§ 141.13. Second Stage of Cryptocalvinism, A.D. 1586-1592.—Yet once more the Calvinising endeavours of the Philippists were renewed in the electorate of Saxony under Augustus’ successor Christian I., who had obtained this position in A.D. 1586, through his relationship with the family of the count-palatine. His chancellor Nicholas Crell filled the offices of pastors and teachers with men of his own views, abolished exorcism at baptism, and had even begun the publication of a Bible with a Calvinising commentary when Christian died, in A.D. 1591. The Duke Frederick William of Altenburg, as regent during the minority, immediately re-introduced strict Lutheranism, and, preparatory to a church visitation, had a new anti-Calvinistic standard of doctrine compiled in the so called Articles of Visitation of A.D. 1592, which all civil and ecclesiastical officers in Saxony were required to accept. In short, clear, and well defined theses and antitheses the doctrinal differences on the supper, the Person of Christ, baptism, and election were there set forth. In reference to baptism, the anti-Calvinistic doctrine was promulgated, that regeneration takes place through baptism, and that therefore every baptized person is regenerate. The most important among the compilers of these Articles of Visitation was Ægidius Hunnius, shortly before called to Wittenberg, after having, from A.D. 1576 to 1592, as professor at Marburg, laboured with all his might in opposition to the Calvinising of Hesse. He had also, by his defence of the doctrine of ubiquity, in his “Confession of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ” in German, in A.D. 1577, and his Latin treatise, “Libelli IV. de pers. Chr. ejusque ad dexteram sedentes divina majestate,” in A.D. 1585, shown himself an energetic champion of strict Lutheranism. He died in A.D. 1603.—The unfortunate chancellor Crell, however, who had made himself hateful to the Lutherans as the promoter and chief instigator of all the Calvinising measures of the deceased elector, and yet more so by his energetic interference with the usurpations of the nobles, suffered an imprisonment of ten years in the fortress of Königstein, and was then, after a trial conducted in the most arbitrary manner, declared to be a traitor and an enemy of the public peace, and executed in A.D. 1601.

§ 141.14. The Huber Controversy, A.D. 1588-1595.—Samuel Huber, reformed pastor in the Canton Bern, became involved in a controversy with Wolfgang Musculus over the doctrine of election. Going even beyond the Lutheran doctrine, he affirmed that all men are predestinated to salvation, although through their own fault not all are saved. Banished from Bern in A.D. 1588, after a disputation with Beza, he entered the Lutheran church and became pastor at Württemberg. Here he charged the Professor Gerlach with Cryptocalvinism, because he taught that only believers are predestinated to salvation. The controversy was broken off by his call to Wittenberg. But even his Wittenberg colleagues, Polic. Leyser and Ægidius Hunnius, fell under the suspicion of Cryptocalvinism, and were accordingly opposed by him. When all disputation and conferences had failed to get him to abandon his doctrine, and parties began to be formed among the students, he was, in A.D. 1594, removed from Wittenberg. With increasing rancour he continued the controversy, and wandered about Germany for many years in order to secure a following for his theory, but without success. He died in A.D. 1624.

§ 141.15. The Hofmann Controversy in Helmstadt, A.D. 1598.—The great influence which the study of the Aristotelian philosophy in connection with that of humanism obtained in the Julius University founded at Helmstadt in A.D. 1576, seemed to its theological professor, Daniel Hofmann, to threaten injury to theological study, and to be prejudicial to pure Lutheran doctrine. He therefore attached himself to the Romists (§ [143, 6]), and took advantage of the occasion of the conferring of doctor’s degrees to deliver a violent invective against the incursions of reason and philosophy into the region of religion and revelation. In consequence of this his philosophical colleagues complained of him to the senate as a reproacher of reason, and as one injurious to their faculty. That court obliged him to retract and apologise, and then deprived him of his office as professor of theology.

§ 142. Constitution, Worship, Life, and Science in the Lutheran Church.

In reference also to the ecclesiastical constitution, by holding firmly to the standpoint and to the working out of the system which it had sketched out in its confession and doctrinal teaching, the Lutheran church sought to mediate between extremes, although, amid the storms from without and from within by which it was threatened, it was just at this point that it was least successful. It reflected its character more clearly and decidedly in its order of worship than in its constitution.—The Reformation at last relaxed that hierarchical ban which for centuries had put an absolute restraint upon congregational singing, and had excluded the use of the vernacular in the services of the church. Even within the limits of the Reformation era, the German church song attained unto such a wonderful degree of excellence, as affords the most convincing evidence of the fulness, power, and spirituality, the genuine elevation and fresh enthusiasm, of the spiritual life of that age. The sacred poetry of the church is the confession of the Lutheran people, and has accomplished even more than preaching for extending and deepening the Christian life of the evangelical church. No sooner had a sacred song of this sort burst forth from the poet’s heart, than it was everywhere taken up by the Christian people of the land, and became familiar to every lip. It found entrance into all houses and churches, was sung before the doors, in the workshops, in the market-places, streets, and fields, and won at a single blow whole cities to the evangelical faith.—The Christian life of the people in the Lutheran church combined deep, penitential earnestness and a joyfully confident consciousness of justification by faith with the most nobly steadfast cheerfulness and heartiness natural to the German citizen. Faithful attention to the spiritual interests of their people, vigorous ethical preaching, and zealous efforts to promote the instruction of the young on the part of their pastors, created among them a healthy and hearty fear of God, without the application of any very severe system of church discipline, a thorough and genuine attachment to the church, strict morality in domestic life, and loyal submission to civil authority.—Theological science flourished especially at the universities of Wittenberg, Tübingen, Strassburg, Marburg, and Jena.

