The State, when it intrudes into theological discussions, is wanting in the necessary tact, and is too often influenced by considerations foreign to religion. The council replied magisterially that the catechism was in conformity with Scripture; and it added despotically that Megander and Ritter must accept it as it is, or they would be immediately deprived of their offices. Ritter, who did not find in the catechism anything which at bottom imperilled the Christian faith, submitted. But Megander raised objections more or less well founded. He was wounded in his amour-propre as author, and observing the eagerness of his adversaries to annoy him, he perceived that his position at Berne had become untenable. Therefore he held his ground and received his congé: a measure in which, however, they showed a certain consideration. It was the end of the year 1537. He then withdrew to Zurich, which received him with open arms.[576]
This proceeding of the Bernese government excited a great sensation. Zurich addressed to Berne a sharp remonstrance. The country pastors of the canton of Berne complained loudly of the government and of the ecclesiastical councillors, and inquired whether these gentlemen meant to abjure the Reformation. A meeting was held at Aarau, January 22, 1538, at which it was resolved to make representations to the council; and the dean of Aarau, Zehnder, named chief of the deputation, presented the complaint. February 1 was fixed for the hearing of the two opposing parties. But while Kunz and his colleagues were admitted into the council chamber and took their places by the side of the president, the dean and the country ministers waited at the door. No sooner were they admitted than Kunz addressed them with a haughty air, and rebuked them in a loud and stern voice. The country deans replied that they did not mean to be ruled by the city ministers as boys are by their schoolmaster. The discussion grew warm,[577] and even the members of the council took part in the quarrel.
Theological motives, as we may see, were not the only cause of the opposition raised by the country ministers. There were, besides, the rule which the city ministers assumed to exercise, and the power which the council arrogated to itself in the Church, and by virtue of which it had despotically deprived Megander. The country party did not want an aristocracy of the city clergy; the city party, lay and clerical, understood this. Little by little, therefore, they both lowered their tone, and instead of quarrelling they sought reconciliation. The city members assented to two alterations in the catechism revised by Bucer, and they declared that the country deputies had acted honorably. The latter on their part acknowledged that their colleagues of Berne had not become faithless to the Reformation. Apologies were made for the sharpness which had been imparted to the discussion. The city ministers paid visits to those from the country; they conducted them to the house of the provost, the first ecclesiastic of the canton, who gave them the warmest reception; they ate and drank together; and at last these good Swiss parted on the best terms with each other.[578] The cordial letter which Luther had written to the Swiss, December 1, 1537,[579] soothed their minds still more. The doctrine set forth by Calvin at the synod of September, to which Bucer and Capito had given their adhesion, was recognized at Berne as the true doctrine. Erasmus Ritter, above all, was heartily devoted to it. There was some hope of finding in it a basis of union; and by its means the petty divisions of Protestantism were to disappear.
EXILE OF MEGANDER.
Unfortunately, Luther has always had some disciples who were more Lutheran than himself. Kunz and Sebastian Meyer were of that number. Dissatisfied with Calvin’s confession, which to them was an irksome yoke, they were eager to shake it off. A new minister, just then called to Berne, joined them; but as he was endowed with a quiet, prudent, and tractable disposition, he constantly sought, although a decided follower of Luther, to moderate his two violent colleagues. This was Simon Sulzer. He was an illegitimate son of the Catholic provost of Interlaken, and had spent his earliest youth in the châlets and on the magnificent Alps of the Hasli. Haller had afterwards found him in a barber’s shop where he was earning a living in a humble way; and discovering his great abilities, he had recommended him to the council. In 1531 Sulzer became Master of Arts at Strasburg. The council of Berne had then intrusted to him the task of directing the establishment of schools in all the places of the canton which had none. He had afterwards applied himself to theology; had gone to Saxony for the purpose of holding intercourse with Luther, and on his return had been named professor of theology at Berne, as successor of Megander. Step by step he became the most influential representative in Switzerland of the system which aimed at union with the German reformer.[580]
