Crypto-Calvinism - Background

Background

Martin Luther had had controversy with "Sacramentarians", and he published against them, for example, in his The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ—Against the Fanatics and Confession Concerning Christ's Supper. Philipp I of Hessen arranged the Marburg Colloquy in 1529, but no agreement could be reached concerning the doctrine of Real Presence. Subsequently, the Wittenberg Concord of 1536 was signed, but this attempt at resolving the issue ultimately failed.

While Lutheranism had weakened after the Schmalkaldic War and Interim controversies, the Calvinist Reformation on the other hand was spreading across Europe. Calvinists wanted to help Lutherans to give up "remnants of popery", as they saw it. By this time Calvinism had expanded its influence to southern Germany (not least because of the work of Martin Bucer), but the Peace of Augsburg (1555) had given religious freedom in Germany only to Lutherans, and it was not officially extended to Calvinists until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. While Zwinglians 1549 had accepted Calvin's much less radical view of the Christs presence in Lord's Supper (The Eucharist was to be more than a sign; Christ was truly present in it, and was received by Faith), Calvinist theologians thought, that Lutheran theology also had changed its view to Real Presence, because the issue had not been discussed anymore, and Philippist teaching gave some justification to this conclusion.

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