Modern historians are generally agreed that also with respect to the Lord's Supper the later Melanchthon was not identical with the earlier. Tschackert: "Melanchthon had long ago [before the outbreak of the second controversy on the Lord's Supper] receded from the peculiarities of the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper; he was satisfied with maintaining the personal presence of Christ during the Supper, leaving the mode of His presence and efficacy in doubt." (532.) Seeberg, who maintains that Melanchthon as early as 1531 departed from Luther's teaching concerning the Lord's Supper, declares: "Melanchthon merely does not want to admit that the body of Christ is really eaten in the Supper, and that it is omnipresent as such." (4, 2, 449.) Theo. Kolde: "It should never have been denied that these alterations in Article X of the Augustana involved real changes…. In view of his gradually changed conception of the Lord's Supper, there can be no doubt that he sought to leave open for himself and others the possibility of associating also with the Swiss." (25.) Schaff: "Melanchthon's later view of the Lord's Supper agreed essentially with that of Calvin." (1, 280.)
Such, then, being the attitude of Melanchthon as to the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, it was but natural and consistent that his pupils, who looked up to Master Philip with unbounded admiration, should become decided Calvinists. Melanchthon, chiefly, must be held responsible for the Calvinistic menace which threatened the Lutheran Church after the death of Luther. In the interest of fraternal relations with the Swiss, he was ready to compromise and modify the Lutheran truth. Sadly he had his way, and had not the tendency which he inaugurated been checked, the Lutheran Church would have lost its character and been transformed into a Reformed or, at least, a unionistic body. In a degree, this guilt was shared also by his older Wittenberg colleagues: Caspar Cruciger, Sr., Paul Eber, John Foerster, and others, who evidently inclined toward Melanchthon's view and attitude also in the matter concerning the Lord's Supper. Caspar Cruciger, for example, as appears from his letter to Veit Dietrich, dated April 18, 1538, taught the bodily presence of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper, but not "the division or separation of the body and blood." (C. R. 3, 610.) Shortly before his death, as related in a previous chapter, Luther had charged these men with culpable silence with regard to the truth, declaring: "If you believe as you speak in my presence then speak the same way in church, in public lectures, in sermons, and in private discussions, and strengthen your brethren, and lead the erring back to the right way, and contradict the wilful spirits; otherwise your confession is a mere sham and will be of no value whatever." (Walther, 40.) Refusal to confess the truth will ultimately always result in rejection of the truth. Silence here is the first step to open denial.
207. Westphal First to Sound Tocsin.
Foremost among the men who saw through Calvin's plan of propagating the Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper under phrases coming as close as possible to the Lutheran terminology, and who boldly, determinedly and ably opposed the Calvinistic propaganda was Joachim Westphal of Hamburg [born 1510; 1527 in Wittenberg; since 1541 pastor in Hamburg; died January 16, 1574]. Fully realizing the danger which threatened the entire Lutheran Church, he regarded it as his sacred duty to raise his voice and warn the Lutherans against the Calvinistic menace. He did so in a publication entitled: "Farrago Confusanearum et inter se Dissidentium Opinionum de Coena Domini—Medley of Confused and Mutually Dissenting Opinions on the Lord's Supper, compiled from the books of the Sacramentarians," 1552. In it he proved that in reality Calvin and his adherents, despite their seemingly orthodox phrases, denied the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper just as emphatically and decidedly as Zwingli had done. At the same time he refuted in strong terms the Reformed doctrine in the manner indicated by the title, and maintained the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence, the oral eating and drinking (manducatio oralis), also of unbelievers. Finally he appealed to the Lutheran theologians and magistrates everywhere to guard their churches against the Calvinistic peril. "The Farrago," says Kruske, "signified the beginning of the end of Calvin's domination in Germany." Schaff: "The controversy of Westphal against Calvin and the subsequent overthrow of Melanchthonianism completed and consolidated the separation of the two Confessions," Lutheran and Reformed. (Creeds 1, 280.)
Thus Westphal stands preeminent among the men who saved the Lutheran Church from the Calvinistic peril. To add fuel to the anti-Calvinistic movement, Westphal, in the year following, published a second book: "Correct Faith (Recta Fides) Concerning the Lord's Supper, demonstrated and confirmed from the words of the Apostle Paul and the Evangelists," 1553. Here he again called upon all true disciples of Luther to save his doctrine from the onslaughts of the Calvinists, who, he declared, stooped to every method in order to conquer Germany for Zwinglianism.
