Influence on Switzerland
His doctrines rapidly spread through Switzerland. Northern Switzerland, which was German and not French like Geneva, had already received the doctrines of the reformation from Zwingli and Oecolampadius before French Switzerland ever was touched by them. The first problem in Calvin's time was to unite the two parts of Switzerland, the Germans in the north and the French in the south. There were some differences between them.
On the Lord's Supper the theologians of Zurich were considered somewhat lower than Calvin. They inclined more toward the memorial view while Calvin emphasized the spiritual presence of Christ at the supper. They differed in church government. German Switzerland held to a close union of the church with the state, so that the state would punish offenders in the church by a civil act as a fine and imprisonment. Calvin separated them more, emphasizing the right of the church to exercise excommunication over its own members. Also on predestination they differed; the Germans being lower and holding to the doctrine of the universal atonement, while Calvin held that Christ died for the elect.
The Lutherans in Germany seeing these differences in Switzerland, were hoping to gain the followers of Calvin; or at least to so divide the Protestants of Switzerland as to further weaken them against Lutheranism. And in the German cantons of Berne and Basle for a time they gained control. But all these differences between German and French Switzerland were harmonized and Calvin's doctrines gained the victory, when, after some negotiations with Bullinger, the head leader of German Switzerland, they agreed, in 1549, on a new creed about the Lord's Supper, the Tigurine Confession, in which Calvin's views were accepted on the Lord's Supper, and also on the restriction of its benefits to the elect. This new creed made Switzerland a unit on the Reformed faith.
Nor did the influence of Calvin stop here. The lower form of Reformed doctrines in regard to predestination held by Bullinger gradually gave way to Calvin's higher views. Even at Zurich, Berne, and Basle by the latter part of the sixteenth century, the leaders of the church, as Stucki at Zurich and Gryneus of Basle held to the higher Calvinism. This reign of Calvinism continued until in 1675. Switzerland had become so high in its Calvinism that, over against the lower form of Calvinism held by the theological school of Saumur in France, they drew up a new creed the Helvetic Consensus, the highest of the Calvinistic Creeds in existence. And it was adopted by all the cantons. This reveals Calvin's doctrines regnant in Switzerland as in hardly any other land.
A reaction came about 1720 through the influence of foreign rulers and churches and Basle, Neuchâtel, and Geneva gave up subscription to that creed. But Zurich and Berne clung to their strict Calvinism for a considerable time longer and resented the interference of foreign powers as an impertinent interference in things that belonged only to the Swiss. After that time, due to the rationalism and the liberalizing theology of the nineteenth century, Calvinism as a system has pretty well passed away in Switzerland although an attempt was made to revive the old Calvinism of the Second Helvetic Confession when the theological seminary was founded at Geneva about 1830 by Gaussen, d'Aubigné, and Malan.
Influence on Germany
The influence of Calvin on Germany was also great, although not so predominately great as in Switzerland. For Luther and Lutheranism had already become the great religious force in Germany. Still the influence of the Reformed church was very considerable. And of the Reformed reformers, none exerted greater influence than Calvin. Already before his time, Zwingli had, by his visit to Marburg to the Marburg conference (1529), exerted a considerable influence for the Reformed. Later Calvin, while pastor at Strassburg in Germany (1538-41), exerted considerable influence, both in that city and at the political conferences as at Ratisbon. He there formed a strong friendship for Melancthon and influenced the reformers of Strassburg, Bucer, and Capito. In 1556 he made another visit to Germany to intercede with the Lutheran authorities of Frankford for the Reformed refugees who had found an asylum there, but his visit had little result. But the real foundations of the Reformed Church in Germany were not laid until a year or two before Calvin's death, when Heidelberg with its ruler Elector Frederick III became Reformed.
Calvin, however, by correspondence with the reformers to Germany such as Hedio, Sturm, Sleidanus at Strasburg, Frederick III and Olevianus at Heidelberg, and Landgrave Philip of Hesse exerted considerable influence. But Calvin's chief influence on Germany came after his death as his doctrines more and more permeated the Reformed Church of Germany. Some of her early ministers, such as Peucer and Pezel, were at first Melancthonians as they passed from the Lutheran faith over to the Reformed. But Pezel, who came to Nassau as a Melancthonian (1577) soon became a strong Calvinist, so that by 1595 he wrote the strongly Calvinistic creed of Bremen.
