Standing alone, a scholarly monk nailed a notice to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517. 
     Little did he know his pounding hammer would set off controversy that would galvanize the growing Protestant movement. Martin Luther, the once timid village boy, never dreamed he would one day be called the "Father of the Reformation." 

     In his Ninety-Five Theses, posted for all to read, he explained how certain practices of the Catholic church in his day did not adhere to the Word of God. With incisive argument, he addressed corruptions and distortions of worship that kept common people from a true understanding of salvation by faith in Christ alone. 
     Pope Leo X called him a "wild boar." His own best friend Philip Melanchthon said he was a "violent physician." Luther admitted the same himself: "God uses coarse wedges for splitting coarse blocks." 

     Born in 1484 to a middle class family, Luther had access to both economic and educational advantages. Although his parents loved him dearly and nurtured him well, Luther later explained that their sometimes excessive discipline encouraged his natural cowardice. 

     It was in a fit of terror in a thunderstorm that he cried out an oath that if God would save him, he would become a monk. Much to his father's disappointment, in 1505 Luther joined the stringent Augustinian order, which emphasized absolute obedience and self-abasement. 

     Even within the safety of the monastery walls, however, Luther carried with him his greatest agony-his fear of God. To Luther, God was unapproachably holy. He was obsessed with God's righteousness and felt crushed by what he saw as God's unattainable demands of perfection. Many nights, in private penance, Luther would beat himself until he bled and fell unconscious. 

     His sole consolation was studying the Bible; it was then he felt closest to God. One day, he meditated on the truth of Romans 1:17: "For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "But the righteous man shall live by faith."" 
     This was the answer. Luther wept as he accepted Christ's finished work on the cross as full payment for his sin. He was free at last, and new joy filled his heart. When he began preaching and teaching at the University of Wittenberg, people flocked to hear his vibrant messages. 

     Church officials grew angrier by the day. Luther's words, at times caustic and rough, were drawing money and power away from the established church and stirring up both religious and political fervor. The Ninety-Five Theses was a blow that could not be overlooked. 
     In 1521, Luther was ordered to appear before the Diet (Assembly) of Worms and recant. After hours of prayer, Luther gave them this bold yet humble reply: "My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Here I stand. God help me. Amen." 
     Immediately he was declared an outlaw, and his guarantee of safe conduct was revoked. Rumors flew that the church's supporters would capture him and burn him at the stake. God had other plans for him, though, and Luther was unafraid. 
     On his journey home, a band of masked men, really Luther's friends in disguise, "kidnapped" him and rode him to safety on horseback to the castle of Wartburg. In this new refuge, Luther was able to continue writing reform treatises and to complete his translation of the Bible into German, a landmark literary feat. 

     After the Pope died, Luther returned to more routine life in Wittenberg. He married a former nun, Katherine von Bora, in 1525, and had six children, four of whom survived. Until his death in 1546 at age 63, Luther's prodigious energy did not flag. 
     Though battling countless illnesses, ongoing ailments, and bouts of depression, he provided continual guidance for blossoming Reformation activities. He was uncompromising to the last. Biographer Mike Fearon explains Luther's mission: "Though speaking out plainly against sin, he loved sinners and offered them God's righteousness as the only solution." 

Luther At Home 
     At first, Luther insisted he would never marry. But when he helped twelve nuns escape from a convent, he came face to face with Katherine von Bora, the woman who helped a confirmed, forty-one-year-old bachelor change his ways. 
     Although they were not "in love" when they wed, their marriage became a model of romance and deepest affection that has endeared generations. 
     He spoke of his home life with characteristic sparkling wit. 

• "In domestic affairs I defer to Katie. Otherwise, I am led by the Holy Ghost." 
• "Let them [other men] laugh. God and the angels are smiling in heaven." 
• "I am an inferior lord, she the superior; I am Aaron, she is my Moses." 

     Katherine returned his glowing admiration. When Martin died, in bereavement she said: "If I had a principality or an empire and lost it, it would not have been as painful as it is now that the dear Lord God has taken from me this precious and beloved man, and not from me alone, but from the whole world." 

The subject of this address is "John Calvin the Theologian," and I take it that what will be expected of me is to convey some idea of what manner of theologian John Calvin was, and of his quality as a theological thinker.

I am afraid I shall have to ask you at the outset to disabuse your minds of a very common impression, namely, that Calvin's chief characteristics as a theologian were on the one hand, audacity--perhaps I might even say effrontery--of speculation; and on the other hand, pitilessness of logical development, cold and heartless scholasticism. We have been told, for example, that he reasons on the attributes of God precisely as he would reason on the properties of a triangle. No misconception could be more gross. The speculative theologian of the Reformation was Zwingli, not Calvin. The scholastic theologian among the early Reformers was Peter Martyr, not Calvin. This was thoroughly understood by their contemporaries. "The two most excellent theologians of our times." remarks Joseph Scaliger, "are John Calvin and Peter Martyr, the former of whom has dealt with the Holy Scriptures as they ought to be dealt with--with sincerity, I mean, and purity and simplicity, without any scholastic subtleties....Peter Martyr, because it seemed to fall to him to engage the Sophists, has overcome them sophistically, and struck them down with their own weapons."

It is not to be denied, of course, that Calvin was a speculative genius of the first order, and in the cogency of his logical analysis he possessed a weapon which made him terrible to his adversaries. But it was not on these gifts that he depended in forming and developing his theological ideas. His theological method was persistently, rigorously, some may even say exaggeratedly, a posteriori. All a priori reasoning here he not only eschewed but vigorously repelled. His instrument of research was not logical amplification, but exegetical investigation. In one word, he was distinctly a Biblical theologian, or, let us say it frankly, by way of eminence "the Biblical theologian of his age." Whither the Bible took him, thither he went:where scriptural declarations failed him, there he stopped short. It is this which imparts to Calvin's theological teaching the quality which is its prime characteristic and its real offence in the eyes of his critics--I mean its positiveness. There is no mistaking the note of confidence in his teaching, and it is perhaps not surprising that this note of confidence irritates his critics. They resent the air of finality he gives to his declarations, not staying to consider that he gives them this air of finality because he presents them, not as his teachings, but as the teachings of the Holy Spirit in His inspired Word. Calvin's positiveness of tone is thus the mark not of extravagance but of sobriety and restraint. He even speaks with impatience of speculative, and what we may call inferential theology, and he is accordingly himself spoken of with impatience by modern historians of thought as a "merely Biblical theologian," who is, therefore, without any real doctrine of God, such as Zwingli has. The reproach, if it be a reproach, is just. Calvin refused to go beyond "what is written"--written plainly in the book of nature or in the book of revelation. He insisted that we can know nothing of God, for example, except what He has chosen to make known to us in His works and Word; all beyond this is but empty fancy, which merely "flutters" in the brain. And it was just because he refused to go one step beyond what is written that he felt so sure of his steps. He could not present the dictates of the Holy Ghost as a series of debatable propositions.

Such an attitude towards the Scriptures might conceivably consist with a thoroughgoing intellectualism, and Calvin certainly is very widely thought of as an intellectualist a outrance. But this again is an entire misapprehension. The positiveness of Calvin's teaching has a far deeper root than merely the conviction of his understanding. When Ernest Renan characterised him as the most Christian man of his generation he did not mean it for very high praise, but he made a truer and much more profound remark than he intended. The fundamental trait of Calvin's nature was precisely--religion. It is not merely that all his thinking is coloured by a deep religious sentiment; it is that the whole substance of his thinking is determined by the religious motive. Thus his theology, if ever there was a theology of the heart, was distinctively a theology of the heart, and in him the maxim that "It is the heart that makes the theologian" finds perhaps its most eminent illustration.

His active and powerful intelligence, of course, penetrated to the depths of every subject which he touched, but he was incapable of dealing with any religious subject after a fashion which would minister only to what would seem to him the idle curiosity of the mind. It was not that he restrained himself from such merely intellectual exercises upon the themes of religion, the force of his religious interest itself instinctively inhibited them.

Calvin marked an epoch in the history of the doctrine of the Trinity, but of all great theologians who have occupied themselves with this soaring topic, none have been more determined than he not to lose themselves in the intellectual subtleties to which it invites the inquiring mind; and he marked an epoch in the development of the doctrine precisely because his interest in it was vital and not merely or mainly speculative. Or take the great doctrine of predestination which has become identified with his name, and with respect to which he is perhaps, most commonly of all things, supposed to have given the reins to speculative construction and to have pushed logical development to unwarrantable extremes. Calvin, of course, in the lucid clearness and incorruptible honesty of his thought and in the faithfulness of his reflection of the Biblical teaching, fully grasped and strongly held the doctrine of the will of God as the prima causa rerum, and this too was a religious conception with him and was constantly affirmed just because it was a religious conception--yes, in a high and true sense, the most fundamental of all religious conceptions. But even so, it was not to this cosmical predestination that Calvin's thought most persistently turned, but rather to that soterlological predestination on which, as a helpless sinner needing salvation from the free grace of God, he must rest. And therefore Ebrard is so far quite right when he says that predestination appears in Calvin's system not as the decretum Dei but as the electio Dei.

