[615] See a description in Penzel's Saxon. Numism. as quoted by Planck, Vol. VI. p. 689. Augustus dismissed Andreæ (1580), ostensibly with great honor and rich presents, but in fact much displeased with the garrulus Suevus, who had spoken disrespectfully of his theological ignorance, had fallen out with Chemnitz and Selnecker, and made many enemies. See a full account in Heppe. Vol. IV. pp. 256-270.
[616] See the authorized Latin text of the Epitome, with a new English translation, in Vol. III. pp. 93 sqq. An English Version of the Formula from the German text appeared in The Christian Book of Concord; or, Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, New Market, Va., 1851, 2d ed., 1854. It professes to be literal, hut is very stiff and unidiomatic.
§ 46. The Form of Concord, Concluded.
Analysis and Criticism.
The Formula of Concord consists of two parts--the Epitome and the Solida Repetitio et Declaratio. Both treat, in twelve articles, of the same matter--the first briefly, the other extensively. They begin with the anthropological doctrines of original sin and freedom of the will; next pass on to the soteriological questions concerning justification, good works, the law and the gospel, the third use of the law; then to the eucharist and the person of Christ; and end with foreknowledge and election. This order is characteristic of the Lutheran system, as distinct from the Calvinistic, which begins with the Scriptures, or with God and the eternal decrees. The most important articles are those on the Lord's Supper and the Person of Christ, which teach the peculiar features of the Lutheran creed, viz., consubstantiation, the communication of the properties of the divine nature to the human nature of Christ, and the ubiquity of Christ's body.
The Epitome contains all that is essential. It first states the controversy (status controversiæ), then the true doctrine (affirmativa), and, last, it condemns the error (negativa). In the Solid Repetition and Declaration this division is omitted; but the articles are more fully explained and supported by ample quotations from the Scriptures, the fathers, the older Lutheran Confessions, and the private writings of Dr. Luther, which swell it to about five times the size of theEpitome.
Each part is preceded by an important introduction, which lays down the fundamental Protestant principle that the Canonical Scriptures are the only rule of faith and doctrine, [617] and fixes the number of (nine) symbolical books to be hereafter acknowledged in the Lutheran Church, not as judges, but as witnesses and expositions of the Christian faith; namely, the three oecumenical Symbols (the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian), the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, [618] the Apology of the Confession, the Articles of Smalcald, the Smaller and Larger Catechisms of Luther, [619] and the Formula of Concord. The Scriptures contain the credenda, the things to be believed; the Symbols the credita, the things that are believed. Yet the second part of the Formula quotes Dr. Luther, 'piæ sanctoeque memoriæ,' as freely, and with at least as much deference to his authority, as Roman Catholics quote the fathers. Melanchthon, the author of the fundamental Confession of the Lutheran Church, is never named, but indirectly condemned; and as to poor Zwingli, he is indeed mentioned, but only to be held up to pious horror for his 'blasphemous allæosis.' [620] Thus the supremacy of the Bible is maintained in principle, but Luther is regarded as its regulative and almost infallible expounder.
We now proceed to give a summary of the Formula.
Art. I. Of Original Sin.--It is not the moral essence, or substance, or nature of man (as Flacius taught with the old Manichæans), but a radical corruption of that nature, which can never be entirely eradicated in this world (against the Pelagian and semi-Pelagian heresies).
Art. II. Of Free Will.--Man, in consequence of Adam's fall, has lost the divine image, is spiritually blind, disabled, dead, and even hostile to God, and can contribute nothing towards his conversion, which is the work of the Holy Spirit alone, through the means of grace. The Formula, following Luther, uses stronger terms on the slavery of the will and total depravity than the Calvinistic Confessions. It compares the unconverted man to a column of salt, Lot's wife, a statue without mouth or eyes, a dead stone, block and clod, [621] and denies to him the least spark of spiritual power. [622] He can not even accept the gospel (which is the work of pure grace), but he may reject it, and thereby incur damnation.
This article condemns the fatalism of the Stoics and Manichæans, the anthropological heresies of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, but also and especially the Synergism of Melanchthon and the Philippists. The chief framers of the Formula--Andreæ, Chemnitz, Selnecker, and Chytræus--were at first in favor of Synergism, which would have been more consistent with Article XI.; the Swabian-Saxon Concordia, drawn up by Chemnitz and Chytræus, and the Torgau Book actually contained synergistic passages. [623] But they were omitted or exchanged for others, and consistency was sacrificed to veneration for Luther.
There is an obvious and irreconcilable antagonism between Art. II. and Art. XI. They contain not simply opposite truths to be reconciled by theological science, but contradictory assertions, which ought never to be put into a creed. The Formula adopts one part of Luther's book De servo arbitrio (1525), and rejects the other, which follows with logical necessity. It is Augustinian--yea, hyper-Augustinian and hyper-Calvinistic in the doctrine of human depravity, and anti-Augustinian in the doctrine of divine predestination. It indorses the anthropological premise, and denies the theological conclusion. If man is by nature like a stone and block, and unable even to accept the grace of God (as Art. II. teaches), he can only be converted by an act of almighty power and irresistible grace (which Art. XI. denies). If some men are saved, without any co-operation on their part, while others, with the same inability and the same opportunities, are lost, the difference points to a particular predestination and the inscrutable decree of God. On the other hand, if God sincerely wills the salvation of all men (as Art. XI. teaches), and yet only a part are actually saved, there must be some difference in the attitude of the saved and the lost towards converting grace (which is denied in Art. II.).
