been gradually obscured, distorted, or denied by the dominant class of schoolmen'. This point has been so frequently urged with regard to the Church of England, that the production of further evidence is altogether superfluous2: but the reader will be interested to find the same principles no less strongly affirmed in a document drawn up by the Lutheran states (March 5, 1537), and immediately translated into English For the sklaunder is moost fals, (they write,) which our aduersaries do oftentymes cast forth, that errours somtyme condemned are scattred abrode and olde heresyes renewed of our men; and therfore they denye that ther is any nede of tryall. Nother is it onye harde thynge to refute this sklaunder, our Confession3 once shewed fourth. For thys pure doctryne of the Gospel whiche we haue embraced 1 See Field,' Of the Church,' 1. 165 seqq. and especially Appendix to Book III., 'wherein it is clearely proved that the Latine, or West Church in which the Pope tyrannized, was, and continued a true, orthodox, and protestant Church, and that the devisers and maintainers of Romish errors and superstitious abuses, were only a faction in the same, at the time when Luther, not without the applause of all good men, published his propositions against the prophane abuse of papal indulgences.' II. 1-387, ed. E. H. S. 1849. ros expulit. Aut si clarius hæc dici velis: quicquid aureum, solidum, fundamentale, quicquid catholicum et antiquum est, retinuit: ea solum quæ internis sordibus vestra, lutea, morbida, et fundamento assuta, quicquid novum, hæreticum, idololatricum, aut antichristianum erat, amputavit. De substantia antiquæ et catholicæ fidei, nihil quidquam a nobis immutatum: quicquid tale est amplectimur ambabus ulnis, exosculamur, tuemur.' Crakanthorp, Defensio Eccl. Anglican. 601, ed. Oxon. 1847. 3 The allusion is to the Augsburg Confession, where among other statements of a like character, it is declared: Hæc fere summa est doctrinæ apud nos, in qua cerni potest, nihil inesse, quod discrepet a Scripturis, vel ab ecclesia Catholica, vel ab ecclesia Romana, quatenus ex Scriptoribus nota est (Germ. is, wythout doute, euen the verye consente of the catholyke Church of Christ: as the testimonies of the olde Church and of holye fathers do euydentlye declare. For we do not receaue or approue any wycked opynions, or such as fyghte with the consent of the holy fathers; yee rather in many artikles we do renew the teachynges of the old synodes and fathers, which the latter age had put out of the way, and for them had geuen forth other false and conterfette doctrynes, wyth the which oure aduersaryes do shamefully fyghte wyth the judgementes of the fathers and authoryte of the synodes1.' aus der Väter Schrift). Confessio August. Pars I. § XXII. : Libri Symbol. Eccl. Lutheran. 25, ed. Francke, 1847. 1 The Causes why the Germanes will not go, nor consente vnto that Councel, &c. (the proposed synod of Mantua) A. v. Sowthwarke, 1537. The original is printed in Le Plat, Monumenta, II. 577. CHAPTER II. THE CONFESSION OF AUGSBURG. THE The Augsburg fession. HE observations at the close of the foregoing onchapter have enabled us in some measure to anticipate the design of the first Reforming Confession, compiled in the spring of 1530, and presented at the diet of Augsburg to the emperor Charles V. It was this very remarkable document which suggested the idea so generally adopted in the middle of the sixteenth century; and had no further affinity subsisted between it and the ARTICLES OF RELIGION, it would at least have demanded some cursory notice. connexion land. But there is a far more imperative reason for Its intimate embracing the history of the Augsburg Confession with Eng within the scope of the present volume. It is intimately connected with the English Reformation; and in addition to the influence which it cannot fail to have exerted by its rapid circulation in this country, it contributed directly, in no inconsiderable degree, to the construction of the public Formularies of Faith approved by the Church of England. The XIII. Articles, drawn up, it would seem, in 1538, were almost entirely based upon the language of the Germanic Confession; while the same sort of respect is no less apparent in the Articles of Edward VI., and consequently in those which are