the

basis of union negotiations.--This at least was to be said in

favour of the latter, that it had been unanimously adopted as

the common confession of all the evangelicals of Germany at the

peace Conference of Worms in A.D. 1540, where even Calvin had

signed it, and at Regensburg in A.D. 1541 (§ 135, 2, 3); and

now Philip of Hesse and Frederick III. of the Palatinate came

forward decidedly in its favour. But all the more persistently

did the Duke John Frederick of Saxony oppose it, and make every

endeavour to get the rest of the princes to give their votes

in favour of the Augsburg Confession of A.D. 1530. But the

duke’s further wish to have added to it the Schmalcald Articles

found very little favour. Finally a compromise was effected, in

accordance with which, in a newly drawn up preface, the Apology

of the _Augustana_, as well as the edition of A.D. 1540, was

acknowledged, while the Schmalcald Articles, as well as the

_Confessio Saxonica_ (§ 136, 8) and the Frankfort Compact, were

passed over in silence. John Frederick now demanded the adoption

of an express condemnation of the Calvinising Sacramentarians.

This led to a hot discussion between him and his father-in-law,

the elector-palatine. He took his departure on the following

day without having received his dismissal, leaving behind him

a sharply worded protest. Ulrich of Mecklenburg also refused

to subscribe, but allowed himself at last to be persuaded into

doing so. At the sixteenth session two papal legates personally

delivered to the princes a brief inviting them to attend the

council. This latter, however, was returned unopened when they

discovered in the address the usual but artfully concealed

formula “_dilecto filio_.” Also the demand of the imperial

embassy accompanying the legates to take part in the council

was determinedly rejected, because that would mean not revision

but simply a continuation of the previous sessions of the

council, at which the evangelical doctrine had already been

definitely condemned.

§ 141.12. =The Formula of Concord, A.D. 1577.=--Already for

a long time had the learned chancellor Jac. Andreä of Tübingen

wrought unweariedly for the restoration of peace among the

theologians of the Lutheran church. In order also to win over

the general membership in favour of peace, he attempted in

six popular discourses, delivered in A.D. 1573, to instruct

them in reference to the points in dispute and proper means

for overcoming these differences. He was so successful in his

efforts, that he soon ventured to propose that these lectures

should be made the basis of further negotiations. But when

Martin Chemnitz, the most distinguished theologian of his

age, pronounced them unsuitable for that purpose, Andreä

wrought them up anew in accordance with Chemnitz’s critical

suggestions into the so called “Swabian Concord.” But even

in this form they did not satisfy the theologians of Lower

Saxony. The Swabian theologians, however, in their criticisms

and emendations, had answered various statements in it, and

in A.D. 1576 they produced a new union scheme, drafted by

Luc. Osiander, called the “_Maulbronn Formula_.” The Elector

Augustus of Saxony then summoned a theological convention

at Torgau, at which, besides Andreä and Chemnitz, there were

also present Chytræus from Rostock, as well as Körner and

Andr. Musculus from Frankfort-on-the-Oder. They wrought up

the material thus accumulated before them into the “Book

of Torgau,” of A.D. 1576. In regard to this book also the

evangelical princes delivered numerous opinions, and now

at last, in obedience to the order of the princes, Andreä,

Chemnitz, Selnecker (§ 142, 4), Chytræus, Musculus, and Körner

retired into the cloister of Berg at Magdeburg in order to make

a final revision of all that was before them. Thus originated,

in A.D. 1577, the Book of Berg or the =Formula of Concord=, in

two different forms, first in the most compressed style possible

in what is known as the _Epitome_, and then more completely

in the document known as the _Solida declaratio_. This document

dealt with all the controverted questions that had been agitated

since A.D. 1530 in twelve articles. It set forth the doctrine

of the Person of Christ, giving prominence to the theory of

ubiquity, as the basis of the doctrine of the supper, leaving

it, however, undetermined in accordance with the teaching of

Brenz, whether the ubiquity is to be regarded as an absolute

or as a relative one, if only it be maintained that Christ

in respect of His human nature, therefore in respect of His

body, is present “_ubicunque velit_,” more particularly in

the holy supper. An opportunity was also found in treating

of the synergistic questions to set forth the doctrine of

predestination, although within the Lutheran church no real

controversy on this subject had ever arisen. Luther, who at

first (§ 125, 3) had himself given expression to a particularist

doctrine of election, had gradually receded from that position.

It was so too with Melanchthon, only with this important

difference, that whereas Luther, afterwards as well as before,

excluded every sort of co-operation of man in conversion,

Melanchthon felt himself obliged to admit a certain degree

of co-operation, which even the censure of Calvin himself could

not lead him to repudiate. When now the Formula of Concord,

rejecting synergism in the most decided manner, affirmed that

since the fall there was in men not even a spark remaining,

_ne scintillula quidem_, of spiritual power for the independent

free appropriation of offered grace, it had gone over from the

platform of Melanchthon to that which Calvin, following the

course of hard, logical consistency, had been driven to adopt,

in the assertion of a doctrine of absolute predestination. The

formula was thus in the main in agreement with the speculation

of Calvin. But it declined to accept the conclusions arrived

at in Calvinism by declaring that while man indeed of himself

wanted the power to lay hold upon Divine grace and co-operate

with it in any way, he was yet able to withstand it and refuse

to accept it. In this way it was able to hold by the express

statements of Scripture which represent God as willing that

all men should be saved, and salvation as an absolute work of

grace, but condemnation as the consequence of man’s own guilt.

It regards the salvation of men as the only object of Divine

predestination, condemnation as merely an object of the Divine

foreknowledge.--At a later period an attempt was made to set

at rest the scruples that prevailed here and there by securing

at Berg, in February, A.D. 1580, the adoption of an addition

to it in the form of a _Præfatio_ drawn up by Andreä as a final

determination of the controversy. The character of this new

symbolical document, in accordance with its occasion and its

aim, was not so much that of a popular exposition for the church,

but rather that of a scientific theological treatise. For that

period of excitement and controversy it is quite remarkable

and worthy of high praise for its good sense, moderation, and

circumspection, as well as for the accuracy and clearness with

which it performed its task. The fact that nine thousand of the

teachers of the church subscribed it affords sufficient proof

of it having fulfilled the end contemplated. Denmark and Sweden,

Holstein, Pomerania, Hesse, and Anhalt, besides eight cities,

Magdeburg, Dantzig, Nuremberg, Strassburg, etc., refused to

sign from various and often conflicting motives. In A.D. 1581

Frederick II. of Denmark is said indeed to have thrown it

into the fire. Yet in later years it was adopted in not a

few of these regions, _e.g._ in Sweden, Holstein, Pommerania

[Pomerania], etc. The Elector Augustus of Saxony, in the Book

of Concord, brought out a collection of all general Lutheran

confessional writings which, signed by fifty-one princes and

thirty-five cities, was solemnly promulgated on the anniversary

of the Augsburg Confession, 25th June, A.D. 1580. By this means

the whole Lutheran church of Germany obtained a common _corpus

doctrinæ_, and the numerous collections of confessional and

doctrinal documents acknowledged by the church, which hitherto

separate national churches had drawn up for this purpose,

henceforth lost their authority.

§ 141.13. =Second Stage of Cryptocalvinism, A.D. 1586-1592.=--Yet

once more the Calvinising endeavours of the Philippists were

renewed in the electorate of Saxony under Augustus’ successor

Christian I., who had obtained this position in A.D. 1586,

through his relationship with the family of the count-palatine.

His chancellor Nicholas Crell filled the offices of pastors

and teachers with men of his own views, abolished exorcism at

baptism, and had even begun the publication of a Bible with

a Calvinising commentary when Christian died, in A.D. 1591.

