LATER FORTUNES.
During the palmy period of Lutheran scholasticism the Formula of Concord stood in high authority among Lutherans, and was even regarded as inspired. [680] Its first centennial (1680) was celebrated with considerable enthusiasm. [681] But at the close of another century it was dead and buried. The Pietists, and afterwards the Rationalists, rebelled against symbololatry and lifeless orthodoxy. One stone after another was taken down from the old temple, until it was left a venerable ruin. Those very countries where subscription to creeds had been most rigorously enforced, suffered most from the neological revolution.
Then followed a period of patient research and independent criticism, which led to a more impartial estimate. Planck, the ablest Lutheran historian of the Formula, with complete mastery of the sources, followed the leading actors into all the ramifications and recesses of their psychological motives, political intrigues, and theological passions, and represents the work as the fabrication of a theological triumvirate, which upon the whole did more harm than good, and which produced endless confusion and controversy. [682] Köllner, another learned and impartial Lutheran, concedes to it higher merit for the past, but no dogmatic significance for the present, except in the article on predestination. [683] Heppe, the indefatigable historian of the German post-Reformation period, from a vast amount of authentic information, carries out the one-sided idea that the Lutheranism of the Formula is an apostasy from the normal development of German Protestantism, by which he means progressive, semi-Reformed, unionistic Melanchthonianism. [684] Even Kahnis thinks that the Lutheran theology of the future must be built on the Melanchthonian elements which were condemned by the Formula. [685]
With the modern revival of orthodoxy, the Formula enjoyed a partial resurrection among Lutherans of the high sacramentarian type, who regard it as the model of pure doctrine and the best summary of the Bible. By this class of divines it is all the more highly esteemed, since they make doctrine the corner-stone of the Church and the indispensable condition of Christian fellowship. In America, too, the Formula has recently found at least one able and scholarly advocate in the person of Dr. Krauth, of Philadelphia. [686]
Yet the great body of the Lutheran Church will never return to the former veneration for this symbol. History never repeats itself. Each age must produce its own theology. Even modern Lutheran orthodoxy in its ablest champions is by no means in full harmony with the Formula, but departs from its anthropology and Christology, and makes concessions to Melanchthon and the Reformed theology, or attempts a new solution of the mighty problems which were once regarded as finally settled. [687]
AN IMPARTIAL ESTIMATE.
The Formula of Concord is, next to the Augsburg Confession, the most important theological standard of the Lutheran Church, but differs from it as the sectarian symbol of Lutheranism, while the other is its catholic symbol. Hence its authority is confined to that communion, and is recognized only by a section of it. It is both conclusive and exclusive, a Formula of Concord and a Formula of Discord, the end of controversy and the beginning of controversy. It completed the separation of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, it contracted the territory and the theology of Lutheranism, and sowed in it the seed of discord by endeavoring to settle too much, and yet leaving unsettled some of the most characteristic dogmas. It is invaluable as a theological document, but a partial failure as a symbol, just because it contains too much theology and too little charity. It closes the productive period of the Lutheran reformation and opens the era of scholastic formalism.
The Formula is the fullest embodiment of genuine Lutheran orthodoxy, as distinct from other denominations. It represents one of the leading doctrinal types of Christendom. It is for the Lutheran system what the Decrees of Trent are for the Roman Catholic, the Canons of Dort for the Calvinistic. It sums up the results of the theological controversies of a whole generation with great learning, ability, discrimination, acumen, and, we may add, with comparative moderation. It is quite probable that Luther himself would have heartily indorsed it, with the exception, perhaps, of a part of the eleventh article. The Formula itself claims to be merely a repetition and explication of the genuine sense of the Augsburg Confession, and disclaims originality in the substance of doctrine. [688] But there were two diverging tendencies proceeding from the same source. The author of the Confession himself understood and explained it differently, and the Formula added new dogmas which he never entertained. It excludes, indeed, certain extravagances of the Flacian wing of Lutheranism, but, upon the whole, it is a condemnation of Philippism and a triumph of exclusive Lutheranism. [689]
The spirit of Melanchthon could be silenced, but not destroyed, for it meant theological progress and Christian union. It revived from time to time in various forms, in Calixtus, Spener, Zinzendorf, Neander, and other great and good men, who blessed the Lutheran Church by protesting against bigotry and the overestimate of intellectual orthodoxy, by insisting on personal, practical piety, by widening the horizon of truth, and extending the hand of fellowship to other sections of Christ's kingdom. The minority which at first refused the Formula became a vast majority, and even the recent reaction of Lutheran confessionalism against rationalism, latitudinarianism, and unionism will be unable to undo the work of history, and to restore the Lutheran scholasticism and exclusivism of the seventeenth century. The Lutheran Church is greater and wider than Luther and Melanchthon, and, by its own principle of the absolute supremacy of the Bible as a rule of faith, it is bound to follow the onward march of Biblical learning.