It is not merely controversial skill which leads Calvin to pass predestination by when he is speaking of the doctrine of God and providence, and to reserve it for the point where he is speaking of salvation. This is where his deepest interest lay. What was suffusing his heart and flowing in full flood into all the chambers of his soul was a profound sense of his indebtedness as a lost sinner to the free grace of God his Saviour. His zeal in asserting the doctrine of two-fold predestination is grounded in the clearness with which he perceived--as was indeed perceived with him by all the Reformers--that only so can the evil leaven of "synergism" be eliminated and the free grace of God be preserved in its purity in the saving process. The roots of his zeal are planted, in a word, in his consciousness of absolute dependence as a sinner on the free mercy of a saving God. The sovereignty of God in grace was an essential constituent of his deepest religious consciousness. Like his great master, Augustine--like Luther, Zwingli and Butzer (Bucer), and all the rest of those high spirits who brought about that great revival of religion which we call the Reformation--he could not endure that the grace of God should not receive all the glory of the rescue of sinners from the destruction in which they are involved, and from which, just because they are involved in it, they are unable to do anything towards their own recovery.

The fundamental interest of Calvin as a theologian lay, it is clear, in the region broadly designated soteriological. Perhaps we may go further and add that, within this broad field, his interest was most intense in the application to the sinful soul of the salvation wrought out by Christ,--in a word in what is technically known as the ordo salutis. This has even been made his reproach in some quarters, and we have been told that the main fault of the Institutes as a treatise in theological science, lies in its too subjective character. Its effect, at all events, has been to constitute Calvin pre-eminently the theologian of the Holy Spirit.

Calvin has made contributions of the first importance to other departments of theological thought. It has already been observed that he marks an epoch in the history of the doctrine of the Trinity. He also marks an epoch in the mode of presenting the work of Christ. The presentation of Christ's work under the rubrics of the three-fold office of Prophet, Priest and King was introduced by him; and from him it was taken over by the entirety of Christendom, not always, it is true, in his spirit or with his completeness of development, but yet with large advantage. In Christian ethics, too, his impulse proved epoch-making, and this great science was for a generation cultivated only by his followers.

It is probable however that Calvin's greatest contribution to theological science lies in the rich development which he gives--and which he was the first to give--to the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit. No doubt, from the origin of Christianity, everyone who has been even slightly imbued with the Christian spirit has believed in the Holy Spirit as the author and giver of life, and has attributed all that is good in the world, and particularly in himself, to His holy offices. And, of course, in treating of grace, Augustine worked out the doctrine of salvation as a subjective experience with great vividness and in great detail, and the whole course of this salvation was fully understood, no doubt, to be the work of the Holy Spirit. But in the same sense in which we may say that the doctrine of sin and grace dates from Augustine, the doctrine of satisfaction from Anselm, the doctrine of justification by faith from Luther,--we must say that the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit is a gift from Calvin to the Church. It was he who first related the whole experience of salvation specifically to the working of the Holy Spirit, worked it out into its details, and contemplated its several steps and stages in orderly progress as the product of the Holy Spirit's specific work in applying salvation to the soul. Thus he gave systematic and adequate expression to the whole doctrine of the Holy Spirit and made it the assured possession of the Church of God.

It has been common to say that Calvin's entire theological work may be summed up in this--that he emancipated the soul from the tyranny of human authority and delivered it from the uncertainties of human intermediation in religious things: that he brought the soul into the immediate presence of God and cast it for its spiritual health upon the free grace of God alone. Where the Romanist placed the Church, it is said, Calvin set the Deity. The saying is true, and perhaps, when rightly understood and filled with its appropriate content, it may sufficiently characterise the effect of his theological teaching. But it is expressed too generally to be adequate. What Calvin did was, specifically, to replace the doctrine of the Church as sole source of assured knowledge of God and sole institute of salvation, by the Holy Spirit. Previously, men had looked to the Church for all the trustworthy knowledge of God obtainable, and as well for all the communications of grace accessible. Calvin taught them that neither function has been committed to the Church, but God the Holy Spirit has retained both in His own hands and confers both knowledge of God and communion with God on whom He will.

The Institutes is, accordingly, just a treatise on the work of God the Holy Spirit in making God savingly known to sinful man, and bringing sinful man into holy communion with God. Therefore it opens with the great doctrine of the testimonium Spiritus Sancti--another of the fruitful doctrines which the Church owes to Calvin--in which he teaches that the only vital and vitalizing knowledge of God which a sinner can attain, is communicated to him through the inner working of the Spirit of God in his heart, without which there is spread in vain before his eyes the revelation of God's glory in the heavens, and the revelation of His grace in the perspicuous pages of the Word. And therefore, it centres in the great doctrine of Regeneration,--the term is broad enough in Calvin to cover the whole process of the subjective recovery of man to God--in which he teaches that the only power which can ever awake in a sinful heart the motions of a living faith, is the power of this same Spirit of God moving with a truly creative operation on the deadened soul. When these great ideas are developed in their full expression--with explication of all their presuppositions in the love of God and the redemption of Christ, and of all their relations and consequents--we have Calvin's theology.

Now of course, a theology which commits everything to the operations of that Spirit of God who "worketh when and where and how He pleases," hangs everything on the sovereign good--pleasure of God. Calvin's theology is therefore, predestination to the core, and he does not fail, in faithfulness to the teachings of Scripture and with clear-eyed systematizing genius, to develop its predestinarianism with fulness and with emphasis; to see in all that comes to pass the will of God fulfilling itself, and to vindicate to God the glory that is His due as the Lord and disposer of all things. But this is not the peculiarity of his theology. Augustine had taught all this a thousand years before him. Luther and Zwingli and Martin Butzer, his own teacher in these high mysteries, were teaching it all while he was learning it. The whole body of the leaders of the Reformation movement were teaching it along with him. What is special to himself is the clearness and emphasis of his reference of all that God brings to pass, especially in the processes of the new creation, to God the Holy Spirit, and the development from this point of view of a rich and full doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Here then is probably Calvin's greatest contribution to theological development. In his hands, for the first time in the history of the Church, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit comes to its rights. Into the heart of none more than into his did the vision of the glory of God shine, and no one has been more determined than he not to give the glory of God to another. Who has been more devoted than he to the Saviour, by whose blood he has been bought? But, above everything else, it is the sense of the sovereign working of salvation by the almighty power of the Holy Spirit which characterizes all Calvin's thought of God. And above everything else he deserves, therefore, the great name of the theologian of the Holy Spirit.

It would seem that after a time Wyclif's opinions almost died out in England. But meanwhile they, or opinions very like them, were eagerly taken up in Bohemia. If we look at the map of Europe, we might think that no country was less likely than Bohemia to have anything to do with England; for it lies in the midst of other countries, far away from all seas, and with no harbours to which English ships could make their way. And besides this, the people are of a different race from any that have ever settled in this country, or have helped to make the English nation, and their language has no likeness to ours. But it so happened that Richard II of England married the Princess Anne, granddaughter of the blind king who fell at Cressy, and daughter of the emperor Charles IV, who usually lived in Bohemia. And when Queen Anne of England died, and the Bohemian ladies and servants of her court went back to their own country, they took with them some of Wyclif's writings, which were readily welcomed there; for some of the Bohemian clergy had already begun a reform in the Church, and Wyclif's name was well known on account of his writings of another kind.

      Among those who thus became acquainted with Wyclif's opinions was a young man named John Huss. He had been an admirer of Wyclif's philosophical works; but when he first met with his reforming books, he was so little taken with them that he wished they were thrown into the Moldau, the river which runs through Prague, the chief city of Bohemia. But Huss soon came to think differently, and heartily took up almost all Wyclif's doctrines.

      Huss made many enemies among the clergy by attacking their faults from the pulpit of a chapel called Bethlehem, where he was preacher. He was, however, still so far in favour with the archbishop of Prague, that he was employed by him, together with some others, to inquire into a pretended miracle, which drew crowds of pilgrims to seek for cures at a place called Wilsnack, in the north of Germany. But he afterwards fell out of favour with the archbishop who had appointed him to this work, and he was still less liked by later archbishops.

      From time to time some doctrines which were said to be Wyclif's were condemned at Prague. Huss usually declared that Wyclif had been wrongly understood, and that his real meaning was true and innocent. But at length a decree was passed that all Wyclif's books should be burnt (AD 1410), and thereupon a grand bonfire was made in the courtyard of the archbishop's palace, while all the church bells of the city were tolled as at a funeral. But as some copies of the books escaped the flames, it was easy to make new copies from these.