The Duke Frederick William of Altenburg, as regent during the

minority, immediately re-introduced strict Lutheranism, and,

preparatory to a church visitation, had a new anti-Calvinistic

standard of doctrine compiled in the so called =Articles of

Visitation= of A.D. 1592, which all civil and ecclesiastical

officers in Saxony were required to accept. In short, clear,

and well defined theses and antitheses the doctrinal differences

on the supper, the Person of Christ, baptism, and election were

there set forth. In reference to baptism, the anti-Calvinistic

doctrine was promulgated, that regeneration takes place through

baptism, and that therefore every baptized person is regenerate.

The most important among the compilers of these Articles

of Visitation was Ægidius Hunnius, shortly before called to

Wittenberg, after having, from A.D. 1576 to 1592, as professor

at Marburg, laboured with all his might in opposition to

the Calvinising of Hesse. He had also, by his defence of the

doctrine of ubiquity, in his “Confession of the Doctrine of

the Person of Christ” in German, in A.D. 1577, and his Latin

treatise, “_Libelli IV. de pers. Chr. ejusque ad dexteram

sedentes divina majestate_,” in A.D. 1585, shown himself

an energetic champion of strict Lutheranism. He died in

A.D. 1603.--The unfortunate chancellor Crell, however, who

had made himself hateful to the Lutherans as the promoter and

chief instigator of all the Calvinising measures of the deceased

elector, and yet more so by his energetic interference with

the usurpations of the nobles, suffered an imprisonment of ten

years in the fortress of Königstein, and was then, after a trial

conducted in the most arbitrary manner, declared to be a traitor

and an enemy of the public peace, and executed in A.D. 1601.

§ 141.14. =The Huber Controversy, A.D. 1588-1595.=--Samuel

Huber, reformed pastor in the Canton Bern, became involved

in a controversy with Wolfgang Musculus over the doctrine of

election. Going even beyond the Lutheran doctrine, he affirmed

that all men are predestinated to salvation, although through

their own fault not all are saved. Banished from Bern in

A.D. 1588, after a disputation with Beza, he entered the

Lutheran church and became pastor at Württemberg. Here he

charged the Professor Gerlach with Cryptocalvinism, because

he taught that only believers are predestinated to salvation.

The controversy was broken off by his call to Wittenberg.

But even his Wittenberg colleagues, Polic. Leyser and Ægidius

Hunnius, fell under the suspicion of Cryptocalvinism, and were

accordingly opposed by him. When all disputation and conferences

had failed to get him to abandon his doctrine, and parties

began to be formed among the students, he was, in A.D. 1594,

removed from Wittenberg. With increasing rancour he continued

the controversy, and wandered about Germany for many years in

order to secure a following for his theory, but without success.

He died in A.D. 1624.

§ 141.15. =The Hofmann Controversy in Helmstadt,

A.D. 1598.=--The great influence which the study of the

Aristotelian philosophy in connection with that of humanism

obtained in the Julius University founded at Helmstadt in

A.D. 1576, seemed to its theological professor, Daniel Hofmann,

to threaten injury to theological study, and to be prejudicial

to pure Lutheran doctrine. He therefore attached himself to

the Romists (§ 143, 6), and took advantage of the occasion

of the conferring of doctor’s degrees to deliver a violent

invective against the incursions of reason and philosophy into

the region of religion and revelation. In consequence of this

his philosophical colleagues complained of him to the senate as

a reproacher of reason, and as one injurious to their faculty.

That court obliged him to retract and apologise, and then

deprived him of his office as professor of theology.

§ 142. CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP, LIFE, AND SCIENCE IN THE

LUTHERAN CHURCH.

In reference also to the ecclesiastical constitution, by holding

firmly to the standpoint and to the working out of the system which it

had sketched out in its confession and doctrinal teaching, the Lutheran

church sought to mediate between extremes, although, amid the storms

from without and from within by which it was threatened, it was just

at this point that it was least successful. It reflected its character

more clearly and decidedly in its order of worship than in its

constitution.--The Reformation at last relaxed that hierarchical ban

which for centuries had put an absolute restraint upon congregational

singing, and had excluded the use of the vernacular in the services

of the church. Even within the limits of the Reformation era, the

German church song attained unto such a wonderful degree of excellence,

as affords the most convincing evidence of the fulness, power, and

spirituality, the genuine elevation and fresh enthusiasm, of the

spiritual life of that age. The sacred poetry of the church is the

confession of the Lutheran people, and has accomplished even more

than preaching for extending and deepening the Christian life of the

evangelical church. No sooner had a sacred song of this sort burst

forth from the poet’s heart, than it was everywhere taken up by the

Christian people of the land, and became familiar to every lip. It

found entrance into all houses and churches, was sung before the doors,

in the workshops, in the market-places, streets, and fields, and won

at a single blow whole cities to the evangelical faith.--The Christian

life of the people in the Lutheran church combined deep, penitential

earnestness and a joyfully confident consciousness of justification by

faith with the most nobly steadfast cheerfulness and heartiness natural

to the German citizen. Faithful attention to the spiritual interests

of their people, vigorous ethical preaching, and zealous efforts to

promote the instruction of the young on the part of their pastors,

created among them a healthy and hearty fear of God, without the

application of any very severe system of church discipline, a thorough

and genuine attachment to the church, strict morality in domestic

life, and loyal submission to civil authority.--Theological science

flourished especially at the universities of Wittenberg, Tübingen,

Strassburg, Marburg, and Jena.

§ 142.1. =The Ecclesiastical Constitution.=--As a mean between

hierarchism and Cæsaro-papism, between the intrusion of the

State into the province of the church, and the intrusion of

the church into the province of the State, the ecclesiastical

constitution of the Lutheran church was theoretically right

in the main, though in practice and even in theory many defects

might be pointed out. It presented at least a protest against

all commingling or subordinating of one or the other in these

two spheres. Owing to the urgent needs of the church, the

princes and magistrates, in the character of emergency-bishops,

undertook the supreme administration and management of

ecclesiastical affairs, and transferred the exercise of these

rights and duties to special boards called consistories, made

up of lay and clerical members, which were to have jurisdiction

over the clergy, the administration of discipline, and the

arranging and enforcing of the marriage laws. What had been

introduced simply as a necessity in the troubled condition of

the church in those times came gradually to be claimed as a

prescriptive right. According to the _Episcopal System_, the

territorial lord as such claimed to rank and act as _summus

episcopus_. After introducing some cautious modifications that

were absolutely indispensable, the canon law actually left

the foundation of jurisprudence untouched. The restoration of

the biblical idea of a universal priesthood of all believers

would not tolerate the retaining of the theory of an essential

distinction between the clergy and the laity. The clergy were

properly designated the servants, _ministri_, of the church,

of the word, of the altar, and all restrictions that had been

imposed upon the clergy, and distinguished them as an order,

were removed. Hierarchical distinctions among the clergy

were renounced, as opposed to the spirit of Christianity;

but the advantage of a superordination and subordination

in respect of merely human rights, in the institution of

such offices as those of superintendents, provosts, etc.,

was recognised.--Ecclesiastical property was in many cases

diverted from the church and arbitrarily appropriated by the

greed and rapacity of princes and nobles, but still in great

part, especially in Germany, it continued in the possession

of the church, except in so far as it was applied to the

endowment of schools, universities, and charitable institutions.

The monasteries fell under a doom which by reason of their

corruptions they had richly deserved. A restoration of such

establishments in an evangelical spirit was not to be thought

of during a period of convulsion and revolution.--Continuation,

§ 165, 5.

