History of the Reformation, vol. 3
Chapter 11
Progression and Immobility—Zwingle and Luther—Luther’s Return to Scholasticism—Respect for Tradition—Occam—Contrary Tendency in Zwingle—Beginning of the Controversy—Oecolampadius and the Swabian Syngramma—Strasburg mediates
It was not, however, on baptism alone that diversities were to prevail; more serious differences were to arise on the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. HRSCV3 421.4
The human mind, freed from the yoke that had pressed upon it for so many ages, made use of its liberty; and if Roman-catholicism has to fear the shoals of despotism, Protestantism is equally exposed to those of anarchy. Progression is the character of Protestantism, as immobility is that of Romanism. HRSCV3 421.5
Roman-catholicism, which possesses in the papacy a means of continually establishing new doctrines, appears at first sight, indeed, to contain a principle eminently favorable to variations. It has in truth largely availed itself of it, and from age to age we see Rome bringing forward or ratifying new doctrines. But its system once complete, Roman-catholicism has declared itself the champion of immobility. In this its safety lies; it resembles those buildings which tremble at the least motion, and from which nothing can be taken without bringing them wholly to the ground. Permit the Romish priests to marry, or aim a blow at the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the whole system is shaken, the whole edifice crumbles into dust. HRSCV3 421.6
It is not thus with evangelical Christianity. Its principle is much less favorable to variations, and much more so to progression and to life. In fact, on the one hand it recognizes Scripture only as the source of truth, one and always the same, from the beginning of the Church to the end: how then should it vary as Popery has done? But, on the other hand, each Christian is to go and draw for himself from this fountain; and hence proceed action and liberty. Accordingly, evangelical Christianity, while it is the same in the nineteenth as in the sixteenth century, and as in the first, is in every age full of spontaneity and motion, and is now filling the world with its researches, its labors, bibles, missionaries, light, salvation, and life. HRSCV3 421.7
It is a great error to classify together and almost to confound evangelical Christianity with mysticism and rationalism, and to impute their irregularities to it. Motion is in the very nature of Christian Protestantism; it is directly opposed to immobility and lethargy; but it is the motion of health and life that characterizes it, and not the aberrations of man deprived of reason, or the convulsions of disease. We shall see this characteristic manifested in the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. HRSCV3 421.8
Such a result might have been expected. This doctrine had been understood in very different manners in the former ages of the Church, and this diversity existed until the time when the doctrine of transubstantiation and the scholastic theology began simultaneously to rule over the middle ages. But when this dominion was shaken, the old diversities were destined to reappear. HRSCV3 422.1
Zwingle and Luther, who had each been developed separately, the one in Switzerland and the other in Saxony, were however one day to meet face to face. The same spirit, and in many respects the same character, animated both. Both alike were filled with love for the truth and hatred of injustice; both were naturally violent; and this violence was moderated in each by a sincere piety. But there was one feature in Zwingle’s character destined to carry him farther than Luther. It was not only as a man that he loved liberty, but also as a republican and fellow-countryman of Tell. Accustomed to the decision of a free state, he did not permit himself to be stopped by those considerations before which Luther recoiled. He had moreover studied less profoundly the scholastic theology, and thus found his motions less fettered. Both were ardently attached to their own convictions; both resolved to defend them; and, little habituated to yield to the convictions of another, they were now to meet, like two proud war-horses, which, rushing through the contending ranks, suddenly encounter each other in the hottest of the strife. HRSCV3 422.2
A practical tendency predominated in the character of Zwingle and in the Reformation of which he was the author, and this tendency was directed to two great objects, simplicity of worship and sanctification of life. To harmonize the worship with the necessities of the mind, that seeks not external pomp but invisible things—this was Zwingle’s first aim. The idea of the corporeal presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, the origin of so many ceremonies and superstitions of the Church, must therefore be abolished. But another desire of the Swiss reformer led to the same results. He found that the Roman doctrine of the eucharist, and even that of Luther, presupposed a certain magical influence prejudicial to sanctification; he feared lest Christians, imagining they received Jesus Christ in the consecrated bread, should henceforward less earnestly seek to be united to him by faith in the heart. “Faith,” said he, “is not knowledge, opinion, imagination; it is a reality. It leads to a real union with Divine things.” Thus, whatever Zwingle’s adversaries may have asserted, it was not a leaning to rationalism, but a profoundly religious view, that led him to his peculiar doctrines. HRSCV3 422.3