      Huss was excommunicated, but he still went on teaching. In 1412, Pope John XXIII proclaimed a crusade against Ladislaus, King of Naples, with whom he had quarrelled, and ordered that it should be preached, and that money should be collected for it all through Latin Christendom. Huss and his chief friend, whose name was Jerome, set themselves against this with all their might. They declared it to be unchristian that a crusade should be proclaimed against a Christian prince, and that the favours of the Church should be held out as a reward for paying money or for shedding of blood. One day, as a preacher was inviting people to buy his indulgences (as they were called) for the forgiveness of sins, he was interrupted by three young men, who told him that what he said was untrue, and that Master Huss had taught them better. The three were seized, and were condemned to die; and, although it would seem that a promise was afterwards given that their lives should be spared, the sentence of death was carried into effect. The people were greatly provoked by this, and when the executioner, after having cut off the heads of the three, proclaimed (as was usual), "Whosoever shall do the like, let him look for the like!" a cry burst forth from the multitude around, "We are ready to do and to suffer the like." Women dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of the victims, and treasured it up as a precious relic. Some of the crowd even licked the blood. The bodies were carried off by the people, and were buried in Bethlehem chapel; and Huss and others spoke of the three as martyrs.

      By this affair his enemies were greatly provoked. Fresh orders were sent from Rome for the destruction of Wyclif's books, and for uttering all the heaviest sentences of the Church against Huss himself. He therefore left Prague for a time, and lived chiefly in the castles of Bohemian noblemen who were friendly to him, writing busily as well as preaching against what he believed to be the errors of the Roman Church.

The most accomplished musician of the Reformation era, he trashed the grand organ in Zurich's cathedral when he discovered that the music there was nothing more than "high-brow" entertainment devoid of gospel-significance. Superbly educated in Renaissance humanism (including the glories of fine art), he directed the demolition of priceless icons as soon as he saw that they were superstitiously venerated as magic. Sickened at the slaughter of Swiss youth in foreign wars, he helped mobilize military forces in defense of his native land and perished in battle himself.

Zwingli was born on New Year's Day, 1484, seven weeks after Luther. University studies at Berne and Basel equipped him with the "new learning" then capturing younger scholars throughout Europe. When Erasmus, a gifted linguist, sifted and sorted and finally assembled several manuscript-fragments to form a usable Greek testament (without which there would have been no Reformation), Zwingli hand-copied Erasmus's entire Greek text and memorized all of Paul's epistles.

Luther had come to gospel-conviction when tormented by his conscience: "How can an unrighteous sinner get right with the all-holy God?" Zwingli, on the other hand, came to the core of scripture when distressed not at himself but at the plight of his people, defenceless as they were on all life's fronts. Ordained to the priesthood in 1506, he was sent as assistant to a church in the province of Glarus, where he continued his humanist studies and produced his first book, a biblical critique of the social distresses prevalent in Switzerland.

The year 1513 found him accompanying Swiss soldiers-for-hire to Italy. Sickened at the carnage of Switzerland's most able-bodied, and appalled at the greed, coarseness and cruelty fostered in young men who pillaged civilians remorselessly, Zwingli determined that the iniquitous practice of mercenaries would end. He remained undeterred despite opponents who protested that the mountainous regions of Switzerland had to export soldiers in order to acquire the money needed to purchase grain and avert starvation.

Now Zingli's preaching took on a decided gospel-flavour as Luther's influence seeped into him. Soon his bishop transferred him to Zurich, the city where he would remain for the rest of his life and to which his name would be fixed as surely as Luther's was to Wittenberg and Calvin's to Geneva. As there grew in Zwingli the conviction that scripture is the normative witness to Jesus Christ and the primary source of Christian understanding and discipleship, he put aside the mediaeval practice of delivering snippet-sermons from a few prescribed texts (the lectionary) and instead preached straight through the New Testament -- in the course of seven years!

His preaching bore much fruit. One aspect of it was the gospel-freedom that led several parishioners to reject Rome's prohibition of meat during Lent. These people embodied their convictions by eating sausages immediately prior to Easter. Zwingli's bishop, formerly a supporter, now denounced him. Zwingli in turn petitioned a nation-wide church conference to authorize unimpeded preaching of the gospel together with all the implications of the gospel -- chief among which now wasn't sausages but clergy marriages. When the conference dawdled over the last point Zwingli sought to move it along by reminding delegates of what they could expect if the clergy weren't allowed to marry: another 1500 children born to "celibate" priests in one year in one province of Switzerland! (Frustrated at the conference's slowness, Zwingli secretly married Anna Reinhart, a widow with three children. Subsequently Anna and Ulrich had another four. They were publicly "married" several years later.) The city council, long nurtured by the ferment of reform effervescing everywhere in Europe, officially declared Zurich to be Protestant. In yet another of his political victories at this time the city council decreed that none of its citizens could be mercenaries under any flag.

A huge controversy exploded over the nature of Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper. Summoned to the castle in Marburg (1529) Luther and Zwingli squared off in a formidable debate that settled nothing. Luther foamed, "Before I drink mere wine with the Swiss I shall drink blood with the pope." Little did he know that Zwingli never advocated "mere wine". Luther feared having the living person of Jesus Christ disappear from the Lord's Supper. Zwingli feared the superstition of suggesting that Christ's people bite their Lord and chew on him during the communion service. Luther accused Zwingli of an empty celebration. Zwingli accused Luther of cannibalism. They simply talked past each other. In addition, Luther failed utterly to appreciate the ecclesial dimension of Zwingli's eucharistic understanding: the Lord's Supper bespeaks not only the presence and power of Jesus Christ but also the transformed fellowship of believers, a fellowship characterized by love, mutual concern and service.

When Emperor Charles V, supported by Austrian troops, threatened Protestant Switzerland, Zwingli rescinded his condemnation of war and insisted that the citizens of Zurich be protected. He helped organize the defensive forces, even accompanying them into the conflict. Wounded terribly at the battle of Capel, an enemy soldier recognized him as Zurich's leader and leapt to impale him with a sword-thrust.

The 47-year old had spent his life on behalf of the people he loved, much more involved politically than the other Reformers. No aspect of the city's communal life had escaped him. He worked as tirelessly to procure foodstuffs as he did to have divorces granted on the grounds of wife-beating, desertion, mental cruelty and sheer incompatibility.

His love for his people shone most brightly when plague overtook the city and he spent himself self-forgetfully on behalf of the sick and the dying, only to be plague-infested himself. When he had survived the pestilence he wrote his "plague-hymn", with its first stanza,

Help me, O Lord,
My strength and rock;
Lo, at the door
I hear death's knock.

When death knocked at his door in 1531 his memorable watchword was still on his lips: "Not to fear is the armour!"

Whether the Son of a King, upon his father's death, though unable by reason of his tender age to conduct the government of the kingdom, is nevertheless by right of inheritance to be regarded as a lawful magistrate, and as such to be obeyed as of divine right?

That person is, in my opinion, to be esteemed as a lawful King, who is ordained according to the just laws of the country. And thus it is clear that Edward VI of happy memory was ordained. For his father on his death-bed appointed him King, and so claimed for him the right of sovereignty, which they say is hereditary. The States of the kingdom acknowledged him, as they testified by his coronation. They provided him with counselors, endued as he was with great gifts of God: nor was anything wanting to that kingdom, which is wont to be looked for in the most prosperous kingdom elsewhere. He was therefore a lawful Sovereign, and his laws and ordinances demanded obedience; and he ruled the kingdom after a more godly manner than the three most wise and prosperous kings of that country who immediately preceded him.

Whether a Female can preside over, and rule a kingdom by divine right, and so transfer the right of sovereignty to her Husband?

The Law of God ordains the woman to be in subjection, and not to rule; which is clear from the writings of both the Old and the New Testament. But if a woman in compliance with, or in obedience to the laws and customs of the realm, is acknowledged as Queen, and, in maintenance of the hereditary right of government, is married to a Husband, or in the meantime holds the reins of government by means of her counselors, it is a hazardous thing for godly persons to set themselves in opposition to political regulations; especially as the Gospel does not seem to unsettle or abrogate hereditary rights, and the political laws of kingdoms; nor do we read that Philip the eunuch, by right of the Gospel, drove out Candace from the kingdom of Ethiopia. And if the reigning Sovereign be not a Deborah, but an ungodly and tyrannous ruler of the kingdom, godly persons have an example and consolation in the case of Athaliah. The Lord will in His own time destroy unjust governments by His own people, to whom He will supply proper qualifications for this purpose, as He formerly did to Jerubbaal, and the Maccabees, and Jehoiada. With respect, however, to her right of transferring the power of government to her Husband, those persons who are acquainted with the laws and customs of the realm can furnish the proper answer.

Whether obedience is to be rendered to a Magistrate who enforces idolatry and condemns true religion; and whether those authorities, who are still in military occupation of towns and fortresses, are permitted to repel this ungodly violence from themselves and their friends.

