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

controversies of this century. Again and again it circumvented and
deceived the very men' who were engaged in the effort to expose and
overthrow it.
V. 1569. The alarming state of things led to various consultations on
the part of our theologians, who heartily desired to save the Church from
being choked with the upspringing of error, or from being trodden down
and torn to pieces in the effort to root it out. Chief among them were
JAMES ANDREAE, of Tübingen, who at an early stage of his efforts
made a journey into Lower Saxony, 1569, MARTIN CHEMNITZ,
DAVID CHYTRAEUS, and NICHOLAS SELNECCER, all of them
great theologians, moderate in spirit, earnest Christians, and intensely
devoted to the purity and peace of the Church.
VI. 1570. A Convention was convened at ZERBST, by the Electors
of Saxony and Brandenburg, and by Julius, Duke of Brunswick, for the
promotion of concord among the theologians, 1570. Andreae was satisfied
with the results of the Convention, but they did not correspond fully with
the expectation of others. Heshus wrote against the Convention and
against Andreae. So much had men in fact come to distrust what was most
specious, that Andreae was suspected by some of secret connivance with
the errors, to the casting out of which he was devoting his life.
VII. 1573. Two BOOKS, designed to promote peace, were prepared
by Andreae and sent to the theologians of Lower Saxony for subscription:
1. Six sermons on the divisions which had arisen between 1548 and 1573;
2. An exposition of the existing controversies. The first was sent in print.
The second, prepared by advice of Chemnitz, remained in manuscript.
VIII. 1574. The ELECTORAL-TORGAU ARTICLES were written
by the Saxon divines, by order of the Elector Augustus, 1574. These
Articles were suspected, perhaps not without reason, of making
concessions to Calvinistic errors. And yet upon the surface no charge
seemed more groundless. He who reads them, supposing them to have
been written in good faith, will be apt to see in them a thorough rejection
and confutation of the Calvinistic Sacramentarianism. So perfect is the
deception, if it be one, that Selneccer, on a first reading, was delighted