[654] See above, p. 314. Comp. also Dorner, Gesch. der Prot. Theol. pp.366 sqq. Planck (Vol. VI. p. 814) charges this article with a confusion not found in the other parts of the Formula, and Gieseler (Vol. IV. p. 488) with putting together contradictory positions; while, on the other hand, Thomasius (Das Bekenntniss der ev. luth. Kirche, etc. p. 222) sees here only supplementary truths to be reconciled by theological science, and Guericke (in his Kirchengeschichte, Vol. III. p. 419) calls the logical inconsistency of the Formula 'divinely necessitated' (eine göttlich nothwendige Verstandes-Inconsequenz).
[655] Loc. Theol. Tom. IV. pp. 189 sqq. (de Electione et Reprob. § 7; de Universalitate Vocationis, § 135}.
[656] Tittmann and Hase omit it; Müller gives it (pp. 731-767).
[657] Comp. among recent works especially the third volume of Heppe's Geschichte des D. Protest, pp. 215-322, and the whole fourth volume. The chief data are also given by Gieseler, Vol. IV. pp. 489-493, and by Köllner, 1.c. pp. 573-583.
[658] The Preface of the Book of Concord is signed by eighty-six names representing the Lutheran state churches in the German empire; among them are three Electors (Louis of the Palatinate, Augustus of Saxony, and John George of Brandenburg), twenty Dukes and Princes, twenty-four Counts, thirty-five burgomasters and counselors of imperial cities. The Formula was also signed by about 8000 pastors and teachers under their jurisdiction, including a large number of ex-Philippists and Crypto-Calvinists, who preferred their livings to their theology; hence Hutter was no doubt right when he admitted that many subscribed mala conscientia. Yet no direct compulsion seems to have been used. See Köllner, p. 551, and Johannsen, Ueber die Unterschriften des Concordienbuches, in Niedner's Zeitschrift für histor. Theologie, 1847, No. 1.
[659] It was adopted in Sweden at a Council of Upsala, 1593; in Hungary, 1597. In America it is held by the Lutheran Synodical Conference, and by the General Council, but rejected by the General Synod (see p. 224).
[660] The Landgrave of Hesse, the Palatinate John Casimir, the Prince of Anhalt, the Duke of Pomerania (where, however, the symbol afterwards came into authority), the Duke of Holstein, the Duke of Saxe-Luneburg, the Counts of Nassau and Hanau, the cities of Strasburg, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Spires, Worms, Nuremberg, Magdeburg, Bremen, Danzig, Nordhausen.
[661] Frederick II. strictly prohibited, on pain of confiscation and deposition, the importation and publication of the Form of Concord in Denmark (July 24, 1580), and threw the two superbly bound copies sent to him by his sister, the wife of Augustus of Saxony, unceremoniously into the chimney-fire. See Köllner, p. 575 sq.; Gieseler, Vol. IV. p. 493, note 54; and Heppe, Vol. IV. pp. 275 sqq. Nevertheless the document afterwards gained considerable currency in Denmark.
[662] So the Duchy of Brunswick recalled the subscription in 1583. Duke Julius, one of the most zealous promoters of the Form of Concord, became alienated for personal reasons, because he was severely blamed by Chemnitz and several Princes for allowing one of his sons to receive Romish consecration (Dec. 5, 1578), and two others the tonsure, to the great scandal of Protestantism. He was afterwards strengthened by the doctrinal opposition of Heshusius and the Helmstädt Professors, who rejected the Formula for teaching absolute ubiquity. The Corpus doctrinæ Julium was retained in Brunswick and Wolfenbüttel. See Planck, Vol. VI. pp. 667 sqq., and especially Heppe, Vol. IV. pp. 203 sqq. These Brunswick troubles brought about an alienation between Andreæ (who labored to reconcile the Duke) and Chemnitz (who was deposed by the Duke). In a widely circulated letter of April 8, 1580, Chemnitz compared Andreæ to a fawning and scratching cat ('cum coram longe aliud mihi dicas, wie die Katzen, die vorne lecken und hinten kratzen'). Heppe, p. 214.
[663] So the Palatinate, which, after a short Lutheran interregnum of Louis, readopted the Heidelberg Catechism under John Casimir (1583), Anhalt (1588), Zweibrücken (1588), Hanau (1596), Hesse (1604), and especially Brandenburg under John Sigismund (1614). In this respect the Formula of Concord inflicted great territorial loss upon the Lutheran denomination. The greatest loss was the Palatinate and the Electoral, afterwards the royal house of Brandenburg and Prussia.