§ 142.2. =Public Worship and Art.=--While the Roman Catholic

order of worship was dominated almost wholly by fancy and

feeling, and that of the reformed church chiefly by the reason,

the Lutheran church sought to combine these two features in

her services. In Romish worship all appealed to the senses,

and in that of the Calvinistic churches all appealed to the

understanding; but in the Lutheran worship both sides of human

nature were fully recognised, and a proportionate place assigned

to each. The unity of the church was not regarded as lying in

the rigid uniformity of forms of worship, but in the unity of

the confession. Altars ornamented with candles and crucifixes,

as well as all the images that might be in churches, were

allowed to remain, not as objects of worship, but rather to

aid in exciting and deepening devotion. The liturgy was closely

modelled upon the Romish ritual of the mass, with the exclusion

of all unevangelical elements. The preaching of the word was

made the central point of the whole public service. Luther’s

style of preaching, the noble and powerful popularity of

which has probably never since been equalled, certainly

never surpassed, was the model and pattern which the other

Lutheran preachers set before themselves. Among these,

the most celebrated were Ant. Corvin, Justus Jonas, George

Spalatin, Bugenhagen, Jerome Weller, John Brenz, Veit Dietrich,

J. Mathesius, Martin Chemnitz. It was laid down as absolutely

essential to the idea of public worship, that the congregation

should take part in it, and that the common language of the

people should be exclusively employed. The adoration of the

sacrament on the altar, as well as the Romish service of the

mass, were set aside as unevangelical, and the sacrament of

the supper was to be administered to the whole congregation in

both kinds. On the other hand, it was admitted that baptism was

necessary, and might and should be administered in case of need

by laymen. The customary formulary of exorcism in baptism was

at first continued without dispute, and though Luther himself

attached no great importance to it, yet every attempt to secure

its discontinuance was resisted by the later Gnesio-Lutherans as

savouring of Cryptocalvinism. Yet it should be remembered that

such orthodox representatives of Lutheranism as Hesshus, Ægidius

Hunnius, and Martin Chemnitz, as well as afterwards John Gerhard,

Quenstedt, and Hollaz, were only in favour of its being allowed,

but not of its being regarded as necessary. Spener again

declared himself decidedly in favour of its being removed,

and in the eighteenth century it passed without any serious

opposition into disuse throughout almost the whole of the

Lutheran church, until re-introduced in the nineteenth century

by the Old Lutherans (§ 176, 2).--The church festivals were

restricted to celebrations of the facts of redemption; only

such of the feasts of Mary and the saints were retained as had

legitimate ground in the Bible history; _e.g._ the days of the

apostles, the annunciation of Mary, Michael’s Day, St. John’s

Day, etc. Art was held by Luther in high esteem, especially

music. Lucas Cranach, who died in A.D. 1553, Hans Holbein,

father and son, and Albert Dürer, who died in A.D. 1528, placed

their art as painters at the service of the gospel, and adorned

the churches with beautiful and thoughtful pictures.

§ 142.3. =Church Song.=--The character common to the sacred

songs of the Lutheran church of the sixteenth century is

that they are thoroughly suited for congregational purposes,

and are truly popular. They are songs of faith and the creed,

with a clear impress of objectivity. The writers of them do

not describe their subjective feelings, nor their individual

experiences, but they let the church herself by their mouths

express her faith, her comfort, her thanksgiving, and adoration.

But they are also genuinely songs of the people; true, simple,

hearty, bright, and bold in expression, rapid in movement,

no standing still and looking back, no elaborate painting

and describing, no subtle demonstrating and teaching. Even in

outward form they closely resemble the old German epics and

the popular historical ballad, and were intended above all

not merely to be read, but to be sung, and that by the whole

congregation. The ecclesiastical authorities began to introduce

hymn-books into the several provinces toward the end of the

seventeenth century. Previously there had only been private

collections of sacred songs, and the hymns were distinguished

only by the words of the opening line; and so widely known were

they, that the mentioning of them was sufficient to secure the

hymn so designated being sung by the congregation present at the

public service.--The sacred songs of the Reformation age possess

all these characteristics in remarkable degree. Among all the

sacred poets of that time =Luther= stands forth pre-eminent.

His thirty-six hymns or sacred poems belong to five different

classes.

1. There are free translations of Latin hymns: “Praised be

Thou, O Jesus Christ;” “Thou who art Three in unity;”

“In our true God we all believe;” “Lord God, we praise

do Thee;” “In the midst of life we are aye in death’s

embraces;” “Come God, Creator, Holy Ghost,” etc.

2. There are reproductions of original German songs: “Death

held our Lord in prison;” “Now pray we to the Holy Ghost;”

“God the Father with us be;” “Let God be praised, blessed,

and uplifted.”

3. We have also paraphrastic renderings of certain psalms:

“Ah, God in heaven, look down anew” (Ps. xii.); “Although

the mouth say of the unwise” (Ps. xiv.); “Our God, He

is a castle strong” (Ps. xlvi.); “God, unto us right

gracious be” (Ps. lxvii.); “Had God not been with us

this time” (Ps. cxxiv.); “From trouble deep I cry to

Thee” (Ps. cxxx.), etc.

4. We have also songs composed on particular Scripture themes:

“There are the holy ten commands;” “To Isaiah the prophet

this was given” (Isa. vi.); “From heaven on high I come to

you” (Luke ii.); “To Jordan, where our Lord has gone,” etc.

5. There are, finally, poems original in form and contents:

“Dear Christians, let us now rejoice;” “Jesus Christ, our

Saviour true;” “Lord, keep us by Thy word in hope.”[405]

After Luther, the most celebrated hymn-writers in the Lutheran

church of the sixteenth century are =Paul Speratus=, reformer

in Prussia, who died in A.D. 1554; =Nicholas Decius=, first

a monk, then evangelical pastor at Stettin about A.D. 1524.

=Paul Eber=, professor and superintendent in Wittenberg, who

died in A.D. 1569, author of the hymns, “When in the hour of

utmost need;” “Lord Jesus Christ, true Man and God;” and one of

which our well-known “Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness,” is a

paraphrase.[406] Hans Sachs, shoemaker in Nuremberg, who died in

A.D. 1567, wrote during the famine in that city in A.D. 1552 the

hymn, “Why art thou thus cast down, my heart?” =John Schneesing=,

pastor in Gothaschen, who died in A.D. 1567, wrote “Lord Jesus

Christ, in Thee alone.” =John Mathesius=, rector and deacon

in Joachimsthal, who also delivered sermons on Luther’s life,

died in A.D. 1565, wrote a beautiful morning hymn, and other

sweet sacred pieces. =Nicholas Hermann=, who died in A.D. 1561,

precentor at Joachimsthal, wrote out Mathesius’ sermons in hymns,

“The happy sunshine all is gone,” the burial hymn, “Now hush

your cries, and shed no tear,” etc. =Michael Weisse= closes the

series of hymn-writers of the Reformation age. He was a German

pastor in Bohemia, translator and editor of the sacred songs of

the Bohemian Hussites, and died in A.D. 1540. He wrote “Christ

the Lord is risen again,” and the burial hymn to which Luther

added a verse, “Now lay we calmly in the grave.”[407]