The great length of this section may be justified by the intrinsic importance of the Formula Concordiæ, and the scarcity of reliable information in English works. [690]
[617] 'Die einige Regel und Richtschnur (unica regula et norma), nach welcher alle Lehren and Lehrer gerichtet und geurtheilt werden sollen.' Comp. Psa. cxix. 15; Gal. i. 8. The extent of the Canon, however, is not defined, as in several Reformed Confessions, and the question of the Apocrypha of the Old Testament is left open.
[618] 'Die erste ungeänderte Augsb. Confession' (Augustanam illam primam et non mutatam Confessionem). The Preface (pp. 13, 14) rejects the Altered Augsburg Confession (of 1540), if it be understood as teaching another doctrine of the Lord's Supper.
[619] These are called the 'Laienbibel' (laicorum biblia, the layman's Bible), 'darin alles begriffen, was in heiliger Schrift weitläuftig gehandelt, und einem Christenmenschen zu wissen vonnöthen ist.'
[620] Sol. Decl. Art. VIII. p. 678 (ed. Müller): 'Die gotteslästerliche allæosis Zwinglii,' which Dr. Luther condemned 'als des Teufels Larve, bis in den Abgrund der Höllen.'
[621] Solida Declaratio, Art. II. § 24 (p. 662 ed. Rech., p. 534 ed. Müller): 'Autequam homo per Spiritum Sanctum illuminatur, convertitur, regeneratur et trahitur . . . ad conversionem aut regenerationem suam nihil inchoare, operari, aut coöperari potest, nec plus quam lapis, truncus, aut limus (so wenig als ein Stein oder Block oder Thon)'. Thomasius und Stahl disapprove of these expressions, and Luthardt (Lehre v. freien Willen, p. 272) admits, at least, that they are unfortunately chosen (unglücklich gewählt). Fr. H. R. Frank defends them.
[622] Ibid. Art. II. § 7 (p. 656 ed. Rech., p. 589 ed. Müller): . . . 'homo ad bonum prorsus corruptus et mortuus sit, ita ut in hominis natura post lapsum ante regenerationem ne scintillula quidem spiritualium virium (nicht ein Fünklein der geistlichen Kräfte) reliqua manserit aut restet, quibus ille ex se ad gratiam Dei præparare se aut oblatam gratiam apprehendere, aut eius gratiæ (ex sese et per se) capax esse possit, aut se ad gratiam applicare aut accommodare, aut viribus suis propriis aliquid ad conversionem suam vel ex toto vel ex dimidia vel ex minima parte conferre, agere, operari aut coöperari (ex se ipso tanquam ex semet ipso) possit (oder aus seinen eigenen Kräften etwas zu seiner Bekehrung, weder zum ganzen noch zum halben oder zu einigem dem wenigsten oder geringsten Theil, helfen, thun, wirken oder mitwirken vermöge, von ihm selbst, als von ihm selbst). . . . Inde adeo naturale tiberum arbitrium, ratione corruptarum virium et naturæ suæ depravatæ, duntaxat ad ea, quæ Deo displicent et adversantur, activum et efficax est.' This and similar statements are followed by quotations from Dr. Luther, where he compares the natural man to 'a column of salt, Lot's wife, a clod and stone, a dead statue without eyes or mouth.' All he said against Erasmus, and later, in his Commentary on Genesis, about free will, is indorsed. Flacius inferred from the same teacher his Manichæan error, which the Formula condemns in Art. I.