[664] See lists of controversial works for and against the Formula of Concord in Walch, Feuerlin, and Köllner. Comp. also Hutter, Conc. conc. Ch. XXXVII. (p. 958), Ch. XLI. (p. 976), Ch. XLV. (p. 1033), and Ch. XLV. (p. 1038); Heppe, Vol. IV. pp. 270 sqq.; and G. Frank, Vol. I. pp. 251-266. Hutter sees in the general attack of 'the devil and his organs, the heretics,' against the Formula, a clear proof that it was composed instinctu Spiritus Sancti, and is in full harmony with the infallible Word of God (p. 976).
[665] The rigidly orthodox Heshusius and the Helmstädt divines (in the Quedlinburg Colloquium, 1583), Christopher Irenæus (an exiled Flacianist, formerly court chaplain at Weimar, 1581), Ambrosius Wolff (or Cyriacus Herdesianus, of Nuremberg, 1580), the Bremen preachers (1581), the Anhalt theologians (1580, 1581), and the Margrave of Baden (in the Stafford Book, 1599).
[666] Ursinus (in connection with Zanchius, Tossanus, and other deposed Heidelberg Professors, who, under John Casimir and during the rule of Lutheranism in Heidelberg, founded and conducted a flourishing theological school at Neustadt an der Hardt, 1576 to 1583): Admonitio Christiana de libro Concordiæ (or Christliche Erinnerung vom Concordienbuch), Neostadadii in Palatinatu, Latin and German, 1581 (also in Urs. Opera, Heidelberg, 1612, Vol. II. pp.486 sqq.). It consists of twelve chapters, and is very able. Extract in Sudhoff, Olevianus und Ursinus, pp. 432-452; comp. Schweizer in Herzog, Vol. X. pp. 263-265. Ursinus and some of his pupils defended this work against the Lutheran 'Apology,' in Defensio Admonitionis Neost. contra Apologiæ Erfordensis sophismata, Neost. 1584. Beza wrote Refutatio dogmatis de ficticia carnis Christi omnipræsentia; Dansæus an Examen of Chemnitz's book De duabus in Christo naturis, Genev. 1581; Sadeel, a very able tract, De veritate humanæ naturæ Christi, 1585 (in his Opera, Genev. 1592). Of later Reformed writings must be mentioned the Emdensche Buch (1591), and especially Hospinian's Concordia discors (1607), which called forth Hutter's Concordia concors (1614).
[667] The ablest Roman assailant was Robert Bellarmin: Judicium de libro quem Lutherani vocant Concordiæ, Ingolst. 1587, 1589, etc. (in his Opera, Col. Ag. 1620, Vol. VII. p. 576). Against him Hoe ab Hoenegg wrote Apol. contra R. B. impium et stolidum judicium, Fref. 1605. Bellarmin also repeatedly notices the Christology of the Formula in his great controversial work against Protestantism. See below.
[668] See Schütz, Vita Chytræi, and Heppe, Vol. IV. pp. 395 sqq.
[669] This complaint the Erfurt Apology of the Formula of Concord admitted to be just, at least in part. The Formula makes no distinction between Zwingli and Calvin; condemns Zwingli's 'allæosis' (by which he meant only to guard against a confusio and æquatio naturarum) as a mask of the devil; charges the Reformed generally with a Nestorian separation of the two natures in Christ, and a denial of all communion between them; with childish literalism concerning the right hand of God and the throne of glory; with shutting Christ up in heaven, as if he had no more to do with us, etc.
[670] Dorner, in his History of Christology (Vol. II. pp. 718-750), gives an admirable and impartial summary of the Reformed argument. Dr. Kahnis, of Leipzig, from his Lutheran standpoint, thus fairly and liberally characterizes the Reformed opposition to the Form of Concord (Luth. Dogm. Vol. II. p. 590): 'Die Reformirten vertraten den Standpunkt des Verstandes, welcher zwischen Endlichem und Unendlichem abstract(?) scheidend (finitum non est capax infiniti) der menschlichen Natur Christi keinen Antheil an den göttlichen Eigenschaften einräumt; den Standpunkt der Realität, welcher in der Betrachtung der Person Christi, von dem Wandel auf Erden ausgehead, der rein menschlichen Entwicklung Christi freien Raum schaffen will; den Standpunkt des Praktischen, der bei den sicheren Thatsachen der persönlichen Vereinigung Beruhigung fasste, ohne sich in gnostisch-scholastische Theorien verspinnen zu wollen.'
[671] Lib. III. de Sacramento Eucharistiæ, cap. 17. Comp. also cap. 7, and Lib. III. de Christo (where he refers to the views of Luther, Brentius, Wigand, Heshusius, and Chemnitz on ubiquity).
