History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, Vol. 7 (of 8)Merle d'Aubigné, J. H. (Jean Henri)
History
History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, Vol. 7 (of 8)
Merle d'Aubigné, J. H. (Jean Henri)
Reformation
Conquests more solid and more complete were in preparation. Devay, as we
said, had gone into Switzerland. He had seen there the best men of the
Helvetic Reformation, and had attached himself to the principles which
they professed, towards which he had previously been attracted by his
intercourse with Melanchthon, by his own study of Holy Scripture, and by
his meditations in the prisons of Vienna. It was no longer the rather
superficial theory of Zwinglius, but the more spiritual and profound
doctrine of Calvin, that he had chiefly been in contact with. When he
learnt that the disorders of the Mussulman invasion had come to an end
and that it was once more possible to labor in Hungary to win souls to
the Gospel, he returned home. He did not make his appearance there in
any sectarian spirit. Christ crucified, the wisdom of God and the power
of God, and a new birth by the operation of the Holy Spirit, always
formed the basis of his teaching. But aiming at a close union with
Christ he said—_Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His
blood, ye have no life in you_; adding however as the Saviour did—_It is
the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing_. At Eperies and
other towns in the mountains, there were some Hungarian ministers,
disciples of Luther, who were astonished to hear that the man, who like
them had for his master the Wittenberg reformer, spoke like Calvin. To
these men it gave great pain to see that their fellow-countryman
disagreed with the great doctor whom they had so long held in honor.
They might, however, have rejoiced at the fact that Devay declared that
_the flesh of Christ is meat indeed and His blood is drink indeed_. The
real doctrine of Luther and the real doctrine of Calvin respecting the
Lord’s Supper approximate to each other sufficiently for Lutherans to
respect that of the Reformed Church, and for the Reformed Church to
respect the Confession of Augsburg. Both sides ought to have done this,
even had their difference on this point been greater than it really was,
since both said—_Christ is all in all_. But it was the misfortune of
that age that many fastened upon a few differences of detail rather than
upon the great truths on which they were agreed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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