Calvin's influence, too, was great on our Heidelberg Catechism. The first catechism of Ursinus, from which so much of the Heidelberg was drawn, was based mainly on Calvin's Catechism and Institutes. In doctrine the Heidelberg Catechism is Calvinistic. It is so over against Melancthon's Synergism (Answers 5 and 8), against his lower views about rites (Answers 96-8). It is positively Calvinistic, teaching predestination (Answers 26 and 31), the perseverance of the saints (Answers 1, 31, 51 and 54), Calvin's views of the descent into hell (Answer 44) and of the power of the keys (Answer 85). In its numbering of the Ten Commandments and of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer it follows Calvin.
Influence was Calvinistic,
Not Melancthonian
It has been said, as by Dr. Schaff, that the Reformed Church of Germany was different from the other Reformed churches by being Melancthonian rather than Calvinistic. But this is not true according to history. Calvin and Melanchthon were worlds apart on the doctrine of predestination, Melancthon holding to synergism, Calvin to election. Neither did they agree in regard to worship. Melanchthon regarded many religious rites that came over from the Romish church with indifference, while Calvin would have none that were not in the Bible. This difference is strikingly brought out in the Leipzig Interim, where Melancthon granted that Catholic ceremonies as extreme unction, fasts, Corpus Christi, etc., should be restored in the Protestant church. Calvin would never have granted this. Indeed, at the diet of Ratisbon, Calvin found fault with Melanchthon's views on worship.
But it is claimed that Melanchthon and Calvin were in agreement on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. It is true that Melancthon was more inclined toward the Reformed doctrine than was Luther, and Calvin more inclined toward the Lutheran doctrine than was Zwingli; but that does not mean that they were in agreement on the subject. Melanchthon continually speaks of the presence of Christ's body (adest is the Latin word he continually uses) at the Supper. But while Luther made this presence of Christ's body during the whole transaction of the Supper especially through the Word, Melanchthon made his body present especially at the act of the communicant when he received the elements. Again, Luther insisted on the presence of Christ's body "in, with and under," Melanchthon only on "with," according to J. W. Richards, Melancthon's biographer.
Although Melancthon thus differed from Luther, still his view was Lutheran and not Reformed and differed considerably from Calvin's view of Christ's presence. Thus, Melancthon insists constantly on the presence of Christ's body with the elements. This is quite different from Calvin's view that Christ's body was up in heaven and not at the Lord's Supper. Christ's body was present according to Melanchthon, absent according to Calvin. Calvin held that by faith we were to be lifted up by the Holy Spirit in heaven, so as to commune with Christ there.
No, the Reformed Church of Germany is not Melancthonian-Calvinistic but Calvinistic. This is proved by the position taken by her universities and their professors, by her creeds and by the testimony of church historians. The universities of Germany and their professors soon became thoroughly Calvinistic (Scultetus at Heidelberg was a supralapsarian). Although a few of them held to a lower form of Calvinism, such as Bergius and Martinius, yet that was far from Melancthonianism.
Perhaps the most significant facts come from the two conferences, that the Reformed held with the Lutherans at Leipzig in 1631, and at Kassel in 1661, whose decisions have a semi-creedal authority for the Reformed of Germany. At both of them, the Reformed took firm ground for predestination and reprobation. One book shows how thoroughly Calvinism was introduced in the Palatinate almost as soon as it became Reformed. It is the Institutes of Calvin, published at Heidelberg in 1572 in German, issued with the approval of the Reformed professors there, and to it is appended Calvin's Catechism and Liturgy. All this shows how rapidly the Reformed Church of Germany became quite thoroughly imbued with Calvin's doctrines.
This article by Dr. James I. Good first appeared in John Calvin: Theologian, Preacher, Educator, Statesman (1909).
It has been shortened for publication.
