Bullinger’s Importance for the English Reformation⤒🔗

Perhaps no Reformer has been neglected in modern times as much as Heinrich (Henry) Bullinger, though he produced far more sound Christian writings than Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli combined. Within a hundred years of their completion, over 400 editions of Bullinger’s works had been printed in Switzerland alone and over fifty printers in other European countries were turning out countless editions of Bullinger’s reforming works. Bullinger’s Decades, called such because it was divided into five collections of ten books each, was reprinted seventy-seven times in Latin, and the German version ran to 137 editions besides the many English, Dutch, and French printings. Bullinger’s works were internationally treasured because they were scholarly, educative, well structured, devotional, and couched in simple language.

In 1586, the English Archbishop, John Whitgift, pub­lished his Orders for the Better Increase of Learning in the Inferior Ministers, ordering all ministerial candidates who lacked a theological education to procure a Bible, a copy of Bullinger’s Decades, and a blank-paged exer­cise book. Candidates should read a chapter of the Bible every day, make notes of what they had learned, and read a book of the Decades each week, making appro­priate notes. Once a quarter, the candidates should meet with a senior clergyman to discuss their reading and receive further instruction. The Decades’s English preface-writer explains that Bullinger has neither Calvin’s obscurity, nor Musculus’s scholastical subtlety, but is able to pack much sound, perspicuous doctrine into comparatively little space and make it interesting to read and easy to remember. Such private study was necessary in the Elizabethan period, when Mary’s evil reign had rid the church of many of her teachers.

Singing for His Supper←⤒🔗

Heinrich Bullinger, the youngest of seven children, was born in the tiny Swiss town of Bremgarten on July 18, 1504. His parents Heinrich Bullinger and Anna Wiederkehr shared a common law marriage though Bullinger Sr. was the parish priest. Church historians speculate that Bullinger Sr. had bribed the church authorities to allow him to live in wedlock. However, Switzerland was ruled democratically in a way unknown elsewhere at the time and it was the parishioners who appointed their ministers, not the bishop or civil authorities.

On May 12, 1509, young Henry was enrolled at the Town Corporation’s Latin school two years earlier than usual because of his obvious abilities. Here, he learned to read and write Latin compositions and was trained in liturgical singing. The children were forced to speak Latin during school hours. Henry received no religious instruction. At the age of twelve, Henry was sent to Emmerich on the German-Dutch border to further his education. Bullinger Sr. told his youngest child that his accommodation and clothing would be provided by his parents but he would have to beg from door to door for food and other necessities of life so that he might learn to understand the poor. As Henry had a good, trained voice, like Tommy Tucker in the nursery rhyme, he literally “sang for his supper” for the next three years. At Emmerich, Henry was encouraged to become a Carthusian monk.

When scarcely fifteen, Bullinger entered Cologne University and was confronted with the teaching of Erasmus and those who placed the Scriptures over Aris­totelian logic and ethics. Cologne, commonly called “The German Rome,” was the center of Rome’s power there and Germany’s largest city. Here, behind the Cathedral High Altar, resided the supposed bones of the Three Wise Men in a large golden casket, so the inhab­itants felt that their city was the most heavenly on earth. Cologne was run by the clergy and many of the monks’ orders were established there. The German mystics, under Master Eckart and Johannes Tauler, had settled in large numbers in Cologne, as had Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. Here, too, Scotsman John Duns Scotus had breathed his last and was buried. Thus there were mystical features in Cologne’s religion and a permanent strife went on between Aquinians who claimed that religion was a matter of logic and Scotians who made religion a product of the will.

Finding the Truth as it is in Jesus←⤒🔗

Cologne was the only university in Germany to burn Luther’s writings, but even there Reformed men were teaching that religion is neither a matter of man’s logic nor man’s will but of God’s will revealed in Scripture. Erasmus initially used his influence to stop the university’s anti-reform stand. When inquisitor Hieronymus Alexander was sent to Cologne to root out the “heretics” in October, 1520, he expected to be received as a conquering hero, but saw anti-papal posters hung all over the city and was ignored. The city authorities had ceased to condemn Luther. Sadly, Erasmus and the magistrates soon bowed under Rome’s pressure and Luther’s works were again burned on November 15, the very day that sixteen-year-old Bullinger received his Bachelor of Arts.

