§ 61. The Helvetic Consensus Formula. A.D. 1675.
Literature.
I. Formula Consensus Ecclesiarum Helveticarum Reformatarum, circa Doctrinam de Gratia universali et connexa, aliaque nonnulla capita (Einhellige Formul der reform. eidg. Kirchen, betreffend die Lehre von der allgemeinen Gnad und was derselben anhanget, sodann auch etliche andere Religionspunkten). Composed A.D. 1675; first printed at Zurich, 1714, as an appendix to the Second Helvetic Confession; then 1718, 1722, etc., in Latin and German. The official copy, in both languages, is in the archives of Zurich. The Latin text has a place in Niemeyer's Collectio, pp. 729-739; the German text in Böckel, pp. 348-360.
The writings of Amyraut, Cappel, and La Place; their friends, Paul Testard, Jean Daillé, and David Blondel; their opponents, Pierre du Moulin, Fr. Spanheim, and André Rivet; and the decisions of the Synods of Alençon, Charenton, and Loudon (1637-1669). See below.
II. J. Jac. Hottinger (d. 173S): Succincta et solida ac genuina Formulæ Consensus . . . historia, Latin and German, 1723. By the same: Helvetische Kirchengeschichte, Zurich, Theil III. pp.1086 sqq.; IV. pp. 258, 268 sqq.
Bayle: Dict. art. Amyraut.
Ch. M. Pfaff: Dissertatio histor. theologica de Formula Consensus Helv. Tübingen, 1723.
J. Rud. Salchli: Stricturæ et observationes in Pfaffi dissertationem de F. C. Bern, 1723.
(Barnaud:) Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des troubles arrivées en Suisse à l'occasion du Consensus. Amsterd. 1726.
Walch: Religionsstreitigkeiten ausserhalb der luth. Kirche, Jena, 1733, Vol. I. pp. 454 sqq.; III. pp. 736 sqq.
Hagenbach: Kritische Gesch. der ersten Basler Confession. Basle, 1827, pp. 173 sqq.
Alex. Schweizer: Die Protest. Centraldogmen in ihrer Entwicklung innerhalb der Reformirten Kirche. Zweite Häfte (Zurich, 1856), pp. 439-563. By the same: Die Enstehung der helvetischen Consensus-Formel, aus Zürich's Specialgeschichte näher beleuchtet, in Niedner's Zeitschrift für histor. Theologie for 1860, pp. 122-148 (gives an extract from the MS. of J. H. Heidegger's Gründliche und wahrhaftige Historie). Comp. also Schweizer's art. Amyraut, in Herzog's Real-Encykl. 2d ed. Vol. I. pp. 356-361; and on the Life and Writings of Amyraut, in the Tübinger Theol Jahrbücher for 1852.
F. Trechsel: Helvetische Consensus-Formel, in Herzog's Real-Encyklop. 2d ed. Vol. V. pp. 755-764 (partly based on MS. sources).
Gust. Frank: Geschichte der Protestant. Theologie, Leipz. 1865, Vol. II. pp. 35 sqq.
Aug. Ebrard: Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Vol. III. (1866), pp. 538 sqq. and 552 sqq. Also his art. on Amyraldism (against Schweizer), in the Reform. Kirchenzeitung for 1853, No. 27 sqq.
The Helvetic Consensus Formula (Formula Consensus Helvetica) is the last doctrinal Confession of the Reformed Church of Switzerland, and closes the period of Calvinistic creeds. It has been called a 'symbolical after-birth.' It was composed in 1675, one hundred and eleven years after Calvin's death, by Professor John Henry Heidegger, of Zurich (1633-1698), [913] at the request and with the co-operation of the Rev. Lucas Gernler, of Basle (d. 1675), and Professor Francis Turretin, of Geneva (1623-1687). [914] It never extended its authority beyond Switzerland, but it is nevertheless a document of considerable importance and interest in the history of Protestant theology. It is a defense of the scholastic Calvinism of the Synod of Dort against the theology of Saumur (Salmurium), especially against the universalism of Amyraldus. Hence it may be called a formula anti-Salmuriensis, or anti-Amyraldensis.
THE SYNOD OF DORT AND THE THEOLOGY OF SAUMUR.
The Twenty-third National Synod of the Reformed Church in France, held at Alais, Oct. 1, 1620, adopted the Canons of Dort (1619), as being in full harmony with the Word of God and the French Confession of 1559, and bound all ministers and elders by a solemn oath to defend them to the last breath. The Twenty-fourth National Synod at Charenton, September, 1623, reaffirmed this adoption. [915]
But in the theological academy at Saumur, founded by the celebrated Reformed statesman Du Plessis Mornay (1604), there arose a more liberal school, headed by three contemporary professors--Josué de la Pace (Placeus, 1596-1655), Louis Cappel (Capellus, 1585-1658), and Moyse Amyraut (Moses Amyraldus, 1596-1664)--which, without sympathizing with Arminianism, departed from the rigid orthodoxy then prevailing in the Lutheran and Reformed Churches on three points--the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, the particular predestination, and the imputation of Adam's sin.
Saumur acquired under these leaders great celebrity, and attracted many students from Switzerland. It became for the Reformed Church of France what Helmstädt, under the lead of Calixtus, was for the Lutheran Church in Germany; and the Helvetic Consensus Formula of Heidegger may be compared to the 'Consensus repetitus' of Calovius (1664), which was intended to be a still more rigorous symbolical protest against Syncretism, although it failed to receive any public recognition. [916]
The further development of the Saumur theology was arrested by the political oppression which culminated in the cruel revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. (1685), and aimed at the utter annihilation of the Reformed Church in France. But its ideas have silently made progress, and were independently revived in more recent times.