to be not so much a change of creed as a further progress in Protestautism, but it created a great sensation, and called forth violent protests from Lutheran princes and pulpits. An edict forbidding public denunciations had little effect. A fanatical mob arose in rebellion against the Reformed preachers, and plundered their houses (1615). The great majority of the Elector's subjects and his own wife remained Lutherans.2

Nevertheless, his transition was of great prospective importance, for the house of Brandenburg was destined to become, by extraordinary talents and achievements, one of the leading dynasties of Europe, and to take the helm of the new Protestant German empire.

In May, 1614, Sigismund issued a personal confession of faith, which is called after him and also after his country. It was drawn up by himself, with the aid of Dr. Pelargus, General Superintendent at Frankfort-on-the-Oder. It is brief, moderate, conciliatory, and intended to be merely supplementary concerning the controverted arti cles. The Elector professes faith in the 'true, infallible, and saving Word of God, as the only rule of the pious which is perfect, sufficient for salvation, and abides forever.' Then he accepts, as agreeing with the Bible, the œcumenical creeds (namely, the Apostles', the Nicene, the Athanasian, also the doctrinal decisions of Ephesus, 431, and of Chalcedon, 451), and the Augsburg Confession of 1530, with the later improvements of Melanchthon.

In regard to the controverted articles, Sigismund rejects the Lutheran doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's body, and exorcism in baptism as a superstitious ceremony, and the use of the wafer instead of the breaking of bread in the communion. He adopts the Reformed doctrine of the sacraments, and of an eternal and unconditional election of grace, yet with the declaration that God sincerely wished the salvation of all men, and was not the author of sin and damnation.

contrary, it was bad policy, and in its immediate effect rendered the Elector very unpopular among his German fellow-sovereigns and his own people. 'Kein Wort,' says Böckel, p. 427, 'keine Handlung des Kurfürsten Johann Sigismund verräth, dass ihn irgend eine unreine Nebenabsicht geleitet habe. See also Möller and Hollenberg, 1. c.

2

1 See Hutter's Calvinista aulico-politicus.

* Dr. Tholuck (Geist der luther. Theologen Wittenbergs, p. 118, referring to Hartknoch's Preuss. Kirchenhistorie, p. 544) mentions the fact that Anna, the wife of Sigismund, in her will and testament ordered her chaplain in the funeral sermon to disown the Calvinistic (?) heresy that Christ's blood and death are merely a man's blood and death.

御

6

1

In conclusion the Elector expresses his wish and prayer that God may enlighten his faithful subjects with his truth, but disclaims all intention to coerce their conscience, since faith was the free gift of God (John vi. 29; 2 Thess. iii. 2; Phil. i. 29; Eph. iii. 8), and no one should presume to exercise dominion over men's religion (2 Cor. i. 24). He thus freely waived, in relation to his Lutheran subjects, the right of reformation, which was claimed and exercised by other Protestant princes, and established a basis for religious liberty and union.

This wise toleration was in advance of the age, and contrasts favorably with the opposite policy of the Elector Augustus of Saxony, who forced the Formula of Concord upon his people, and answered the Emperor Maximilian II., when he interceded for the release from prison of Peucer (Melanchthon's son-in-law): 'I want only such servants as believe and confess in religion neither more nor less than I myself believe and confess." These times of terrorism over men's consciences are happily passed, and Sigismund's toleration has become the settled policy of his successors to this day.

The conduct of Luther and Zwingli at Marburg gave tone and character to all subsequent union conferences of the two confessions they represent. The Reformed, with a larger charity, were always willing to commune with Lutherans notwithstanding minor doctrinal differences; while the Lutherans, with a narrower conscience and a more compact system of theology, refused the hand of fellowship to the Reformed, and abhorred as a syncretistic heresy all union that was not based upon perfect agreement in dogma; yea, during the seventeenth century they would rather make common cause with Romanists than Calvinists, and went so far as to exclude the Calvinists from heaven.2

The Emperor replied: 'Das wage ich von meinen Dienern nicht zu fordern.' The same Elector Augustus said that if he had only one Calvinistic vein in his body, he wished the devil (sic!) would pull it out.'

