than the Augsburg Confession, as explained by its author and his school, differs from the Formula of Concord.' They exhibit substantially the same system of doctrine, and are only variations of one theme according to the wants of the national Churches for which they were intended. The Reformed Churches were never organically united under one form of government, and even every little canton in Switzerland (as every Lutheran principality in Germany) has its own ecclesiastical establishment; but they recognized each other as branches of the same family, and kept up a lively intercommunion. Even the leading divines and dignitaries of the Episcopal Church of England, during the sixteenth century, freely corresponded with the Reformed Churches of Switzerland, France, and Holland, and the difference in church polity was no bar to church fellowship.

There are in all over thirty Reformed creeds. But many of them had never more than local authority, or were superseded by later and maturer forms. None of them has the same commanding position as the Augsburg Confession in the Lutheran Church. Those which have been most widely accepted and are still most in use are the Heidelberg or Palatinate Catechism, the Thirty-nine Articles, and the Westminster Confession. The second Helvetic Confession and the Canons of Dort are equal to them in authority and theological importance, but less adapted for popular use. All the rest have now little more than historical significance.

As to origin and theological character, the Reformed Confessions may be divided into Zwinglian and Calvinistic. The earlier were the product of Zwingli and his Swiss coadjutors, the later date from Calvin or his pupils and successors, and exhibit a more advanced and matured state of doctrine, with a difference, however, as to the extent to which they are committed to the Calvinistic system; some accepting it in full, while others maintain a reserve in regard to its angular points and rigorous logical consequences.

As to the country in which they originated and for which they were

This doctrinal consensus of the Reformed Creeds has been shown as early as 1581 in the Harmonia Confessionum above quoted.

2

In this respect the Churches of the United States, being free from government control, are much better organized, according to creeds, without allowing the State boundaries to interfere with their organic unity.

chiefly intended, we may divide them into Swiss, German, French, Dutch, English, and Scotch Confessions.

To the Swiss family belong the Confessions which proceeded from the Churches of Zurich, Basle, Berne, and Geneva, partly of Zwinglian and partly of Calvinistic origin.

The German family embraces the Tetrapolitan Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Brandenburg and Anhalt Confessions, and a few others. They are less pronounced in their Calvinism, and mediate between it and the Lutheran Creed.

To France and the Netherlands belong the French and the Belgic Confessions, the Canons of the Synod of Dort, and also the Arminian Articles, which differ from the Calvinistic creeds in five points.

The English family embraces the Thirty-nine Articles, the old Scotch Confessions, and the later Westminster Standards.

Besides, there are Bohemian, Polish, and Hungarian Confessions of lesser importance.

NOTE. We take the term Reformed here in its catholic and historical sense for all those Churches which were founded by Zwingli and Calvin and their fellow-reformers in the sixteenth century on the Continent, and in England and Scotland, and which agreed with the Lutheran Church in opposition to the Roman Catholic, but differed from it in the doctrine of the real presence, afterward also in the doctrine of predestination. By their opponents they were first called in derision Zwinglians and Calvinists, also Sacramentarians or Sacramentschwärmer (by Luther and in the Formula of Concord), and in France Huguenots. But they justly repudiated all such sectarian names, and used instead the designations Christian or Evangelical or Reformed, or Evangelical Reformed or Reformed Catholic. The term Reformed assumed the ascendency in Switzerland, France, and elsewhere. Beza, e. g., uses it constantly. Queen Elizabeth, in sundry letters to the Protestant courts of Germany in 1577, speaks throughout of ecclesiæ reformata, and once calls the non-Lutheran Churches ecclesia reformatiores, more Reformed, implying that the Lutheran is Reformed also.

6

The Lutherans, before the last quarter of the sixteenth century, called themselves likewise Christian and Evangelical, sometimes Reformed, and since 1530 the Church or Churches of the Augsburg Confession, or Verwandte der Augsburgischen Confession. For a long time they disowned the terms Lutheranus, Luthericus, Lutheranismus, which were first used by Dr. Eck, Cochlæus, Erasmus, and other Romanists with the view to stigmatize their religion as a recent innovation and human invention. (A Papist once asked a Lutheran, Where was your Church before Luther?' The Lutheran answered by asking another question, 'Where was your face this morning before it was washed?') Erasmus speaks of Lutherana tragœdia, negotium Lutheranum, factio Lutherana. Hence the Lutheran symbols never use the term Lutheran, except once, and then by way of complaint that the 'dear, holy Gospel should be called Lutheran." Luther himself complained of this use of his name; nevertheless he had

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Art. XV. (VIII. p. 213 ed. Müller): 'Das liebe, heilige Evangelium nennen sie [the Papists] Lutherisch.' The name of Luther, however, is often honorably mentioned, especially in the Formula of Concord.

