# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 11 29_S27
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

" (See Thomas Morton's opinion on ecclesiastical peace.)

How highly, indeed, those very Frenchmen with whom Calvin was in contact regarded Luther's judgment is confirmed, moreover, by Calvin himself in a letter he wrote to Luther in January 1545; in it he says that many Frenchmen had indeed recognized the truth, but were unwilling to come right out and say so in words, and he then continues: "For the rest, because they (those Frenchmen) do not rightly know what they ought to do, they long to hear your (Luther's) judgment, which, since they rightly revere it, will also serve as a great encouragement to them. They have therefore asked me to send a reliable messenger expressly to you, so that he might bring back your answer on this matter to us. I, however, convinced that it will be of great benefit to them to be supported by your authority, so that they do not always waver back and forth, was unwilling to refuse them what they asked." (See: Collection of Old and New Theological Matters, etc., 1722, p. 627.)

But it becomes even more indubitable that Calvin was at first Lutheran in disposition, since in 1538 at Strasbourg (where, having been expelled from Geneva, he accepted a preaching post with a French congregation), he, as he himself admits, willingly and gladly signed the Augsburg Confession and solemnly bound himself to teach according to it — whereas later, as we shall still hear, he sought in every way to cast this confession into suspicion.

This belongs here as well. In 1536 a conference was held at Wittenberg between Luther and his like-minded associates on the one side, and Bucer of Strasbourg and others who had formerly been more Zwinglian-minded on the other, after which all, without exception, signed the following formula: "That with the bread the true body of Christ is truly and substantially present, given, and received; that this institution holds even though the one who administers or receives it is unworthy; the true body of Christ is received even by the unworthy." The entire Strasbourg ministry, and thus Calvin as well, was now bound, according to the Strasbourg church order, to this so-called Wittenberg Concord. This attracted so much attention at the time that the Zwinglians at Zurich forbade their sons studying at Strasbourg from communing there, on account of the doctrine that had now changed. Must not Calvin, then, if not a Lutheran, have been a hypocrite, since he also accepted that formula as his own confession of faith?

To this must finally be added that Calvin was also present, on the side of the Evangelicals (this was at that time the name of the Lutherans), at several important religious colloquies, such as at Worms in 1540 and at Regensburg in 1541, and there professed together with them the written declaration:

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"that they held fast to the common consent of the catholic [i.e., universal Christian] Church, that in the Supper of the Lord, after the blessing of the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ are truly and substantially present and received, and that they rejected those who deny that the body of Christ is present and truly received." (Melanchthon's Works, vol. IV, p. 736.)

If we now consider that, by such conduct, Calvin was at that time regarded by the Swiss as an opponent of Zwingli and by the Lutherans as a fellow believer, nothing remains for us but to believe either that Calvin was then still, at heart, devoted to the Lutheran Church, or that he was a most two-tongued man. But since love should always believe the best wherever any room at all is left for it to do so, we rightly believe the former.

We cannot close this section without pointing out the noteworthy phenomenon that almost all the men who were especially influential for the Reformation, and who later departed from Luther in the doctrine of the Holy Supper, agreed with him at first, during the flowering period of their life of faith. We recall here only Oecolampadius, Melanchthon, and Cranmer.

Oecolampadius, professor and preacher at Basel, who later became one of the most zealous champions of Zwingli's false doctrine, wrote earlier, in 1521: "I do not call the sacrament merely a figure, like the paschal lamb. Far be this blasphemy from us, that we should ascribe as much to the shadow as to the light and the truth, and to those figures as to this most holy mystery; for here the bread does not merely signify, but is the body of the Lord himself. In this we believe Christ, the highest truth, who cannot deceive and who said: Take and eat, for this is my body. We therefore confess simply that the body and blood of Christ are present and contained there; but the How? we do not seek to investigate, since it is neither necessary nor useful. How he who is enthroned at the right hand of the Father above the heavens can be truly present on the altars — about this we ought to have no doubts, nor anxiously ask in vain, because it is impossible for us to fathom this." (Sermon on the Eucharistic Sacrament, A iiij.)

Melanchthon, who unfortunately allowed himself, later on, through his natural love of peace, to be led into a compliance toward the Reformed that greatly endangered the preservation of the pure truth, wrote earlier: "God is my witness that I have so diligently urged peace (with the Roman Catholics) for no other reason than this alone, that I saw that if peace were not made, our people would join together with the Zwinglians — which, that it might not happen, we have up to now prevented with the utmost fidelity and diligence. For if they were to become one with each other, there would arise from it a very great disruption and confusion of doctrine and of religion as a whole." — In another place Melanchthon writes as follows: "I find no reason why we should depart from this opinion, namely, that Christ is present in the Holy Supper with his body and blood. It may be that such an opinion is more agreeable to an idle mind, one more conformable to human reason, especially when it is adorned and embellished with cleverly invented arguments; but how will it hold up under trial, when conscience disputes what reason one had for departing from the customary opinion of the churches? Then these words, This is my body, will be nothing but thunderbolts. What will a terrified mind then set against them? With what Scripture and with what Word of God will it defend and persuade itself that Christ's words are to be taken figuratively?" etc.

Thomas Cranmer, finally,*) that important instrument for the Reformation of the Church in England, who later allowed himself to be led astray into the Calvinist false doctrine, wrote earlier to the mayor Joachim Vadianus of St. Gallen in Switzerland: "If I do not see more certain grounds for that opinion of yours concerning the absence of the body of Christ than I have been able to see up to now, I can neither advocate it nor assent to it. And from this alone I am thoroughly convinced that it is not a good cause, since you, such ingenious, eloquent men, experienced in all arts and sciences, do not seem able to support and maintain it with valid arguments. I have otherwise seen everything that has been written and published both by Oecolampadius and by Zwingli, and I have learned this much from it, that one must read the writings of all men with discrimination. — However great a dexterity of mind you may employ, you will nevertheless never convince me, nor, I think, any impartial reader, that those ancient writers held your opinion in this matter. Since, therefore, this catholic (universal, Christian) faith in the true presence of the body of Christ, which we hold,

*) Cranmer was born in 1489 and, from 1532 on, worked as Archbishop of Canterbury for the Reformation of the Church in England. Together with Bishop Ridley he drew up a confession of faith consisting of 42 articles, which later became the basis for the well-known 39 Articles that the Episcopal Church (just as the Lutheran Church has the Augsburg Confession) has adopted as its chief symbol. Cranmer finally died, for the sake of his faith, at the stake in 1556 during the persecutions under Queen Mary of England. He had, indeed, previously been moved by fear of death to recant and to abjure his faith, but when he was nevertheless not released, he showed great remorse, and amid many tears had his right hand — with which he had signed the recantation — burned off first. The strictly Roman Catholic-minded Mary raged terribly at that time; according to Guericke, 277 persons, among them 5 bishops and 21 preachers, as well as many women and even children of the tenderest age, had to die in the flames for the sake of their confession. One woman gave birth in the flames; the child, pulled out of pity, had to be thrown back into the fire by higher order.