§ 70. The Brandenburg Confessions.
(Confessiones Marchicæ.)
Literature.
Hartknoch: Preussische Kirchenhistorie. Frankf. 1686.
Zorn: Historia derer zwischen den Lutherischen und Reformirten Theologis gehaltenen Colloquiorum. Hamburg, 1705.
D. H. Hering: Historische Nachricht von dem ersten Anfang der evang.-reformirten Kirche in Brandenburg und Preussen unter dem gottseligen Churfürsten Johann Sigismund, nebst den drei Bekenntniss-Schriften dieser Kirche. Halle, 1778. The same: Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte der evangel.-reform. Kirche in den Preuss. Brandenburg. Ländern. Berlin, 1787.
C. W. Hering: Geschichte der kirchlichen Unionsversuche seit der Reformation. Leipzig, 1836, 1837.
Beck: Symbol. Bücher der ev.-reform. Kirche, Vol. I. pp. 472 sqq.; Vol. II. pp. 110 sqq., 130 sqq.
Niemeyer: Collectio, Proleg. pp. lxxiv. sqq. and 642-689.
Böckel: Die Bekenntniss-Schriften, etc., pp. 425 sqq.
Möller: Joh. Sigismund's Uebertritt zum reform. Bekenntniss, in the Deutsche Zeitschrift. Berlin, 1858, pp. 189 sqq.
Alex. Schweizer: Die Protest. Centraldogmen, Vol. II. pp. 6 sqq., 525 sqq., 531 sqq.
Comp. Herzog's Encyklop. articles: Leipziger Colloquium, Vol. VIII. p. 286; Joh. Sigismund, Vol. XIV. p. 364; and Thorn (by Henke), Vol. XVI. p. 101.
Brandenburg, the central province of Prussia, with Berlin as its capital, ruled since 1415 by princes of the house of Hohenzollern, at first embraced the Lutheran Reformation, but at the beginning of the seventeenth century the Elector became Calvinistic, drawing with him a few influential ministers and congregations. This Reformed diaspora received an accession of about twenty thousand exiled Huguenots under the liberal policy of the great Elector Frederick William (1620-1688), the proper founder of the Prussian monarchy, who secured the legal recognition of the Reformed Church in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).
There are three Reformed Confessions of Brandenburg--namely, the Confession of the Elector Sigismund (1614), the Leipzig Colloquy (1631), and the Declaration of Thorn (1645). They bear a moderately Calvinistic, we may say a Unionistic, type, and had a certain symbolical authority in Brandenburg till the introduction of the union of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches in 1817. The great Elector mentions them together in 1664. The Canons of Dort were respectfully received but never adopted by the Brandenburg divines.
THE CONFESSION OF SIGISMUND. A.D. 1614.
See the original German text in the collections of Beck, Niemeyer, Böckel, and also in Heppe's Bekenntniss-Schriften der reform. Kirchen Deutschlands, pp. 284-294.
John Sigismund (or Siegmund), Elector of Brandenburg (b. 1572, d. 1619) and ancestor of the royal line of Prussia, was brought up in the rigorous orthodoxy of the Lutheran Formula of Concord, and in his twenty-first year a solemn pledge was exacted from him by his father that he would always adhere to this creed (1593). But religious compulsion had on him an effect directly contrary to that contemplated (as is often the case with independent minds). His social relations with Holland, Cleves, and the Palatinate gave him a favorable impression of the doctrines and discipline of the Calvinistic Churches. In 1608 he succeeded to the throne. At Christmas, 1613, he publicly professed the Reformed faith by receiving the holy communion, according to the Reformed rite, in the Dome of Berlin, together with fifty-four others, including his brother John George, the Count of Nassau, Ernst Casimir, and the English embassador.
This act was the result of conscientious conviction. [1052] It was meant to be not so much a change of creed as a further progress in Protestantism, but it created a great sensation, and called forth violent protests from Lutheran princes and pulpits. [1053] An edict forbidding public denunciations had little effect. A fanatical mob arose in rebellion against the Reformed preachers, and plundered their houses (1615). The great majority of the Elector's subjects and his own wife remained Lutherans. [1054]
Nevertheless, his transition was of great prospective importance, for the house of Brandenburg was destined to become, by extraordinary talents and achievements, one of the leading dynasties of Europe, and to take the helm of the new Protestant German empire.
In May, 1614, Sigismund issued a personal confession of faith, which is called after him and also after his country. It was drawn up by himself, with the aid of Dr. Pelargus, General Superintendent at Frankfort-on-the-Oder. It is brief, moderate, conciliatory, and intended to be merely supplementary concerning the controverted articles. The Elector professes faith in the 'true, infallible, and saving Word of God, as the only rule of the pious which is perfect, sufficient for salvation, and abides forever.' Then he accepts, as agreeing with the Bible, the oecumenical creeds (namely, the Apostles', the Nicene, the Athanasian, also the doctrinal decisions of Ephesus, 431, and of Chalcedon, 451), and the Augsburg Confession of 1530, with the later improvements of Melanchthon.
In regard to the controverted articles, Sigismund rejects the Lutheran doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's body, and exorcism in baptism as a superstitious ceremony, and the use of the wafer instead of the breaking of bread in the communion. He adopts the Reformed doctrine of the sacraments, and of an eternal and unconditional election of grace, yet with the declaration that God sincerely wished the salvation of all men, and was not the author of sin and damnation.
In conclusion the Elector expresses his wish and prayer that God may enlighten his faithful subjects with his truth, but disclaims all intention to coerce their conscience, since faith was the free gift of God (John vi. 29; 2 Thess. iii. 2; Phil. i. 29; Eph. iii. 8), and no one should presume to exercise dominion over men's religion (2 Cor. i. 24). He thus freely waived, in relation to his Lutheran subjects, the right of reformation, which was claimed and exercised by other Protestant princes, and established a basis for religious liberty and union.
This wise toleration was in advance of the age, and contrasts favorably with the opposite policy of the Elector Augustus of Saxony, who forced the Formula of Concord upon his people, and answered the Emperor Maximilian II., when he interceded for the release from prison of Peucer (Melanchthon's son-in-law): 'I want only such servants as believe and confess in religion neither more nor less than I myself believe and confess.' [1055] These times of terrorism over men's consciences are happily passed, and Sigismund's toleration has become the settled policy of his successors to this day.
The conduct of Luther and Zwingli at Marburg gave tone and character to all subsequent union conferences of the two confessions they represent. The Reformed, with a larger charity, were always willing to commune with Lutherans notwithstanding minor doctrinal differences; while the Lutherans, with a narrower conscience and a more compact system of theology, refused the hand of fellowship to the Reformed, and abhorred as a syncretistic heresy all union that was not based upon perfect agreement in dogma; yea, during the seventeenth century they would rather make common cause with Romanists than Calvinists, and went so far as to exclude the Calvinists from heaven. [1056] Fortunately Calixtus and his school, who had the Melanchthonian spirit, formed an honorable exception, and the exception, after much misrepresentation and persecution, has become the rule in the Lutheran Church.