In addition to denying the right of the majority to legislate in matters of conscience at Spires, the Protestant princes also made a legal argument that the Diet, a political body, was going beyond it’s jurisdiction by attempting to pass a religious law and so they appealed to the Emperor to convoke a general council of the church that would have jurisdiction and also so that they could present their position before it. Their faith had been maligned by their enemies and they genuinely craved an opportunity to be heard in the hope that some of the false and extreme views they were accused of could be addressed, and that the decree might be amended.

The Catholic clergy were alarmed and opposed the request. They anticipated the results would be detrimental to their cause, but Charles overruled them and the spring of 1530 saw them all meet at Augsburg, princes, clergy, nobles and the Pope’s personal representative, the Legate who had power to make decisions on the Pope’s behalf.

But, I need to back up. About nine months before that occurred one of the German nobles, Philip of Hesse, a Protestant noble convoked a meeting of the Protestant theologians because he had concerns that the cause of the gospel would be lost in the upcoming convocation if the deep divisions between Zwingli and Luther continued to divide the new church. In May, 1529 at Philip’s castle, Luther and Zwingli met face to face, I think for the first time, and soon they were down to business, along with several other Protestant pastors and leaders on both sides discussing and debating the issue of whether Christ’s body and blood are physically present in the emblems of the Lord ’s Supper.

The protest of the German princess at Spires in 1529, their refusal to abandon the principles of the evangelical faith, still further increased the indignation of the papal adherents; The Emperor and the Pope worked together now to rally the other princes of Germany and the west around the mother church. It became clearer to the Protestant princes with the passing of each day that maintaining the protest of Spires would be a formidable task.

Several of the Protestant princes, who we should remember were skilled and valiant warriors and not strangers to war and self-defence, were inclined to form alliances with one another. Luther however opposed this trend vigorously. He repeatedly exerted all of his influence to discourage the princes from forming alliances that placed trust in human strength and that would have been viewed by the Catholic princes as treason against the Emperor and the empire. While he did not oppose the rights of the princes to defend their own territory from aggression, he knew that the gospel would be best served by winning the hearts and minds of the people peacefully and that these alliances would hurry the political powers of the empire towards civil war.

The elector Frederick, Luther’s protector, had been succeeded by his brother John and after Spires Luther felt compelled to remind Prince John many times to resist the overtures of the other Protestant princes to form alliances quoting him the scripture ‘In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.’

Philip of Hesse was the most active at this time in urging the princes to present a united front to the world. He was a godly man and a man of action, willing to suffer everything for the cause of Christ, but at this point in his life, too inclined towards political solutions. To his credit though, he felt a deep need for doctrinal unity among the reformed churches of Germany and Switzerland and was distressed at the tendency among the Lutheran Germans to withdraw the hand of fellowship from their Swiss brethren. At Spires in 1529 the Catholic party had almost succeeded in driving a permanent wedge between the reformed churches of Germany and those of Switzerland. Hesse correctly saw that the Swiss were by no means inferior in their theology and that the main issue that divided them – the symbolism of the Lord’s Supper – was not an issue of salvation. It appears though that he overlooked what Luther clearly foresaw in the Swiss at this time - the trend to rely on the civil power to advance the gospel, a trend that would cost the Swiss Reformation dearly a short time later. In my next post I’ll look at the historic conference of Marburg, 1529 when, under the hospitable castle roof of Hesse, Luther and Zwingli and their respective parties vigorously debated the issue of transubstitution - the physical presence of the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine.

After the protest of Spires, Philip the landgrave (a title and estate similar to a marques – a rank of German nobility below a duke, in other words, about two levels below a king) invited the two reformers to his castle to seek unity. Luther and Melanethon resisted the invitation. They did their best in several ways to excuse themselves from the meeting but did attend very unwillingly. But even when they agreed at last to attend, they advised the landgrave “If the Swiss do not yield to us, all your trouble will be lost”!

Unfortunately the same closed-mindedness characterized Luther’s conduct during the meeting as well. The record of the meeting that has been passed on to us shows that Luther was unwilling to yield anything on this point to sound biblical evidence, while Zwingli, when he saw that Luther and the others in his party would not be convinced made every effort to place this difference in perspective as a secondary point. Luther however was inclined to think that transubstition was a pillar of the Christian faith. He did not stop there. He repeatedly asserted that his Swiss brethren were ‘not of the same spirit’ implying they were not worthy of the hand of fellowship. These repeated assertions wrung the hearts of the Swiss and I believe the heart of Christ.