§ 142.4. In the period immediately following, from A.D. 1560

to A.D. 1618, we meet with many poetasters who write on sacred

themes in doggerel rhymes. Even those who are poets by natural

endowment, and inspired with Divine grace, are much too prolific;

but they have bequeathed to us a genuine wealth of beautiful

church songs, characterized by healthful objectivity, childlike

simplicity, and a singular power of appealing to the hearts of

the great masses of the people. But a tendency already begins to

manifest itself in the direction of that excessive subjectivity

which was the vice of hymn-writers in the succeeding period;

the doctrinal element too becomes more and more prominent,

as well as application to particular circumstances and occasions

in life; but the objective confession of faith is always still

predominant. Among the sacred poets of this period the most

important are =Bartholmaus Ringwaldt=, pastor in Brandenburg,

who died in A.D. 1597, author of “’Tis sure that awful time will

come;” =Nicholas Selnecker=, at last superintendent in Leipzig,

who died in A.D. 1592, as Melanchthon’s scholar suspected at

one time of Cryptocalvinism, but, after he had taken part in

the composition of the Formula of Concord, the object of the

most bitter hatred and constant persecution on the part of the

Cryptocalvinists of Saxony: he wrote, “O Lord my God, I cry to

Thee;” =Martin Schalling=, pastor at Regensburg and Nuremberg,

who died in A.D. 1608, wrote, “Lord, all my heart is fixed on

Thee;” =Martin Böhme= or Behemb, pastor in Lusatia, who died in

A.D. 1621, author of “Lord Jesus Christ, my Life, my Light.” The

series closes with =Philip Nicolai=, a violent and determined

opponent of Calvinism, who was latterly pastor in Hamburg, and

died in A.D. 1608. His vigorous and rhythmical poetry, with its

deep undertone of sweetness, is to some extent modelled on the

Song of Songs. He wrote “Awake, awake, for night is flying;” the

chorale in Mendelssohn’s “St. Paul,” “Sleepers, wake, a voice is

calling,” is a rendering of the same piece.--Continuation,

§ 159, 3.

§ 142.5. =Chorale Singing.=--The congregational singing, which

the Reformation made an integral part of evangelical worship,

was essentially a reproduction of the Ambrosian mode (§ 59, 5)

in a purer form and with richer fulness. It was distinguished

from the Gregorian style preeminently by this, that it

was not the singing of a choir of priests, but the popular

singing of the whole congregation. The name chorale singing,

however, was still continued, and has come to be the

technical and appropriate designation of the new mode. It is

further distinguished from the Gregorian mode by this other

characteristic, that instead of singing in a uniform monotone

of simple notes of equal length, it introduces a richer rhythm

with more lively modulation. And, finally, it is characterized

by the introduction of harmony in place of the customary unison.

But, on the other hand, the chorale singing may be regarded as

a renewal of the old _cantus firmus_, while at the same time

it sets aside the secular music style and the artificialities

of counterpoint and the elaborate ornamentation with which the

false taste of the Middle Ages had overlaid it. The congregation

sang the _cantus firmus_ or melody in unison, the singers in the

choir gave it the accompaniment of a harmony. The organ during

the Reformation age was used for support, and accompanied only

in elaborate, high-class music. But the melody was pitched in

a medium key, which as the leading voice was called _Tenor_.

The melodies for the new church hymns were obtained, partly by

adaptation of the old tunes for the Latin hymns and sequences,

partly by appropriation of popular mediæval airs, especially

among the Bohemian Brethren, partly also and mainly by the

free use of the popular song tunes of the day, to which no one

made any objection, since indeed the spiritual songs were often

parodies of the popular songs whose airs were laid hold upon

for church use. The few original melodies of this age were for

the most part composed by the authors of the hymns themselves

or by the singers, and were the outflow of the same inspiration

as had called forth the poems. They have therefore been rarely

equalled in impressiveness, spiritual glow, and power by any

of the more artistic productions of later times. Acquaintance

with the new melodies was spread among the people by itinerant

singers, chorister boys in the streets, and the city cornet

players. From the singers or those who adapted the melodies are

to be distinguished the composers, who as technical musicians

arranged the harmony and set it in a form suitable for church

use. =George Rhaw=, precentor in Leipzig, afterwards printer in

Wittenberg, and =Hans Walter=, choirmaster to the elector, both

intimate friends of Luther, were amongst the most celebrated

composers of their day. The evangelical church music reaches

its highest point of excellence toward the end of the sixteenth

century. The great musical composer, =John Eccart=, who was

latterly choirmaster in Berlin, and died in A.D. 1611, was

the most active agent in securing this perfection of his art.

In order to make the melody clearer and more distinctly heard,

it was transferred from the middle voice, the tenor, to the

higher voice or treble. The other voices now came in as simple

concords alongside of the melody, and the organ, which had now

been almost perfected by the introduction of many important

improvements, now came into general use with its pure, rich,

and accurate full harmony, as a support and accompaniment of

the congregational singing. The distinction too between singers

and composers passed more and more out of view. The skilled

artistic singing was thus brought into closer relations with

the congregational singing, and the creative power, out of which

an abundant supply of original melodies was produced, grew and

developed from year to year.

§ 142.6. =Theological Science.=--Inasmuch as the Reformation had

its origin in the word of God, and supported itself upon that

foundation alone the theologians of the Reformation were obliged

to give special attention to biblical studies. John Förster, who

died in A.D. 1556, and John Avenarius, who died in A.D. 1576,

both of Wittenberg, compiled Hebrew lexicons, which embodied

the results of independent investigations. =Matthias Flacius=,

in his _Clavis Scr. s._, provided what for that time was a

very serviceable aid to the study of Scripture. The first part

gives in alphabetical order an explanation of Scripture words

and forms of speech, the second forms a system of biblical

hermeneutics. Exegesis proper found numerous representatives.

Luther himself beyond dispute holds the front rank in this

department. After him the most important Lutheran exegetes

of that age are for the New Testament, Melanchthon; Victorin

Strigel, who wrote _Hyponm. in Novum Testamentum_; Flacius,

with his _Glossa compendiaria in Novum Testamentum_; Joachim

Camerarius, with his _Notationes in Nov. Testamentum_; =Martin

Chemnitz=, with his _Harmonia IV. Evangeliorum_, continued by

Polic. Leyser, and completed at last by John Gerhard: for the

Old Testament, especially =John Brenz=, whose commentaries are

still worthy of being consulted. Of less consequence are the

numerous commentaries of the comprehensive order, compiled by

the once scarcely less influential David Chytræus of Rostock,

who died in A.D. 1600. The series of Lutheran dogmatists

opens with =Melanchthon=, who published his _Loci communes_

in A.D. 1521. =Martin Chemnitz=, in his _Loci theologici_,

contributed an admirable commentary to Melanchthon’s work,

and it soon became the recognised standard dogmatic treatise

in the Lutheran church. In A.D. 1562 he published his _Examen

Conc. Trident._, in which he combated the Romish doctrine

with as much learning and thoroughness as good sense, mildness,

and moderation. Polemical theology was engaged upon with

great vigour amid the many internal and external controversies,

conducted often with intense passion and bitterness. In the

department of church history we have the gigantic work of

the Magdeburg centuriators, the result of the bold scheme of

=Matthias Flacius=. By his _Catalogus testium veritatis_ he

had previously advanced evidence to show that at no point in

her history had the church been without enlightened and pious

heroes of faith, who had carried on the uninterrupted historical

continuity of evangelical truth, and so secured an unbroken

succession from the early apostolic church till that of the

sixteenth century.--Continuation, § 159, 4.

§ 142.7. =German National Literature.=--The Reformation occurred

at a time when the poetry and national literature of Germany was

in a condition of profound prostration, if not utter collapse.

