210 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
institution. We recognize, he wrote to Faber, a mystery in the Lord's Supper; the bread is not common bread, but venerable, sacred, sacramental bread, the pledge of the spiritual real presence of Christ to those who believe. As the sun is in heaven, and yet virtually present on earth with his light and heat, so Christ sits in heaven, and yet efficaciously works in the hearts of all believers. When Luther, after Zwingli's death, warned Duke Albert of Prussia and the people of Frankfort not to tolerate the Zwinglians, Bullinger replied by sending to the duke a translation of Ratramnus' tract, De corpore et sanguine Domini, with a preface. He rejected the Wittenberg Concordia of 1536, because it concealed the Lutheran doctrine. He answered Luther's atrocious attack on the Zwinglians (1545) by a clear, strong, and temperate statement ; but Luther died soon afterwards (1546) without retracting his charges. Wlien Westphal renewed the unfortunate controversy (1552), Bullinger suj)ported Calvin in defending the Reformed doctrine, but counselled moderation.^ He and Calvin brought about a complete agreement on the sacramental question in the Consensus Tigurinus, which was adopted in 1549 at Ziirich, in the presence of some members of the Council, and afterwards received the approval of the other Swiss Reformed churches.^
On the doctrine of Predestination, Bullinger did not go quite as far as Zwingli and Calvin, and kept within the infralapsarian scheme. He avoided to speak of the predestination of Adam's fall, because it seemed irreconcilable with the justice of the punishment of sin.^ The Consensus Crenevensis (1552), which contains Calvin's rigorous view, was not
^ Apologetica Defensio, etc., February, 1556.
2 Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 471 sqq., and the literature there quoted.
8 In the Second Helvetic Confession, ch. VIII., he dismisses the curious questions, "whether God would have Adam fall, or whether he forced him to fall, or why he did not hinder his fall, and such like," and says that it is sufficient to know that God did forbid our first parents to eat of the fruit, and punished them for disobedience.
§ 54. HEINRICH BULLINGEIl. 211
signed by the pastors of Zurich. Theodor Bibliander, the father of biblical exegesis in Switzerland, and a forerunner of Arminianism, opposed it. He adhered to the semi-Pelagian theory of Erasmus, and was involved in a controversy with Peter Martyr, who M^as a strict Calvinist, and taught in Ziirich since 1556. Bibliander was finally removed from his theological professorship (Feb. 8, 1560), but liis salary was continued till his death (Nov. 26, 1564). i
On the subject of toleration and the j)unishment of heretics, Bullinger agreed with the prevailing theory, but favorably differed from the prevailing practice. He opposed the Anabaptists in his writings, as much as Zwingli, and, like Melanchthon, he approved of the unfortunate execution of Servetus, but he himself did not persecute. He tolerated Laelio Sozini, who quietly died at Ziirich (1562), and Bernardino Occhino, who preached for some time to the Italian congregation in that city, but was deposed, without further punishment, for teaching Unitarian opinions and defending polygamy. In a book against the Roman Catholic Faber, Bullinger expresses the Christian and humane sentiment that no violence should be done to dissenters, and that faith is a free gift of God, which cannot be commanded or forbidden. He agreed with Zwingli's extension of salvation to all infants dying in infancy and to elect heathen ; at all events, he nowhere dissents from these advanced views, and published with approbation Zwingli's last work, where they are most strongly expressed.^
Bullinger's house was a happy Christian home. He liked to play with his numerous children and grandchildren, and to write little verses for them at Christmas, like Luther.^
When his son Henry, in 1553, went to Strassburg, Wit-
1 A fuller statement in Schaff, Creeds, I. 474 sqq., and especially Schweizer, Central-dogmen, I. 139, 258-292.
2 See above, p. 177 sq.
3 Some of these verses are still remembered in Switzerland. Specimens in Pestalozzi, 315 sqq.