Now Bullinger became critical of Rome’s dogmas and bought his first New Testament. He knew that Rome claimed her authority from the Church Fathers, so he diligently studied their works. He found that the Fathers appealed to Scripture and rejected all idolatry, and their beliefs were quite contrary to the Roman Catholicism he knew. Soon, he learned that justification is by God-given faith alone and that salvation is by God’s good grace and not man’s dubious “good works.” All ideas of becoming a monk vanished and Bullinger experienced faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. At the age of seventeen, Bullinger gained his Master of Arts degree and returned home to Bremgarten after an absence of six years.

Bullinger wondered how his father would take the news of his conversion. He realized that he could not hide his faith and must confess Christ. He need not have feared as he was received warmly by his family and his father encouraged him to persevere along the Reformed path. Then Wolfgang Joner, the abbot of Kappel, offered Bullinger a position as a school-teacher. Bullinger gave Joner his testimony and told him that he could not possibly follow Rome. In reply, Joner made Bullinger the superintendent of the abbey school on the spot! Bullinger immediately drew up a new curriculum and the tiny school grew and flourished. For the next six years, the young Reformer expounded through twenty-one of the twenty-seven New Testament books at the monastery, preaching in Swiss-German so that monks, secular workers, servants, and the entire town population could attend his services.

The Reformation in Kappel and Bremgarten←⤒🔗

Bullinger removed all the images from the abbey church in 1524, abolished the mass in 1525, and introduced the Reformed Lord’s Supper in 1526. Many monks confessed Christ; some left to become Christian craftsmen and farmers but others stayed on under Bullinger’s ministry. The Kappel monastery now became a semi­nary for Reformed pastors. From around 1523 onwards, Bullinger became friends with Zwingli and Leo Jud. Most church historians look upon Bullinger wrongly as Zwingli’s protégé; Bullinger was Zwingli’s equal if not superior in Reformation matters. Distinc­tions between Zwingli’s and Bullinger’s witness are important. Bullinger trained and sent out Reformed preachers some two years before Zwingli, meeting far less opposition. When Bullinger wished to publish his views on the Lord’s Supper in 1524, Zwingli begged him not to because he was not ready himself. Zwingli wavered long, slowly coming to a merely commemo­rative view. Bullinger taught that the Lord’s real presence was to be experienced in the Supper because, wherever two or three are gathered in His Name, He is there in their midst. Nevertheless, Bullinger rejected transubstantiation and consubstantiation — indeed, any view that implied Christ’s corporeal presence in the elements. Zwingli was a supralapsarian in his views of election, teaching that God elected some men to salvation and reprobated others prior to decreeing the Fall. Bullinger taught that God ordains some of sinful mankind to eternal life and some He passes by; that is, He allows their reprobation. Zwingli never fully developed a Reformed doctrine of imputation whereas Bullinger taught both the imputation of Adam’s sin to all mankind and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to all the elect. Bullinger disagreed with Zwingli concerning his involvement in the Kappeler Wars and his trust in Bern’s militant “Reformation” policies. Bullinger was a man of peace and thus Zwingli often asked Bullinger to mediate in the difficult situations in which he often found himself.

Anna Adischwyler←⤒🔗

The abbot and many of the Kappel monks now married and Bullinger realized that a wife would be a great support to his ministry. In 1527, Joner gave Bullinger leave of absence from the school to find a bride. Like Luther’s wife, the lady of Bullinger’s choice, Anna Adischwyler, was a former nun. Bullinger wrote a long letter to Anna, telling her of all the negative aspects of his life and that he had not a penny to call his own and yet wanted her to share his calling. Anna answered in the affirmative. They arranged to marry within two weeks, but Mrs. Adischwyler, a cook’s wife, wanted her daugh­ter to marry a rich man and formally contested the engagement. The court decided in favor of Henry and Anna but Mrs. Adischwyler remained adamant for two years before she suddenly died. The couple were speedily married on August 17, 1529.

