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 moderate 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 deputation consisted of fifteen, afterwards of twenty-eight members; the most prominent were Calovius of Dantzic and Hülsemann of Wittenberg, the champions of the strictest orthodoxy, and George Calixtus of Helmstädt, the leader of a mild and comprehensive union theology.1 The sessions were private (plebs penitus arcenda'). The king's chancellor, Prince George Ossolinski, presided. The first business, called 'liquidatio,' was to be the preparation of a correct statement of the doctrinal system of each party. The Roman Catholic Confession, with a list of rejected misrepresentations, was ready early in September, and read in the second public session, Sept. 16. It was received among the official acts. On the same day the Reformed Confession was read, under the title Declaratio doctrina ecclesiarum Reformatarum catholica. But the Romanists objected to the word 'catholic,' which they claimed as their monopoly, and to the antithetical part as being offensive to them, and excluded the document from the official acts. The Lutheran Confession was ready the 20th of September, but was even refused a public reading.2 The Protestants sent a deputation to the king, who received them and their confessions with courtesy and kindness; but the Romanists demanded more alterations than the Protestants were willing to make, and used every effort to prevent the official publication of heresies. Unfortunately the dissensions among the Lutherans, and between them and the Reformed, strengthened the Romish party. The Colloquy closed Nov. 21, 'mutua valedictione et in fraterna caritate, but without accomplishing its end. Calixtus says: 'The Colloquy was no colloquy at all, certainly no colloquium caritativum, but irrita tivum.' It left the three confessions where they were before, and added new fuel to the syncretistic controversy in Germany.3 Calovius and Hülsemann charged Calixtus with aiding the Calvinists in their confession. The city of Thorn, which spent 50,000 guilders for 'It took Calixtus nearly three weeks to travel from Helmstädt to Thorn. The Latin text in Calovius's Hist. syncret. pp. 403-421; the German and Latin texts were separately issued at Leipzig, 1655, and at Dantzic, 1735. See also Scripta facientia ad Colloquium Thoruniense; accessit G. Calixti consideratio et iñiкpioig, Helmstädt, 1645, and Calixti Annotationes et animadversiones in Confessionem Reformatorum, Wolfenbüttel, 1655. 'Hence the distich on the Synod of Thorn: 'Quid synodus nodus: Patrum chorus integer? æger: the conference, suffered much from the Thirty-Years' War, also by a plague, and became the scene of a dreadful massacre of Protestants, Dec. 7, 1724, stirred up by the Jesuits in revenge for an attack on their college. The Declaration of Thorn' is one of the most careful statements of the Reformed Creed, and the only one among the three confessions of this Colloquy which acquired a practical importance by its adoption among the three Brandenburg Confessions. It is divided into a general part (generalis professio) and a special declaration (specialis declaratio). The former acknowledges the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in the original Hebrew and Greek, as the only perfect rule of faith, containing all that is necessary for our salvation. It adopts, also, in a subordinate sense, as explanatory summaries of Scripture doctrine, the cecumenical Creeds, and doctrinal decisions of the ancient undivided Church in opposition to the trinitarian, christological, and Pelagian heresies. Finally, as regards the controversy with Rome, it accepts the Altered Augsburg Confession and the Consensus of Sendomir (1570) as correct statements of the Scripture doctrines, differing in form, but agreeing in essence. The 'Special Declaration' states the several articles of the Reformed 1 The full title is 'Professio Doctrinæ Ecclesiarum Reformatarum in Regno Poloniæ, Magno Ducatu Lithuania, annexisque Regni Provinciis, in Conventu Thoruniensi, Anni 1645, ad liquidationem Controversiarum maturandam, exhibita d. 1 Septembris.' First published at Berlin, 1646, under the title 'Scripta partis Reformata in Colloquio Thoruniensi,' etc. In the expression of agreement with the ancient Church the Declaration of Thorn is more explicit than any other Protestant confession, Lutheran or Calvinistic or Anglican. After saying that the summary of Scripture doctrine is contained in the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Words of Institution of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, the Declaration proceeds: 'Si quid vero, in hisce Doctrinæ Christianæ capitibus, dubitationis aut controversiæ de genuino eorum sensu exoriatur, profitemur porro, nos amplecti ceu interpretationem Scripturarum certam et indubitatam, Symbolum Nicænum et Constantinopolitanum, iisdem plane verbis, quibus in Synodi Tridentina Sessione tertia, tanquam Principium illud, in quo omnes, qui fidem Christi profitentur, necessario conveniunt, et Fundamentum firmum et unicum, contra quod portæ inferorum nunquam prævalebunt, proponitur. 