[623] See these passages in Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 486, note 24; Heppe, Der Text der Bergischen Concordienformel verglichen, etc.; Luthardt, Lehre vom freien Willen, pp. 262 sqq. Comp. also the remarks of Planck, Vol. VI. pp. 718 sqq.
[624] As Thomasius, Stahl, Harless, Hoffmann, Luthardt, Kahnis. See Luthardt, Die Lehre vom freien Willen, pp. 378 sqq.
[625] Well says Goethe--
'Wär' nicht das Auge sonnenhaft,
Wie könnte en das Licht erblicken!
Lebt' nicht in uns des Gottes eigne Kraft,
Wie könnt' uns Göttliches entzücken?'
[626] 'Nihil habet rationem sacramenti extra usum, seu actionem divinitus institutam' (Sol. Decl. p. 663). Gerhard and the later Lutheran theologians describe the presence as sacramentalis, vera et realis, substantialis, mystica, supernaturalis et incomprehensibilis, and distinguish it from the præsentia gloriosa (in heaven), hypostatica (of the logos in the human nature), spiritualis (operativa, or virtualis), figurativa (imaginativa, symbolica). It is a parousia, not an apousia (absence), nor enousia (inexistence), nor sunousia (co-existence in the sense of coalescence), nor metousia (transubstantiation). They reject the term consubstantiation in the sense of impanation or incorporation into bread, or physical coalescence and fusion. The Formula itself does not use the term.
[627] And yet Dr. Luther himself unequivocally taught the literal mastication of Christ's body. He gave it as the sum of his belief, to which he 'would adhere though the world should collapse,' that Christ's body was 'ausgetheilt, gegessen und mit den Zähnen zerbissen' (Briefe, ed. by De Witte, Vol. IV. p. 572, comp. p. 569). He instructed Melanchthon to insist on this in the conference he had with Bucer in Cassel, Dec. 1534; but Melanchthon, though not emancipated from Luther's view at that time, declined to shoulder it as his own, and began to change his ground on the eucharistic question. Corp. Ref. Vol. II. p. 822. Comp. Schmidt, Mel. p. 319; Ebrard, Abendmahl, Vol. II. pp. 375 sqq.
[628] Planck (Vol. VI. pp. 732 sqq.) charges the Formula with willful misrepresentation of Calvin's view, which he had so clearly, distinctly, and repeatedly set forth, especially in his tracts against Westphal, and which had since been embodied in the Confessions of the Reformed churches. Thomasius, Stahl, and other orthodox Lutherans, freely admit the material difference between Calvin and Zwingli in the theory of the eucharist.
[629] My friend, Dr. Krauth, goes so far as to say (1.c. p. 316): 'The doctrine of the person of Christ presented in the Formula rests upon the sublimest series of inductions in the history of Christian doctrine. In all confessional history there is nothing to be compared with it in the combination of exact exegesis, of dogmatic skill, and of fidelity to historical development. Fifteen centuries of Christian thought culminate in it.' But in his lengthy exposition he does not even mention the important difference between the Swabian and Saxon schools, nor the various forms of the communicatio idiomatum, and evades the real difficulty by resolving, apparently (p. 318), the communication of divine properties into an efficacious manifestation of the Godhead in and through the assumed humanity of Christ--which has never been disputed by Reformed divines.
[630] Even Luthardt admits at least the artificial construction of the Christology of the Formula, and its inconsistency with the historical realness of the picture of Christ in the Gospels (Compend. der Dogmatik, p. 144; comp. also Kahnis, Luth. Dogmatik, Vol. III. p. 338 sq.). The modern Lutheran Kenoticists, Thomasius, Hofmann (Luthardt inclines to them, p. 155)--not to speak of the extreme form to which Gess carried the kenosis--virtually depart from the Formula of Concord, which pronounces it a 'blasphemous perversion' to explain Matt. xxviii. 18 ('all power is given to me,' etc.) in the sense that Christ had ever laid aside or abandoned his almighty power in the state of humiliation (Epit., at the close of Art. VIII.).