CHAP. Beneficial effects of the MY BODY;" while Zwingle in vain urged that he did but beg the question, which was no other than this-in what sense those words were to be understood.-In the end, however, fifteen articles were drawn up, and signed, on the one part, by Luther, Melancthon, Justus Jonas, Osiander, Brentius, and Stephanus Agricola (of Augsburg); and on the other by Ecolampadius, Zwingle, Bucer, and Hedio. In these articles the parties testified their substantial agreement upon every other point besides that of the corporal presence; concluding with the declaration that, "though at present they had not agreed on that topic, yet both parties, as far as each man's conscience would permit, ought to cherish mutual charity for one another; and also earnestly to implore Almighty God, by his Spirit, to confirm them in the truth." One is pained at the coldness and bigotry of Luther's commentary on this conclusion-for on this question he is ever unworthy of himself. "We have accorded to them," he says in a letter to a friend, " that, though in fact they were not our brethren, yet we would not refuse them our sentiments of Christian charity-which are owing even to an enemy !" Though the conference, as might have been expected, failed of attaining the end proposed, conference, yet the following benefits may be considered as having resulted from it. 1. It shewed the world that the differences between the two parties were neither so many nor so great, as had been represented and generally apprehended. 2. It served to dissipate many of the prejudices and suspicions which some of the leading partisans had conceived against each other; especially those which Luther and his 1 Not Islebius. adherents had admitted concerning the general orthodoxy of Zwingle and Ecolampadius. Luther had observed at the opening, that, before at all proceeding to the question of the eucharist, they must first settle those of the divinity of Christ, and his two natures; of baptism; of justification by faith; and others of vital importance; for he understood that the Swiss divines differed from those of Saxony on these articles. Zwingle and Ecolampadius however at once cut short that discussion, by avowing an entire agreement with him on all those points and Luther afterwards confessed that he had thought much better of these two great men since he met them at Marpurg. Alas! how prone are we, and on the slightest, and often the most shadowy grounds, to admit prejudices and evil surmisings against our brethren; and in our imaginations to swell and multiply the differences between us, where a little candid, and Christian, and cordial intercourse would shew us that we are in the main one; and that our differences neither need divide us, nor do perhaps, in point of fact, make any perceptible variation in our mode of teaching that we are aiming at the same objects, and pursue them by, substantially at least, the same means; and that our points of discrepancy scarcely ever come into view, except when we dispute about them. Perhaps our ima gined differences are merely inferences, which each supposes must follow from some sentiment held by the other, but which both agree in disowning and condemning.-3. It is stated that the landgrave and his principal divine, Lambert,' and almost all the court of Cassel were 'Above, ii. 397. In a letter written soon after, and inserted in Fueslin's Collection, p. 70-76, Lambert states, A. D. 1529. CHAP. The Anabaptists. on this occasion gained over to the doctrine of Zwingle and Ecolampadius concerning the eucharist. The landgrave wrote to Zwingle with his own hand, "that he was entirely of his mind on this subject; and that he altogether disapproved the schism which Luther and Melancthon had made respecting it. You ought not," said he, "to doubt that, with God's good pleasure, I shall remain constant in the truth; and that it is neither the pope, nor the emperor, nor Luther, nor Melancthon, that shall make me change my opinion." Accordingly he afterwards declared, that it was with difficulty he brought himself to subscribe the Confession of Augsburg, without a protest that he was not satisfied with the tenth article, on this subject.-Lambert, though he had received Luther's doctrine, yet came to the conference with a mind open to conviction; and, after weighing every thing that passed, declared himself satisfied with what he had heard from the Swiss divines.1 We may close the present chapter with once more slightly noticing the Anabaptists. Ecolampadius and other ministers about this time held a conference with nine of them, who had been imprisoned at Basle. Much extraordinary insolence and fanaticism were displayed on their part, yet some proof was elicited, that, among these deluded people, as among many others who in some measure approximate to them, instances that the landgrave had ordered that no minister should be restrained for disagreeing with Luther on this subject, and that numbers were daily passing over to the sentiments of Zwingle. 1 Milner, v. 518-522. (1118–1123.) Scultet. 138— 147. Mel. Ad. in Zuing. i. 14-16. J. H. Hottinger, viii. 444-469. Seckendorf, ii. 137-140. Ruchat, ii. 459494. Gerd. ii. 213-216, 397. existed in which simple error, rather than perverseness of mind, had led them astray, and in which the portion of religious truth that they received had proved the means of turning them from a careless and ungodly course of life. We must not condemn whole bodies of people in the gross, even where appearances may be most unpromising with respect to the majority. Three of the nine anabaptists here referred to were reclaimed from their errors: the others, who continued obstinate and insolent, were banished. They were admonished, however, that their punishment was inflicted on them not for their religion, or for any thing which they could themselves imagine to be good, but for their seditions, their perjuries, and the other disorders of which they were guilty. Indeed I do not find that at Basle their punishments were ever carried beyond imprisonment or banishment. At Berne, some, who had repeatedly returned in contempt of their oaths of expatriation, were put to death. At Constance, one who had written a blasphemous book against the divinity of Christ, and had indulged himself in a plurality of wives, to the number of thirteen at the same time, suffered death, and apparently died penitent. He condemned his own conduct, acknowledged the justice of his sentence, and spoke of himself as not worthy to walk along the path which led to the place of execution. Yet by the Anabaptists of Holland this man was enrolled among their martyrs, and his history recorded with great applause! 1 Ru. ii. 497-511. A. D. 1529. CHAPTER XIX. CHAP. Allemande. La Suisse REFORMATION OF THE FRENCH PART OF SWITZ- CECOLAMPADIUS. HITHERTO, with the exception of the Grisons, where the Romansh language prevails, our attenLa Suisse tion has been confined to la Suisse Allemande, or that part of Switzerland in which the German language is spoken. But an important work of reformation was at the same time Romande. carrying on in la Suisse Romande, the western part, where the French is the vernacular tongue. This country consists, or then consisted of the Pays de Vaud, of which Lausanne is the capital, the counties of Neuchâtel and Vallengin, the lands of the prince of Porentru, or bishop of Basle, the governments of Moutier, or Munster, the valley of S. Imier, or Erguel, the state of Geneva, and the Lower Vallais. In the Pays de Vaud, the three bailliages of Orbe, Granson, and Morat were subject to the joint government of Berne and Friburg; and the remainder of the district partly to the bishop of Lausanne, and partly to the duke of Savoy. Reforma It forms a striking feature of distinction. tion of the between French and German Switzerland, as connected immediately with the object of our latter. |