[672] His reasoning is curious: 'Quod est ubique, non potest moveri, nec transire de loco ad locum; ergo licet corpus Christi sit in pane, tamen non manducatur, cum panis manducatur, quia non movetur, nec transit cum pane e manu ad os, et ab ore ad stomachmn; nam etiam antea erat in ore et in stomacho, priusquam panis eo veniret. . . . Sequitur aut esse inanem cænam Domini, aut saltem spiritualiter sumi per energiam et per fidem, et solum a piis, qui habent fidem, et hoc est, quod volunt Calvinistæ.'
[673] 'Si enim corpus Christi ubique est, erit etiam ante usum in vane.
[674] Bellarmin (De Sacr. Euch. Lib. III. c. 7), after quoting Augustine against the sententia ubiquistarum Lutheranorum, thus defines the Roman view: 'Nos fatemur Christi corpus non esse ubique diffusum; et ubicunque est, habere suam formam et partium situm, ac dispositionem; quamvis hæc figura, forma, dispositio partium in cælo conspiciatur, ubi locum replet; in Sacramento autem sit quidem, sed non repleat locum, nec videri a nobis possit.'
[675] Comp. on Elizabeth's action and the Convent of Frankfort, Hutter's Concordia concors, Cap. XVI. and XVII. (pp. 513-523); Planck, Vol. VI. pp. 591-611; Heppe, Vol. IV. pp. 5 sqq., 16 sqq., and 72 sqq.
[676] Cranmer was at first inclined to the Lutheran, theory, but gave it up afterwards. His fellow-Reformers held the Zwinglian or Calvinistic view. Bishop Hooper thus speaks of ubiquity: 'Such as say that heaven and the right hand of God is in the articles of our faith taken for God's power and might, which is every where, they do wrong to the Scripture and unto the articles of our faith. They make a confusion of the Scripture, and leave nothing certain. They darken the simple and plain verity thereof with intolerable sophisms. They make heaven hell, and hell heaven, turn upside down and pervert the order of God. If the heaven and God's right hand, whither our Saviour's body is ascended, be every where, and noteth no certain place, as these uncertain men teach, I will believe no ascension. What needeth it?--seeing Christ's body is every where with his Godhead. I will interpret this article of my creed thus: Christus ascendit ad dextram Patris. Patris dextra est ubique: ergo Christus ascendit ad ubique. See what erroneous doctrine followeth their imaginations!' Early Writings of John Hooper, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester, Martyr, 1555; ed. by the Parker Society, Cambridge, 1843, p.66. The 'Declaration of Christ and his Office,' from which this passage is taken, was first published at Zürich. 1547, in the early stage of the ubiquitarian controversy. See also the Remains of Archbishop Grindal, Camb. 1843, p. 46.
[677] Comp. the eucharistic works of Pusey (1855), Philip Freeman (1862), Thomas L. Vogan (1871), and John Harrison (against Pusey, 1871).
[678] In the Gasthof zum grünen Weinfasse. This gave rise to some joke and mockery.
[679] The first part was directed against the Neustadt Admonition of Ursinus and his colleagues, the second against the Bremen pastors, the third against Irenæus, the fourth against Wolf. Timothy Kirchner, of the Palatinate, prepared the first three parts, Selnecker and Chemnitz the last. They were published singly, and then jointly at Dresden, 1584, and distributed by the Elector Augustus among all the churches of Saxony. See Hutter, pp. 978 sqq. and 1038 sqq. (De Apol. Libri Concord. et de Colloquio Quedlinburgensi); Heppe, Vol. IV. pp. 284-311.
[680] Hutter (Conc. conc. p. 976), Deutschmann, and others, who called it theopneustos.
[681] Anton, 1.c. Ch. X. Erste Concordien-Jubelfreude, pp. 134 sqq. J. G. Walch, in his Introd. 1732, represents the last stage of orthodox veneration before the revolution of sentiment took place.
[682] See his judgment, Vol. VI. pp. 690 sqq.; 816 sqq. and passim. Planck's history is, even more than Hospinian's Concordia discors, a chronique scandaleuse of Lutheran pugnacity and bigotry in the second half of the sixteenth century.
[683] Symb. Vol. I. p. 596: 'Die Concordienformel hat dogmatisch nur insofern noch Werth, als sie mit den früheren Symbolen übereinstimmt. . . . Allein die Lehre von der Prädestination ausgenommen, kann ihr für das Dogma wie für die äusseren Verhältnisse der Kirche nur der wenigste eigenthümliche Werth unter allen Symbolen der Kirche zugestanden werden. Eigenthümlich ist nur die Ausbildung und mehr systematische Gestaltung des Lehrbegriffs der Kirche als eines Systems.' This is too low an estimate of the whole document, and too high an estimate of Art. XI.