'Dr. Hülsemann of Wittenberg traced the charitable hope of Calixtus that he would meet many Reformed in heaven to the inspiration of the devil (‘spes dubio procul a diabolo inspirata'). Calixtus asked, Who inspired this opinion of Hülsemann? Leyser wrote a book to show that communion with Papists was preferable to communion with Calvinists. Another book of that age professed to prove that 'the damned Calvinistic heretics have six hundred and sixty-six theses in common with the Turks.' The French Reformed Synod of Charenton in 1631 sanctioned the admission of Lutheran sponsors in baptism on the ground of essential agreement of the Augsburg Confession with the Reformed doctrine. This resolution was pronounced atheistic' by Lutherans as well as Romanists. The spirit of Lutheran bigotry in that classical period of polemic confessionalism and exclusivism is well characterized and

Fortunately Calixtus and his school, who had the Melanchthonian spirit, formed an honorable exception, and the exception, after much misrepresentation and persecution, has become the rule in the Lutheran

Church.

THE COLLOQUY AT LEIPZIG. A.D. 1631.

See the German text of the Colloquium Lipsiense in Niemeyer, pp. 653-668, and in Böckel, pp. 443-456 In the midst of the fierce polemics between the Churches and the horrors of the Thirty-Years' War growing out of it, there arose from time to time a desire for union and peace, which was strengthened by the common danger. In 1629, Ferdinand II., a pupil of the Jesuits, issued an edict aiming at the destruction of Protestantism, which might have been accomplished had not Gustavus Adolphus soon afterwards appeared on German soil. It was during this period that the classical union sentence (often erroneously attributed to Augustine), 'In necessary things unity, in doubtful things liberty, in all things charity,' was first uttered as a prophetic voice in the wilderness by a Lutheran divine of the school of Calixtus, and re-echoed in England by Richard Baxter.1

Under the operation of this feeling and the threatening pressure of Romanism, the Elector Christian William of Brandenburg, accompanied by his chaplain, JOHN BERGIUS, and the Landgrave William of Hesse, with the theological Professor CROCIUS and Chaplain THEOPHILUS NEUBERGER, met at Leipzig with the Elector George of Saxony and the Lutheran divines MATTHIAS HOË of HOËNEGG, POLYCARP LEYSER, and HENRY HÖPFNER, to confer in a private way about a friendly understanding between the two confessions, hoping to set a good example to other divines of Germany. The conference lasted from March 3 to 23, 1631, and each session continued three hours.

illustrated by Dr. Tholuck, in his Geist der luther. Theologen Wittenbergs im 17ten Jahrh (1852), pp. 115, 169, 211, etc. Comp. also above, p. 346; Gieseler, Kirchengeschichte, Vol. III. Pt. II. (1853), p. 456; Hase, Kirchengesch. 9th ed. p. 510.

1 See Lücke's treatise, Ueber das Alter, den Verfasser, etc., des kirchlichen Friedensspruches, etc., Göttingen, 1850. He traces it to Rupertus Meldenius, the obscure author of Parænesis votiva pro pace ecclesiæ ad theologos Augustana Confessionis (before 1635), directed against the piλodožía and piλoveikia of the theologians, and commending humility and love of peace. Here the sentence occurs, ‘Si nos servaremus IN NECESSARIIS UNITATEM, IN NON NECESSARIIS LIBERTATEM, IN UTRISQUE CARITATEM, optimo certe loco essent res nostræ.' A copy of the first edition of this book, though without date, is preserved in the City Library of Hamburg.