The humble advances of the Swiss at reconciliation seemed to be useless but finally, towards the end of the conference, there was a glimmer of hope. Philip of Hesse, hoping to salvage some good from the meeting, urged both parties to at least draw up the articles of their faith that they could agree on and the Lutherans reluctantly agreed they would do that much. Luther himself was appointed to draw up the document on behalf of both sides and he did this within a day or two and then read it in the hearing of all the assembled Protestant theologians. Both parties were relieved and satisfied with Luther’s work and immediately all signed it and agreed to have it published.

Merle D’Aubigne, my main historical source, gives his surprising opinion that it was probably best for the reformed church that neither Zwingli nor Luther gave way to one another and that both opinions were maintained because in D’Aubigne’s opinion, they are different aspects of the same truth! Adventism of course is soundly Zwinglian in its view on this point, but perhaps D’Aubigne is right that we can learn something from the transubstitutionalist view.

Besides the need for balance in assessing what is and isn't essential to the Christian faith, an important lesson from Marburg is the overruling providence of God. If Luther had yielded the point on transubsitution and abandoned the doctrine, there would have been no further barrier between the reformed Swiss and German churches and it is very likely that they would have formed a confederation of reformed churches. But if that had occurred, the reformed churches would have been easily overpowered by the temptation to place confidence in their augmented political and military strength. The Swiss under Zwingli made just this mistake later, and the far-sighted Luther saw it coming. It may have been as much Luther’s insight into Zwingli’s mistaken tendency in his final few years to mix religion and politics as the doctrinal issue that caused Luther to draw back from full fellowship with the Swiss.

Luther’s concerns over the tendency in the Swiss to place the state at the disposal of religion were soon born out. The Marburg conference ended in October of 1529. In the same month only two years later, 1531, Zwingli lay dead on the battlefield near Zurich at the age of 48. In the war many reformed women of Zurich were widowed, parts of Switzerland lost their right to religious liberty for many, many decades, the Gospel was brought into disrepute and many reformed pastors died in the battle at Zwingli’s side. D’Aubigne, a Swiss himself, laments, “There has, perhaps, never been any battle in which so many men of the Word of God have bitten the dust.” If Luther and the reformed German churches had been allied with the Swiss at that time the great victories of faith apart from the sword would have been short-lived. The church at this stage had more lessons of faith to learn and faith usually only grows strong where is must be exercised. The reformed churches, the Swiss and Zurichers especially learned a costly lesson that stayed with them for years to come.

News of Zwingli’s death reached soon reached Luther and the rest of the reformed churches in Germany. D’Aubigne recounts, “Zwingli and Oecolampadius [another great Swiss reformer at Basle who had died shortly after Zwingli from the Plague] had fallen. There was a great void and a great sorrow in the Church of Christ. Dissensions [between the Swiss and German churches] vanished before these two graves, and nothing could be seen but tears. Luther himself was moved. On receiving the news of these two deaths he called to mind the days he had passed with Zwingli and Oecolampadius at Marburg and the blow inflicted on him at their sudden decease was such that many years after, he said to Bullinger; “Their death filled me with such intense sorrow that I was near to dying myself.”

What is the transubstitutionalist view? And what is Zwinglis view?

Zwingli's view on the bread and wine of the Lord's supper is that they are only symbols. Luther's view was that they do become the body and blood of Christ. I'm not clear on whether he believed they become that physically or only spiritually but if the latter, it would raise some questions - what does it mean for the bread and wine to be Christ's spiritual body. Luther's view differed in some ways from Catholicism. He believed that faith was essential in the believer whereas Catholicism says that the priests create the body and blood of Christ regardless of the faith of the believer. I may not have these finer points exact.

So the protestant churches are divided over the communion bread?

That was the first division. Other divisions came later. Often it was the result of futher reforms that only a part of the existing Protestant churches were willing to accept. For example, the Baptists accepted the scripture on baptism being by immersion rather than by sprinkling and being for those who were old enough to make a personal decision for Christ. Other Protestants unfortunately didn't accept that.

The Puritans and then the Wesleyans are other examples of reform-minded Christians who brought new life to Protestantism but were forced by the established Protestant churches to form new denominations when their reforms were rejected. Adventism is a continuation of that pattern.

Just to clarify, Adventism in the sense of William Miller's movement is a continuation of the pattern. SDAism is a bit different.

Care to explain further Tom?