NETHER LANDS. The other provinces might have also followed their example, had not a future Spanish general, the duke of Parma, laboured to divert the movement', by enlarging the political rights of the inhabitants on the express condition that they should henceforth enlist with him in counteracting the advance of misbelievers. Traces of reaction accordingly grew more visible from day to day until the efforts of the Jesuits finally succeeded in re-establishing the papacy not only at Tournay, Lisle, and many other places on the French border, but in districts where the opposite party had once threatened to preponderate,— the rich and populous cities of Flanders and Brabant. 1 See the convention made at Arras (May 17, 1579), in Dumont, Corps Universel Diplomatique, V. pt. 1. 350. On the murder of the prince of Orange (July 10, 1584), the sovereignty of the Netherlands was offered by his disconcerted party first to the king of France, and next to Queen Elizabeth. Although the latter would not accept the proffered dignity, she sent auxiliaries in 1586 under the earl of Leicester, who soon obtained enormous influence even in the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs: see Brandt, I. 403 sq. Carte, Hist. of England, III. 598 sq. Thus he who proved himself at home, according to Fuller, the 'patron-general of the non-subscribers,' insisted while in Holland on the most rigorous adherence to the Belgic Confession: Brandt, I. 405. He was recalled in 1588 (Ibid. p. 423), the year when English politicians were relieved from the necessity of entering into alliances with foreign Protestants by the defeat of the Invincible Armada. CHAPTER III. CONFLICTS BETWEEN THE SAXON AND THE schools of Reformers. THE progress of the continental Reformation, to say nothing for the present of the various shades of Anabaptism and of other wild and revolutionary sects, developed two grand types of Christian doctrine, both of which, in all Two great their leading characteristics, have been transmitted from that continental period to our own. They are conveniently distinguished as the Saxon and the Swiss, or in more technical phraseology, as Lutheran' or Protestant and 'Calvinistic' or Reformed. The earlier struggle of the schools embodying these varieties of faith, of feeling and of worship, has been noted in the previous chapters, and in tracing their propagation through the different states of Europe, many an instance of unseemly altercation and collision were presented to our view. For example, when their founders were reluctantly drawn together at Marburg (1529), for the purpose of adjusting, as far as might be, the divergencies in their respective confessions, Luther was persuaded more and more that the two schools were actuated by a very different spirit, and that reconciliation was impossible. 2 Ihr habt einen andern Geist als wir:' cf. Daniel's Codex Liturg. Eccl. Reform. Proleg. p. 3, Lips. 1851. On the whole history of this important Conference, see Schmitt's work, entitled Das Religions-gespräch zu Marburg, Marb. 1840. On the interviews relating to the Eucharist, a full account is given by Ebrard (Das Dogma vom heiligen Abendmahl, 11. The doctrine of the Eucha subject of contention. The turning-point of all their controversies was the docrist one chief trine of the Eucharist, which also furnished one of the main criteria for determining how other subjects, more or less vitally connected with it, had been contemplated by the writers on both sides of the discussion. It is true that Bucer and the school of Strasburg in submitting the Tetrapolitan Confession' to the emperor Charles V., as well as in their subsequent acts of mediation, were disposed to underrate the magnitude of the controversy, and even to represent it as little more than verbal; but so long as it continued in its original shape, the disputants were plainly justified in ascribing to it vast importance. During the lifetime of Zwingli the question to be solved was, whether Christians might regard the consecrated elements as media or conductors, really and truly uniting them with Christ, or whether the thing signified being absolutely incapable of association with the outward sign, the Eucharist was merely an external badge of membership in some confederation called the Church. unnatural for Romanists of the age to in his own communion was sufficient proof that storms are not rendered 1 Above, p. 57, n. 2. Schenkel, vinum sint signa exhibitiva quibus datis et acceptis simul detur et accipiatur corpus Christi:' it being added by way of qualification, 'panem et corpus uniri non per substantiarum mixtionem, sed quatenus datur cum sacramento, id quod sacramento