REESE
UNIVE

CALIE

§ 50. THE REFORMED CONFESSIONS.

359 no objection that it should be duly honored in connection with the Word of God, and thought that his followers need not be ashamed of him.' They thought so, too; and, forgetting St. Paul's warning against sectarian names, they gradually themselves appropriated the term Lutheran, or Evangelical Lutheran, as the official title of their Church, since about 1585, under the influence of Jacob Andreæ, the chief author of the Formula of Concord, and Ægidius Hunnius, and in connection with the faith in Luther as a special messenger of God for the restoration of Christianity in its doctrinal purity. See the proof in the little book of Dr. Heinrich Heppe, Ursprung und Geschichte der Bezeichnungen reformirte' und 'lutherische Kirche, Gotha, 1859, pp. 28, 35, 55.

The negative term Protestant was used after 1529 for both Confessions by friend and foe, and is so used to this day; but it must be explained from the historical occasion which gave rise to it, and be connected with the positive faith in the Word of God, on the ground of which the evangelical members of the Diet of Spires protested against the decision of the papal majority, as an encroachment on the rights of conscience and an enforcement of the traditions of men.

On the Continent of Europe it is still customary to divide orthodox Christendom into three Confessions or Creeds-the Catholic (Greek and Roman), the Lutheran, and the Reformedand to embrace under the Reformed all other Protestant bodies, such as Methodists and Baptists, or to speak of them as mere sects. But this will not do in England and America, where these sects, so called, have become powerful Churches. Reformed is sometimes used among us in a more general sense of all Protestant Churches, sometimes in a restricted sense of a particular branch of the Reformed Church. The Continental terminology suits the ecclesiastical statistics of the sixteenth century, but must be considerably enlarged and modified in view of the greater number of Anglo-American Churches. We shall devote a separate chapter to those Protestant evangelical bodies which have taken their rise since the Reformation.

'Wahr ist's,' he says (Works, Erl. ed. Vol. XXVIII. p. 316), 'dass du bei Leib und Seele nicht sollst sagen: ich bin LUTHERISCH oder PÄPSTISCH; denn derselben ist keiner für dich gestorben, noch dein Meister, sondern allein Christus, und sollst dich (als) CHRISTEN bekennen. Aber wenn du es dafür hältst, dass des Luthers Lehre evangelisch und des Papstes unevangelisch sei, so musst du den Luther nicht so gar hinwerfen. Du wirfst sonst seine Lehre auch mit hin, die du doch für Christi Lehre erkennest; sondern also musst du sagen: der Luther sei ein Bube oder heilig, da liegt mir nichts an; seine Lehre aber ist nicht sein, sondern Christi selbst.' And in another place (Vol. XL. p. 127): 'Und wiewohl ich's nicht gern habe, dass man die Lehre und Leute LUTHERISCH nennt, und muss von ihnen leiden, dass sie Gottes Wort mit meinem Namen also schänden, so sollen sie doch den Luther, die Lutherischen Lehre und Leute lassen bleiben und zu Ehren kommen.'

VOL. I.-A A

I. SWISS REFORMED CONFESSIONS.

§ 51. ZWINGLIAN CONFESSIONS.

Literature.

H. ZWINGLII Opera ed. Gualther (Zwingli's son-in-law), Tig. 1545 and 1581, 4 Tom.; ed. M. Schuler und J. Schulthess, Tig. 1828-42, 8 Tom. The last and only complete edition contains the German and Latin works, with a supplemental volume of tracts and letters, published 1861. A judicious selection from his writings, in German, for popular use, was edited by Christoffel, Zurich, 1843-46, in fifteen small volumes, also in the second part of his biography of Zwingli.

