The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

and Calvinists; that local presence we expressly reject and condemn in all
our writings. But a local absence does not prevent a sacramental presence,
which is dependent on the communication of the divine Majesty."
Lord’s Day.
IV. The Lord's Day. The Augsburg Confession touches on this
subject only incidentally in connection with the question of Church power.
It teaches that the Jewish Sabbath is abolished; that the necessity of
observing the First day of the week rests not upon the supposition that
such observance has in itself a justifying power, as the Romanists
contended, but on the religious wants of men. It teaches, moreover, that the
Lord's day is of apostolic institution. The prevalent judgment of the great
theologians of our Church has been that the Sabbath was instituted at the
creation of man; that the generic idea it involves, requires the devoting one
day of the week as the minimum, to rest from labor and to religious duties,
and so far pertains to the entire race through all time; and that the law of
the Sabbath, so far as it is not determinative and typical, but involves
principles and wants of equal force under both dispensations, is binding on
Christians.
An ample discussion of all the points here summarily presented will
be found in their place in this volume.
Reformed testimony to the Lutheran Church. 1. Zwingle. 2. Calvin.
Perhaps no stronger testimony to the general purity of the doctrines
of the Lutheran Church could be given, than that which is presented in the
statements of the great divines of the Reformed Communion. ZWINGLE 116
says: “Luther has brought forth nothing novel, (nihil novi;) but that which
is laid up in the unchanging and eternal Word of God, he has bountifully
drawn out; and has opened to Christians who had been misled, the
heavenly treasure." CALVIN: 117 "Call to mind with what great efficacy of
teaching Luther hath to this time been watchful to overthrow the kingdom
of Antichrist, and speak the doctrine of salvation."
2. King of Navarre.
Anthony de Bourbon, King of Navarre, 118 (1561,) said: “Luther and
Calvin differed in forty points from the Pope, and in thirty-eight of them
agreed with one another; there were but two points on which there was
controversy
116 Explan. Art. XVIII.
117 Ep. ad Bullinger.
118 Thuanus, lib. xxvii.