List | next: The imitation of Christ
The principle of Protestantism
by Philip Schaff
- Login or register to forward title to your Kindle or delivery email
- download the converted book to your desktop.
- Enter rr2.mobi/bwP in your Kindle browser to download
- Click on cover to see Google Books preview
- There is a used print copy of this title at alibris.com
Excerpt:
In the first place, we contemplate the Reformation in its strictly historical conditions, its Catholic Union With The Past. This is a vastly important point, which thousands in our day appear to overlook entirely. They see in the 31st of October, 1517, it is true, the birth day of the Evangelical Church, and find her certificate of baptism in the ninety five theses of Luther; but at the same time, cast a deep stain upon the legitimacy of this birth itself,'by separating it .from all right relation to the time that went before. In this way, all interest is renounced in the spiritual wealth of the Middle Ages ; which however belongs to us of right, as fully at leas* as it does to the Church of Rome. And what is worse Mill, the lie is given practically to the Lord's promise itself, L6, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world I
No work so vast as the Reformation could be the product of a. single man or a single day. When Luther uttered the bold word which called it into being, the sound was at once echoed back again, as in obedience to an enchanter's wand, not only from every quarter of Germany, but from England also, and France and Italy, and Spain. He gave utterance to what was already darkly present to tho general consciousness of his age, and brought out into full view that which thousands before him, and in his own time, had already been struggling in various ways to reach. Genuine Protestantism is no such sudden growth, springing up like a mushroom of the night, as the papist, and certain narrow minded ultra-protestants, would fain have us believe. Its roots reach back to the day of Pentecost. In all periods of the Church, in connection with the gradual progress of Romish corruption, it has had its witnesses, though not always fully conscious of their own vocation. And it was only when it had become fully prepared, in all parts of the Christian world, both negatively, and positively, to stand forth in full separate, objective^ manifestation, that the Lord of the Church in the end, from an obscure corner of Germany, called into life the herald, whose word was to solve the oppressive riddle, with which all Christendom had been so long burdened ; the spiritual Columbus, that should open the way into the territory, still unknown though long at hand, of evangelical freedom.
As the several departments of human life are bound together by an inward organic union, like the members of the same body; while religion in particular, which takes hold upon the entire man, in the inmost ground of his personality, must exert a modifying influence in every other direction ; the case Requires, that we should take account of the tendencies which led the way to the Reformation, in the spheres of Politics and Science, as well as in that of the Church strictly taken.
As it regards the first, it is clear that both Romanism and Protestantism rest constitutionally upon a national basis. Christianity, in its eternal and everlasting character, is raised indeed above every distinction of nation or race. It is a religion for the whole world. Still, on its first publication, it found on all sides a given historical development, a settled system of society, already at hand. This, of course, it did not seek to demolish and reconstruct, but simply to transfuse with the power of its own divine life. In this way, it became possible for the old order of existence to break into view again, with all its characteristic fault3 and virtues in the bosom of the Church itself, reflecting the Christian religion under its own peculiar image. Where previously the eagle of the war god spread forth his powerful talons, and the earnest, manly spirit of pagan Rome was enabled to or-, ganise and hold together, by the force of one gigantic and yet minutely specific system of Law, the entire world lying submis-. sive at her feet; there, now, a new empire appeared, Rome restored in the Church; built up in part by the same agencies as before, invigorated only by the presence of a higher principle; subduing the most barbarous nations, under the banner of the cross, and binding the most distant to a common centre; but at the same time repeating the lightnings of the Capitol in the thunders of the Vatican, directed against every motion of freedom, and in its conflict with the world gradually taking up all the elements of the world's corruption into its own constitution. In both cases we meet essentially the same features of character; immovable resolution, iron constancy, a restless grasping after universal dominion, and confidence of perpetual stability; but in . connection with all this, an artful cunning policy, disguised beneath a show of urbanity, the jesuitic maxim of the end sanctify
ing the means, and a heartless disregard to both national and individual rights, in the midst of vast pretensions to liberality and broad-hearted pliant toleration. The papacy is a Christian universal monarchy, erected on the popular spirit of ancient Rome. And as it is necessary that authority should go before independence, the general before the particular and single ; which implies that barbarous tribes require the force of a heavy disciplinary institute, in the first instance, to bring them to a full free knowledge of themselves ; no unprejudiced historian will dispute the merits of the Romish system, as eminently fitted for this service. Nay, in view of such countries as Italy, Spain, and Ireland, which have not yet outgrown their political minority, must we not allow a relative necessity for it, even in our own day 1
Protestantism springs as all know, from the German life,, which may be considered constitutionally its proper womb and cradle; as we find prophetically indicated by many voices of the Middle Period even, like that of Mechtildis, with her, remansurum pauperem et ajjlictum coetvm in Germania, qui pie ac pure Deum c.olat.* It was not a matter of mere chance therefore, or something indifferent in its nature, that the father of the Reformation,, surpassing all his followers both at home and abroad, should have borne upon him the impress of this particular nationality, in its purest, most original, and most perfect form ; and that his German translation of the bible became the recruiting call to so many thousands, to rally round the standard of the new, or rather, renovated faith. In Luther, all the essential traits of the German nationality are found collected as it were into a single focus ; indomitable energy, earnest childlike integrity and simplicity, unaffected humility, and a predominant tendency towards the world of thought and feeling; to which must be added, it is true, a, blunt carriage, running not unfrequently into downright rudeness^ and a certain undervaluation of the outward costume of life, not to be approved in any case. Such a nationality is fitted constitutionally for a deep, inward apprehension of the Christian system; while the Roman and Romanist spirit, as naturally,, was led to embrace it prevailingly in a more outward way, as a body of mere rules and statutes. Those forms of character which i
* "Only the inwardness of the German nation," says Hegel (Philo-' sophie der Geschichte. Works, 1st ed. vol. 9 p. .417.) "was the soil of the Reformation; only from such simple, straight-forward character,, could the great work proceed. Whilst other nations were wholly taken up with worldly dominion, conquests and discoveries, a plain monk toiled after perfection in his spirit and brought it to pass."
