§ 141. Doctrinal Controversies in the Lutheran Church.403Even 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 calledFormula Concordiæ.
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 calledFormula 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, inA.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, inA.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 inA.D.1540, charging Luther with having offered him a personal insult, and was made court preacher at Berlin, where, inA.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 acollaborateurin drawing up the hated Augsburg Interim (§136, 5). As his antinomianism every now and again cropped up afresh, theFormula Concordiæat last settled the controversy by the statement that we must ascribe to the law, not only ausus politicusandusus elenchticusfor terrorizing and arresting the sinner, but also ausus didacticusfor 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 Godforman, sanctification as the operation of Godinman. 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 Osianderproposed 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 fromA.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 inA.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 fromA.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 inA.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 inA.D.1566.The other Osiandrianists were deposed and exiled. Mörlin, fromA.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 fromA.D.1554 preacher in Brunswick, where he died inA.D.1586 as general superintendent, composed for Prussia a new doctrinal standard in theCorpus doctrinæ PruthenicumofA.D.1567.404§ 141.3. Of much less importance was theÆpinus Controversyabout Christ’s descent into hell, which John Æpinus, first Lutheran superintendent at Hamburg, in his exposition of the 16th Psalm, inA.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, inA.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 theKargian 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 hisLocilater thanA.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-calledVariata, inA.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 ofvescentibusthe Calvinists would have saidcredentibus. 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 ofA.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 inA.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, inA.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 inA.D.1565. The latter, a native of Istria, and hence known as Illyricus, was appointed professor of the Hebrew language in Wittenberg inA.D.1544, fled to Magdeburg inA.D.1549, from whence he went to Weimar inA.D.1556, and was called to Jena inA.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 asadiaphora, 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 fromA.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 inA.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 anecessitas meriti, but only anecessitas 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 inA.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 inA.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 hisLoci, inA.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 theLoci, fromA.D.1535, and in the Augsburg Confession ofA.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 theLociofA.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 ofA.D.1549 the Lutheran shibbolethsolêwas 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, inA.D.1555, hisPropositiones 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, inA.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 inA.D.1560 vindicated himself at a public disputation in Weimar against Flacius, and was soon afterwards called to Leipzig. When inA.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, inA.D.1567, to restore the overthrown theological party. Even in electoral Saxony interest in the Catholicizing synergism, at least, after Melanchthon’s death, inA.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, inA.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 inA.D.1562, and not recalled with them inA.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, inA.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 ofA.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 inA.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 thecommunicatio 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 theSyngramma SuevicumofA.D.1525 (§131, 1), he has taken his place most decidedly on the side of Luther, and this he had also done again, inA.D.1529, at the Marburg Conference (§132, 4). Then inA.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 thisConfessio 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, inA.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 inA.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, fromA.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 delivereda 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 theConsensus 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 inA.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 inA.D.1568, with the new name of Crato von Crafftheim. Another Silesian physician, Joachim Curæus, also a scholar of Melanchthon, published inA.D.1574, without any indication of author’s name, place of publication, or date of issue, hisExegesis 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 inA.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. InA.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 inA.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 ofA.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 theFrankfort Compact, in which they declared anew their unanimous attachment to the doctrine set forth in theAugustana, theVariata, and theSaxonica(§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 ofA.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 theAssembly of Princesappointed to meet for this purpose atNaumburginA.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 ofA.D.1530, or its later elaboration ofA.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 inA.D.1540, where even Calvin had signed it, and at Regensburg inA.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 ofA.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 theAugustana, as well as the edition ofA.D.1540, was acknowledged, while the Schmalcald Articles, as well as theConfessio 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 inA.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 inA.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,” ofA.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, inA.D.1577, the Book of Berg or theFormula of Concord, in two different forms, first in the most compressed style possible in what is known as theEpitome, and then more completely in the document known as theSolida declaratio. This document dealt with all the controverted questions that had been agitated sinceA.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 aPræfatiodrawn 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. InA.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 commoncorpus 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 inA.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, inA.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 calledArticles of VisitationofA.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, fromA.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, inA.D.1577, and his Latin treatise, “Libelli IV. de pers. Chr. ejusque ad dexteram sedentes divina majestate,” inA.D.1585, shown himself an energetic champion of strict Lutheranism. He died inA.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 inA.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 inA.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, inA.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 inA.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 inA.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.