promittitur, h. e. quia uno posito aliud ponitur. Nam quoniam utrimque in eo consentiatur, quod panis et vinum non mutentur, ideo sacramentalem ejusmodi conjunctionem sese statuere.' Schenkel, Ibid. p. 545, n. 3. On these grounds rested the Concordia Vitebergensis (1536): see above, p. 63, n. 6. The tenacity with which Bucer clung to his quasiLutheran theory in opposition to John Laski and others, who symbolized more fully with the Swiss, is seen in the angry letter of Martin Micronius, dated London, Oct. 13, 1550: Original Letters, ed. P. S. p. 572; cf. Ibid. p. 652. by Calvin. At length, however, when Calvin had transferred the How modified disputations into far loftier ground, the combatants with greater reason might have been expected to lay down their arms, and even to embrace each other. Partly owing to the influence exercised by the conciliatory Bucer, but still more to Calvin's reputation and his powerful arguments, the leading Swiss divines3 had gradually receded more and more from the position occupied by Zwingli till the controversy was no longer touching the reality of Christ's presence in the Eucharist, nor of His actual communication then and there to every faithful recipient. So far the Lutheran and Calvinist were now agreed: yet while the former taught that Christ was present in the elements and so connected with them after consecration, that even the wicked to their detriment became partakers of His glorified humanity, the latter contended no less strenuously that Christ is not communicated in or through, but rather with, the consecrated Bread and Wine; the union of the outward and inward parts of the sacrament being always conditioned by the faith of the recipient, and the communication of Christ to the believing soul effected only in a mystical or supersensuous way by some specific action of the Holy Ghost". 2 See above, pp. 130, 138. It is worth observing, that Calvin speaks in no measured terms of Zwingli's aberrations on the doctrine of the sacraments: e. g. in writing to Viret (1542) he characterizes the original dogma of the Zürich reformer as 'profana,' and in a letter to Zebedæus (1539) as 'falsa et perniciosa.' Other passages of the same kind are collected in Gieseler, III. pt. ii. p. 171, n. 44. 3 The Zürichers at first demurred, and the Bernese continued their opposition still longer: see Thomas, La Confession Helvétique, pp. 98 sq. Genève, 1853; Ebrard, as above, II. 484 sq. The Confessio Helvetica Posterior composed by Bullinger in 1562, and avowedly in more general 4 The following extract from a aversion to rigorous defi nitions. Nor could the Eucharistic controversy be long restricted to the how; polemics felt themselves conducted further in the logical development of their ideas, and henceforth they enquired more narrowly into the what. That Christ was verily and indeed communicated some how or other to the faithful, and communicated in virtue of some connexion with the elements themselves, had been conceded alike in Switzerland and Germany; but when it was demanded whether the thing communicated was the corporal matter of our Saviour's glorified humanity (the Lutheran hypothesis), or whether it was the complex Person of the Christ, Divine no less than human (which the Calvinist as vigorously maintained), the disputants had launched on questions full of the profoundest mystery, because relating to the mode in which the properties of the Godhead and the manhood coexist and interpenetrate each other in the undivided Christ 2. Of those who shrank from the discussion of the awful topics thus propounded, none was more conspicuous than Melancthon's Melancthon3. Satisfied on reaching the conclusion that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, and that His presence is most truly efficacious in all persons who faithfully receive Him, the devout reformer invariably discouraged those ulterior speculations, and at length, when he had partially succeeded at Wittenberg itself, attempted to cement a union with his fellow-workers in Switzerland. It was in the execution of this purpose that, having obtained the sanction of Luther, he published in 1540 a new edition of the Augsburg Confession, known as the Confessio Variata, where, sui virtute carnis suæ vivificæ nos 1 Ebrard, II. 526. 2 On the opening of these questions by Zwingli, see above, p. 122. 3 Above, p. 63, n. 6. • 'Dass diese Variata bloss die Geltung einer Privatschrift gehabt, ist eine Chimäre.' Ebrard, II. 526. Respecting the motives of Melancthon for advocating the change, see Francke's Libr. Symb. Eccl. Luther. Part 1. Proleg. p. xxviii. n. 13, and for Luther's position with respect to it, Ebrard, II. 473 sq., Kahnis, pp. 390 sq. |