But there was another element in Zwingle’s convictions: he was subject to those historical influences which we must everywhere recognize in the annals of the Church as in that of the world. It has been long supposed that he was acquainted with the sentiments of Ratram, Wickliffe, and Peter Waldo; but we possess a much safer historical clue to the convictions of the Swiss reformer. HRSCV3 422.4
The two Netherlanders, Rhodius and Sagarus, whom we have seen arrive at Wittenberg, and there occasion the first difference between Luther and Carlstadt, had turned their steps towards Switzerland, carrying with them Wessel’s manuscripts, and reached Basle, where Luther himself had commended them to Oecolampadius. The latter person, who was of timid character, finding that Luther did not approve of the opinions which these brethren from Holland were endeavouring to propagate, did not venture to declare his sentiments, and sent them to Zwingle. They arrived at Zurich in 1521, and having waited on the reformer, immediately turned the conversation on the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. HRSCV3 422.5
Rhodius and his friend did not at first make known their opinions, but after listening to Zwingle, they gave thanks to God for having delivered them from so great an error. They then presented the letter from Cornelius Hoen, which Zwingle read, and published shortly after. HRSCV3 422.6
This letter had an incalculable influence on the destinies of the Reformation. Hoen, resting his arguments on Christ’s words in the sixth chapter of Saint John, said: “Christ gives himself to us by means of the bread: but let us distinguish between the bread we receive by the mouth, and Christ whom we receive by faith. Whoever thinks that he receives only what he takes into his mouth, does not discern the body of the Lord, and eats and drinks his own condemnation because by eating and drinking he bears testimony to the presence of Christ, whilst by his unbelief he remains far from Him.”—At the same time the Netherlanders laid Wessel’s theses before Zwingle. These writings made a deep impression on the reformer’s mind. HRSCV3 422.7
The result of Zwingle’s inquiries corresponded with his tendencies. By studying Scripture as a whole, which was his custom, and not in detached passages, and by having recourse to classical antiquity for the solution of the difficulties of language, he arrived at the conviction that the word is, employed in the formula of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, ought to be taken (as Hoen said) in the meaning of signifies, and as early as 1523 he wrote to his friend Wittembach that the bread and wine are in the Eucharist what the water is in baptism. “It would be in vain,” added he, “for us to plunge a man a thousand times in water, if he does not believe. Faith is the one thing needful.” HRSCV3 423.1
It would appear, besides, that Zwingle had been prepared, indirectly at least, for these views by Erasmus. Melancthon says: “Zwingle confessed to me (at Marburg) that it was originally from the writings of Erasmus that he had derived his opinions on the Lord’s Supper.” In fact Erasmus wrote in 1526: “The sentiments of Oecolampadius would not displease me if the testimony of the Church were not against them. I do not see what an insensible body can do, or what utility would be derived from it, even if we could feel it; it is enough that spiritual grace be found in the symbols.” HRSCV3 423.2
Luther at first set out, in appearance at least, from principles very similar to those of the Zurich doctor. It is not the sacrament that sanctifieth,” said he, “but faith in the sacrament.” But the extravagances of those whose mysticism spiritualized everything, led to a great change in his views. When he saw enthusiasts who pretended to a particular inspiration, breaking images, rejecting baptism, and denying the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, he was alarmed; he had a sort of prophetic presentiment of the dangers that would threaten the Church if this ultra-spiritual tendency should get the upperhand, and he accordingly threw himself into the very opposite course; like a pilot who, seeing his boat lean too much on one side and near foundering, throws himself on the other to restore the equilibrium. HRSCV3 423.3
From that time Luther attached a higher importance to the sacraments. He maintained that they were not only signs, by means of which Christians were outwardly distinguished, as Zwingle said, but testimonials of the Divine will, calculated to strengthen our faith. More than this, Christ, in his view, had determined to give believers a full assurance of their salvation, and in order to seal this promise in the most effectual manner, he had added his real body to the bread and wine. “Just as iron and fire,” continued he, “which are nevertheless two distinct substances, are confounded together in a heated mass of iron so that in each of its parts there is at once iron and fire; in like manner, and with much greater reason, the glorified body of Christ is found in all the parts of the bread.” HRSCV3 423.4