The Lutheran system, then, to be consistent, must rectify itself, and develop either from Art. II. in the direction of Augustinianism and Calvinism, or from Art. XI. in the direction of Synergism and Arminianism. The former would be simply returning to Luther's original doctrine, which he never recalled, though he may have modified it a little; the latter is the path pointed out by Melanchthon, and adopted more or less by some of the ablest modern Lutherans. [624] In either case the second article needs modification. It uses the language of feeling rather than sober reflection, and gives the rhetorical expressions of subjective experience the dignity of symbolical statement. We can, indeed, not feel too strongly the sinfulness of sin and the awful corruption of our hearts. Nevertheless, God's image in man is not lost or exchanged for Satan's image, but only disfigured, disabled, and lying in ruins. Man is, indeed, in his prevailing inclination, a slave of sin, yet susceptible of the influences of divine grace, and remains moral and responsible in accepting or rejecting the gospel, before as well as after conversion. His reason, his conscience, his sense of sin, his longing for redemption and for peace with God, his prayers, his sacrifices, and all the 'testimonia animæ naturaliter christianæ,' bear witness with one voice to his divine origin, his divine destination, and his adaptation to the Christian salvation. [625] But on the other hand there are innumerable mysteries of Providence in the order of nature as well as of grace, and inequalities in the distribution of gifts and opportunities, which baffle solution in this present world, and can only be traced to the inscrutable wisdom of God. The human mind has not been able as yet satisfactorily to set forth the harmony of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.
Art. III. Of Justification by Faith.--Christ is our righteousness, not according to the divine nature alone (Andrew Osiander), nor according to the human nature alone (Stancar), but the whole Christ. God justifies us out of pure grace, without regard to antecedent, present, or subsequent works or merit, by imputing to us the righteousness of the obedience of Christ. Faith alone is the medium and instrument by which we apprehend Christ. Justification is a declaratory or forensic act--a sentence of absolution from sin, not an infusion of righteousness (Osiander).
Art. IV. Of Good Works.--Good works must always follow true faith, but they are neither necessary to salvation (Major), nor dangerous or injurious to salvation (Amsdorf). Salvation is of free grace alone, apprehended by faith.
Art. V. Of the Law and the Gospel.--The object of the law is to reprove sin and to preach repentance; the gospel (in its specific sense) is a joyful message, the preaching of Christ's atonement and satisfaction for all sins.
Art. VI. Of the Third Use of the Law--i.e., its obligation to believers, as distinct from its civil or political, and its pædagogic or moral use in maintaining order, and leading to a conviction of sin. Believers, though redeemed from the curse and restraint of the law, are bound to obey the law with a free and willing spirit. Antinomianism is rejected.
Art. VII. Of the Lord's Supper.--The most important controversy and chief occasion of the Formula--hence the length of this Article in the second part. It sets forth clearly and fully the doctrine of consubstantiation (as it is usually called, in distinction from the Romish transubstantiation), i.e., of the co-existence of two distinct yet inseparable substances in the sacrament. It is the doctrine of the real and substantial presence of the true body and blood of Christ in, with, and under the elements of bread and wine (in, cum, et sub pane et vino), and the oral manducation of both substances by unbelieving as well as believing communicants, though with opposite effects. The sacramental union of Christ's real body and blood with the elements is not an impanation or local inclusion, nor a mixture of two substances, nor a permanent (extra-sacramental) conjunction, but it is illocal, supernatural, unmixed, and confined to the sacramental transaction or actual use. [626] Nor is it effected by priestly consecration, but by the omnipotent power of God, and the word and institution of Christ. The body of Christ is eaten with the mouth by all communicants, but the notion of a Capernaitic or physical eating with the teeth is indignantly rejected as a malignant and blasphemous slander of the sacramentarians. [627]
The Formula condemns the Romish dogma of transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, and the withdrawal of the cup from the laity, but with equal or greater emphasis the Reformed and Melanchthonian (Crypto-Calvinistic) theory of a spiritual real presence and fruition of Christ by faith, or by believers only, without making a distinction between Zwinglians and Calvinists, except that the latter are called 'the most pernicious of all sacramentarians.' [628]
Art. VIII. Of the Person of Christ.--This article gives scholastic support to the preceding article on the eucharistic presence, and contains an addition to the Lutheran creed. It teaches the communicatio idiomatum and the ubiquity of Christ's body. It raised the private opinions and speculations of Luther, Brentius, and Chemnitz on these topics to the authority of a dogma. Some regard this as the crowning excellence of the Formula; [629] others, even in the Lutheran communion, as its weakest and most assailable point. [630] It was certainly very unwise, as history has shown, to introduce the scholastic subtleties of metaphysical theology into a public confession of faith.
The Formula derives from the personal union of the two natures in Christ (unio hypostatica, or personalis) the communion of natures (communio naturarum), from the communion of natures the communication of properties or attributes (communicatio idiomatum, a term used first by the scholastics), and from the communication of properties the omnipresence or ubiquity of Christ's body. The controversy between the Lutheran and Reformed, who both professedly stand on the common theanthropic Christology of Chalcedon, refers to the nature and extent of the communication of properties, and especially to the ubiquity of Christ's body derived therefrom.