The history of Daniel, and the express command of God, Matthew x., and the examples of the Apostles in Acts IV. and v., as also that of many of the martyrs in ecclesiastical history, teach us that we must not obey the king or magistrate when their commands are opposed to God and His lawful worship; but rather that we should expose our persons, and lives, and fortunes to danger. This power is the power of darkness, as the Lord says in the Gospel. And Eusebius records, in the ninth book and eighth chapter of his Ecclesiastical History, that the Armenians took arms against their lawful sovereigns, the Roman emperors, who desired to force them to idolatry. And this conduct of theirs is not reproved. Those very Armenians, many years after, by reason of the ungodliness of the kings of Persian, slew their ungodly commanders, and revolted to the Emperor Justin, as is recorded by Evagrius (Eccl. Hist. v.8). For the Holy Scripture not only permits, but even enjoins upon the magistrate a just and necessary defense.

But as other objects are often aimed at under the pretext of a just and necessary assertion or maintenance of right, and the worst characters mix themselves with the good, and the times too are full of danger; it is very difficult to pronounce upon every particular case. For an accurate knowledge of the circumstances is here of great importance; and as I do not possess such knowledge, it would be very foolish in me to recommend or determine anything specific upon the subject. For even Paul, we read, made use of the Roman soldiery against those who plotted against him, and was right in doing so: yet at another time, though under almost the same or similar circumstances, he is recorded to have used only the arms of patience, and none else. There is need, therefore, in cases of this kind of much prayer, and much wisdom, lest by precipitance and corrupt affections we should so act as to occasion mischief to may worthy persons. Meanwhile, however, death itself is far preferable to the admission of idolatry.

To which party must godly persons attach themselves, in the case of a religious Nobility resisting an idolatrous Sovereign?

I leave this to be decided by the judgment of godly persons, who are well acquainted with all the circumstances, who look up in all things to the word of God, who attempt nothing contrary to the Laws of God, who obey the impulses of the Holy Ghost, and who are guided by circumstances of place, time, opportunity, persons, and things, without making any rash attempt, and who can therefore be directed more safely by their own sense of duty than by the consciences of others. But I would advise them, above all things, that those causes may be removed, on account of which hypocrites are predominant; iniquities, I mean, that we may become reconciled to God by a true repentance, and implore His counsel and assistance. He is the only and the true deliverer; and, as we read in the books of Judges and Kings, and the Ecclesiastical histories, has never been wanting to His Church. Let us lift up our eyes to Him, waiting for His deliverance, abstaining in the meantime from all superstition and idolatry, and doing what He reveals to us in His word.

Melanchthon participated in numerous visitations. These resulted in a growing concern with the poor educational system of his time. Melanchthon was not only active in educational reforms in his function as a university professor, but he also wrote numerous textbooks and founded schools and universities. He developed the concept of higher Latin schools, which are precursors of the contemporary German high school (Gymnasien). His suggestions for educational reform were influenced by the humanist ideal of education and Luther's as well as his own Reformation ideas.

The Reformation thus cannot be imagined without Melanchthon. This is also true with respect to the numerous functions he executed during Congresses and the Religious Dialogues of the 1520s-1540s, in which Melanchthon often served as the leading negotiator of the Reformation movement.

Luther thought so highly of Melanchthon that he wanted to appoint him the leader of the Reformation in case he would not return alive from the Congress in Worms, which, in fact, ended in Luther's banishment. Indeed, Melanchthon would take over this function after Luther's death and would remain the not entirely undisputed head of the Reformation until his own death in 1560.

The Protestant mystic Jacob Boehme was born in Altseidenberg, Silesia.  He received only an elementary education but was an enthusiastic student of the Bible and the works of the alchemist Paracelsus. Apprenticed to a cobbler in his youth, Boehme later opened his own shop in Görlitz, Saxony.

From an early age he saw visions, and throughout his life he claimed to be divinely inspired.  In his manuscript The Morning Redness Arising, written in 1612, he recorded his visions and expounded the attributes of God.  The work was condemned as heretical by local ecclesiastical and civil authorities, and Boehme was forced to flee to Dresden, Saxony. There he was cleared of charges of heresy and allowed to return to Görlitz.  His best-known treatises include Of the Three Principles of the Nature of God, (1619) and The Way to Christ, (1624), The Signature of all Things, and Mysterium Magnum.

As well as alchemical themes his writings contain Kabbalistic concepts.  Boehme describes the absolute nature of God as the abyss, the nothing and the all, the primordial depths from which the creative will struggles forth to find manifestation and self-consciousness.  The Father, who is groundless Will (c.f. Kabbalah - Keter the first principle is identified with Will), issues forth the Son, who is Love.

Boehme held that everything exists and is intelligible only through its opposite. Thus, he believed, evil is a necessary element in goodness, for without evil the will would become inert and progress would be impossible. Evil is a result of the striving of single elements of Deity to become the whole; conflict ensues as man and nature strive to achieve God.  God himself, according to Boehme, contains conflicting elements and antithetical principles within His nature.  (c.f. Sri Aurobindo - the Supermind (Godhead Truth-Consciousness) contains and reconciles all opposites wthin Itself

Although Boehme's style is very turgid and heavy, his works were widely read and popular in Germany, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. His English followers called themselves Behmenists. Many of them later were absorbed into the Quaker movement.  Boehme's writings have influenced modern Western thought in both philosophy and theology.  He exerted a profound influence on the philosophies of Baader, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. His ideas have also had a formative influence on Theosophy.

English Baptist preacher and writer, John Bunyan was born in Elstow, England near Bedford where he spent most of his life. Although today he is regarded as a literary genius, he had little formal education. At the age of 16, this rough and profane young man enlisted in the army of Parliament and saw active duty during the English civil war. In 1647 at the age of 19, he married a young woman who persuaded him to attend church with her regularly where he heard the Gospel. After deep and prolonged soul struggle he made a complete surrender to Christ and was converted, after which he was baptized and joined the Baptist church of Bedford.

Soon he began to preach there and also in the surrounding villages which caused the people to recognize in him elements of leadership as well as ability as an expositor of the scriptures. Continuing in his trade as a tinker, he witnessed wherever he went. He spent his holidays and Sundays preaching in barns, shops, village greens, as well as in the open air. Such great crowds began to follow him that it led to his arrest and imprisonment in 1660 for conducting a "conventicle," a religious meeting without the permission of the state church. When offered his freedom if he would promise not to preach, he refused and chose jail. While imprisoned he studied, preached, wrote, and supported his family by making and selling shoe laces.

It was while a prisoner that he wrote his immortal "Pilgrim's Progress." In 1672 he was released and immediately resumed his ministry. During the last sixteen years of his life he was active as pastor, writer, helper, counselor, organizer, administrator, and pastor-in-chief to a multitude of churches and young ministers. Bunyan was a champion for the cause of religious liberty and freedom of conscience in spiritual matters. One who knew him well wrote, "The grace of God was magnified in him and by him, and a rich anointing of the Spirit was upon him; and yet this great saint was always in his own eyes the chiefest of sinners and the poorest of saints." He died in 1688 after riding forty miles in a driving rain on horseback to London to preach. He was always a poor man, yet through his example, his ministry, and especially his pen, he bequeathed inestimable riches to posterity.

His language was not our;
‘Tis my belief God spake;
No tinder has such powers.

In my very young years I had a gravity and stayedness of mind and spirit not usual in young children: insomuch that when I saw old men behave lightly and wantonly toward each other, I had a dislike thereof raise in my heart, and I said within myself, "If ever I come to be a man, surely I shall not do so, nor be so wanton."
At the age of nineteen he gained deep personal assurance of his salvation and began to travel as an itinerant preacher seeking a return to the simple practices of the New Testament. He abhorred technical theology and preached a faith born of experience, freshly fed, and guided by the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit.

Fox was persecuted almost daily, yet his power of endurance was phenomenal. He was beaten with dogwhips, knocked down with fists and stones, brutally struck with pike staves, hard beset by mobs, incarcerated eight times in the pestilential jails, prisons, castles and dungeons: yet he went straight forward with his mission as though he had discovered some fresh courage which made him impervious to man's inhumanity.

He undertook as far as possible to let the new life in Christ take its own free course of development in his ministry. He shunned rigid forms and static systems and for that reason he refused to head a new sect, or to start a new denomination, or to begin a new church. He would not build an organization of any kind. His followers at first called themselves, "Children of the Light" and later adopted the name, "The Society (or Fellowship) of Friends."

Fox preached and travelled for forty years throughout England, Scotland, Holland, and America. His life demonstrated the truth of his famous saying, "One man raised by God's power to stand and live in the same spirit as the apostles and prophets can shake the country for ten miles around."

On any list of great English theologians, the name of Richard Hooker would appear at or near the top. His masterpiece is The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Its philosophical base is Aristotelian, with a strong emphasis on natural law eternally planted by God in creation. On this foundation, all positive laws of Church and State are developed from Scriptural revelation, ancient tradition, reason, and experience.

The occasion of his writing was the demand of English Puritans for a reformation of Church government. Calvin had established in Geneva a system whereby each congregation was ruled by a commission comprising two thirds laymen elected annually by the congregation and one third clergy serving for life. The English Puritans (by arguments more curious than convincing) held that no church not so governed could claim to be Christian.

