Philip Schaff · 4 of 85

The Saxon Visitation Articles, A.D. 1592

ARTICULI VISITATORII.

[The Four Articles of Visitation, prepared by Ægidius Hunnius and other Lutheran divines against Crypto-Calvinism in Electoral Saxony, 1592, never acquired general authority, and have now ceased to be binding even in Saxony. But they are historically important as a Condensed and authoritative Statement of the differences between orthodox Lutheranism and Calvinism concerning the doctrines of the sacraments, the person of Christ, and predestination. It should not be forgotten that they are the product of a fierce polemical age, which could hardly do justice to an opponent. Calvinists would not accept the views in the extreme form here ascribed to them, least of all the horrible doctrine 'that God created the greater portion of mankind for eternal damnation.' Luther (in his book against Erasmus) taught the same doctrine on the subject of predestination as Calvin.

The German and Latin texts are taken from Müller's edition of the Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church, pp. 779–784. The Latin text is also given in Hase's Libri Symb. Comp. Vol. I. p. 345.]