Kunz, whose aim was the same, was not only a votary of tradition, in opposition to the Scriptural spirit of the Genevese minister, but he was also a man actuated by strong personal enmities. Calvin, although he did not wholly approve of Megander, had emphatically signified the pain which he had felt at his deprivation. ‘What a loss to the Church,’ he wrote to Bucer, January 12, 1538, ‘and how the enemies of the Gospel will exult when they see that we begin to banish our pastors; and that instead of considering how to overcome the powerful adversaries in whose presence we stand, we are inflicting mortal wounds on one another. This news of the deprivation of Megander has struck us as sharp a blow as if we had been told that great part of the Church of Berne had fallen down.[581] I admit that there was a mixture of what is human in his cause. But would it not be better to retain such a man and forgive him that trifling weakness, than to deprive him of his ministry, to the dishonor of God and of his Word, to the great injury of the Church, and with serious risk for the future? True, Sebastian Meyer and Kunz remain; but what can the former do except ruin the cause of the Gospel by his extravagances,[582] and by the violent outbreaks in which, when he is no longer master of himself, he indulges? As for Kunz, I can hardly trust myself to say what he is. Farel tells me that when he had lately to do with him, he never saw any beast more furious. His countenance, his gestures, his words, and his very complexion, said he, reminded him of the Furies.’[583] It is true that Calvin wrote thus to a friend, to Bucer. He said to him, ‘If I speak so freely to you, it is because I know to whom I am writing.’ But it was hardly possibly that Kunz should not hear from some one what Calvin thought of him. He became his mortal enemy, and he cherished the like hatred towards the other ministers of Geneva.[584] He let no opportunity escape him of opposing them. It was to no purpose that the Genevese sought to show him that they were not his enemies, and to appease him by their moderation. It was gratifying to him to appoint ministers in the Bernese territories about whom Calvin had expressed himself in the severest manner;[585] and when competent men had been examined and approved at Geneva, he would not receive them until after they had been re-examined by the Bernese classes.[586] Calvin however knew better than Kunz. ‘What do such beginnings forebode?’ exclaims Calvin; ‘while he fancies that he is inflicting lashes on us he is in fact preparing his own ruin. Assuredly, if that be the will of God, he will fall into the pit which he has digged, rather than continue to be the cause of so great troubles to the Church of Christ.’[587]
RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE.
In addition to the question of Lutheranism, there was also that of the relations between the Church and the State, which was a subject of difference between Berne and the Genevese reformers. At Berne the magistrate was considered, according to the views of Zwingli, the representative of the members of the flock; he was the bishop; the Church was a State Church. Calvin on the contrary, who had seen in France how the state treated the Reformation, wished for the autonomy of the Church. He did not indeed demand the complete separation of Church and State, but he desired that each of these two societies should have its own government. This was the end for which he was striving, and Kunz, when once aware of it, was still more enraged. To these two questions was added that of worship. On this matter, as on others, Kunz was the ape of Luther, as Megander was of Zwingli. Calvin was no imitator of either the one or the other, but adopted generally a middle course. With respect to worship he wished for great simplicity. Berne had retained certain Catholic usages. They baptized as formerly in a baptistery; at Geneva they put away the font and made use of a simple vessel. Berne, at the supper, used wafers and unleavened bread; Geneva used common bread. Berne had retained several festivals, even that of the Annunciation of the Virgin; Geneva celebrated none but the Lord’s day, the Sunday.[588] Farel having found these usages, at least in part, among the Vaudois, in the visit which he made to those valleys in 1532, had introduced them at Geneva, and Calvin, finding them there, had made no change.
Kunz detested these practices, and directed attention to them at Berne. The Lords of Berne saw these differences with regret, either because they intended to exercise a certain supremacy over the Church of Geneva, which they thought was indebted to them to a great extent for its reformation, and because they desired to see it in all respects like their own: or because they were afraid that these diversities would furnish the Catholics with weapons: or because the Churches of the canton of Vaud seemed inclined to adopt the order of Geneva and not that of Berne, which in the eyes of those gentlemen was almost an act of rebellion. The Bernese bailiffs forbade the Vaudois pastors of their department to receive Calvin and Farel at their colloquies, or to attend themselves those which were held at Geneva.[589] Farel, who had rendered signal services to Berne and to Vaud, was now forbidden to appear in the canton, into which, nevertheless, the fanatic ‘Spirituals’ had free admission. The reformer was indignant. ‘The Lord reward Kunz according to his deserts,’ he wrote to Fabri. ‘Yes, the Lord destroy those who go on destroying the Church.’[590] These expressions are, as we think, more in the spirit of the Old Testament than of the New.
SYNOD AT LAUSANNE.