now binding on the whole body of the clergy. of the Reformers On this account, therefore, it is necessary to Condition understand the position of the Wittenberg Reformers Geome in the year 1530, when they laid a formal record of in 1530. their opinions before the imperial States. Since the time of the diet of Worms in 1521, the 1 The amount of this influence will be exhibited in the Appendix. movement, of which Luther was the ruling spirit, had become far more moderate in its tone and far more purely theological. Its earlier vehemence had been expended in decrying the disciplinary abuses of the age, and the extravagant claims of the Roman pontiff: it had afterwards entered into a partial union with the bolder followers of Zwingli, and was accordingly in danger of imbibing his strong political maxims, as well as some portion of his peculiar theology: but the Divergence conference at Marburg1 in 1529 was conclusive, both to themselves and others, that the two schools of foreign reformers were essentially divergent, and that however warmly they agreed in protesting against errors maintained in the Church at large, it was impossible to bring them, either by means of persuasion or of pressure, to subscribe the same standard of faith. of the Lutheran and Zwinglian opinions. Ranke supplies an epitome of the two contending factions in the masterly contrast he has drawn between the character and feelings of their leaders: 'Whereas Luther wished to retain everything in the existing ecclesiastical institutions that was not at variance with the express words of Scripture, Zwingli was resolved to get rid of everything that could not be maintained by a direct appeal to Scripture. Luther took up his station on the ground already occupied by the Latin Church; his desire was only to purify, to put an end to the contradictions between the doctrines of the Church and the Gospel. Zwingli, on the other hand, thought it necessary to restore, as far as possible, the primitive and simplest condition of the Church; he aimed at a complete revolution2.' 1 Ranke, Reformation, III. 189 seqq. Engl. Trans. 1847. 2 Ibid. II. 86, 87. The reformers [i. e. the Zwinglians, as opposed to the Lutherans] would have nothing but the simple Word. The same end was proposed in all the practices of the church. A new form of baptism was drawn up, in which all the additions "which have no ground in God's Word" were omitted. The next step was the alteration of the mass. Luther had contented himself with the omission of the words relating This contrast was strongly imprinted on the minds of the Wittenberg reformers, when they proceeded in March, 1530, to frame the Augsburg Confession. out of which Confession The idea of such an apology was conceived by Elements Pontanus (or Brück), the chancellor of Saxony1; and the Augsburg with the consent of his master, the elector John, the was framed. divines took as the basis of their work a series of somewhat older Articles, which had been carefully drawn up in the year preceding. This document was known by the name of the Schwabach Articles,' where it had been exhibited, Oct. 16, 1529, as the preliminary step of a contemplated alliance with the rest of the foreign reformers. It was in its turn no more than the corrected version of a test which had been also offered to the Zwinglian delegates, in the previous meeting at Marburg2 (Oct. 3, 1529). Articles,' The Articles are seventeen in number3, and mani- Schwabach fest in the whole of their structure the deep and 1529. fundamental separation, which was then thought to have grown between the Lutheran body and those who to the doctrine of sacrifice, and with the introduction of the sacrament in both kinds. Zwingli established a regular love-feast (Easter, 1525).' p. 88. 1 The following was the advice given by Pontanus (March 14, 1530): 'Dieweil Kais. Mt. Ausschreiben vermag, dass eins Itzlichen Opinion und Meinung gehört soll werden [i. e. at the ensuing Diet], will uns fur gut ansehen, dass solche Meinung, darauf unsers Theils bisanher gestanden und verharret, ordentlich in Schriften zusammen gezogen werden mit gründlicher Bewährung derselbigen ans göttlicher Schrift, damit man solchs in Schriften furzutragen hat, wo man den Ständen auch die Prediger in den Handelungen die 2 Ranke, Reform. III. 197. |