Father and Son Together in the Faith←⤒🔗

In February, 1529, sixty-year-old Heinrich Bullinger Sr. told his congregation that he had accepted the Reformed faith. On December 31, he officially married his beloved wife of forty years according to the new Reformed rites. The town authorities immediately dis­missed him. Bullinger Sr. then became an itinerant preacher, founding churches at Muri (1529) and Her­metschwil (1530). The Bremgarten congregation demanded his return. As he was now settled elsewhere, the congregation chose his son as pastor. Henry came and preached his first sermon at his home church in May, 1529, before an enormous congregation. His sub­ject was worshipping God in spirit and in truth. There was a tremendous spiritual reaction amongst the church-goers, and, after the service, the images and altar were removed from the church building and the united congregation dedicated themselves to God and the new faith.

Now Bremgarten experienced a glorious Reformation. In the three years that Bullinger remained there, he preached through the entire New Testament, translated thirty Psalms from the Hebrew into Latin and Swiss-German, and wrote commentaries on both New Testament and Old Testament books. He also wrote a history of the Reformation in Switzerland. This min­istry was ended abruptly.

The Reformation Receives a Setback←⤒🔗

Zwingli, assisted by Bern, had decided to starve out five Roman Catholic districts instead of allowing them to vote democratically on various issues. He threatened them also with military force. Bullinger protested against Zwingli’s unchristian methods, but the Roman Catholics placed the blame for this merciless persecution on the true upholders of the Reformed faith at Bremgarten and not on the inane politics of Zürich and Bern. On May 15, 1531, the Roman Catholics decided to use force themselves. Bern and Zürich quickly formed a large army, but the Bullingerites told Zwingli that it was senseless to defend God’s Word with chariots and horsemen. Bern and Zwingli blindly placed Sebastian von Diesbach at the head of their forces. Von Diesbach was an avowed opponent of the Reformation and when the Roman Catholic army reached Bremgarten, von Diesbach withdrew his “Reformed” troops and left Zwingli with his smaller army of Zürich men to perish. The new masters in Bremgarten exiled the two Bullingers and the town was forced back under Rome’s yoke.

Zwingli’s warring nature and Bern’s inhuman politics had weakened the Reformation considerably. The Roman faction again became very strong. This moved Zürich’s faithful to ask Bullinger to become their shepherd. They did not want a man who would build a state on supposedly Christian law but one who would bring in a time of grace. Thus it is said that Zwingli rescued a people from Rome but it was Bullinger who made them into a church.

Initial Problems at Zürich←⤒🔗

With Bullinger in Zürich, the five communities threatened to sack the city. The authorities responded provokingly. In May, 1533, Bullinger called a peacemaking Synod that asked Bullinger to tell the city corporation that they could not prescribe for Roman Catholic ruled areas what they should believe, but they should allow the Zürich pastors to preach the Word of God and allow the Spirit to work as He will. They argued that the Zwingli-inspired policies of the city were provocative, negative, and un-diplomatic. Bullinger assured the Roman Catholics that Zürich had no plans for military actions against them. A further war was averted.

Luther had not supported Zwingli’s war and had protested that his behavior reflected his theology and that he was a Catabaptist Enthusiast who had sinned against the Holy Ghost. Bullinger realized that Luther knew little of Zwingli’s overall pioneering theological position and even less about the Kappeler Wars, so he wrote a systematic account of his predecessor’s faith and a history of the wars which helped to allay much criticism, though not Luther’s. Luther advised Duke Albrecht von Brandenburg to ban all Zürich Reformers from his realms. Thus one Protestant became the persecutor of other Protestants and Rome looked on smugly.

