Calvin and the Consensus Tigurinus

The Consensus Tigurinus was a document signed in 1549. It was a joint agreement on the Lord's Supper between the Genevans and the Zwinglians, the men of Zurich. [It was] used by Charles Hodge in the 19th century to argue that Calvin occupied a fundamentally Zwinglian position really on the Lord's supper. There is this famous debate in the 19th century between [Charles Hodge] and theologian at Mercersburg, John Williamson Nevin, and I think it's fair to say that Nevin probably gets Calvin more right than Hodge does.

Part of Hodge's evidence for Calvin being a Zwinglian is he signs the Consensus Tigurinus. The Consensus Tigurinus essentially just touches on those areas where the Calvinists and those of Zwinglians agreed. It doesn't touch on the areas where they disagreed, and it's those areas of the spiritual feeding on christ in the Lord's Supper where one would find disagreement between the Calvinists and the men of Zurich.

 

Carl Trueman, Calvin IV, The Reformation, Westminster Theological Seminary, 2013