Tenets of Melanchthon. 21. The principle of several controversies which agitated the two great divisions of the Protestant name was still that of the real presence. The Calvinists, as far as their meaning could be divined through a dense mist of nonsense which they purposely collected,[996] were little, if at all, less removed from the Romish and Lutheran parties than the disciples of Zuingle himself, who spoke out more perspicuously. Nor did the orthodox Lutherans fail to perceive this essential discrepancy. Melanchthon, incontestably the most eminent man of their church after the death of Luther, had obtained a great influence over the younger students of theology. But his opinions, half concealed as they were, and perhaps unsettled, had long been tending to a very different line from those of Luther. The deference exacted by the latter, and never withheld, kept them from any open dissension. But some, whose admiration for the founder of their church was not checked by any scruples at his doctrine, soon began to inveigh against the sacrifice of his favourite tenets which Melanchthon seemed ready to make through timidity, as they believed, or false judgment. To the Romanists he was willing to concede the primacy of the Pope and the jurisdiction of bishops; to the Helvetians he was suspected of leaning on the great controversy of the real presence; while, on the still more important questions of faith and works, he not only rejected the Antinomian exaggerations of the high Lutherans, but introduced a doctrine, said to be nearly similar to that called Semi-Pelagian; according to which the grace communicated to adult persons so as to draw them to God required a correspondent action of their own free-will in order to become effectual. Those who held this tenet were called Synergists.[997] It appears to be the same, or nearly so, as that adopted by the Arminians in the next century, but was not perhaps maintained by any of the schoolmen; nor does it seem consonant to the decisions of the council of Trent, nor probably to the intention of those who compiled the Articles of the English Church. It is easy, however, to be mistaken as to these theological subtleties, which those who write of them with most confidence do not really discriminate by any consistent or intelligible language.
[996] See some of this in Bossuet, Variations des Eglises Protestantes, l. ix. I do not much trust to Bossuet; but it would be too easy to find similar evidence from our own writers.
[997] Mosheim. Bayle, art. Synergistes.
A party hostile to him. 22. There seems good reason to suspect that the bitterness manifested by the rigid Lutherans against the new school was aggravated by some political events of this period; the university of Wittenberg, in which Melanchthon long resided, being subject to the elector Maurice, whose desertion of the Protestant confederacy and unjust acquisition of the electorate at the expense of the best friends of the Reformation, though partly expiated by his subsequent conduct, could never be forgiven by the adherents and subjects of the Ernestine line. Those first protectors of the reformed faith, now become the victims of his ambition, were reduced to the duchies of Weimar and Gotha, within the former of which the university of Jena, founded in 1559, was soon filled with the sternest zealots of Luther’s school. Flacius Illyricus, most advantageously known as the chief compiler of the Centuriæ Magdeburgenses, was at the head of this university, and distinguished by his animosity against Melanchthon, whose gentle spirit was released by death from the contentions he abhorred in 1560. Bossuet exaggerates the indecision of Melanchthon on many disputable questions, which, as far as it existed, is rather perhaps a matter of praise; but his want of firmness makes it not always easy to determine his real sentiments, especially in his letters, and somewhat impaired the dignity and sincerity of his mind.
Form of Concord, 1576. 23. After the death of Melanchthon, a controversy, began by one Bentius, relating to the ubiquity, as it was called, of Christ’s body, proceeded with much heat. It is sufficient to mention that it led to what is denominated the Formula Concordiæ, a declaration of faith on several matters of controversy, drawn up at Torgau in 1576, and subscribed by the Saxon and most other Lutheran churches of Germany, though not by those of Brunswick, or of the northern kingdoms. It was justly considered as a complete victory of the rigid over the moderate party. The strict enforcement of subscription to this creed gave rise to a good deal of persecution against those who were called Crypto-Calvinists, or suspected of a secret bias towards the proscribed doctrine. Peucer, son-in-law of Melanchthon and editor of his works, was kept for eleven years in prison. And a very narrow spirit of orthodoxy prevailed for a century and a half afterwards in Lutheran theology. But in consequence of this spirit, that theology has been almost entirely neglected and contemned in the rest of Europe, and scarce any of its books are remembered by name.[998]
[998] Hospinian, Concordia Discors, is my chief authority. He was a Swiss Calvinist, and of course very hostile to the Lutheran party. But Mosheim does not vindicate very strongly his own church. See also several articles in Bayle; and Eichhorn, vi. part i. 234.
Controversy raised by Baius. 24. Though it may be reckoned doubtful whether the council of Trent did not repel some wavering Protestants by its unqualified re-enactment of the doctrine of transubstantiation, it prevented, at least, those controversies on the real presence which agitated the Protestant communions. But in another more extensive and important province of theology, the decisions of the council, though cautiously drawn up, were far from precluding such differences of opinion as ultimately gave rise to a schism in the church of Rome, and have had no small share in the decline of its power. It is said that some of the Dominican order, who could not but find in their most revered authority, Thomas Aquinas, a strong assertion of Augustin’s scheme of divinity, were hardly content with some of the decrees at Trent, as leaving a door open to Semi-Pelagianism.[999] The controversy, however, was first raised by Baius, professor of divinity at Louvain, now chiefly remarkable as the precursor of Jansenius. Many propositions attributed to Baius were censured by the Sorbonne in 1560, and by a bull of Pius V. in 1567. He submitted to the latter; but his tenets, which are hardly distinguishable from those of Calvin, struck root, especially in the Low Countries, and seem to have passed from the disciples of Baius to the famous bishop of Ypres in the next century. The bull of Pius apparently goes much farther from the Calvinistic hypothesis than the council of Trent had done. The Jansenist party, in later times, maintained that it was not binding upon the church.[1000]
[999] Du Chesne, Histoire du Baianisme, vol. i. p. 8. This opinion is ascribed to Peter Soto, confessor to Charles V., who took a part in the reconversion of England under Mary. He is not to be confounded with the more celebrated Dominic Soto. Both these divines were distinguished ornaments of the Council of Trent.
[1000] Some of the tenets asserted in the Articles of the Church of England are condemned in this bull, especially the 13th. Du Chesne, p. 78, et post. See Biogr. Univ. art. Baius and Bayle. Du Chesne is reckoned an unfair historian by those who favour Baius.