Hooker replies to this assertion, but in the process he raises and considers fundamental questions about the authority and legitimacy of government (religious and secular), about the nature of law, and about various kinds of law, including the laws of physics as well as the laws of England. In the course of his book he sets forth the Anglican view of the Church, and the Anglican approach to the discovery of religious truth (the so-called via media, or middle road), and explains how this differs from the position of the Puritans, on the one hand, and the adherents of the Pope, on the other. He is very heavy reading, but well worth it. (He says, on the first page of Chapter I: "Those unto whom we shall seem tedious are in no wise injuried by us, seeing that it lies in their own hands to spare themselves the labor they are unwilling to endure." This translates into modern English as: "If you can't take the intellectual heat, get out of the kitchen. If you can't stand a book that makes you think, go read the funny papers.")

The effect of the book has been considerable. Hooker greatly influenced John Locke, and (both directly and through Locke), American political philosophy in the late 1700's. Although Hooker is unsparing in his censure of what he believes to be the errors of Rome, his contemporary, Pope Clement VIII (died 1605), said of the book: "It has in it such seeds of eternity that it will abide until the last fire shall consume all learning."

Hooker's best short work is his sermon, "A Learned discourse of Justification." In an earlier sermon, Hooker had expressed the hope of seeing in Heaven many who had been Romanists on earth. A Puritan preacher took him to task for this, saying that since the Romanists did not believe the doctrine of Justification by Faith, they could not be justified. Hooker replied at length in this sermon, in which he sets forth the Doctrine of Justification by Faith, and agrees with his opponent that the official theology of Rome is defective on this point; he defends his assertion that those who do not rightly understand the means that God has provided for our salvation may nonetheless be saved by it, in which connection he says (I quote from memory): "God is no captious sophister, eager to trip us up whenever we say amiss, but a courteous tutor, ready to amend what, in our weakness or our ignorance, we say ill, and to make the most of what we say aright." His sermon is often bound with the Laws, and is also available in the paperback volume Faith and Works (ed. Philip Edgecumbe Hughes, Morehouse-Barlow, Wilton CN 06897, ISBN 0-8192-1315-2)

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, certainly would have concurred. In his Journal entry for August 15, 1750, he wrote, "I was fully convinced of what I had long suspected, 1. That the Montanists, in the second and third centuries, were real, scriptural Christians; and, 2. that the grand reason why the miraculous gifts were so soon withdrawn, was not only that faith and holiness were well nigh lost; but that dry, formal, orthodox men began even then to ridicule whatever gifts they had not themselves, and to decry them all as either madness or imposture."

Wesley clearly believed that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were relevant for the church in any age. He defined them. He described them. He experienced them. He defended them.

Although Wesley never emphasized certain gifts such as predictive prophecy or tongues and their interpretation, he did regret their loss to Christians in general. In his sermon, "The More Excellent Way," he writes, "The cause of this [decline of spiritual gifts following Constantine] was not, (as has been vulgarly supposed,) `because there was no more occasion for them,' because all the world was become Christians. This is a miserable mistake; not a twentieth part of it was then nominally Christian. The real cause was, `the love of many,' almost of all Christians, so called, was `waxed cold.' The Christians had no more of the Spirit of Christ than the other Heathens. The Son of Man, when he came to examine his Church, could hardly `find faith upon earth.' This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian Church; because the Christians were turned Heathens again, and had only a dead form left."

Obviously the implication here is that when the church recovers its first love, the gifts of the Holy Spirit will be available to enable its several parts to minister effectively within their own spheres of influence. Although the "more excellent way" is the way of love, Wesley still insisted that we may "covet earnestly" such gifts as evangelism to "sound the unbelieving heart," or the gift of knowledge to understand both the providence and the grace of God, or the gift of faith "which on particular occasions,...goes far beyond the power of natural causes" (Works, 7:27).

Some argue that Wesley sounded somewhat ambivalent at times with regard to some of the more "extraordinary" gifts as they surfaced within the 18th century Evangelical Revival (no doubt concerned about the charges of "enthusiasm" against the people called Methodist). However, on at least one occasion Wesley defended the gifts of the Spirit. In a letter to Conyers Middleton (Works, 10:1-79), Wesley defined, described, and defended a whole host of spiritual gifts, including: "1. Casting out devils; 2. Speaking with new tongues; 3. Escaping dangers, in which otherwise they must have perished; 4. Healing the sick; 5. Prophecy, foretelling things to come; 6. Visions; 7. Divine dreams; And, 8. Discerning of spirits" (Works, 10:16). Although the order and even the mention of some "gifts" not normally associated with the biblical accounts (such as visions and dreams) may seem a bit strange, the fact remains that Wesley believed that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were not only important but also were active during the 18th century Evangelical Revival.

When Middleton charged "that the silence of all the apostolic writers on the subject of the gifts, must dispose us to conclude they were then withdrawn," Wesley immediately responded: "O Sir, mention this no more. I entreat you, never name their silence again. They speak loud enough to shame you as long as you live" (Works 10:23).

Healing

Let us examine the gift of healing. I have frequently said that it is not a sin to be sick or to die. It is, however, a sin for sickness and death to go unchallenged because there is no one to pray.

Wesley clearly believed that the gift of healing tapped the supernatural power of God. Again, in response to Middleton's insistence that no "miraculous healing" had ever been proved, Wesley responded, "Sir, I understand you well. The drift of the argument is easily seen. It points at the Master, as well as his servants; and tends to prove that, after all this talk about miraculous cures, we are not sure there were ever any in the world. But it will do no harm. For although we grant, (1) That some recover, even in seemingly desperate cases; and, (2) That we do not know, in any case, the precise bounds between nature and miracle; yet it does not follow, Therefore, I cannot be assured there ever was a miracle of healing in the world. To explain this by instance: I do not precisely know how far nature may go in healing, that is restoring sight of the blind; yet this I assuredly know, that if a man born blind is restored to sight by a word, this is not nature, but miracle" (Works, 10:22).

James 5:14-16 exhorts Christians to pray for and anoint the sick with oil. Surely it is good to know that both Wesley and the Scriptures are on the side of those whose only hope for earthly ministry is in securing "weapons with divine power for demolishing strongholds" (2 Cor. 10:4).

"Casting out devils"

In a sermon preached from the lectionary text (Mark 1:21-28) at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary a few years ago, I reminded the students that it was not my task to convince anyone of the existence of demons; their first appointment usually took care of that. Instead, it was my task to be faithful to the biblical accounts of a power available for "demolishing strongholds," demonic or otherwise. Wesley might well have been pleased.

The letter written to Conyers Middleton is Wesley's most definitive statement on the gifts of the Holy Spirit (although written in the sometimes confusing style of rebuttal and controversy). As with the gift of healing, Wesley makes reference both to Scripture and experience.

In his sermon, "A Caution Against Bigotry," Wesley attempts to set the biblical and theological stage for "casting out devils." He writes, "In order to have the clearest view of this, we should remember, that (according to the scriptural account) as God dwells and works in the children of light, so the devil dwells and works in the children of darkness. As the Holy Spirit possesses the souls of good men, so the evil spirit possesses the souls of the wicked."

As he does with regard to all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Wesley responds to Middleton on the subject of "deliverance" openly and plainly: "The testimonies concerning this are out of number, and as plain as words can make them. To show, therefore, that all these signify nothing, and that there were never any devils cast out at all, neither by the Apostles, nor since the Apostles, (for the argument proves both or neither,) is a task worthy of you" (Works, 10:41).

Middleton then claims that "those who were said to be possessed of the devil, may have been ill of the falling sickness...the ordinary symptoms of an epilepsy." As for the "evidence of devils speaking and answering to all questions," Middleton simply shrugs. He accounts for these "by the arts of imposture, and contrivance between the persons concerned in the act." Wesley's reply is straightforward: "Is not this something extraordinary, that men in epileptic fits should be capable of so much art and contrivance?" (Works, 10:41-42).

To Middleton's charge that even the Church Fathers "were either induced by their prejudices to give too hasty credit to these pretended possessions, or carried away by their zeal to support a delusion which was useful to the Christian cause" (a sentiment not unheard of today), Wesley insists that "not one of these Fathers made any scruple of using the hyperbolical style, (that is, in plain English, of lying,) as the eminent writer declares" (Works, 10:42).

As to how these "demons" might be overcome, Wesley is adamant: "All this is indeed the work of God. It is God alone who can cast out Satan. But he is generally pleased to do this by man, as an instrument in his hand; who is then said to cast out devils in his name, by his power and authority. And he sends whom he will send upon this great work; but usually such as man would never have thought of: For `his ways are not as our ways, neither his thoughts as our thoughts.' Accordingly, he chooses the weak to confound the mighty; the foolish to confound the wise; for this plain reason, that he may secure the glory to himself; that `no flesh may glory in his sight'" (Works, 5:484).