§ 142.1. The Ecclesiastical Constitution.—As a mean between hierarchism and Cæsaro-papism, between the intrusion of the State into the province of the church, and the intrusion of the church into the province of the State, the ecclesiastical constitution of the Lutheran church was theoretically right in the main, though in practice and even in theory many defects might be pointed out. It presented at least a protest against all commingling or subordinating of one or the other in these two spheres. Owing to the urgent needs of the church, the princes and magistrates, in the character of emergency-bishops, undertook the supreme administration and management of ecclesiastical affairs, and transferred the exercise of these rights and duties to special boards called consistories, made up of lay and clerical members, which were to have jurisdiction over the clergy, the administration of discipline, and the arranging and enforcing of the marriage laws. What had been introduced simply as a necessity in the troubled condition of the church in those times came gradually to be claimed as a prescriptive right. According to the Episcopal System, the territorial lord as such claimed to rank and act as summus episcopus. After introducing some cautious modifications that were absolutely indispensable, the canon law actually left the foundation of jurisprudence untouched. The restoration of the biblical idea of a universal priesthood of all believers would not tolerate the retaining of the theory of an essential distinction between the clergy and the laity. The clergy were properly designated the servants, ministri, of the church, of the word, of the altar, and all restrictions that had been imposed upon the clergy, and distinguished them as an order, were removed. Hierarchical distinctions among the clergy were renounced, as opposed to the spirit of Christianity; but the advantage of a superordination and subordination in respect of merely human rights, in the institution of such offices as those of superintendents, provosts, etc., was recognised.—Ecclesiastical property was in many cases diverted from the church and arbitrarily appropriated by the greed and rapacity of princes and nobles, but still in great part, especially in Germany, it continued in the possession of the church, except in so far as it was applied to the endowment of schools, universities, and charitable institutions. The monasteries fell under a doom which by reason of their corruptions they had richly deserved.A restoration of such establishments in an evangelical spirit was not to be thought of during a period of convulsion and revolution.—Continuation, § 165, 5.

§ 142.2. Public Worship and Art.—While the Roman Catholic order of worship was dominated almost wholly by fancy and feeling, and that of the reformed church chiefly by the reason, the Lutheran church sought to combine these two features in her services. In Romish worship all appealed to the senses, and in that of the Calvinistic churches all appealed to the understanding; but in the Lutheran worship both sides of human nature were fully recognised, and a proportionate place assigned to each. The unity of the church was not regarded as lying in the rigid uniformity of forms of worship, but in the unity of the confession. Altars ornamented with candles and crucifixes, as well as all the images that might be in churches, were allowed to remain, not as objects of worship, but rather to aid in exciting and deepening devotion. The liturgy was closely modelled upon the Romish ritual of the mass, with the exclusion of all unevangelical elements. The preaching of the word was made the central point of the whole public service. Luther’s style of preaching, the noble and powerful popularity of which has probably never since been equalled, certainly never surpassed, was the model and pattern which the other Lutheran preachers set before themselves. Among these, the most celebrated were Ant. Corvin, Justus Jonas, George Spalatin, Bugenhagen, Jerome Weller, John Brenz, Veit Dietrich, J. Mathesius, Martin Chemnitz. It was laid down as absolutely essential to the idea of public worship, that the congregation should take part in it, and that the common language of the people should be exclusively employed. The adoration of the sacrament on the altar, as well as the Romish service of the mass, were set aside as unevangelical, and the sacrament of the supper was to be administered to the whole congregation in both kinds. On the other hand, it was admitted that baptism was necessary, and might and should be administered in case of need by laymen. The customary formulary of exorcism in baptism was at first continued without dispute, and though Luther himself attached no great importance to it, yet every attempt to secure its discontinuance was resisted by the later Gnesio-Lutherans as savouring of Cryptocalvinism. Yet it should be remembered that such orthodox representatives of Lutheranism as Hesshus, Ægidius Hunnius, and Martin Chemnitz, as well as afterwards John Gerhard, Quenstedt, and Hollaz, were only in favour of its being allowed, but not of its being regarded as necessary. Spener again declared himself decidedly in favour of its being removed, and in the eighteenth century it passed without any serious opposition into disuse throughout almost the whole of the Lutheran church, until re-introduced in the nineteenth century by the Old Lutherans (§ 176, 2).—The church festivals were restricted to celebrations of the facts of redemption; only such of the feasts of Mary and the saints were retained as had legitimate ground in the Bible history; e.g. the days of the apostles, the annunciation of Mary, Michael’s Day, St. John’s Day, etc. Art was held by Luther in high esteem, especially music. Lucas Cranach, who died in A.D. 1553, Hans Holbein, father and son, and Albert Dürer, who died in A.D. 1528, placed their art as painters at the service of the gospel, and adorned the churches with beautiful and thoughtful pictures.

