[FOOTNOTES:]
[1] The fierce old Pontiff, Paul IV., declared in a Bull (Feb. 15, 1559) that the mere fact of heresy in princes deprived them of all lawful power; but he named no one. When his successor proposed, in 1563, to excommunicate Elizabeth of England by name simply as a Protestant, he was taken to task sharply by the Emperor Ferdinand; and the Queen was finally excommunicated in 1570 as a partaker “in the atrocious mysteries of Calvinism,” and as such outside the Peace of Augsburg.
[2] In the Atlas zur Kirchengeschichte by Heussi and Mulert (Tübingen, 1905), there is an attempt to represent to the eye the presence of German Protestants outside the territories of the Lutheran princes; Map x. Zur Geschichte der deutschen Reformation und Gegenreformation.
[3] The fullest account of these German Reformed confessions is to be found in Müller’s Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformirten Kirche—the Emden Catechism (1554), pp. 1 and 666; the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), pp. 1, 682; the Nassau Confession of the Dillenburg Synod (1578), liii, 720; the Bremen Consensus (1595), liv, 739; the Staffort Book (1559) for Baden, liv, 797; the Confession of the General Synod of Cassel, lv and 817, and the Hessian Catechism (1607), 822; and the Bentheim Confession (1613), 833. All these German Reformed confessions followed Melanchthon in his endeavours to unite the Calvinist and the Lutheran doctrinal positions.
By far the most celebrated, and the only one which maintains its place as a doctrinal symbol down to the present day, is the Heidelberg Catechism. It was drafted at the suggestion of the Elector Frederick the Pious by two theologians, Caspar Olevianus and Zacharias Ursinus, who were able to express in a really remarkable degree the thoughts of German Protestants who could not accept the hard and fast Lutheranism of the opponents of Melanchthon. It speedily found favour in many parts of Germany, although its strongest supporters belonged to the Rhine provinces. It was in use both as a means of instruction and as a doctrinal symbol in most of the German Reformed Churches along with their own symbolical books. Its use spread to Holland and beyond it. Two separate translations appeared in Scotland. The earlier is contained in (Dunlop’s) Collection of Confessions of Faith.... of public authority in the Church of Scotland, under the title, A Catechism of the Christian Religion, composed by Zachary Ursinus, approved by Frederick III. Elector Palatine, the Reformed Church in the Palatinate, and by other Reformed Churches in Germany; and taught in their schools and churches: examined and approved, without any alteration, by the Synod of Dort, and appointed to be taught in the reformed churches and schools in the Netherlands: translated and printed Anno 1591 by public authority for the use of Scotland, with the arguments and use of the several doctrines therein contained, by Jeremias Bastingius; sometimes printed with the Book of Common Order and Psalm Book.
[4] Compare vol. i. pt. i. 42 ff.
[5] The most complete collection of those Reformed creeds is given in Müller, Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformirten Kirche (Leipzig, 1903). The most important are the following (the figures within brackets give the pages in Müller):—
Switzerland.—Zwingli’s Theses of 1523 (xvi, 1); First Helvetic Confession of 1536 (xxvi, 101); Geneva Confession of 1536 (xxvi, 111); Geneva Catechism of 1545 [(xxviii, 117) translated in (Dunlop’s) Confessions, etc., ii, 139].
England.—Edwardine Forty-two Articles of 1553, Thirty-eight Articles of 1563, Thirty-nine Articles of 1571 (xlii, 505); Lambeth Articles of 1595 (xliv, 525); Irish Articles of 1615 (xliv, 526).