Again: "They [the opponents] also say that we stress the universal promises of grace, but fail to add that these belong and pertain to believers. But herein they wrong us. For we urge both, viz., that the promises of grace are universal, and that, nevertheless, only believers, who labor and are heavy laden, Matt. 11, become partakers of them. But their [our opponents'] object is to have us join them in saying that some are ordained to damnation from the free purpose of God, also without regard to sin, whom He does not want to be saved, even though He calls them through the Word and offers His grace and salvation to them, —which, however, we shall never do. For our heart is filled with horror against such a Stoic and Manichean doctrine." (209 b.)
XXII. Article XII of the Formula of Concord: Of Other Heretics and
Sects.
257. Purpose of Article XII.
The purpose of the first eleven articles of the Formula of Concord was not only to establish peace within the Lutheran Church and to ward off future controversies, but also to meet the ridicule and obloquy of the Papists and to brand before the whole world as slander, pure and simple, their assertions that the Lutherans were hopelessly disagreed and had abandoned the Augsburg Confession, and that the Reformation was bound to end in utter confusion and dissolution. The Formula of Concord was to leave no doubt regarding the fact that the Lutheran Church offers a united front in every direction: against the Romanists, the Calvinists, the errorists that had arisen in their own midst, and self-evidently also against the sects and fanatics, old and modern, with whom the Romanists slanderously identified them.
Summarizing the errors which Lutherans repudiate, the Formula of Concord declares: "First, we reject and condemn all heresies and errors which were rejected and condemned in the primitive, ancient, orthodox Church, upon the true, firm ground of the holy divine Scriptures. Secondly, we reject and condemn all sects and heresies which are rejected in the writings, just mentioned, of the comprehensive summary of the confession of our churches [the Lutheran symbols, preceding the Formula of Concord]. Thirdly, we reject also all those errors which caused dissension within the Lutheran Church, and which are dealt with and refuted in the first eleven articles of the Formula of Concord." (857, 17ff.) Among the errors rejected in the Augsburg Confession and the subsequent Lutheran symbols were those also of the Anabaptists, Antitrinitarians, and others. (CONC. TRIGL. 42, 6; 44, 4; 46, 3; 48, 7; 50, 3. 4; 138, 66; 244, 52; 310, 13; 356, 43; 436, 49; 744, 55; 746, 58.) And this is the class of errorists which Article XII of the Formula of Concord makes it a special point to characterize summarily and reject by name. Before this the Book of Confutation, composed 1559 by the theologians of Duke John Frederick, had enumerated and rejected the doctrines of such errorists as Servetus, Schwenckfeld, and the Anabaptists.
From the very beginning of the Reformation, and especially at Augsburg, 1530, Eck and other Romanists had either identified the Lutherans with the Anabaptists and other sects, or had, at least, held them responsible for their origin and growth. Both charges are denied by the Formula of Concord. For here we read: "However, lest there be silently ascribed to us the condemned errors of the above enumerated factions and sects (which, as is the nature of such spirits, for the most part, secretly stole in at localities, and especially at a time when no place or room was given to the pure word of the holy Gospel, but all its sincere teachers and confessors were persecuted, and the deep darkness of the Papacy still prevailed and poor simple men who could not help but feel the manifest idolatry and false faith of the Papacy, in their simplicity, alas! embraced whatever was called Gospel, and was not papistic), we could not forbear testifying also against them publicly, before all Christendom, that we have neither part nor fellowship with their errors, be they many or few, but reject and condemn them, one and all, as wrong and heretical, and contrary to the Scriptures of the prophets and apostles, and to our Christian Augsburg Confession, well grounded in God's Word." (1097, 7f.)
258. The Anabaptists.
The Anabaptistic movement originated in Zurich. Their leaders were Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, and the monk George of Chur (also called Blaurock, Bluecoat), who was the first to introduce anabaptism. In rapid succession Anabaptistic congregations sprang up in Swabia, Tyrol, Austria, Moravia, etc. Because of their attitude toward the civil government the Anabaptists were regarded as rebels and treated accordingly. As early as January, 1527, some of them were executed in Zurich. Persecution increased after the council held by Anabaptists in the autumn of 1527 at Augsburg, which then harbored a congregation of more than 1,100 "Apostolic Brethren," as the Anabaptists there called themselves. In Germany the imperial mandate of September 23, 1529, authorized the governments to punish Anabaptists, men and women of every age, by fire or sword "without previous inquisition by spiritual judges." They suffered most in Catholic territories. By 1531 about 1,000 (according to Sebastian Franck 2,000) had been executed in Tyrol and Goerz.
The most prominent of the early Anabaptistic leaders and protagonists were Hubmaier, Denk, Dachser, and Hans Hutt. Besides these we mention: Ludwig Haetzer, published a translation of the prophets from the Hebrew, 1527, for which he was praised by Luther, was executed as adulterer February 4, 1529, at Constance; Eitelhans Langenmantel, a former soldier and son of the Augsburg burgomaster, expelled from the city October 14, 1527, impassionate in his writings against the "old and new Papists," i.e., Luther and others who adhered to the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, decapitated May 12, 1528, at Weissenburg; Christian Entfelder, 1527 leader of the Brethren at Eisenschuetz Moravia, and later on counselor of Duke Albrecht of Prussia; Hans Schlaffer, a former priest, active as Anabaptistic preacher and author, executed 1528; Joerg Haug, pastor in Bibra; Wolfgang Vogel, pastor near Nuernberg, executed 1527; Siegmund Salminger, imprisoned 1527 in Augsburg; Leonard Schiemer, former Franciscan, bishop of the Brethren in Austria, an Antitrinitarian, executed 1528; Ulrich Hugwald, professor in Basel; Melchior Rinck, pastor in Hesse; Pilgram Marbeck; Jacob Buenderlin; Jacob Kautz, preacher and author in Worms; Clemens Ziegler; Peter Riedemann, an Anabaptistic author and preacher, who was frequently imprisoned and died 1556; Melchior Hofmann, an Anabaptistic lay-preacher and prolific author, who died in prison at Strassburg, 1543. (Tschackert, 148ff.; Schlottenloher, Philipp Ulhart, ein Augsburger Winkeldrucker und Helfershelfer der "Schwaermer" und "Wiedertaeufer," 1523—1529, p. 59ff.)
The various errors of the Anabaptists are enumerated in the Twelfth Article of the Formula of Concord. The Epitome remarks: "The Anabaptists are divided among themselves into many factions, as one contends for more, another for less errors; however they all in common propound such doctrine as is to be tolerated or allowed neither in the church, nor in the commonwealth and secular government, nor in domestic life." (839, 2.) Urbanus Regius said in his book Against the New Baptistic Order: "Not all [of the Anabaptists] know of all of these errors [enumerated in his book]; it is therefore not our intention to do an injustice to any one; we mean such public deceivers in the Baptistic Order as John Denk and Balthasar Friedberger," Hubmaier. (Schlottenloher, 80.)