Speaking in tongues

Although there is no record that Wesley himself ever spoke in tongues, there is evidence that he believed that this gift of the Holy Spirit was a legitimate gift for the Church of any age. I offer but two quotations from his letter to Middleton.

In response to Middleton, Wesley writes: "Since the Reformation, you say, `This gift has never once been heard of, or pretended to, by the Romanists themselves.' But has it been pretended to (whether justly or not) by no others, though not by the Romanists? Has it `never once been heard of' since that time? Sir, your memory fails you again: It has undoubtedly been pretended to, and that at no great distance either from our time or country. It has been heard of more than once, no farther off than the valleys of Dauphiny. Nor is it yet fifty years ago since the Protestant inhabitants of those valleys so loudly pretended to this and other miraculous powers, as to give much disturbance to Paris itself. And how did the King of France confute that pretense, and prevent its being heard any more? Not by the pen of his scholars, but by (a truly heathen way) the swords and bayonets of his dragoons" (Works, 10:55-56).

As for the relevance of the gift of tongues for the church of any age Wesley once more responds to Middleton: "`All these [spiritual gifts] worketh by one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will;' and as to every man, so to every Church, every collective body of men;...seeing He who worketh as He will, may, with your [Middleton's] good leave, give the gift of tongues, where He gives no other; and may see abundant reasons so to do, whether you and I see them or not. For perhaps we have not always known the mind of the Lord; not being of the number of his counselors" (Works, 10:56).

We may conclude this examination of Wesley's views on the gifts of the Holy Spirit with mention of his defense of "raising the dead." Wesley objects to Middleton's insistence that "there is not an instance of this [raising the dead] to be found in the three first centuries." Wesley quotes Irenaeus, the influential 2nd century Bishop of Lyons: "This was frequently performed on necessary occasions; when by great fastings and the joint supplication of the Church, the spirit of the dead person returned into him, and the man was given back to the prayers of the saints." Wesley then concludes himself: "I presume you mean, no heathen historian has mentioned it; for Christian historians were not. I answer, (1) It is not probable a heathen historian would have related such a fact, had he known it. (2) It is equally improbable, he should know it;...especially considering. Thirdly, that it was not designed for the conversion of the Heathens; but `on occasions necessary' for the good of the Church, of the Christian community. Lastly: It was a miracle proper, above all others, to support and confirm the Christians, who were daily tortured and slain, but sustained by the hope of obtaining a better resurrection" (Works, 10:39).

Again and again, the writings of John Wesley remind us that God has more invested in our ministry than we do. God makes power available (there must be thousands of spiritual gifts) to each of us that we might minister effectively within our own spheres of influence. Since our spheres are different, our gifts will be different. I do not covet your gift and you do not covet mine; but, together we are the body of Christ. Let God arise!

Born in East Pomeranian, Johannes Bugenhagen studied humanistics in Greifswald and was ordained as priest before taking up diverse positions as a teacher of the Scriptures and as Father of the Church. Initially Bugenhagen categorically disapproved of Luther's anti-Roman paper "The Babylonian imprisonment of the church" published in 1521.

After more intensive study of this hypothesis, he did however become a firm supporter of the Reformation Movement and moved to Wittenberg. "Doctor Pommer", as Luther called him, became one of the most effective reformers.

He was not only active as Wittenberg's town priest from 1523 onwards, Luther`s personal spiritual adviser and theology lecturer at the Wittenberg University, but also an exceptionally good organizer and indispensable for the Reformation in northern Germany and Scandinavia.

He founded a church polity for Braunschweig, Hambur, Luebeck, Pomeranian, Schleswig-Holstein, Hildesheim, Braunschweig-Wolfenbuettel and Denmark. He even helped in their initiation and realization. They regulated not only the divine service, but also worldly such as the educational system and social matters.

Bugenhagen was made superintendent general of the Electorate of Saxony in 1539.

After Martin Luther's death Bugenhagen attended to his widow and children.

Johannes Bugenhagen died in Wittenberg in 1558. His tombstone can be seen in the City Church.

This page tries to go behind some of the myths about J.V. Andreæ.

For example, Andreæ is regularly listed as an 'alchemist'. Although Andreæ's father had a serious interest in alchemy, I know of no evidence that Johann Valentin ever engaged in this branch of chemistry. There are numerous points in Andreæ's work where he makes fun of alchemists, and in general he places them alongside charlatans or self-deceiving fools. On the other hand, Andreæ distinguishes between the disreputable, worldly form of activities (e.g. music, art, theatre, alchemy, astrology), and their commendable versions which are spiritually or morally beneficial. His early works do include the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz, but there are many conflicting interpretations of this work.

So if we want to know what Andreæ is about, I think we need to go behind the secondary literature, which is often unreliable or inaccurate, and back to the primary sources. The problem is that these are often inaccessible - the texts are rare, and the language in which they are written is difficult. This page will try to help here, by assembling relevant passages and putting them into their context.

TIMELINE for Johann Valentin Andreæ
(1498-1566) Jakob Endris, great-grandfather of Johann Valentin Andreæ: a blacksmith who left the family home near Eichstädt, Bavaria, and travelled as a wandering craftsman through Bohemia, Hungary, France, and Spain before settling down in Waiblingen, Württemberg. His eldest son:

(1528-1590) Jakob Andreæ made a career in the church; known as the 'Luther of Württemberg' helped develop the Formula of Concord (1577) and became Chancellor of the University of Tübingen.

Born in Treuenbrietzen, in 1522, he was the last of three children given to Paul and Euphemia Chemnitz. Chemnitz life of education was varied and marked by constant moving (because of financial difficulties). He studied at Wittenberg (1536-1538), Magdeburg (1539-42), Calbe (1542), Frankfurt on the Oder (1543-44), where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree, again at Wittenberg (1545-47) under the tutelage of Melancthon, and Königsberg (1547-53). At Königsberg he was able to obtain his Master of Arts degree, and began his study of theology (from 1550-1553) in the Duke’s personal library. From there he again returned to Wittenberg, and was made a member of the faculty in 1554. Later that year, he accepted a call as coadjutor of Braunschweig to his friend Joachim Morlin and pastor of Martin Church, where he would remain until his death in 1586. During his time in Braunchweig he received his doctorate at the University of Rostock (1568), and took over the office of the superintendent (1567).

It was the latter part of the sixteenth century that proved to be one of the greatest battlegrounds for orthodox Lutheranism, which found itself facing many opponents and varied controversies. The Catholic Church, newly revitalized from the council of Trent (1545-1563), was now ready to take a decisive stand against the Protestants. John Calvin had come onto the scene, along with his corrupt theology. It was in the doctrines of the Lord’s Supper and the Person of Christ that Calvinism posed its greatest threat to Lutheranism, with proponents of these errors masking their heterodoxy under the supposed title of “Lutheran” (these men were named “Crypto-Calvinists” because they hid their Calvinistic inclinations). Under the unsteady hand of Melancthon, Wittenberg itself became a hotbed for Crypto-Calvinists. Add to this the Osiandrian controversy, the Synergists and the Anabaptists, and one can clearly see that Satan was again hard at work trying to destroy the Gospel, which had been snuffed out in medieval theology, but God had again brought to light through Luther.

It was in these turbulent times that God graced our Church with the second Martin, who, using Scripture as his guide, soundly defeated the errorists in turn. In response to the Catholics he wrote his famous, four-volume work Examination of the Council of Trent, one of the great masterpieces of Lutheran theology. Against the Crypto-Calvinists he worked tirelessly, writing De Coena Domini (The Lord’s Supper) in 1560, and De Duabus Naturis in Christo (the Two Natures in Christ) published in 1570, and expanded in 1578. But his greatest contribution to Lutheranism is his work in producing the Formula of Concord. In collaboration with Jacob Andreae, Phillip Selnecker, David Chytraeus, Andrew Musculus, and Christopher Korner, the Bergic Book was produced in 1577, which we today call the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord.

This was the flag under which orthodox Lutheranism rallied. Unbiased, it simply reproduced the Scriptural positions of the doctrines in question, taking its stance on the Bible and Luther. The doctrines of the Lord’s supper and of the Person of Christ were hammered out, so that there was no place for the Crypto-Calvinists to hide. The work itself, written primarily by Chemnitz, was ascribed to by most of the Lutheran parts of the empire (Chemnitz’s home town, Braunschweig, did not subscribe to it until years later, not because of doctrinal differences, but because of a personal quarrel between Duke Julius and Chemnitz).

We in the WELS would do well to better acquaint ourselves with Martin Chemnitz, both his life and his works. Our second greatest Father, he stands out as a theologian and pastor in the truest sense, following in the footsteps of the first Martin and taking an uncompromising stand on Scripture. The 17th century saying is certainly true (written above in Latin), “If the second Martin (Chemnitz) had not come, the first Martin (Luther) would not have stood.”