'Cui etiam consonare Symbolum, quod dicitur Athanasianum, agnoscimus: nec non Ephesina primæ, et Chalcedonensis Synodi Confessiones: quinetiam, quæ Quinta et Sexta Synodi, Nestorianorum et Eutychianorum reliquiis opposuere : quæque adversus Pelagianos olim Milevitana Synodus et Arausicana secunda ex Scripturis docuere. Quinimo, quicquid primitiva Ecclesia ab ipsis usque Apostolorum temporibus, unanimi deinceps et notorio consensu, tanquam Articulum fidei necessarium, credidit, docuit, idem nos quoque ex Scripturis credere et docere profitemur. 'Hac igitur Fidei nostræ professione, tanquam Christiani vere Catholici, ab omnibus reteribus et recentibus Hæresibus, quas prisca universalis Ecclesia unanimi consensu ex Scripturis rejecit atque damnavit, nos nostrasque Ecclesias segregamus.' system, both in its agreement with, and in its departure from, the creeds of Romanists and Lutherans. The document is signed by a number of noblemen and clergymen from Poland, Lithuania, and Brandenburg. 8 71. MINOR GERMAN REFORMED CONFESSIONS. HEINRICH HEPPE: Die Bekenntniss-Schriften der reformirten Kirchen Deutschlands. Elberfeld, 1860. (Contains nine confessions of secondary importance, most of which are not found in other collections.) The remaining Confessions of the Reformed Churches in Germany have only a local importance, and may be briefly disposed of. 1. THE CONFESSION OF ELECTOR FREDERICK III. OF THE PALATINATE, 1577.—It was his last will and testament, and was published after his death by his son, John Casimir. It may be regarded as an explanatory appendix to the Heidelberg Catechism. It is a clear and strong testimony of his catholic and evangelical faith, and contains some wholesome warnings against the unchristian intolerance of the princes and theologians of his age.1 2. THE CONFESSION OF ANHALT, or REPETITIO ANHALTINA (i. e., a Repetition of the Augsburg Confession), 1581.2-It was prepared chiefly by Wolfgang Amling, Superintendent of Anhalt, and laid before a conference with Hessian divines held at Cassel, March, 1579. The duchy of Anhalt, on the banks of the Elbe and Saale (formerly divided into four duchies, called after the principal towns, AnhaltDessau, Anhalt-Zerbst, Anhalt- Bernburg, Anhalt- Cöthen, in 1853 united into two, 1863 into one) embraced the Lutheran reformation. in 1534, but during the controversies which led to the Formula Concordiæ it adhered to Melanchthon, and finally passed over to the Reformed faith in 1596. Prince John George married a daughter of Prince Casimir of the Palatinate, and introduced the Heidelberg Catechism and a simpler form of worship. At a later period (1644) Lutheranism was partly re-established, but Dessau, Bernburg, and Cöthen remained Reformed. The 'Anhalt Repetition' can scarcely be numbered among the Re The German text is given by Heppe, pp. 1-18; a Latin translation in the Corpus et Syntagma Confessionum, with a Preface by John Casimir. The German text in Heppe, pp. 19-67, the Latin in Niemeyer, pp. 612-641. Böckel excludes it from his collection because it is not strictly Reformed. formed Confessions. It belongs to the Melanchthonian transition pe riod, and represents simply a milder type of Lutheranism in opposition to the Flacian party. It recognizes, along with the Altered Augsburg Confession and the Corpus Doctrine of Melanchthon, the Smalcald Articles and Luther's Catechisms, and professes even the manducatio oralis and the manducatio indignorum. This is clearly incompatible with the Reformed system of doctrine. 3. THE CONFESSION OF NASSAU, 1578, prepared, at the request of Count John of Nassau-Dillenburg, by the Rev. Christopher Pezel, who had been expelled from Saxony for Crypto-Calvinism. It was adopted by a general synod of that country, and first printed in 1593. It is Melanchthonian in the sense of the Altered Augsburg Confession and the Confession of Saxony, and rejects the doctrine of ubiquity as an unscriptural innovation and fiction.2 4. THE BREMEN CONFESSION (Consensus Ministerii Bremensis), prepared, 1598, by the same Pezel, who in the mean time had removed to Bremen, and signed by the pastors of that city. It is more decidedly Reformed, and adopts the Calvinistic view of predestination. Among the books herein approved and recommended to the study of the pastors are also the Geneva Harmonia Confessionum, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Decades of Bullinger, and the Institutes of Calvin, as well as the works of Melanchthon.3 5. THE HESSIAN CONFESSION, adopted by a General Synod at Cassel, A.D. 1607, and published 1608. It treats only of five articles: the Ten Commandments, the abolition of popish picture idolatry, the Person of Christ (against ubiquity), the eternal election, and the Lord's Supper (against the manducatio indignorum). The Heidelberg Catechism and a modification of Luther's Small Catechism were both used in Electoral Hesse." 1 Ebrard (Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Vol. III. p. 575) is certainly wrong when he says that the Repetitio Anhaltina proves that the Anhalt clergy 'schon damals ganz und gar reformirt über die Person Christi und DAS H. ABENDMAHL dachte.' It expressly asserts in Art. vii. that even ‘indigne viscentes non quidem nudum aut communem panem calicemque manducant et bibunt, sed ipsum corpus et sanguinem Domini in Sacramento Cœnæ manducantes et bibentes... rei fiunt corporis et sanguinis Domini.' See Niemeyer, p. 628, and Heppe, p. 46. 'Heppe, pp. 68–146. Ibid. pp. 147-243. Ibid. pp. 244-249. 5 Comp. Heppe, Geschichte der Hessischen Generalsynoden von 1568-1582, Kassel, 1847, |