But it brought with it a reawakening of creative powers in

the national and intellectual life of the people. Under the

influence and stimulus of Luther’s own example there arose

a new prose literature, inspired by a broad, liberal spirit,

as the expression of a new view of the world, which led the

Germans both to think and teach in German. It was mainly the

intellectual friction from the contact of one fresh mind with

another in regard to questions agitated in the Reformation

movement that gave to the satirical writings of the age that

brilliancy, point, and popularity which in the history of German

literature was not attained before and never has been reached

since. In innumerable fugitive sheets, in the most diverse forms

of style and language, in poetry and prose, in Latin and German,

these satires poured forth contempt and scorn against and in

favour of the Reformation. As we have on the Catholic side

Thomas Murner (§ 125, 4), and on the Reformed side Nicholas

Manuel (§ 130, 4), so we have on the Lutheran side =John

Fischart=, far excelling the former two, and indeed the greatest

satirist that Germany has yet produced. To him we are mainly

indebted for the almost incessant stream of anonymous satires

of the sixteenth century. He belonged, like Sebastian Brandt and

Thomas Murner, to Strassburg, was for a long time advocate at

the royal court of justice at Spires, and died in A.D. 1589. His

satirical vein was exercised first of all upon ecclesiastical

matters: “The Night Raven (_Rabe_) and the Hooded Crow,” against

a certain J. Rabe, who had become a Roman Catholic. “On the

Pretty Life of St. Dominic and St. Francis,” an abusive effusion

against the Dominicans and Francisans [Franciscan]. “The Beehive

of the Romish Swarm,” the best known of all his satires, an

independent and original working up of the theme of the book

bearing the same name by Philip von Marnix (§ 139, 12). “The

Four-horned Bat of the Jesuits,” in rhyme, the most stinging,

witty, and scathing satire which has ever been written against

the Jesuits. Then he turned his attention to secular subjects.

His “Beehive” may be regarded as a companion piece to Murner’s

“Lutheran Buffoon;” but excelling this passionately severe

production in spirit, wit, and bright, laughing sarcasm, it is

as certain to win the pre-eminence and be awarded the victory.

Among the secular poets of that century the shoemaker of

Nuremberg, =Hans Sachs=, who died in A.D. 1576, an admirable

specimen of the Lutheran burgher, holds the first rank.

As a minstrel he is almost as unimportant as any of his

contemporaries, but conspicuously excelling in the poetic

rendering of many tales, legends, and traditions by his naïve

drollery, honest good-heartedness, and fresh, lively vigour

and style. He left behind him 208 comedies and tragedies,

1,700 humorous tales, 4,200 lays and ballads. He gave a bright

and cheery greeting to the Reformation in A.D. 1523 in his poem,

“The Wittenberg Nightingale,” and by this he also contributed

very much to further and recommend the introduction of the

teachings of the Reformation among his fellow citizens.

§ 142.8. For =Missions to the Heathen= very little was done

during this period. The reason of this indeed is not far to

seek. The Lutheran church felt that home affairs had the first

and in the meantime an all-engrossing claim upon her attention

and energies. She had not the call which the Roman Catholic

church had, in consequence of political and mercantile relations

with distant countries, to prosecute missions in heathen

lands, nor had she the means for conducting such enterprises

as those on which the monkish orders were engaged. Yet we

find the beginnings of a Lutheran mission even in this early

period, for Gustavus Vasa of Sweden founded, in A.D. 1559,

an association for carrying the gospel to the neglected and

benighted Lapps.[408]

§ 143. THE INNER DEVELOPMENT OF THE REFORMED CHURCH.

The close connection which all Lutheran national churches had obtained

in their possession of one common confession was wanting to the Reformed

church, inasmuch as there each national church had drawn up its own

confession. The victory of Calvinistic dogmatic over the Zwinglian in

the Swiss mother church (§ 138, 7) was not without influence upon the

other Reformed national churches; and Calvinism, partly in its entire

stringency and severity, partly in a form more or less modified, without

expressing itself in one common symbol, formed henceforth a bond of

union and a common standard for attacks on Lutheran dogmatics. Quite

similar was the origin of the divergence that arose between Zwinglianism

and Calvinism in the department of the ecclesiastical constitution. In

this case also the victory was with the Calvinistic organization. Its

ideal embraced the restoration of the primitive apostolic presbyterial

and synodal constitution, together with the church’s unconditional

independence of the State. This proved much more acceptable than the

theory which, under Zwingli’s auspices, had been adopted in German

Switzerland, according to which church government and the administration

of discipline were put in the hands of the Christian civil magistrates.

A rigid system of ecclesiastical penitential discipline, however, was on

all sides applied to the public and private lives of all church members.

Under such discipline the community came generally to present a picture

of singularly pure and correct morality, and not infrequently we see

exhibited a remarkable development of high moral character. It fostered

the noble confidence of the martyr spirit, which indeed only too often

ran out into extremes and made an unjustifiable use of Old Testament

precedents and patterns.--In reference to worship, the Reformed church,

with its simplest possible form of service, stripped of all pomp and

ceremony, presents the most thorough and marked contrast to the gorgeous

and richly ceremonial worship of the Roman Catholic church.--Yet the

episcopal Anglican national church (§ 139, 6), in almost all particulars

relating to constitution, worship, discipline, and customs, completely

severed its connection with the distinctive characteristics of the

Reformed church, and allied itself to the traditional forms and

ceremonies of the Roman Catholic church. On the other hand, in reference

to dogma it approaches in its mediating attitude nearer in several

respects to the view of the Lutheran church. But all the more rigidly

and exclusively did the Puritans who separated themselves from the

Anglican church, as well as the strict Presbyterian church of Scotland,

appropriate, and even carry out to further extremes, the rigorism of

the Genevan model in regard both to worship and to doctrine.

§ 143.1. =The Ecclesiastical Constitution.=--Just as in the

Lutheran church, the ecclesiastical leaders had been driven

by necessity to submit to the so-called _super-episcopate_

of the princes, it also happened here in German Switzerland

that, under pressure of circumstances, this power, as well as

church discipline and infliction of ecclesiastical censures,

was put in the hands of the magistrates. By order of Zwingli

and Œcolampadius there were founded in Zürich, in A.D. 1528,

and in Basel in A.D. 1530, synods to be held yearly for church

visitation. These were to be attended by all the pastors of

the city and district, and one or more honourable men should

be appointed from each congregation, in order to take up

and dispose of any complaints that might be made against the

life and doctrine of their pastors. But the intention of both

reformers to give this institution a controlling influence

in church government and ecclesiastical organization was

thwarted in consequence of the jealousy with which the ruling

magistrates clung to the authority that had been assigned

them in ecclesiastical matters. In Geneva, on the contrary,

Calvin’s unbending energy succeeded, after long and painful

contendings (§ 138, 3, 4), in transferring from the magistrates

the government of the church, together with church discipline

and the imposition of censures, to which here also they laid

claim, to a consistory founded by him, composed of six pastors

and twelve lay elders or presbyters, which was supreme in its

own domain, and free from all interference on the part of the

civil authorities, while the magistrates were bound to execute

civil penalties upon those excommunicated by the ecclesiastical

tribunal. The introduction of this presbyterial constitution

into Reformed national churches of large extent must have

contributed to their further extension and to the maintenance

of the national church unity. At the head of each congregation

now stood a presbytery, called in French _consistoire_, composed

of pastor and elders, the latter having been chosen either

directly by the congregation, or by the local magistrate in

accordance with the votes of the congregation, subsequently they

were also allowed to add to their own number. Then, again, the

presbyters of a particular circuit were grouped into so-called

_classes_, with a moderator chosen for the occasion; and then,

also, an annual classical synod, consisting of one pastor

and one lay elder chosen from each of the presbyteries. In a

similar way, at longer intervals, or just as necessity called

for it, provincial synods were convened, composed of deputies

from several classical synods; and from its members were

chosen representatives to the general or national synod, which

constituted the highest legislative authority for the whole

national church.[409]