Zwingli’s treatment of the Catabaptists was harsh. He had honestly feared that they were plotting to over­throw the Zürich administration by armed force and had become their persecutor. Bullinger chose the way of dialogue. Bern kept to their persecuting path. Dur­ing Bullinger’s period of leadership in Zürich, forty Catabaptists were executed for their faith in Bern in spite of Bullinger’s protests, but none were executed in Zürich.¹Bullinger surprised all by helping the Catabaptists legally to maintain their citizen rights against discrimination. A number of debtors had, for instance, decided they could borrow from Catabaptists without paying them back since they were heretics!

Reforms in Church Government and Education←⤒🔗

Bullinger used church grants to found schools and training institutions, recruited hundreds of new teachers, and authored curricula and examination reg­ulations. He reduced the number of prebendaries, abolished pluralities, and used canonry funds to pay the wages of teachers and pastors and provide grants for students, so relieving the city treasury. Students were also sent on grants to other cantons, the German, Dutch, and Belgic states, and to Britain, where Richard Cox and later Edmund Grindal took care of them. A large number of children were orphaned by the war so Bullinger encouraged his colleagues to adopt them, thus saving public funds. He had a large family himself, but set an example by adopting at least two youngsters. One of these, Rudolf Gualter, eventually married Zwingli’s daughter and became Bullinger’s successor. Bullinger pioneered theological seminaries from the 1520s. England had to wait until the late 40s, Ger­many and Geneva the late 50s. Bullinger’s Decades, mentioned above, was designed to help theological stu­dents obtain a basic grasp of the Reformed faith and the duties and necessities of Christian witness.

The Second Helvetic Confession←⤒🔗

Bullinger published numerous works but he is proba­bly best known for his Second Helvetic Confession. The First Helvetic Confession of 1536 was a Swiss-Strasburg confession of which Bullinger was only one of many authors. The Second Confession was solely Bullinger’s work, originally designed as his private statement of faith. Elector Friedrich III of the Palatine left the Lutheran Church and approached Bullinger as the leading Continental Reformer to draw up a creed that showed the Reformed faith to be the true, apostolic belief. Bullinger sent him his own confession of faith which was accepted and quickly gained wide influence in the churches at home and abroad. It was adopted as a pan-Swiss and French confession and accepted as a standard creed by the Scottish Reformed churches in 1567. In 1571, the Hungarian Reformed Church adopted the confession, then the Poles and Czechs. Indeed, next to the Heidelberg Catechism, which was influenced by it, Bullinger’s catechism became the most generally rec­ognized in the Reformed Church.

When reading Bullinger’s confession, one is imme­diately struck by its relevance to the theological problems of today. Bullinger deals with a remarkable variety of issues.

Over Fifty Years of Earthly Ministry Ended←⤒🔗

On recovering from the Black Death of 1564-65, Bullinger was left an old man with acute kidney trouble. Anna caught the disease while looking after him and soon died. Then his daughters, Margaretha, Elizabeth, and Anna, and several grandchildren died within a year with most of Bullinger’s colleagues following them. On August 26, 1575, Bullinger realized that his pilgrimage was over and called all the ministers and teachers in Zürich to his study for his last admonition, teaching, and farewell. In a long, well-prepared speech, he exhorted his friends and brethren to keep the unity of the Spirit and remain faithful to their testimony, calling, and ministry. He then sent a fitting admonition to the magistrates ending with the words: “The grace of the Father and the blessing of Jesus Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit be with you and gracefully preserve your city and state, your honour, persons and possessions under His divine care and keeping and shield you from all evil.”

Bullinger fell asleep peacefully in the Lord on Sep­tember 17, and was buried at the side of his beloved Anna. Rudolf Gualter was almost immediately ap­pointed to succeed him. The choice had been Bullinger’s own, and, as usual, his choice could not have been bet­ter. Seldom has there been such a great man who made so few mistakes.