The Augsburg Confession of 1530, with Melanchthon's subsequent explanations, was made the basis of the proceedings, and was discussed article by article. They agreed essentially on all the doctrines except the omnipresence of Christ's human nature, the oral manducation of his body in the eucharist by worthy and unworthy communicants. The Reformed divines were willing, notwithstanding these differences, to treat the Lutherans as brethren, and to make common cause with them against the Papists. But the Lutherans were not prepared to do more than to take this proposal into serious consideration.

The question of election was then also taken up, although it is not expressly mentioned in the Augsburg Confession. They agreed that only a portion of the race was actually saved. The Reformed traced election to the absolute will of God, and reprobation to the unbelief of men; the Lutherans (adhering to the happy inconsistency of the Formula of Concord) brought in God's foreknowledge of the faith of the elect, but they derived faith itself entirely from God's free electing grace. The difference was therefore very immaterial, and simply a matter of logic.

In conclusion, the theologians declared that the conference was intended not to compromise the Churches and sovereigns, but only to find out whether and to what extent both parties agreed in the Twenty-eight Articles of the Augsburg Confession, and whether there was reason to hope for some nearer approach in the future, whereby the true Church might be strengthened against the Papists. In the mean time the proceedings of the conference were to be regarded as strictly private, and not to be published by either party without the consent of the other. The theologians of the two Churches were to show each other Christian love, praying that the God of truth and peace grant that we may be one in him, as he is one with the Son (John xvii. 21). Amen, Amen in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.'

The document is not signed by the princes who arranged the conference, but only by the theologians—namely, Drs. von Hoënegg, Leyser, Höpfner (Lutherans), and Bergius, Crocius, Neuberger (Reformed).1

1 The proceedings were published by Hoë of Hoënegg, and by Bergius, 1635. See literature in Niemeyer, Proleg. p. lxxix.

The proceedings were characterized by great theological ability and an excellent Christian temper, and showed a much closer harmony than was expected. They excited considerable sympathy among the Reformed at home and abroad. But the Lutheran members were severely taken to task for favoring syncretism, and in vindicating themselves they became more uncompromising against Calvinism than before. The conference was in advance of the spirit of the age, and left no permanent effect.

THE COLLOQUY OF THORN. A.D. 1645.

The official edition of the Acts: Acta Conventus Thoruniensis celebrati a. 1645, etc., Warsaw, 1646 (very incorrect). The Acts, with the two Protestant Confessions (which were excluded from the official Acts), in Calovius, Historia Syncretistica (1682), 1685, pp. 199-560. The Reformed Declaratio Thoruniensis, Latin, in Niemeyer (pp. 669-689); German, in Böckel (pp. 865-884).

The Colloquy of Thorn, in West Prussia (Colloquium Thoruniense), was likewise a well-meant but fruitless union conference in a time of sectarian intolerance and the suicidal folly of the Thirty-Years' War.

In this case the movement proceeded from the Roman Catholic king, Wladislaus IV., of Poland (1632-1648). In this country moder ate Lutherans, Calvinists, and Moravians had formed a conservative union in the Consensus of Sendomir (1570), and a treaty of peace secured equal civil rights to Protestants and Romanists (Pax Dissidentium in 1573). But this peace was denounced by the Pope as a league of Christ with Belial, and undermined by the Jesuits, who obtained the control of the education of the Polish nobility, and are to a large extent responsible for the ultimate dismemberment and ruin of that unfortunate kingdom.

Wladislaus made a patriotic effort to heal the religious discords of his subjects, and invited Romanists and Dissenters (Protestants) to a charitable colloquy (colloquium caritativum, fraterna collatio) in the city of Thorn, which was then under the protection of the King of Poland (since 1454), and had embraced the Lutheran faith (1557). It began April 18, 1645, in the town-hall. There were three parties. The twenty-eight Roman deputies, including eight Jesuits, were determined to defeat the object of peace, and to prevent any concessions to Protestants. The Reformed had twenty-four delegates, chief among them the electoral chaplains John Bergius and Fr. Reichel, of Brandenburg, and the Moravian bishop Amos Comenius. The Lutheran