§ 143.2. =Public Worship.=--Zwingli wished at first to do

away with church bells, organ playing, and church psalmody,

and even Calvin would not tolerate altars, crucifixes, images,

and candles in the churches. These he regarded as contrary

to the Divine law revealed in the decalogue, inasmuch as

the commandment that properly stood second as a distinct and

separate statute, though it had slipped out of the enumeration

usual among the Catholics and Lutherans, was understood to

forbid the use of images. The churches were reduced to bare and

unadorned places for prayer and assembly rooms for preaching,

and simple communion tables took the place of altars. Kneeling,

as savouring of ceremonialism, was discountenanced; the breaking

of bread was again introduced in the administration of the

Lord’s Supper as forming an important part of the symbolism;

private confession was abolished; exorcism at baptism, as well

as baptism in emergencies as a necessary thing, was discontinued;

the liturgy was reduced to simple prayers spoken, not sung,

and from a literalist purism the usual _Vater unser_ was changed

into _Unser Vater_. The festivals were reduced to the smallest

number possible, and only the principal Christian feasts were

celebrated, Christmas, Easter, Pentecost; while the Sunday

festival was observed with almost the Old Testament strictness

of Sabbath keeping.--In securing the introduction of psalmody

into the worship of the German Reformed church, John Zwick,

pastor at Constance, who died in A.D. 1542, was particularly

active. In A.D. 1536 he published a small psalmody, with some

Bible psalms set to Lutheran melodies. At Calvin’s request,

Clement Marot set a good number of the Psalms to popular French

airs in A.D. 1541-1543; Beza completed it, and then Calvin

introduced this French psalter into the church of Geneva. Claude

Goudimel (§ 149, 15) in A.D. 1562 published sixteen of these

psalms with four-part harmonies. He was murdered in the massacre

of St. Bartholomew at Lyons, in A.D. 1572. A professor of law at

Königsberg, Ambrose Lobwasser, in A.D. 1573 made an arrangement

of the Psalter in the German language after the style of

Marot. This psalter, notwithstanding its poetical deficiencies,

continued in use for a long time in Germany and Switzerland.

Zwingli’s aversion to congregational singing was given effect

to only in Zürich, but even there the service of praise was

introduced by a decree of the council in A.D. 1598. In the other

German Swiss cantons they did not confine themselves to the use

of the Psalms, but adopted unhesitatingly spiritual songs by

both Reformed and Lutheran poets. Among the former, who neither

in number nor in ability could approach the latter, the most

important were John Zwick and Ambrose Blaurer (§ 133, 3). It

was only in the seventeenth century that the Lutheran sister

church abandoned her rigid adherence to the exclusive use of

Lobwasser’s psalms in congregational singing, when the rise of

Pietism, and afterwards the spread of rationalism, overcame this

narrow-mindedness.[410]

§ 143.3. =The English Puritans.=--The Reformation under

Elizabeth (§ 139, 6), with its Lutheranizing doctrinal

standpoint and Catholicizing forms of constitution and worship,

had been sanctioned in A.D. 1559 by the Act of Uniformity

in the exercise of the royal supremacy that was claimed over

the whole ecclesiastical institutions of the country. But

the Protestants who had fled from the persecutions of Bloody

Mary and had returned in vast troops when Elizabeth ascended

the throne brought with them from their foreign resorts,

in Switzerland from Geneva, Zürich, Basel, in Germany from

Strassburg, Frankfort, Emden, entirely different notions about

the nature of genuine evangelical Christianity; and now with

all the assumption of confessors they sought to have these ideas

realized in their native land. Inspired for the most part with

the rigorist spirit of the Genevan Reformation, they desired,

instead of the royal supremacy, to have the independence

of the church proclaimed, and instead of the hierarchical

episcopal system a presbyterial constitution with strict church

discipline, arranged in accordance with the Genevan model.

They also gave a one-sided prominence to the formal principle

of the Holy Scripture, adhered rigidly to the doctrinal theory

of Calvin and to a mode of worship as bare as possible, stripped

of every vestige of popish superstition, such as priestly dress,

altars, candles, crucifixes, sign of the cross, forms of prayer,

godfathers, confirmation, kneeling at the sacrament, bowing the

head at the mention of the name of Jesus, bells, organs, etc.

On account of their opposition to the Act of Uniformity, these

were designated Nonconformists or Dissenters. They were also

called =Puritans=, because they insisted upon an organization

of the church purified from every human invention, and ordered

strictly in accordance with the word of God. Their principles,

which were enunciated first of all in private conventicles,

found a very wide acceptance amongst ministers and people.

This movement proved too strong to be suppressed, even by the

frequent deprivation and banishment of the ministers, or the

fining and imprisonment of their adherents. Amid the severity

of persecution and oppression Puritanism continued to grow,

and in A.D. 1572 numerous separatist congregations provided

themselves with a presbyterial and synodal constitution;

the former for the management of the affairs of particular

congregations, the latter for the settlement of questions

affecting the whole church. Specially offensive to the

queen, and therefore strictly forbidden by her and rigorously

suppressed, were the prophesyings introduced into many English

churches after the pattern of the prophesyings of the church

of Zürich. These were week-day meetings of the congregation,

at which the Sunday sermons were further explained and

illustrated from Scripture by the preachers, and applied to

the circumstances and needs of the church of that day.[411]

§ 143.4. Even before the sixteenth century had come to an end

an ultra-puritan tendency had been developed, the adherents

of which were called Brownists, from their leader Robert Brown.

As chaplain of the Duke of Norfolk, he was brought into contact

at Norwich with Dutch Anabaptist refugees; and stirred up by

them, he began a violent and bitter polemic, not only against

the Cæsaro-papism and episcopacy of the State church, but also

against the aristocratic element in the presbyterial and synodal

constitution. He taught that church and congregation were to be

completely identified; that every separate congregation, because

subject to no other authority than that of Christ and His word,

has the right of independently arranging and administering its

own affairs according to the decisions of the majority. Having

been cast into prison, but again liberated through the powerful

influence of his friends, he retired in A.D. 1581 to Holland,

and founded a small congregation there at Middleburg in Zealand.

When this soon became reduced to a mere handful, he returned

to England in A.D. 1589, and there renewed his agitation; but

afterwards submitted to the hierarchical State church, and

died in A.D. 1630 in the enjoyment of a rich living. After his

apostasy, the jurist Henry Barrow took his place as leader of

the Brownists, who still numbered many thousands, and were now

called after him Barrowists. Persecuted by the government and

harassed by severe measures from A.D. 1594, whole troops of them

retreated to the Netherlands, where in several of the principal

cities they formed considerable congregations, and issued, in

A.D. 1598, their first symbolical document, “The Confession of

Faith of certain English People exiled.”--The second founder of

the party, a more trustworthy leader and more vigorous apologist,

was the pastor John Robinson, who, in A.D. 1608, with his

Norwich congregation settled at Amsterdam, and in A.D. 1610

moved to Leyden. He died in A.D. 1625. The fundamental points

in the constitution under his leadership were these:

1. Complete equality of all the members of the church among

themselves, and consequently the setting aside of all

clerical prerogatives;

2. Thorough subordination of the college of presbyters to

the will of the majority of the congregation, from which

circumstance they obtained the name of =Congregationalists=;

and

3. The perfect autonomy of separate congregations and their

independence alike of every civil authority and of every

synodal judicature, from which characteristic they obtained

the name of =Independents=.

Synodal assemblies were allowed merely for the purpose of mutual

consultation and advice, and when so restricted were regarded

as beneficial. With this end in view a _Congregational board_

was appointed to sit in London, which formed a common centre

of union. And as in constitution, so also in worship there was

a complete breach made with all the traditions and developments

of church history. With the exception of Sunday all feast

days were abolished. In the assemblies for public worship each

individual had the right of free speech for the edification

of the congregation. All liturgical formularies and prescribed

prayers, even the Lord’s Prayer not excepted, were set aside, as

hindering the mission of the Holy Spirit in the congregation.--In

order to preserve for their descendants the sacred heritage of

their faith, and their native English language and nationality,

and in order to save them from the moral dangers to which they

were exposed in large cities, but to an equal extent at least

inspired by the wish to break new ground for the kingdom of God

in the New World, many of their families set out, in A.D. 1620,

from Holland for North America, and there, as “Pilgrim Fathers,”

amid indescribable hardships, established a colony in the wastes

of Massachusetts, and laid the foundations of that Congregational

denomination which has now grown into so powerful and influential

a church.[412]

§ 143.5. =Theological Science.=--In A.D. 1523, the grand

council at Zürich set up the peculiar institution of prophesying

(1 Cor. xiv. 29) or biblical conferences. Pastors along with

students, as well as certain scholars specially called for

the purpose, were required to meet together every morning,

with the exception of Sundays and Fridays, in the choir of the

cathedral, where, after a short opening prayer, public exegetical

expositions of the Old Testament were given in the regular order

of books and chapters, with a strict and detailed comparison

of the Vulgate, the LXX. and the original text; and then at the

close one of the professors stated the results of the conference

in a practical discourse for the edification of the congregation.