§ 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, inA.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, inA.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 inA.D.1540, charging Luther with having offered him a personal insult, and was made court preacher at Berlin, where, inA.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 acollaborateurin drawing up the hated Augsburg Interim (§136, 5). As his antinomianism every now and again cropped up afresh, theFormula Concordiæat last settled the controversy by the statement that we must ascribe to the law, not only ausus politicusandusus elenchticusfor terrorizing and arresting the sinner, but also ausus didacticusfor 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 Godforman, sanctification as the operation of Godinman. 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 Osianderproposed 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 fromA.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 inA.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 fromA.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 inA.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 inA.D.1566.The other Osiandrianists were deposed and exiled. Mörlin, fromA.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 fromA.D.1554 preacher in Brunswick, where he died inA.D.1586 as general superintendent, composed for Prussia a new doctrinal standard in theCorpus doctrinæ PruthenicumofA.D.1567.404
§ 141.3. Of much less importance was theÆpinus Controversyabout Christ’s descent into hell, which John Æpinus, first Lutheran superintendent at Hamburg, in his exposition of the 16th Psalm, inA.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, inA.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 theKargian 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 hisLocilater thanA.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-calledVariata, inA.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 ofvescentibusthe Calvinists would have saidcredentibus. 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 ofA.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 inA.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, inA.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 inA.D.1565. The latter, a native of Istria, and hence known as Illyricus, was appointed professor of the Hebrew language in Wittenberg inA.D.1544, fled to Magdeburg inA.D.1549, from whence he went to Weimar inA.D.1556, and was called to Jena inA.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 asadiaphora, 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 fromA.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 inA.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 anecessitas meriti, but only anecessitas 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 inA.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 inA.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 hisLoci, inA.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 theLoci, fromA.D.1535, and in the Augsburg Confession ofA.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 theLociofA.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 ofA.D.1549 the Lutheran shibbolethsolêwas 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, inA.D.1555, hisPropositiones 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, inA.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 inA.D.1560 vindicated himself at a public disputation in Weimar against Flacius, and was soon afterwards called to Leipzig. When inA.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, inA.D.1567, to restore the overthrown theological party. Even in electoral Saxony interest in the Catholicizing synergism, at least, after Melanchthon’s death, inA.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, inA.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 inA.D.1562, and not recalled with them inA.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, inA.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 ofA.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 inA.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 thecommunicatio 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 theSyngramma SuevicumofA.D.1525 (§131, 1), he has taken his place most decidedly on the side of Luther, and this he had also done again, inA.D.1529, at the Marburg Conference (§132, 4). Then inA.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 thisConfessio 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, inA.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 inA.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, fromA.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 delivereda 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 theConsensus 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 inA.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 inA.D.1568, with the new name of Crato von Crafftheim. Another Silesian physician, Joachim Curæus, also a scholar of Melanchthon, published inA.D.1574, without any indication of author’s name, place of publication, or date of issue, hisExegesis 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 inA.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. InA.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 inA.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 ofA.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 theFrankfort Compact, in which they declared anew their unanimous attachment to the doctrine set forth in theAugustana, theVariata, and theSaxonica(§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 ofA.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 theAssembly of Princesappointed to meet for this purpose atNaumburginA.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 ofA.D.1530, or its later elaboration ofA.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 inA.D.1540, where even Calvin had signed it, and at Regensburg inA.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 ofA.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 theAugustana, as well as the edition ofA.D.1540, was acknowledged, while the Schmalcald Articles, as well as theConfessio 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 inA.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 inA.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,” ofA.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, inA.D.1577, the Book of Berg or theFormula of Concord, in two different forms, first in the most compressed style possible in what is known as theEpitome, and then more completely in the document known as theSolida declaratio. This document dealt with all the controverted questions that had been agitated sinceA.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 aPræfatiodrawn 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. InA.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 commoncorpus 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 inA.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, inA.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 calledArticles of VisitationofA.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, fromA.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, inA.D.1577, and his Latin treatise, “Libelli IV. de pers. Chr. ejusque ad dexteram sedentes divina majestate,” inA.D.1585, shown himself an energetic champion of strict Lutheranism. He died inA.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 inA.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 inA.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, inA.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 inA.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 inA.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.