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The mystical element of the Catechism, is closely connected with the catholic spirit, of which we have just spoken. It is that quality in religion, by which it goes beyond all simply logical or intellectual apprehension, and addresses itself directly to the soul, as something to be felt and believed even where it is too deep to be explained. The Bible abounds with such mysticism. It prevails, especially, in every page of the Apostle John. We find it largely in Luther. It has been often said, that the Reformed faith, as distinguished from the Catholic and the Lutheran, is unfriendly to this element, that it moves supremely in the sphere of the understanding, and so is ever prone to run into rationalism ; and it must be confessed, that there is some show of reason for the serious charge. Zwingle's great fault, as well as his chief strength, lay in the clear intellectuality of his nature. Calvin had a deeper sense of the mystical, but at the same time a still vaster power of logic also, which made it very difficult for such sense to come steadily to its proper rights. His theory of the decrees, for instance, does violence continually to his theory of the sacraments. It is only in its last and best form, as we find this brought out in the German Palatinate, that the Reformed system can be said fairly to have surmounted the force of the objection now noticed. The Heidelberg Catechism has regard throughout, to the lawful claims of the understanding ; its author was thoroughly versed in all the dialectic subtleties of the age, and an uncommonly fine logic, in truth, distinguishes its whole composition. But along with this runs, at the same time, a continual appeal to the interior sense of the soul, a sort of solemn undertone, sounding from the depths of the invisible world, which only an unction from the Holy One, can enable any fully to hear and understand. The words are often felt in this way, to mean much more than they logically express. The Catechism is no cold workmanship merely of the rationalizing intellect. It is full of feeling and faith. The joyousness of a fresh, simple, childlike trust, appears beautifully and touchingly interwoven with all its divinity. A rich vein of mysticism run& every where through its doctrinal statements. A strain of heavenly music seems to flow around us at all times, while we listen to its voice. It is moderate, gentle, soft, in one word, Melancthonian, in its whole cadence ; the fit echo and image thus, we may fairly suppose, of the quiet, though profoundly earnest soul of Ursinus himself.
"It carries the palm, very decidedly, in our view, as we have before said, over all other Protestant symbols, whether formed before it or since.
"But notwithstanding all that has now been said, the Catechism was received far and wide in Germany itself, at the time of its appearance, as a loud declaration of war ; and became at once the signal for an angry, violent onset, in the way of contradiction and reproach, from all parts of the Lutheran Church. The high toned party which was now filling the whole empire with its alarm of heresy, could not be expected of course to tolerate patiently any religious formulary, that might be felt to fall short at all of its own vigorous measures of orthodoxy. From this quarter, accordingly, the Catechism was assaulted, more fiercely than even from the Church of Rome itself. Its very moderation, indeed, seemed to magnify the front of its offence. Had there been more of the lion or tiger in its mien, and less of the lamb, its presence might have proved possibly less irritating to the polemical humor of the times. As it was, there was felt to be provocation in its very meekness. Its outward carriage was held to be deceitful and treacherous ; and its heresy was counted all the worse, for being hard to find, and shy of coming to the light. The winds of strife were let loose upon it accordingly, from all points of the compass.
"Not only the unity and quiet of the German Church, but the peace also of the German empire, seemed in the eyes of the high Lutheran party, to be brought into jeopardy, by the new Confession. It was held to be not only heresy in religion, but treason also in politics. Both the Elector and his theologians found their faith severely tried, by the general outcry which was raised at their expense. But they were men of faith, and they stood the trial nobly and well
"The attack was opened by Tilemann Hesshuss and the celebrated Flaccius Illy- ricus, each of whom came out with an angry publication against the Calvinistic Catechism, as they called it, full of the most intolerant invective and abuse, and grossly misrepresenting at different points, the religious change which had taken place in the Palatinate. Among other calumnies, the new faith was charged with turning the Lord s Supper into a profane meal, with undervaluing the necessity of infant baptism, with iconomachy, and with an attempt to alter the decalogue in de parting from the old order of its precepts. Other blasts of warning and alarm were soon heard, in much the same tone, from different quarters. Wirtemberg in particular, issued a solemn censure, drawn up by her two best divines, in which eighteen questions of the Catechism were taxed with serious heresy, and no effort spared to bring into discredit especially its doctrine of the holy eucharist. It was necessary to meet this multitudinous outcry with a prompt and vigorous answer ; and such an answer accordingly soon appeared, with all due solemnity, in the name of the united theological faculty of Heidelberg. The task of preparing it, how ever, fell on Ursinus, who showed himself at the same time well able to discharge the service in a truly efficient and becoming way. The honor of the Catechism was fully vindicated, and the effect of the whole controversy was only to render its authority in the Palatinate more firm than before."
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