A dithering ecclesiastical Hamlet, an heretical schismatic, and an heroic defender of reformed Christianity, Thomas Cranmer has been vilified and praised with such words by his own and every succeeding generation.

Born in 1489 in Aslacton, Nottingham, the son of a village squire, he was educated there and afterwards entered Jesus College at Cambridge University, where he received an M.A. and married his first wife, Joan. After her death during childbirth he became a fellow of the same college and was ordained and went on to earn both a B.D. and a D.D. His intense study put him in contact with continental reformed theology that emphasized the strong role of both the Bible and secular authority over against the authority of the Pope in governing the Church.

When, in 1529, the divorce proceedings between the King, Henry VIII, and the Queen, Catherine of Aragon, were on the point of breaking down in a way the King didn't much like, Cranmer suggested that the question of the King's marriage be considered by the universities of Europe. This idea was so warmly received by the King when he heard about it that he quickly put Cranmer in his pay to help carry this out.

In 1532 while on an embassy to the Emperor, Charles V, about the King's marriage, Cranmer married his second wife, Margaret, the daughter of a Lutheran theologian. After his consecration as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533 she disappeared from public view to conform to the King's opinions of clerical marriage until King Henry's death and the reforms of his son, Edward VI, formally allowed the clergy to marry.

But Cranmer was moved by more than his King's opinions on every issue. In the reign of Henry VIII he worked to publish an officially authorized translation of the English Bible, beginning at a time when owning even a part of the Bible in English carried a death sentence.

He did not participate in the official government policy of dissolving the monasteries and he openly opposed some laws that limited the Church's authority including those that forced him to banish his wife whom he had already sent into hiding.

In the brief years of Henry's son, Edward's reign (1547-1553) he dramatically carried forward the project of reform in his own terms. He promoted Biblical preaching in a Book of Homilies and, what he argued was, more Biblical worship in the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 and 1552.

It is surely unfortunate that these two Prayer Books have been used by subsequent generations of Anglicans as sticks with which to beat each other.

The Eucharist in the first book has been regarded as more ‘catholic' than the second. Often cited are the words of administration: in the first book. "The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your Body and soul unto everlasting life, The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your body and soul unto everlasting life"; in the second book beginning with Jesus' own words at the Last Supper: "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving, Drink this in remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for thee, and be thankful".

Cranmer is criticized as a receptionist [not the kind you meet in a dentist's office] for teaching here and elsewhere that Christ is received by the faithful Christian in Communion in a way that does not depend on the bread and wine by themselves but on the heart of the believer. [Elizabeth I in restoring the Prayer Book in 1559 printed both forms of administration, and both have been printed together ever since.] Exactly, he would say, to say more would be "to overthrow the nature of a sacrament". The sign would be confused with the thing that it signifies. Moreover, both of Cranmer's Prayer Books represent a profound and mystical theology of incorporation and transformation into Christ by Christ. He does not speak of a dead Christ or an absent Christ.

The Bible is to be read through by the whole congregation, heard and received as the nourishment of the new life in the risen Christ. The Gospel Sacraments are celebrated as "mysteries and tokens of his love", baptism, "to make us like unto him", the Eucharist, "to enable us to dwell in him and He in us".)

King Edward was succeeded by his sister Mary, a convinced Roman Catholic, who remembered Cranmer's responsibility for her mother's unhappy divorce from her father. Accused, tried and sentenced to death for treason, he was spared by Mary until he was finally tried for heresy.

Sentenced for that offense and publicly degraded, Cranmer recanted almost his whole position, affirmed transubstantiation (a more physical belief in the presence of Christ in the bread and wine an Communion) and the supreme authority of the Pope in the English Church.

Nonetheless he was sentenced to death, when finally given the opportunity to speak before and during his execution (at Oxford on March 21st, 1556, by burning at the stake, a form of execution restored by Mary that he had abolished) he renounced his recantations and his cowardice, holding the hand with which he had signed the documents outlining his recantation into the flames.

That final apparent indecision and weakness is in fact, I think, the result of his deep consistency. He genuinely trusted in the role of lay authority, represented by the King or Prince, in the Church's life.

The final difficulty of Cranmer's life was that Mary, the Prince whom he obeyed, was obedient to the Pope.

We must honour Thomas Cranmer and be grateful to him, for in the English Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, the Book of Homilies, he helped translate and reform the faith and worship of the English speaking world, recalling it to a simpler more direct proclamation of Christ and the Gospel. His faith enriches ours day by day and week by week whenever we pick up the scriptures, open the Prayer Book, and indeed, whenever we open our mouths, for along with Shakespeare, the English Bible (revised again in 1611, admittedly) and the Book of Common Prayer are as formative of our very language as they are of our faith.

English Protestant prelate, reformer, and martyr, born near Willimoteswyke, Northumberland, and educated at Pembroke Hall, University of Cambridge, and the universities of Paris and Leuven. He returned to Cambridge as junior treasurer of his college, thereafter becoming university proctor and, finally, chaplain to the university. In 1537, having shown leanings toward the Reformation, he was made chaplain to Thomas Cranmer, then archbishop of Canterbury, and received other ecclesiastical preferences. He became chaplain to King Henry VIII in 1541. During the reign of Edward VI Ridley rose to prominence. He had by this time renounced the doctrine of transubstantiation. In 1547 he was named bishop of Rochester. Ridley helped Cranmer to compile the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-nine Articles and was appointed to help establish Protestantism in the University of Cambridge. In 1550 he became bishop of London. After the death of Edward, Ridley supported Lady Jane Grey as successor to the throne and publicly pronounced both of King Henry VIII's daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, illegitimate. When Mary, a Roman Catholic, was proclaimed queen he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he wrote statements defending his religious opinions. In 1554, refusing to recant, he was declared a heretic and excommunicated, and in 1555 he was tried under the penal laws instituted by the Catholic queen, which provided for the execution of heretics. Ridley was burned at the stake with the English prelate and reformer Hugh Latimer. His writings (Works) were published in 1841.

Born 1485, in Thurcaston, Leicestershire, Hugh Latimer greatly advanced the cause of the Reformation in England through his vigorous preaching and through the inspiration of martyrdom.

Latimer was the son of a prosperous yeoman farmer.. Educated at Cambridge University, he was ordained a priest around 1510. In the two decades before 1530 he gradually acquired a reputation as a preacher at Cambridge. At first he subscribed to orthodox Roman Catholicism, but in 1525 he came into contact with a group of young Cambridge divines who were influenced by Martin Luther's Biblical, Reformed doctrines. He attributed his conversion by God's grace to the ministrations of Thomas Bilney.

After gaining royal favour by speaking out in support of the efforts of King Henry VIII to obtain an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Latimer received the benefice of West Kingston, Wiltshire, in1531. He soon befriended two rising Reformers: Thomas Cromwell, who was to become the King's chief minister, and the future Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer.

Accusations of heretical preachings were made against him and he refused in January 1532 to subscribe to certain articles of faith such as the existence of purgatory and the need to venerate saints. Consequently, he was excommunicated and imprisoned until he made a complete submission (April 1532).

Nevertheless, thanks to Cromwell's influence, Latimer was elevated in 1535 to the bishopric of Worcester. By 1536 he was generally regarded as one of the Reform leaders, even though there is no sign that he played any part in the various attempts of those years to introduce changes in church doctrine. As a result of a temporary return in England to a favouring of Roman Catholicism, Latimer was forced to resign his See in 1539, and upon the sudden fall of Thomas Cromwell in July 1540, he lost his main support at Court.

For the remainder of Henry's reign Latimer existed in the shadows. Apparently he incurred suspicion of heresy at intervals and spent some time in the Tower of London, where he was incarcerated during the last few months before the accession of the boy king Edward VI in January 1547. The new reign, with its rapid advance of Biblical Protestantism, gave Latimer the opportunity to exercise his great talents. He refused to resume his bishopric, because he wanted to be free to preach without fear or favour. His sermons attracted large crowds and were often patronized by the Court.

With other Commonwealthmen, he attacked enclosure as a cause of depopulation and poverty. Because of his great contribution, under God's blessing, in the spread and establishment of the Reformation, Latimer was a marked man when the catholic Mary Tudor ascended the throne. In September 1553 he was arrested on charges of treason; taken to Oxford for trial, he was burned there with the Reformer Nicholas Ridley on October 16, 1555. At the stake Latimer immortalized himself by exhorting Ridley with the words: "...we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England as I trust shall never be put out."

During the reign of Edward VI Latimer preached the Gospel in many places. Frequently his voice was heard at St. Paul's Cross. In 1548 Latimer commenced a series of sermons from the pulpit at St. Paul's raising his voice in protest at the injustice of the wealthy toward the poor. Rich and poor, high and low came and heard him protest at oppression of every kind.

