Whatever course
the king might adopt could not fail to make many enemies. But he
belonged to a line of princes who had been aiming at the unity of the
church for more than two centuries, and who, with the single exception
of Frederic II., had endeavored to preserve popular faith in the
Scriptures. Preparations were being made for the three hundredth
anniversary jubilee of the Reformation. The land being now redeemed, it
was hoped that the occasion would inspire all hearts with confidence in
the future of both state and church. The king deemed it a most favorable
opportunity to bring the two branches of the Protestant church together,
not by one coming over to the territory of the other, but by mutual
compromise, by the rejection of the terms Lutheran and Reformed, and by
the assumption of a new denominational name.
There was really no reason why the two confessions should not be united,
for it was very plain that the adherents of both were not rigid in their
attachment. The Calvinists were no longer tenaciously devoted to their
founder's views of absolute predestination, while the Lutherans, having
departed from the doctrine of the real presence in the Lord's Supper,
had adopted the Zwinglian theory.
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