598 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
But the Elector John Sigismund, who by travels and personal intercours* with Calvinistic princes and divines conceived a high regard for their sur rior Christian piety and courtesy, embraced the Reformed faith in 1606, ana openly professed it in February, 1614, by declaring his assent to the four oecumenical symbols (including the Chalcedonense) and the altered Augsburg Confession of 1540, without imposing his creed upon his subjects, only prohibiting the preachers to condemn the Calvinists from the pulpit. In May, 1514, he issued a personal confession of faith, called the ‘‘ Confession of Sigismund,” or the ‘‘ Brandenburg Confession”’ (Confessio Marchica). It teaches a moderate, we may say, Melanchthonian and unionistic Calvinism, and differs from the Lutheran Formula of Concord in the following points: It rejects Eutychianism and the ubiquity of Christ’s body, consubstantiation in the Lord’s Supper, the use of the wafer instead of the broken bread, and exorcism in baptism; on the other hand, it teaches the Calvinistic view of the spiritual real presence for believers, and unconditional election, but without an unconditional decree of reprobation; it distinctly declares that God sincerely wishes the salvation of all men, and is not the author of sin and damnation. ; ᾽
The change of Sigismund was the result of conscientious conviction, and
not dictated by political motives. The people and his own wife remained ‘Lutheran. He made no use of his territorial summepiscopate and the jus reformandi. He disclaimed all intention to coerce the conscience, since faith is a free gift of God, and cannot be forced. No man should presume to exercise dominion over man’s religion. He thus set, in advance of his age, a noble example of toleration, which became the traditional policy of the Prussian rulers. The pietistic movement of Spener and Francke, which was supported by the theological faculty at Halle, weakened the confessional dissensus, and strengthened the consensus. The Moravian brotherhood exhibited long before the Prussian Union, in a small community, the real union of evangelical believers of both confessions.
Frederick the Great was an unbeliever, and had as little sympathy with Pietism and Moravianism as with Lutheranism and Calvinism; but he was a decided upholder of religious toleration, which found expression in his famous declaration that in his kingdom everybody must be at liberty to get saved ‘‘after his own fashion.”’ The toleration of indifferentism, which prevailed in the last century, broke down the reign of bigotry, and prepared the way for the higher and nobler principle of religious liberty.
The revival of religious life at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a revival of general Christianity without a confessional or denominational type, and united for a time pious Lutherans, Reformed, and even Roman Catholics. It was accompanied by a new phase of evangelical theology, which since Schleiermacher and Neander laid greater stress on the consensus than the dissensus of the Protestant confessions in opposition to rationalism and infidelity. The ground was thus prepared for a new
§ 99. THE REFORMATION IN PRUSSIA. 599
attempt to establish a mode of peaceful living between the two confessions of the Reformation.
King Frederick William III. (1797-1840), a conscientious and God-fearing monarch, who had been disciplined by sad reverses and providential deliverances of Prussia, introduced what is called the ‘*‘ Evangelical Union”’ of the Lutheran and Reformed confessions at the tercentennial celebration of the Reformation (Sept. 27, 1817). The term ‘‘ evangelical,’’ which was claimed by both, assumed thus a new technical sense. The object of the Union (as officially explained in 1834 and 1852) was to unite the two churches under one government and worship, without abolishing the doctrinal distinctions.} It was conservative, not absorptive, and differed in this respect from all former union schemes between the Greek and Latin, the Protestant and Roman Catholic, the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, which aimed at doctrinal uniformity or at best at a doctrinal compromise. The Prussian Union introduced no new creed; the Augsburg Confession, Luther’s Catechisms, and the Heidelberg Catechism continued to be used where they had been in use before; but it was assumed that the confessional differences were not vital and important enough to exclude Christian fellowship. The opposition proceeded chiefly from the ‘‘ Old Lutherans,”’ so called, who insist upon ‘‘ pure doctrine,”’ as the basis of union, to the exclusion of the Calvinistic ‘‘ heresies,”’ and who took just offense at the forcible introduction of the new liturgy of the king (the Agende of 1822); but the opposition was silenced by granting them the liberty of separate organization and self-government (1845). The Prussian Union suffers from the defects of Erastianism, but no more than any other state-church, or the introduction of the Reformation in the sixteenth century by the civil power. Experience has proved that moderate Lutherans and Reformed Christians can live together, commune at the same altar, and co-operate in the work of the common Master. This experience is a great gain. The union type of Protestantism has become an important historic fact and factor in the modern theology and church life of Prussia and those other parts of Germany which followed her example.
The two sons and successors of the founder of the Prussian Union, King Frederick William IV. (1840-1858), and Emperor William I. (1858-1888), have faithfully adhered to it in theory and practice.
Frederick William IV. was well versed in theology, and a pronounced evangelical believer. He wished to make the church more independent, and as a means to that end he established the Oberkirchenrath (1850, modified 1852), which in connection with the Cultusministerium should administer the affairs of the church in the name of the king; while a general synod was to exercise the legislative function. Under his reign the principle of
1 The Cabinetsordre of Feb. 18, 1834, declares: ‘‘ Die Union bezweckt und bedeutet kein Aufgeben des bisherigen Glaubensbekenntnisses ; auch ist die Autoritadt, welche die Bekenntnisschriften der beiden evangelischen Confessionen bisher gehabt, durch sie nicht aufgehoben worden.’