"You landlords, you rent-raisers, you have for your possession too much...and thus is caused such dearth, that poor men that live on their labour cannot with the sweat of their faces have their living. I tell you my lords and masters, this is not for the King's honour; it is to the King's honour that his subjects be led in true religion. It is to the King's honour that the commonwealth be advanced, that the dearth be provided for, and the commodities of this realm so employed as it may be to the setting of his subjects at work, and keeping them from idleness...The enhancing and bearing goes all to your private commodity and wealth. Ye had a single too much, and now ye have a double too much; but let the preacher preach till his tongue be worn to a stump, nothing is amended. This one thing I tell you, from whom it cometh, I know, even from the Devil...".

Preaching his famous sermon on "The Plough" he said to a number of bishops standing before him, "Who is the most diligent prelate in all England, that passeth all the rest in the doing of his office? I will tell you. It is the Devil!...Therefore, you unpreaching prelates, learn of the devil to be diligent in your office. If you will not learn of God, for shame learn of the Devil!"

It has long been a settled point, that the Scriptures make a wide distinction between faith, the assurance of faith, and the full assurance of faith.

1. Faith is the hand by which we embrace or touch, or reach toward, the garment of Christ's righteousness, for our own justification.-Such a soul is undoubtedly safe.

2. Assurance I consider as the ring which God puts, upon faith's finger.-Such a soul is not only safe, but also comfortable and happy.

Nevertheless, as a finger may exist without wearing a ring, so faith may be real without the superadded gift of assurance. We must either admit this, or set down the late excellent Mr. Hervey (among a multitude of others) for an unbeliever. No man, perhaps, ever contended more earnestly for the doctrine of assurance than he, and yet I find him expressly declaring as follows: "What I wrote, concerning a firm faith in God's most precious promises, and a humble trust that we are the objects of his tender love, is what I desire to feel, rather than what I actually experience." The truth is, as another good man expresses it, "A weak hand may tie the marriageknot; and a feeble faith may lay bold on a strong Christ.

Moreover, assurance after it has been vouchsafed to the soul may be lost. Peter no doubt lost his assurance, and sinned it away, when he denied Christ. He did not, however, lose the principle of faith; for Christ had before-hand prayed, concerning him, that his faith itself might not fail: and Christ could not possibly pray in vain. -- A wife may lose her wedding-ring. But that does not dissolve her marriage relation She continues a lawful wife still. And yet she is not easy until she find her ring again.

3. Full assurance I consider as the brilliant, or cluster of brilliants, which adorns the ring, and renders it incomparably more beautiful and valuable. Where the diamond of full assurance is thus set in the gold of faith, it diffuses its rays of love, joy, peace, and holiness, with a lustre which leaves no room for doubt or darkness.While these high and unclouded consolations remain, the believer's felicity is only inferior to that of angels, or of saints made perfect above.

4. After all, I apprehend that the very essence of assurance lies in communion with God. While we feel the sweetness of his inward presence, we cannot doubt of our interest in his tender mercies. So long as the Lord speaks comfortably to our hearts, our affections are on fire, our views are clear, and our faces shine. It is when we come down from the mount, and when we mix with the world again, that we are in danger of losing that precious sense of his love, which is the strength of saints militant, and the joy of souls triumphant.

But let not trembling believers forget that faith, strictly so called, is neither more nor less than a receiving of Christ, for ourselves in particular, as our only possible propitiation, righteousness, and Saviour: John i. 12. -- Hast thou so received Christ? Thou art a believer, to all the purposes of safety. -- And it deserves special notice that our Lord calls the centurion's faith "great faith;" though it rose no higher than to make him say "Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.'.' Matt. viii. 8-10.

The case likewise of the Canaanitish woman is full to the present point. Her cry was, "Have mercy on me, 0 Lord, thou Son of David!" And, a little after, -Lord, help me!" Jesus at first gave her a seeming repulse: but her importunity continued, and she requested only the privilege of a dog, viz., to eat of the crumbs which fell from the master's table. What were our Saviour's answer and our Saviour's remark? An answer and a remark which ought to make every broken sinner take down his harp from the willows: -- "O woman, great is thy faith." Matt. x. 22-28.

5. The graces which the blessed Spirit implants in our hearts (and the grace of faith among the rest) resemble a sun-dial; which is of little service except when the sun shines upon it. The Holy Ghost must shine upon the graces he has given, or they will leave us at a loss (in point of spiritual comfort), and be unable to tell us where-abouts we are. May he, day by day, rise upon our souls with healing in his beams! Then shall we be filled with all joy and peace in believing, and abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. Rom. xv. 13.

6. Are there any weak in faith who come under the denomination of bruised reeds and smoking flax? Let them know that God will take care of them. The former will not be broken: the latter shall not be quenched. Bless God for any degree of faith; even though it be as the smallest of all seeds, sooner or later it will surely expand into a large and fruitful tree.However, stop not here; but, as the apostle advises, covet earnestly the best gifts: and the gift of assurance, yea, of fullest assurance among the rest. The stronger you are in faith, the more glory you will give to God, both in lip and life. Lord, increase our faith! Amen.

John Newton was the son of an English sea captain. His mother, a deeply pious woman, gave him spiritual instruction until she died when he was only 7 years old. At the age of 11, John went to sea and spent the next twenty years as a sailor engaged in slave trading. His life was spent in the lowest sort of wickedness. At one time he himself was the property of an African woman who fed him only that which she threw under her table. He was nearly killed several times during terrible storms at sea. During one of those storms his wicked life passed before him and deep conviction caused him to cry out to God for salvation. The next several years were spent in preparation for the ministry. He learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; and studied the scriptures intensively. In 1764 he was appointed pastor in the parish of Olney, England, where he served for sixteen years before moving to St. Mary Woolnoth in the city of London. In addition to his pastoral duties, Newton was an ardent writer. His works included Omicron, Narrative, Review of Ecclesiastical History, and Cardiphonia. His greatest fame came from his work as a writer of hymns, the most familiar was "Amazing Grace" which depicts in its verses the life story of John Newton.

Bible translator and reformer, Tyndale was ordained as a priest in 1521, having studied Greek diligently at Oxford and Cambridge universities Following his studies he joined Sir John Walsh's household, with duties not easy to define. Some accounts describe him as a tutor to Sir John's children; some make him chaplain to the household; while another suggests he acted as secretary to Sir John.

One day Tyndale was engaged in a discussion with a learned man who told him it was better to be without God's law than that of the Pope. To this Tyndale retorted that he defied the Pope and all his laws, adding that if God were to spare his life, before many years passed he would cause a boy who drove the plough to know more of the Scriptures than this learned man. Tyndale had found his vocation: translation of the Bible into English.

Tyndale conferred with Luther in Germany and stayed on the continent translating the Bible from Greek into English. The printing of the translation was begun at Cologne in 1525, but was stopped by an injunction obtained by Johann Dobeneck, a vain and conceited man who hated the Reformation and opposed it in every possible way. Tyndale fled to Worms, where the book was printed. Copies were smuggled into England, where Archbishop Warham and Bishop Tonstall ordered them seized and burned.

Eventually Tyndale was betrayed by a friend and arrested in Brussels, Belgium. Despite the efforts of Thomas Cromwell and others to save him, he was tried for treason and heresy against the Church. He was condemned, degraded from holy orders, strangled, and his body burned. His last words were a prayer, "Lord, open the king of England's eyes."

Tyndale's influence upon English literature was great, chiefly through the use made of his renderings in the King James Version of the Bible (1611). It is estimated that 60 percent of this translation is derived from that of Tyndale.

Wycliffe was a saxon, born in Hipswell, England. From Oxford University he received the doctor of theology degree in 1372. After serving as envoy to France, representing England in a dispute with the Pope, he returned to England and wrote against the secular power of the Papacy. In spite of attempts by the Church to have Wycliffe arrested and assassinated, he continued to write and preach. He maintained that no Pope or council was infallible, and that if their views contradicted the Bible, those views were wrong. He taught that the clergy should not rule as "princes of the church," but should help the people and "lead them to Christ."

No preacher ever regarded the condition of the people more sincerely or set about to help them more persistently than did John Wycliffe. Mingling among the common people, he developed an understanding for the poor. In a day when monks and friars were neglecting the ministry to the poor, Wycliffe's attitude was one of a shepherd rather than a hireling. Like Jesus in Galilee, John Wycliffe preached to the poor and lost the favor of those in high places. He opposed their blind worship of something they did not understand while the priests made their understanding darker and their ignorance greater.

Wycliffe's purpose was to bring to the common people the truth that the way of salvation lay through an understanding of spiritual light. In his preaching, he sought to develop an understanding of the Bible and its message of salvation through Jesus Christ. Convincingly he confronted his listeners with the demands of the Christian life. John Wycliffe's message was one of hope and salvation in the midst of poverty, corruption, and misery.

In answer to the question, "How must the Word of God be preached?" Wycliffe once answered, "Appropriately, simply, directly, and from a devout, sincere heart."

Finally prohibited by the Bishop of London from preaching, Wycliffe confined himself to writing and translating the Bible from Latin to English. Thirty-one years after his death, the Church ordered all his books burned, his bones dug up and burned, and his ashes scattered on the Thames River.