§ 142.3. Church Song.—The character common to the sacred songs of the Lutheran church of the sixteenth century is that they are thoroughly suited for congregational purposes, and are truly popular. They are songs of faith and the creed, with a clear impress of objectivity. The writers of them do not describe their subjective feelings, nor their individual experiences, but they let the church herself by their mouths express her faith, her comfort, her thanksgiving, and adoration. But they are also genuinely songs of the people; true, simple, hearty, bright, and bold in expression, rapid in movement, no standing still and looking back, no elaborate painting and describing, no subtle demonstrating and teaching. Even in outward form they closely resemble the old German epics and the popular historical ballad, and were intended above all not merely to be read, but to be sung, and that by the whole congregation. The ecclesiastical authorities began to introduce hymn-books into the several provinces toward the end of the seventeenth century. Previously there had only been private collections of sacred songs, and the hymns were distinguished only by the words of the opening line; and so widely known were they, that the mentioning of them was sufficient to secure the hymn so designated being sung by the congregation present at the public service.—The sacred songs of the Reformation age possess all these characteristics in remarkable degree. Among all the sacred poets of that time Luther stands forth pre-eminent. His thirty-six hymns or sacred poems belong to five different classes.

  1. There are free translations of Latin hymns: “Praised be Thou, O Jesus Christ;” “Thou who art Three in unity;” “In our true God we all believe;” “Lord God, we praise do Thee;” “In the midst of life we are aye in death’s embraces;” “Come God, Creator, Holy Ghost,” etc.
  2. There are reproductions of original German songs: “Death held our Lord in prison;” “Now pray we to the Holy Ghost;” “God the Father with us be;” “Let God be praised, blessed, and uplifted.”
  3. We have also paraphrastic renderings of certain psalms: “Ah, God in heaven, look down anew” (Ps. xii.); “Although the mouth say of the unwise” (Ps. xiv.); “Our God, He is a castle strong” (Ps. xlvi.); “God, unto us right gracious be” (Ps. lxvii.); “Had God not been with us this time” (Ps. cxxiv.); “From trouble deep I cry to Thee” (Ps. cxxx.), etc.
  4. We have also songs composed on particular Scripture themes: “There are the holy ten commands;” “To Isaiah the prophet this was given” (Isa. vi.); “From heaven on high I come to you” (Luke ii.); “To Jordan, where our Lord has gone,” etc.
  5. There are, finally, poems original in form and contents: “Dear Christians, let us now rejoice;” “Jesus Christ, our Saviour true;” “Lord, keep us by Thy word in hope.”[405]

After Luther, the most celebrated hymn-writers in the Lutheran church of the sixteenth century are Paul Speratus, reformer in Prussia, who died in A.D. 1554; Nicholas Decius, first a monk, then evangelical pastor at Stettin about A.D. 1524.Paul Eber, professor and superintendent in Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1569, author of the hymns, “When in the hour of utmost need;” “Lord Jesus Christ, true Man and God;” and one of which our well-known “Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness,” is a paraphrase.[406] Hans Sachs, shoemaker in Nuremberg, who died in A.D. 1567, wrote during the famine in that city in A.D. 1552 the hymn, “Why art thou thus cast down, my heart?” John Schneesing, pastor in Gothaschen, who died in A.D. 1567, wrote “Lord Jesus Christ, in Thee alone.” John Mathesius, rector and deacon in Joachimsthal, who also delivered sermons on Luther’s life, died in A.D. 1565, wrote a beautiful morning hymn, and other sweet sacred pieces. Nicholas Hermann, who died in A.D. 1561, precentor at Joachimsthal, wrote out Mathesius’ sermons in hymns, “The happy sunshine all is gone,” the burial hymn, “Now hush your cries, and shed no tear,” etc. Michael Weisse closes the series of hymn-writers of the Reformation age. He was a German pastor in Bohemia, translator and editor of the sacred songs of the Bohemian Hussites, and died in A.D. 1540.He wrote “Christ the Lord is risen again,” and the burial hymn to which Luther added a verse, “Now lay we calmly in the grave.”[407]