Sources: Richter, Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts (Weimar, 1846); Sehling, Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des 16ten Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1902); Kins, “Das Stipendiumwesen in Wittenberg und Jena ... im 16ten Jahrhundert” (Zeitschrift für historische Theologie, xxxv. (1865) pp. 96 ff.); G. Schmidt, “Eine Kirchenvisitation im Jahre 1525” (Zeitschrift für die hist. Theol. xxxv. 291 ff.); Winter, “Die Kirchenvisitation von 1528 im Wittenberger Kreise” (Zeitsch. für hist. Theol. xxxiii. (1863) 295 ff.); Muther, “Drei Urkunden zur Reformationsgeschichte” (Zeitschr. für hist. Theol. xxx. (1860) 452 ff.); Albrecht, Der Kleine Catechismus für die gemeine Pfarher und Prediger (facsimile reprint of edition of 1536; Halle a. S. 1905).
Later Books: Kästner, Die Kinderfragen: Der erste deutsche Katechismus (Leipzig, 1902); Burkhardt, Geschichte der deutschen Kirchen- und Schulvisitation im Zeitalter der Reformation (Leipzig, 1879); Berlit, Luther, Murner und das Kirchenlied des 16ten Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1899).
Sources: Baazius, Inventarium Eccles. Sveogothorum (1642); Pontoppidan, Annales ecclesiæ Danicæ, bks. ii., iii. (Copenhagen, 1744, 1747).
Later Books: Lau, Geschichte der Reformation in Schleswig-Holstein (Hamburg, 1867); Willson, History of Church and State in Norway (London, 1903); Watson, The Swedish Revolution under Gustavus Vasa (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1889); Wiedling, Schwedische Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (Gotha, 1882); Cambridge Modern History, ii. xvii. (Cambridge, 1903).
The mediæval fourfold sense in Scripture was explained by Nicholas de Lyra in the distich:
“Litera gesta docet, quid credas Allegoria,
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas Anagogia.”
It is expounded succinctly by Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, i. i. 10.
It maybe useful to note the statements about the authority of Scripture in the earlier Reformation creeds. The Lutherans, always late in discerning the true doctrinal bearings of their religious certainties, did not deem it needful to assert dogmatically the supreme authority of Scripture until the second generation of Protestantism. The Schmalkald Articles and the Augsburg Confession expressly assert that human traditions are among abuses that ought to be done away with; but they do not condemn them as authorities set up by their opponents in opposition to the word of God, only as things that burden the conscience and incline men to false ways of trying to be at peace with God (Augsburg Confession, as given in Schaff, The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches, p. 65; Schmalkald Articles, xv.). It was not until 1576, in the Torgau Book, and in 1580 in the Formula Concordiæ, that they felt the necessity of declaring dogmatically and in opposition to the Roman Catholics that “the only standard by which all dogmas and all teachers must be valued and judged is no other than the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and of the New Testaments” (§ 1).
Zwingli, with the clearer dogmatic insight which he always showed, felt the need of a statement about the theological place of Scripture very early, and declared in the First Helvetic Confession (1536) that “Canonic Scripture, the word of God, given by the Holy Spirit and set forth to the world by the prophets and apostles, the most perfect and ancient of all philosophies, alone contains perfectly all piety and the whole rule of life.” The various Reformed Confessions, inspired by Calvin, followed Zwingli's example, and the supreme authority of Scripture was set forth in all the symbolical books of the Reformed Churches of Switzerland, France, England, the Netherlands, Scotland, etc.—The Geneva Confession of 1536 (Art. 1), The Second Helvetic Confession of 1562 (Art. 1), The French Confession of 1559 (Arts. 3-6), The Belgic Confession of 1561 (Arts. 4-7), The Thirty-nine Articles of 1563 and 1571 (Art. 6), The Scots Confession of 1560 (Art. 19). It is instructive, however, to note how this is done. The key to the central note in all these dogmatic statements is to be found in the first and second of The Sixty-seven Theses published in 1523 by Zwingli at Zurich, where it is declared that all who say that the Evangel is of no value apart from its confirmation by the Church err and blaspheme against God, and where the sum of the Evangel is “that our Lord Jesus Christ, very Son of God, has revealed to us the will of the heavenly Father, and with His innocence has redeemed us from death and has reconciled us to God.” The main thought, therefore, in all these Confessions is not to assert the formal supremacy of Scripture over Tradition, but rather to declare the supreme value of Scripture which reveals God's good will to us in Jesus Christ to be received by faith alone over all human traditions which would lead us astray from God and from true faith. The Reformers had before them not simply the theological desire to define precisely the nature of that authority to which all Christian teaching appeals, but the religious need to cling to the divinely revealed way of salvation and to turn away from all human interposition and corruption. They desire to make known that they trust God rather than man. Hence almost all of them are careful to express clearly the need for the Witness of the Holy Spirit.