At a later period theological studies flourished at Geneva and

Basel, in the French church at the academy of Saumur and the

theological seminaries of Montauban, Sedan, and Montpellier.

=Sebastian Münster=, formerly at Heidelberg, afterwards at Basel,

issued, in A.D. 1523, a complete Hebrew lexicon. The Zürich

theologians, Leo Judä and others, in A.D. 1524-1529 translated

Luther’s Bible into the Swiss dialect, making, however, an

independent revision in accordance with the original text. At

the instigation of the Waldensians, =Robert Olivetan= of Geneva

(§ 138, 1) undertook, in A.D. 1535, a translation of the Holy

Scriptures from the original into the French language; but in

so far as the New Testament is concerned he followed almost

literally the translation of Faber (§ 120, 8). In subsequent

editions it was in various particulars greatly improved,

although even to this day it remains very unsatisfactory.

=Theodore Beza= gave an improved recension of the New Testament

text and a new Latin translation of it. Sebastian Münster edited

the Old Testament text with an independent Latin translation.

Also =Leo Judä= in Zürich undertook a similar work, for which

he was well qualified by a competent knowledge of languages.

=Sebastian Castellio= in Geneva endeavoured to make the prophets

and apostles speak in classical Latin and in full Ciceronian

periods. Most successful was the Latin translation of the

Old Testament which =Immanuel Tremellius= at Heidelberg, in

connection with his son-in-law =Francis Junius=, produced.

=John Piscator=, dismissed from Heidelberg under the Elector

Louis VI. (§ 144, 1), from A.D. 1584 professor in the academy

founded at Herborn during that same year, published a new

German translation of the Bible, which was authoritatively

introduced into the churches at Bern and in other Reformed

communities. Commentators on Holy Scripture were also numerous

during this age. Besides =Calvin=, who far outstrips them

all (§ 138, 5), the following were distinguished for their

exegetical performances: Zwingli, Œcolampadius, Conrad Pellican

(§ 120, 4 footnote), Theodore Beza, Francis Junius, John

Piscator, John Mercer, and the Frenchman Marloratus.--As

a dogmatist =Calvin=, again beyond all question occupies the

very front rank. In speculative power and thorough mastery

of his materials he excels all his contemporaries. Leo Judä’s

catechisms, two in German and one in Latin, in which the

scholar puts the question and the teacher gives the answer and

explanation, continued long in use in the Zürich church. Among

the German Reformed theologians =Andrew Hyperius= of Marburg,

who died in A.D. 1564, takes an honourable place as an exegete

by his expositions of the Pauline epistles, as a dogmatist by

his _Methodus theologiæ_, as a homilist by his _De formandis

concionibus s._, and as the first founder of theological

encyclopædia by his _De recte formando theolog. studio_.--The

pietistic efforts of the English Puritan party found a fit

nursery in the University of Cambridge, where =William Whitaker=,

who died in A.D. 1598, the author of _Catechismus s. institutio

pietatis_, and especially =William Perkins=, who died in

A.D. 1602, author of _De casibus conscientiæ_, besides many

other English works of edification, laboured unweariedly in

endeavouring to infuse a pious spirit into the theological

studies. Both were also eager and enthusiastic supporters of

the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination; but the attempt,

through the “Nine Lambeth Articles,” laid before Archbishop

Whitgift in his palace in A.D. 1598, and accepted and approved

by him, to make this doctrine an absolute doctrinal test for

the university was frustrated by the decided veto of Queen

Elizabeth.--Continuation, § 160, 6.

§ 143.6. =Philosophy.=--For the formal scientific construction

of systematic theology the Aristotelian dialectic, as the

heritage bequeathed by the mediæval scholasticism, continued

to exercise upon the occupants of the Reformed professorial

chairs, as well as in Lutheran seminaries, a dominating

influence far down into the seventeenth century. To emancipate

philosophy, and with it also in the same degree theology,

from these fetters, which hindered every free movement, and

inaugurate a simpler scientific method, was an attempt made

first of all by =Peter Ramus=, who from A.D. 1551 was professor

of dialectic and rhetoric in Paris, distinguished also as

a polyhistor, humanist, and mathematician, and diligent in

disseminating his views from the platform and by the press.

As he had openly declared himself a Calvinist, he had repeatedly

to seek refuge in flight. After a long residence in Switzerland

and Germany, where he gained many adherents, who were known

by the name of Ramists, he thought that after the Peace of

St. Germain (§ 139, 15), in A.D. 1571, he might with safety

return to Paris; but there, in A.D. 1572, he fell a victim to

Romish fanaticism on the night of St. Bartholomew.--Continuation,

§ 163, 1.

§ 143.7. The Reformed church made =one missionary= attempt in

A.D. 1557. A French adventurer, Villegagnon, laid before Admiral

Coligny a plan for the colonization of the persecuted Huguenots

in Brazil. With this proposal there was linked a scheme for

conducting a mission among the heathen aborigines. He sailed

under Coligny’s patronage in A.D. 1555 with a number of Huguenot

artisans, and founded Fort Coligny at Rio de Janeiro. At

his request Calvin sent him two Geneva pastors in A.D. 1557.

The intolerable tyranny which Villegagnon exercised over the

unprotected colonists, the failure of their efforts among the

natives, famine, and want impelled them in the following year

to seek again their native shores, which they reached after

a most disastrous voyage. All were not able to secure a place

in the returning ships, and even of those who started several

died of starvation on the way.--Continuation, § 161, 7.[413]

§ 144. CALVINIZING OF GERMAN LUTHERAN NATIONAL CHURCHES.

The Cryptocalvinist controversies conducted with such party violence

proved indeed in vain so far as winning over to Philippist Calvinism

the Lutheran church as a whole was concerned (§ 141, 10, 13); but

they did not succeed in hindering, but rather fostered and advanced,

the public adoption of the Reformed Confession on the part of several

national churches in Germany or their being driven by force to

accept the Calvinistic constitution and creed. The first instance

of a procedure of this sort is to be found in the Palatinate. It was

followed by Bremen, Anhalt, and in the beginning of the next century

by Hesse Cassel and the electoral dynasty of Brandenburg (§ 154, 3).