Westphal's fiery appeals for Lutheran loyalty received a special emphasis and wide publicity when the Pole, John of Lasco (Laski), who in 1553, together with 175 members of his London congregation, had been driven from England by Bloody Mary, reached the Continent. The liberty which Lasco, who in 1552 had publicly adopted the Consensus Tigurinus, requested in Lutheran territories for himself and his Reformed congregation, was refused in Denmark, Wismar, Luebeck and Hamburg, but finally granted in Frankfort-on-the-Main. Soon after, in 1554, the Calvinistic preacher Micronius, who also sought refuge in Hamburg, was forbidden to make that city the seat of Reformed activity and propaganda. As a result, Calvin decided to enter the arena against Westphal. In 1555 he published his Defensio Sanae et Orthodoxae Doctrinae de Sacramentis, "Defense of the Sound and Orthodox Doctrine Concerning the Sacraments and Their Nature, Power, Purpose, Use, and Fruit, which the pastors and ministers of the churches in Zurich and Geneva before this have comprised into a brief formula of the mutual Agreement" (Consensus Tigurinus). In it he attacked Westphal in such an insulting and overbearing manner (comparing him, e.g., with "a mad dog") that from the very beginning the controversy was bound to assume a personal and acrimonious character.
208. Controversial Publications.
After Calvin had entered the controversy Westphal was joined by such Lutherans as John Timann, Paul v. Eitzen, Erhard Schnepf, Alber, Gallus, Flacius, Judex, Brenz, Andreae and others. Calvin, on the other hand, was supported by Lasco, Bullinger, Ochino, Valerandus Polanus, Beza (the most scurrillous of all the opponents of Lutheranism), and Bibliander. In 1555 Westphal published three additional books: Collection (Collectanea) of Opinions of Aurelius Augustine Concerning the Lord's Supper, and Faith (Fides) of Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, Concerning the Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ, and Adversus cuiusdam Sacramentarii Falsam Criminationem Iusta Defensio, "Just Defense against the False Accusation of a Certain Sacramentarian." The last publication was a personal defense against the insults and invectives of Calvin and a further proof of the claim that the Calvinists were united only in their denial of the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Coming to the support of Westphal, John Timann, Pastor in Bremen, published in 1555: "Medley (Farrago) of Opinions Agreeing in the True and Catholic Doctrine Concerning the Lord's Supper, which the churches of the Augsburg Confession have embraced with firm assent and in one spirit according to the divine Word."
In the following year Calvin wrote his Secunda Defensio … contra J. Westphali Calumnias, "Second Defense of the Pious and Orthodox Faith, against the Calumnies of J. Westphal," a vitriolic book, dedicated to the Crypto-Calvinists, viz., "to all ministers of Christ who cultivate and follow the pure doctrine of the Gospel in the churches of Saxony and Lower Germany." In it Calvin declared: "I teach that Christ, though absent according to His body, is nevertheless not only present with us according to His divine power, but also makes His flesh vivifying for us." (C. R. 37 [Calvini Opp. 9], 79.) Lasco also wrote two books against Westphal and Timann, defending his congregation at Frankfort, and endeavoring to show the agreement between the Calvinian doctrine of the Lord's Supper and the Augsburg Confession. In 1556 Henry Bullinger appeared on the battlefield with his Apologetical Exposition, Apologetica Expositio, in which he endeavored to show that the ministers of the churches in Zurich do not follow any heretical dogma in the doctrine concerning the Lord's Supper.
In the same year, 1556, Westphal published Epistola, qua Breviter Respondet ad Convicia I. Calvini—"Letter in which He [Westphal] Answers Briefly to the Invectives of J. Calvin," and "Answer (Responsum) to the Writing of John of Lasco, in which he transforms the Augsburg Confession into Zwinglianism." In the same year Westphal published "Confession of Faith (Confessio Fidei) Concerning the Sacrament of the Eucharist, in which the ministers of the churches of Saxony maintain the presence of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Supper, and answer regarding the book of Calvin dedicated to them." This publication contained opinions which Westphal had secured from the ministeriums of Magdeburg (including Wigand and Flacius), of Mansfeld, Bremen, Hildesheim, Hamburg, Luebeck, Lueneburg, Brunswick (Moerlin and Chemnitz), Hannover, Wismar, Schwerin, etc. All of these ministeriums declared themselves unanimously and definitely in favor of Luther's doctrine, appealing to the words of institution as they read. In 1557 Erhard Schnepf [born 1595; active in Nassau, Marburg, Speier, Augsburg; attended convents in Smalcald 1537; in Regensburg 1546, in Worms 1557; died 1558], then in Jena, published his Confession Concerning the Supper. In the same year Paul von Eitzen [born 1522; died 1598; refused to sign Formula of Concord] published his Defense of the True Doctrine Concerning the Supper of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Westphal also made a second attack on Lasco in his "Just Defense against the Manifest Falsehoods of J. A. Lasco which he spread in his letter to the King of Poland against the Saxon Churches," 1557. In it he denounces Lasco and his congregation of foreigners, and calls upon the magistrates to institute proceedings against them.