Thus at this period there seems to have been some return on the part of Luther towards the scholastic theology. In his doctrine of justification by faith he had entirely renounced it; but in that of the sacrament he abandoned one point only, transubstantiation, and preserved the other, the corporeal presence. He even went so far as to say, that he would rather receive the blood only with the pope, than the wine only with Zwingle. HRSCV3 423.5
Luther’s great principle was never to depart from the doctrine and customs of the Church, except when the language of Scripture rendered it absolutely necessary. “Where has Christ commanded us to elevate the host and exhibit it to the people?” Carlstadt had demanded.—“And where has Christ forbidden it?” was Luther’s reply. In this answer lies the principle of the two Reformations. Ecclesiastical traditions were dear to the Saxon reformer. If he separated from them on several points, it was not until after terrible struggles, and because, above all, it was necessary to obey the Scriptures. But when the letter of the Word of God appeared in harmony with the tradition and usages of the Church, he adhered to it with immovable firmness. Now this was what happened in the question of the eucharist. He did not deny that the word is might be taken in the sense indicated by Zwingle. He acknowledged, for instance, that in the words, That rock was Christ, it must be so understood; but he denied that this word must have the same meaning in the institution of the Lord’s Supper. HRSCV3 423.6
He found in one of the later schoolmen, Occam, whom he preferred to all others, an opinion which he embraced. Like Occam, he gave up the continually repeated miracle, by virtue of which, according to the Roman Church, the body and blood of Christ took the place of the bread and wine after every consecration by the priest; and with this doctor, he substituted a universal miracle, worked once for all,—that of the ubiquity and omnipresence of the body of Jesus Christ. “Christ,” said he, “is present in the bread and wine, because he is present everywhere, and above all, wherever he wills to be.” HRSCV3 423.7
The turn of Zwingle’s mind was very different from Luther’s. He was less inclined to preserve a certain union with the universal Church and to maintain his connection with the traditions of past ages. As a theologian, he looked at Scripture alone, and thence only would he receive his faith freely and immediately, without troubling himself about what others had thought before him. As a republican, he looked to his commune of Zurich. It was the idea of the present Church that engrossed his thoughts, and not that of the Church of former times. He clung particularly to these words of St. Paul: For we being many are one bread, and one body; and he saw in the Lord’s Supper the sign of a spiritual communion between Christ and all Christians. “Whoever acts unworthily,” said he, “is guilty towards the body of Christ of which he is a member.” This thought had a great practical influence over men’s minds; and the effects it produced in the lives of many confirmed Zwingle in it. HRSCV3 423.8
Thus Luther and Zwingle had insensibly separated from each other. It is probable however that peace might have subsisted longer between them, if the turbulent Carlstadt, who kept passing to and fro between Switzerland and Germany, had not inflamed these contrary opinions. HRSCV3 424.1
A step taken with the view to maintain peace led to the explosion. The council of Zurich, desirous of preventing all controversy, forbade the sale of Carlstadt’s works. Zwingle, who disapproved of his violence, and blamed his mystical and obscure expressions, thought himself now called upon to defend his doctrine, both in the pulpit and before the council; and shortly after wrote a letter to Albert, pastor of Reutlingen, in which he said: “Whether or not Christ speaks of the sacrament in the sixth chapter of St. John, it is very evident that he there inculcates a manner of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, in which there is nothing corporeal.” He then proceeded to prove that the Lord’s Supper, by reminding the faithful, according to Christ’s intention, of his body which was broken for them, procured for them that spiritual eating which alone is truly salutary. HRSCV3 424.2
Yet Zwingle shrunk from a rupture with Luther; he trembled at the thought that these unhappy disputes might tear in pieces that new society which was then forming in the midst of fallen Christendom. But it was not so with Luther. He did not hesitate to class Zwingle with those enthusiasts against whom he had already broken so many lances. He did not reflect that if the images had been taken down at Zurich, it was done legally and by order of the public authority. Accustomed to the forms of the German principalities, he knew but little of the proceedings of the Swiss republics; and he inveighed against the grave divines of Helvetia, as he had done against the Munzers and Carlstadts. HRSCV3 424.3
Luther having published his Treatise against the Celestial Prophets, Zwingle no longer hesitated, and at nearly the same time he gave to the world his Letter to Albert, and his Commentary on True and False Religion, dedicated to Francis I. In this last he said: “Since Christ, in the sixth chapter of St. John, ascribes to faith the power of imparting eternal life, and of uniting the believer to Him in the closest union, what need have we of more? Why should He afterwards have ascribed this virtue to His flesh, whilst He himself declares that His flesh profiteth nothing? The flesh of Christ, so far as it suffered death for us, is of incalculable utility, for it saves us from perdition; so far as it is eaten by us, it is of no use whatever.” HRSCV3 424.4
