erything to the elect inwardly
and is not in need of Scripture to give faith to them and to save them."
Schwenckfeldt, who employed the term "revelation" for this immediate
operation of God, was inconsistent in not rejecting Scripture,
preaching, etc., altogether. But when admitting these, he adds that he
distinguishes "God's own inner work from the external service."

Self-evidently, these views concerning the means of grace had a
corrupting influence also on other doctrines. Saving faith, according to
Schwenckfeldt, is not trust in God's promise of pardon for Christ's
sake, but an immediate mystical relation of the soul to God.
Justification, says he, "is not only forgiveness and non-imputation of
sin, but also renewal of the heart." "We must seek our justification and
righteousness not in Christ according to His first state [of
humiliation], in a manner historical," but according to His state of
glorification, in which He governs the Church. In order to enhance the
"glory of Christ" and have it shine and radiate in a new light,
Schwenckfeldt taught the "deification of the flesh of Christ," thus
corrupting the doctrine of the exaltation and of the person of Christ in
the direction of Monophysitism. And the more his views were opposed, the
more he was enamored of, and engrossed by, them, calling himself the
"confessor and lover of the glory of Christ."

Concerning the Lord's Supper, Schwenckfeldt taught that the deified
humanity of Christ is really imparted and appropriated, not indeed
through bread and wine, but immediately (without the intervention of any
medium), internally, spiritually. The words of institution mean: My
body, which is given for you, is what bread is, a food, _i.e._, a food
for souls; and the new testament in My blood is a chalice, _i.e._, a
drink for the elect to drink in the kingdom of God. Baptism, says
Schwenckfeldt, is the "baptizing of the heavenly High Priest Jesus
Christ, which occurs in the believing soul by the Holy Ghost and by
fire. Infant baptism is a human ordinance, not merely useless, but
detrimental to the baptism of Christ." (Tschackert, 159ff.)

264. The Antitrinitarians.

The first article of the _Augsburg Confession_ makes a special point of
rejecting not only the ancient, but also the "modern Samosatenes,"
_i.e._, the Antitrinitarians, who in the beginning of the Reformation
began their activity in Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany. Most of
these "modern Arians and Ant