Martin Bucer

Hesse is like a, the neighboring, was it province of Saxony? Yeah, or, or the neighboring province to Saxony.

And he basically, he wanted to bring the different strands of the Reformation that he, had emerged at this time, basically between those, though, who, who were with Luther in Wittenberg, you could call them the Lutherans maybe at this point if you like, um, and people like the Swiss and South German lands, reformers like, um, uh, Martin Bucer, uh, Ulrich Zwingli, Casper, uh, Hedio, John Oakley and Potius.

Um, they were present at this.

Uh, Bucer was kind of a, at the time, this is before Calvin.

Bucer would have a lot of influence on Calvin, uh, as well as Anglicanism.

But Bucer's kind of a, kind of a chief representative along with Zwingli on kind of the reformed front.

You'd call it the capital R Reformed branch of the Reformation.

Um, they didn't see eye to eye with, on, on certain things with the, the Lutheran side, and attendees from the Lutheran side who attended were, of course, Martin Luther, uh, Eustace Jonas, Philip Melanchthon, Andreas Sociander, and Stefan Agricola, who's different from the Johann Agricola, which we'll cover in a, soon an episode in this, uh, later Luther series, as well as, uh, John Brents.

...

so yes, as far as what's permitted, Calvinism is, Calvin's own theology is certainly permitted within Anglicanism, and we know there was so much interchange between the English and the Swiss and French Reformers, you know, the Vermigli and Bucer, like, at Oxford and-

Yep

... you know, this, uh, you know, this exchange and, um, so yeah, the, I think one thing that Anglicans must, are, are compelled to agree on According to the articles, uh, 39 articles, is that in the act of faithful receiving of holy communion, Christ really and truly comes to refresh his dwelling in the soul of the believer.

Right.

And so that's why transubstantiation is forbidden, um, overthrows the nature of a sacrament.

So there's this sort of like you can be reformed, like, from like, you know, if you think of Calvin in the middle, and then, like, maybe Bucer and Bullin- maybe Bullinger on this sort of far side of what's permitted.

And then on this side, a sort of Melanctonian, Lutheran kind of, um, you know, the, the Caroline, uh, the divines in the times, in the early 17th century, they loved Melanchthon.

This is what he says about the doctrine of grace alone, which is e- effectively what I've been unfolding for you in all the things I've been saying here.

He says, "Historically, it's simply a matter of fact that Martin Luther and John Calvin, and for that matter Zwingli and Bucer, and all the leading Protestant theologians of the first epoch of the Reformation stood on precisely the same ground here." That includes the doctrine of predestination, the way they thought about free will, and so on.

He says, "On all other points they had their differences, but in asserting the helplessness of man in sin and the sovereignty of God in grace, they were entirely one.

To all of them, these doctrines are the very lifeblood of the Christian faith." And why? Well, I'll get to that at, in the last solo, because it has to do with the glory of God alone as opposed to glorifying man in anything.

Passim, as also Theodore Vetter, Relations between England and Zurich during the Reformation, London 1904.

At Strasbourg, the persecution raged somewhat later, but how thoroughly Bucer and his colleagues approved and urged it is clear from a letter of advice addressed by them in 1538 to their fellow pastor, Schweibel, of Zweibrucken, printed as number 88 in the Centuria Epistolarum, appended to Schweibel's Scripta Theologica, Zweibrucken 1605.

That Bucer, while in England, 1549 to 1551, also found occasion to utter these views can hardly be doubted.

These details I owe to Professor Burr.

End footnote.

The Swiss and Genevan reformers, unlike Luther, had discarded exorcism, declaring it to have belonged only to the early church and charging modern instances to papist fraud.

And with them seem to have agreed their South German friends.

In England, baptismal exorcism was at first retained in the ritual under Edward VI, but in 1552, under Bucer's influence, it was dropped.

I think we...

I know we did Martin Luther, John Calvin, Martin Bucer, any of those, and then we would always fellowship over a meal.

And so that's really cool.

How might you weave Reformation history into your homeschool even with just one activity? You know? I think it's really important.

It, it means the Reformation by rulers.

And how do you distinguish Luther, Bucer, Calvin, uh, and others from the Anabaptists? Well, the Anabaptists were not protected by any ruler.

In fact, they were a threat, actually, to the princes and the city councils.

They wanted to have a revolution and bring in the age of the Spirit.

He collects all of the works of the reformers.

He's got all of the books of Viret, all of the books of Luther, all of the books of Bucer.

Wow.

So he's collecting all of those works as well as all of the works of the various Catalonian reformers, Pedro Mendoza and so forth.

He therefore proceeded to Basel, by the way of Lorraine, where he applied himself to the study of the Hebrew language.

Though he wished at this time to remain in obscurity, as appears by a letter written to him by Bucer, yet he was constrained to publish his Christian Institutes to serve as an apology for his persecuted brethren.

For as Francis I was desirous of the friendship of the Protestant princes of Germany, and knew that they would disapprove of the murder of his Protestant subjects, he affirmed that he had only put to death the Anabaptists, who, far from making the word of God the rule of their faith, gave themselves up to their disordered imaginations, professing a contempt for magistrates and sovereign authorities.

Calvin, who could not bear to see the true religion thus calumniated, thought it necessary to publish his Institutes, which he dedicated to Francis I.

At this time he republished his Christian Institutes, with many additions.

He also published a piece on the Lord's Supper, which was very much admired.

He reclaimed many Anabaptists who were brought to him from various parts, and amongst others Paul Volz, who died a minister of Strasbourg, and Jean Storder Lejoie, whose widow Calvin afterwards married, by the advice of Bucer.

She was a person of extraordinary merit.