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At a convention in Torgau, in 1574, the Lutherans established the real presence of Christ in the eucharist and then instigated the Elector of Saxony to seize, imprison, and banish those who differed from them in sentiment, as a result of which Peucer suffered ten years of the severest imprisonment and Crellius was put to death.
He omitted therefore all mention of these points, not because he disbelieved them, but because he judged it more proper to prove first the divinity of the sacred books, and the mission of Christ: and, as we have already observed, the same method has been followed by the most successful writers on the Truth of Christianity. He has been much reproached with his letter to Crellius.
Grotius had written against Socinus, and Crellius, to vindicate his master, answered Grotius with a politeness and good-breeding seldom found in a polemical divine. Grotius thought it his duty to reply to him, and the measures he kept with this adversary were looked on by his enemies as a betraying of the truth. Here follows the letter, which has been so much talked of.
Peucer, for his opinions, suffered ten years of imprisonment in the severest manner. In 1577 a form of concord was produced in which the real manducation of Christ's body and blood in the eucharist was established and heresy and excommunication laid on all that refused this as an article of faith, with pains and penalties to be enforced by the secular arm. Crellius, in 1601, was put to death.
"If I have not answered Crellius, he says in another letter , it was for prudential reasons, and even by the advice of the Protestants of France, who think that the questions being unknown in this country, ought not to be made public by a confutation. It is easy to refute them with glory, though every one is not capable of it: but, it is still better that they should remain unknown."
It is certain, that, notwithstanding the terms which he makes use of in writing to Crellius, he did not at bottom approve of his book: he writes thus in confidence to his brother , "I have read Crellius's book: he writes with candour, and doth not want learning; but I cannot see how he will promote religion by departing from the Scripture manner of speaking authorised by antiquity."
One can also consult what Grotius wrote against the Socinians, of the satisfaction of Jesus Christ, and the answer of Crellius thereto. Thus it is that the pains of the damned continue, even when they no longer serve to turn them away from evil, and that likewise the rewards of the blessed continue, even when they no longer serve for strengthening them in good.
"I was so far from being offended, most learned Crellius, with your book against mine that I inwardly thanked you at that time, and now do it by this letter, first, for treating me with so much civility, that the only thing I have left to complain of is your complimenting me in some places too much: next for informing me of many very useful and entertaining things, and exciting me by your example, to examine thoroughly into the sense of the sacred scriptures: you judge very rightly of me, that I bear no ill-will to any one who differs from me, without prejudice to religion; nor decline the friendship of any good man.
He then engaged in the perusal of the Greek fathers, and councils of the first three or four centuries; and undertook, at his father's desire, to confute a treatise of Samuel Crellius, in which, under the name of Artemonius, he has endeavoured to substitute, in the beginning of St.
Since I can do no more, I sincerely pray that God would protect you, and those who promote religion." There is another letter from Grotius to Crellius, which has made much noise. After thanking him for a book he had sent him, he adds, "I am resolved to read your works again and again with care, having already reaped much benefit from them.
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