§ 102. THE ANABAPTIST CONTROVERSY. 611
with Rome. Christ found many abuses among the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Jewish people, but did not reject the Old Testament, and told his disciples to observe their doctrines (Matt. 23:3). Here Luther pays a striking tribute to the Roman church, and supports it by the very fact that the pope is Antichrist, and reveals his tyranny in the temple of God, that is, within the Christian Church, and not outside of it.1 By such an argument the Anabaptists weaken the cause of Christianity, and deceive themselves.
2. Infants know nothing of their baptism, and have to learn it afterwards from their parents or sponsors. But we know nothing of our natural birth and of many other things, except on the testimony of others.
3. Infants cannot believe. Luther denied this, and appealed to the word of Christ, who declared them fit for the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19:14), and to the example of John the Baptist, who believed in the mother’s womb (Luke 1:41). Reformed divines, while admitting the capacity or germ of faith in infants, base infant-baptism on the vicarious faith of parents, and the covenant blessing of Abraham which extends to his seed (Gen. 17:7). Luther mentions this also.
4, The absence of a command to baptize children. But they are included in the command to baptize all nations (Matt. 28:19). The burden of proof lies on the Anabaptists to show that infant-baptism is forbidden in the Bible, before they abolish such an old and venerable institution of the whole Christian Church.
5. Among the positive arguments, Luther mentions the analogy of circumcision, Christ’s treatment of children, the cases of family baptisms, Acts 2:39; 16:15, 33; 1 Cor. 2-16.
Melanchthon quoted also the testimonies of Origen, Cyprian, Chrysostom, and Augustin, for the apostolic origin of infant-baptism.
1 See above, p. 529 sq.
612 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1580.
§ 108. The Eucharistic Controversy.
I. Sources (1) Lutheran. LUTHER: Wider die himmlischen Propheten, Jan. 1525 (against Carlstadt and the Enthusiasts). Dass die Worte, * Das ist mein Leib,”’ noch fest stehen (wider die Schwarmgeister), 1527. Grosses Bekenntniss vom Abendmahl, March, 1528 (against Zwingli and Ccolampadius). Kurzes Bekenntniss vom heil. Sacrament, 1544. All these tracts in the Erl. ed. vols. XXVI. 254; XXIX. 134, 348; XXX, 14, 151; XXXII. 396. Watcu, vol. XX. 1-2955, gives the eucharistic writings, for and against Luther, together with a history.
BUGENHAGEN: Contra novum errorem de sacramento corporis et sanguinis Christi. 1525. Also in German. In Walch, XX. 641 sqq. BRENTZ and SCHNEPF: Syngramma Suevicum super verbis cence Dominice “Ηος est corpus meum,’’ etc., signed by fourteen Swabian preachers, Oct. 21, 1525. Against Cicolampadius, see Walch, XX. 34, 667 sqq.
(2) On the Zwinglian side. ZwiIN@wi: Letter to Rev. Matheus Alber, Nov. 16, 1524; Commentarius de vera et falsa religione, 1525; Amica exegesis, id est, Expositio eucharistie negotii ad M. Lutherum, 1526; Dass diese Worte Jesu Christi: *‘ Das ist myn Lychnam,”’ ewiglich den alten eynigen Sinn haben werden, 1527; and several other eucharistic tracts. CECOLAMPADIUS: De genuina verborum Domini: “ Hoc est corpus meum,’’ juata vetustissimos auctores expositione, Basel, 1525; Antisyngramma ad ecclesiastas Suevos (with two sermons on the sacrament), 1526. CEcOLAMPADIUS and ZwINGLi: Ueber Luther’s Buch Bekenntniss genannt, zwo Antworten, 1528. See ZwWINGLI: Opera, ed. Schuler and Schulthess, vol. II. Part II. 1-223; III. 145; 459 sqq.; 589 sqq.; 604 sqq. Also Walch, vol. XX. Extracts in Usteri and Végelin, M. H. Zwingli’s Sammil. Schriften im Auszuge, vol. II. Part I., pp. 3-187.
II. The historical works on the eucharistic controversies of the Reformation period, by LAVATER (Historia Sacramentaria, Tig. 1563); SELNECKER and CHEMNITZ (Hist. des sacram. Streits, Leipz., 1583 and 1593) ; HosPINniIAN (Hist. Sacramentaria, Tig. 1603, 2 vols.); LOSCHER (Hist. Motuum, in 3 Parts, Leipz., second ed., 1723); EBRARD (Das Dogma vom heil. Abendmahl und seine Geschichte, 2 vols., 1846); ΚΑΗΝΙΒ (1851); DIECKHOFF (1854); H. Scomip (1873). ;
III. The respective sections in the General Church Histories, and the Histories of the Reformation, especially SECKENDORF, GIESELER, BAUR, HAGENBACH, MERLE, FISHER. PLANCK, in his Geschichte des Protest. Lehrbegriffs (Leipz. second revised ed., 1792, vol. II., Books V. and VI.), gives a very full and accurate account of the eucharistic controversy, although he calls it “‘ die unseligste aller Streitigkeiten” (11. 205).