The struggle began. Pomeranus, Luther’s friend, rushed into the conflict, and attacked the evangelist of Zurich somewhat too contemptuously. Oecolampadius then began to blush at having so long combated his doubts, and at having preached doctrines that already began to waver in his mind. He took courage, and wrote from Basle to Zwingle: “The dogma of the real presence is the fortress and safeguard of their impiety. So long as they preserve this idol, no one can conquer them.” He then entered into the lists, by publishing a book on the meaning of our Lord’s words: This is my body. HRSCV3 424.5
The mere fact that Oecolampadius had joined the reformer of Zurich excited an immense sensation, not only in Basle but in all Germany. Luther was deeply affected by it. Brenz, Schnepff, and twelve other pastors of Swabia, to whom Oecolampadius had dedicated his book, and most of whom had been his pupils, experienced the keenest sorrow. “At this very moment when I am separating from him in a just cause,” said Brenz, taking up the pen to reply to him, “I honor and admire him as much as it is possible for a man to do. The bonds of love are not broken between us because we are not of one opinion.” He then published, conjointly with his friends, the famous Swabian Syngramma, in which he replied to Oecolampadius with firmness but with charity and respect. “If an emperor,” said the authors, “give a wand to a judge, saying: `Take; this is the power of judging;’ the wand no doubt is a mere sign; but the words being added, the judge has not only the symbol but the power itself.” The true members of the reformed churches may admit this illustration. The Syngramma was received with acclamations; its authors were looked upon as the champions of truth; many theologians, and even laymen, desirous of sharing in their glory, began to defend the doctrine attacked, and fell upon Oecolampadius. HRSCV3 424.6
Strasburg then came forward to mediate between Switzerland and Germany. Capito and Bucer were the friends of peace, and question in debate was, in their opinion, of secondary consequence; they therefore placed themselves between the two parties, sent one of their colleagues, George Cassel, to Luther, and conjured him to beware of snapping the ties of fraternity which united him with the Swiss divines. HRSCV3 425.1
Nowhere did Luther’s character shine forth more strikingly than in this controversy on the Lord’s Supper. Never were more clearly displayed that firmness with which he clung to a conviction which he believed to be christian, his faithfulness in seeking for no other foundation than Scripture, the sagacity of his defense, his animated eloquence, and often overwhelming powers of argumentation. But never also were more clearly shown the obstinacy with which he adhered to his own opinions, the little attention he paid to the reasons of his opponents, and the uncharitable haste with which he ascribed their errors to the wickedness of their hearts, or to the wiles of the devil. “One or other of us,” said he to the Strasburg mediator, “must be ministers of Satan—the Swiss or ourselves.” HRSCV3 425.2
This was what Capito styled “the frenzies of the Saxon Orestes;” and these frenzies were followed by exhaustion. Luther’s health was affected by them; one day he fainted in the arms of his wife and friends; he was a whole week as if in “death and hell.”—“He had lost Jesus Christ,” he said, “and was tossed to and fro by the tempests of despair. The world was passing away, and announcing by prodigies that the last day was at hand.” HRSCV3 425.3
But the divisions among the friends of the Reformation were destined to have still more fatal consequences. The Romish theologians exulted, particularly in Switzerland, at being able to oppose Luther to Zwingle. And yet if, after three centuries, the recollection of these divisions should convey to evangelical Christians the precious fruits of unity in diversity, and of charity in liberty, they will not have been in vain. Even then, the reformers, by opposing one another, showed that they were not governed by a blind hatred against Rome, and that truth was the primary object of their inquiries. Herein we must acknowledge there is something generous; and conduct so disinterested did not fail to bear fruit, and to extort, even from enemies, a feeling of interest and esteem. HRSCV3 425.4
And further than this, we may here again recognize that sovereign hand which directs all things, and permits nothing without the wisest design. Luther, notwithstanding his opposition to the Papacy, was in an eminent degree conservative. Zwingle, on the contrary, was inclined to a radical reform. These two opposite tendencies were necessary. If Luther and his friends had stood alone at the time of the Reformation, the work would have been stopped too soon, and the reforming principle would not have accomplished its prescribed task. If, on the contrary, there had been only Zwingle, the thread would have been snapped too abruptly, and the Reformation would have been isolated from the ages that had gone before. HRSCV3 425.5
These two tendencies, which to a superficial observer might seem to have existed only to combat each other, were ordained to complete each other; and after a lapse of three centuries we can say that they have fulfilled their mission. HRSCV3 425.6