§ 144.1. =The Palatinate, A.D. 1560.=--Tilemann Hesshus,

formerly the scholar and devoted admirer of Melanchthon, had

been banished by the magistrates as a disturber of the peace

from Goslar, and then from Rostock, on account of his reckless

and severe administration of church discipline. At Melanchthon’s

recommendation, the Elector Ottheinrich of the Palatinate called

him as professor and general superintendent to Heidelberg, in

A.D. 1558. Here he came into collision with his deacon William

Klebitz. The latter had produced, on the occasion of his

receiving his bachelor’s degree, a thesis in which he vindicated

a Calvinizing theory of the Lord’s Supper, whereupon Hesshus

condemned and suspended him, in A.D. 1559. But Klebitz would not

move. Passion on both sides developed into senseless fury, which

found expression in the pulpit and at the altar. The new elector,

Frederick III. the Pious, A.D. 1559-1576, sent both into exile,

and obtained an opinion from Melanchthon, which advised him to

hold by the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians x. 16, “the bread is

the communion of the body of Christ.” The elector, who had long

been favourably inclined to the Reformed doctrine and worship,

now introduced, in A.D. 1560, into all the churches of his

domains a Reformed order of service, had altars, baptismal

fonts, images, and even organs removed from the churches,

filled the professors’ chairs with foreign Calvinistic teachers,

and in A.D. 1562 had the “Heidelberg Catechism” composed by two

Heidelberg professors, Zach. Ursinus and Gaspar Olevianus, for

use in the schools throughout his territories.[414] In respect

of that simplicity which befits a popular manual, in power

and spirituality, it is not to be compared to Luther’s “Short

Catechism,” but it is certainly distinguished by learning,

theological genius, Christian fervour, and moderate, peaceful

spirit, and deserves in an eminent degree the acceptance which

it has found, not only among the German, but also among the

foreign Reformed churches. Calvin’s doctrine of predestination

is avoided, and his theory of the Lord’s Supper is taught in a

form approaching as near as possible to the Lutheran view, but

the Roman Catholic mass is characterized as execrable idolatry.

The introduction of this catechism, however, completed the

severance of the Palatinate from the Lutheran church. Brenz

in Stuttgart attacked its doctrine of the supper; Bullinger

in Zürich and Beza in Geneva defended it with passionate

eagerness; and the conference arranged by the elector to

be held at Maulbronn, in A.D. 1564, between the theologians

of the Palatinate and of Württemberg, during its six days’

discussions increased the bitterness of parties, and made

the split perpetual. The Lutheran German states, irritated

by the secession of the elector, complained of him to the Diet

of Augsburg, in A.D. 1564, that he had broken the religious

Peace of Augsburg by the forcible introduction of Calvinism. He

answered in defence, that he had not himself read Calvin’s works,

and was therefore not in a position to know what Calvinism was;

that at Naumburg, in A.D. 1561 (§ 141, 11), he had subscribed

the _Augustana_, more correctly the _Variata_, and still adhered

to the confession he then made. The diet then did not venture to

interfere with him, and was satisfied with a simple expression

of disapproval. By the introduction of presbyteries by the order

of the elector, in A.D. 1570, for the administration of church

discipline, Olevianus embroiled himself in controversy with the

electoral councillor and professor of medicine at Heidelberg,

Thomas Erastus (§ 117, 4), who would much rather have the Zürich

church order introduced (§ 143) than the Zwinglian theory of

the supper. This idea he very persistently pressed, but without

success. Although himself a member of the ecclesiastical council,

he yet fell under its ban, along with Neuser and Sylvanus

(§ 148, 3) as suspected of unitarianism, but this charge has

never been proved against him. In A.D. 1510 he settled in Basel,

and died there, in A.D. 1583, as professor of moral philosophy.

His controversial treatise, “_Explicatio gravissimæ quæstionis,

utrum excommunicatio mandato nitatur divino, an excogitata

sit ab hominibus_,” was published after his death. Beza

answered in two dissertations: “_De presbyteriis_” and “_De

excommunicatione_.” Notice of his theory was now taken in

England and Scotland, and among the names of sects in these

countries during the seventeenth century we find that of

Erastians. At this very day all subordinating of church

government under the authority of the State is commonly styled

Erastianism.[415]--The reign of Louis VI., A.D. 1576-1583,

a zealous friend of the Formula of Concord, was of too short

duration to secure the complete restoration of Lutheranism

throughout his dominions. The count-palatine, John Casimir,

who conducted the government as regent during the minority,

systematically drove out all Lutheran pastors and trained up

his ward Frederick IV. in Calvinism.--Continuation, § 153, 3.

§ 144.2. =Bremen, A.D. 1562.=--In Bremen the cathedral

preacher, Albert Rizæus von Hardenberg, long lay under

suspicion of favouring the Zwinglian theory of the sacraments.

He publicly repudiated the Lutheran doctrine of the ubiquity of

the body of Christ, which his colleague John Timann had defended

in his treatise, “_Farrago sententiarum ... de cœna Domini_,”

of A.D. 1555. Upon this there began a lively controversy between

them. All the pastors took Timann’s side, but Hardenberg had

a powerful supporter in the burgomaster Daniel van Büren, and

an opinion obtained from Melanchthon in A.D. 1557 also favoured

him by counselling concession. Through his refusal to subscribe

a confession of faith in reference to the supper submitted

to him by the council, the excitement in Bremen was increased,

and spread from thence over all the provinces of Lower Saxony.

Timann died in A.D. 1557. His place as champion of the Lutheran

doctrine of the supper was taken by Hesshus, who had been driven

out of Heidelberg in A.D. 1559, and had almost immediately

afterward been called to Bremen. He challenged Hardenberg to

a public disputation, which, however, did not come off, because

the new Archbishop of Bremen, Duke George of Brunswick-Lüneberg

[Lüneburg], forbade Hardenberg to take part in it, and instead

of this brought the matter before the league of the cities of

Lower Saxony. The league held a provincial diet at Brunswick,

in A.D. 1561, where Hardenberg was removed from his office, yet

without detracting from his honour. He went now to Oldenburg,

and died in A.D. 1574 as pastor at Emden. Hesshus had left

Bremen in A.D. 1560, having accepted a call to Magdeburg,

and from thence continued his controversy with Hardenberg. His

successor in Bremen, Simon Musæus, no less passionately than he

insisted upon the expulsion of all adherents of Hardenberg, and

had indeed managed to get the council to agree to the proposal

when things took a turn in an altogether different direction.

Büren, in spite of all opposition, became the chief burgomaster

in A.D. 1562. Musæus and other twelve pastors were now expelled,

and also the councillors who were in favour of Lutheranism felt

that they could do nothing else than quit the city. By foreign

mediation an understanding was come to in A.D. 1568, by which

those who had been driven out were allowed to return to the city,

but not to their offices. All the churches of Bremen, with the

exception of the cathedral, which obtained a Lutheran pastor

again in A.D. 1568, continued in the possession of the Reformed

party.--But Hesshus was in A.D. 1562 expelled also from

Magdeburg, as well as afterwards from his position as court

preacher in Neuburg, in A.D. 1569, and from his professorship

at Jena in A.D. 1573 (§ 141, 10), on account of his passionate

and violent polemics. He was also expelled from his bishopric

of Samland, in A.D. 1577, as a teacher of error, because he had

ascribed omnipotence, etc., to the human nature of Christ _etiam

in abstracto_. He died in A.D. 1588 as professor in Helmstadt.

§ 144.3. =Anhalt, A.D. 1597.=--After the death of Prince

Joachim Ernest four Anhalt dynasties were formed by his sons,

Dessau, Bemburg, Köthen, Zerbst. John George, first head of

the family of Anhalt-Dessau, reigned on behalf of his brothers,

who had not yet come of age, from A.D. 1587 till A.D. 1603,

and married a daughter of John Casimir, the count-palatine.

After having refused to sign the Formula of Concord, he began

the Calvinization of the land in A.D. 1589 by striking out

the exorcism, and then, in A.D. 1596, he put the Reformed

church order in place of the Lutheran. Soon after this Luther’s

catechism was set aside, and in A.D. 1597 a document was

produced, consisting of twenty-eight Calvinistic articles with

a modified doctrine of predestination, which all the pastors

under pain of banishment from the country, were required to

subscribe. The most active agents in this movement were Caspar

Peucer (§ 141, 10), who had been expelled from Wittenberg,

and the superintendent Wolfgang Amling of Zerbst. In A.D. 1644,

however, Anhalt-Zerbst returned to the old Lutheran Confession,

under Prince John, who had been trained up by his mother in the

Lutheran faith.