Biographies of Zwingli by MyCONIUS, NÜSCHELER, HESS, ROTERMUND, SCHULER, HOTTINGER, Röder, TICHLER, CHRISTOFFEL (Elberfeld, 1857), and especially MÖRIKOFER: Ulrich Zwingli nach den urkundlichen Quellen, Leipzig, 1867-69, 2 vols. Hottinger and Christoffel are translated into English, but the latter without the valuable extracts from Zwingli's writings. GÜDER's art. on Zwingli, in Herzog's Encykl Vol. XVIII. pp. 701-766, is a condensed biography. ROBBINS, Life of Zwingli, in Bibliotheca Sacra, 1851. Also A. EBRARD: Das Dogma vom heil. Abendmahl und seine Geschichte (Francf. 1846), Vol. II. pp. 1-112 (an able vindication of Zwingli against misrepresentations). ED. ZELLER: Das theologische System Zwingli's, Tüb. 1853. CH. SIGWART: Ulrich Zwingli, der Charakter seiner Theologie, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Picus von Mirandula, Stuttg. 1855. H. SPÖRRI: Zwinglistudien, Leipz. 1866. MERLE D'AUBIGNÉ: History of the Reformation, 4th vol. (French, English, and German). HAGENBACH: Geschichte der Reform., 4th ed. Leipz. 1870, pp. 183 sqq. G. P. FISHER: The Reformation, New York, 1873, pp. 137 sqq.

Zwingli (1484-1531) represents the first stage of the Reformed Church in Switzerland. He began what Calvin and others completed. He died in the prime of life, a patriot and martyr, on the battle-field, when his work seemed to be but half done. His importance is historical rather than doctrinal. He was the most clear-headed and liberal among the reformers, but lacked the genius, depth, and vigor of Luther and Calvin. He held opinions on the sacraments, original sin (as a disorder rather than a state of guilt), and on the salvation of all infants (unbaptized as well as baptized) and the nobler heathen, which then appeared radical, dangerous, and profane. He could conceive of a broad and free Christian union, consistent with doctrinal differences and denominational distinctions. He was a patriotic republican, frank, honorable, incorruptible, cheerful, courteous, and affable. He took an active part in all the public affairs of Switzerland, and labored to free it from foreign influence, misgovernment and immorality. He began at Einsiedeln (1516), and more effectively at Zurich (since 1519), to preach Christ from the pure fountain of the New Testainent, and to set him forth as the only Mediator and all-sufficient Saviour. Then followed. his attacks upon the corruptions of Rome, and the Reformation was introduced step by step in Zurich, where he exercised a controlling influence, and in the greater part of German Switzerland, until its progress was suddenly checked by the catastrophe at Cappel, 1531.

Zwingli was scarcely two months younger than Luther, who survived him fifteen years. Both were educated and ordained in the Roman Church, and became innocently and providentially reformers of that Church. Both were men of strong mind, heroic character, fervent piety, and commanding influence over the people. Both were good scholars, great divines, and fond of poetry and music. Both labored independently for the same great cause of evangelical Protestantism-the one on a smaller, the other on a larger field. But their endowment, training, and conversion were different. Zwingli had less prejudice, more practical common-sense, clear discrimination, sober judgment, self-control, courtesy, and polish-Luther more productive genius, poetic imagination, overpowering eloquence, mystic depth, fire, and passion; and was in every way a richer and stronger, though rougher and wilder nature. Zwingli's eyes were opened by the reading of the Greek Testament, which he carefully copied with his own hand, and the humanistic learning of his friend Erasmus; while Luther passed through the ascetic struggles of monastic life, till he found peace of conscience in the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Zwingli broke more rapidly and more radically with the Roman Church than Luther. He boldly abolished all doctrines and usages not taught in the Scriptures; Luther piously retained what was not clearly forbidden. He aimed at a reformation of government and discipline as well as theology; Luther confined himself to such changes as were directly connected with doctrine. He was a Swiss and a republican; Luther, a German and a monarchist. He was a statesman as well as a theologian; Luther kept aloof from all political complications, and preached the doctrine of passive obedience to established authority. They met but once in this world, and then as antagonists, at Marburg, two years before Zwingli's death. They could not but respect each other personally, though Luther approached the Swiss

1 See Zwingli's poems, written during the pestilence, in Hagenbach, 1. c. p. 216, and another, p. 404. He published a moral poem, under the title The Labyrinth, as early as 1510, while priest at Glarus (Opera, Tom. II. B. pp. 243 sqq.; Mörikofer, Vol. I. pp. 13 sqq.). His preference for Puritanic simplicity in public worship gave rise to the fiction of his hostility to music. He was, on the contrary, singularly skilled in that art, and was called in derision by the Papists the evangelical lute-player.' A contemporary says that he never knew a man who could play on so many musical instruments-the lute, the harp, the violin, etc. See Myconius, Vita H. Zwinglii; Ebrard, 1. c. Vol. II. pp. 59 sqq.; and Hagenbach, 1. c. p. 184.