1 making a schism but their zeal for preserving unity.' Then, after appealing to the example of Christ and His apostles, he quotes St. Cyprian to the effect that though there be unclean vessels in the Church it is not our duty to withdraw from it but to labour that we may be vases of gold and silver. So then the Bible, as he truly argues, supports the authority of the Church. And why do we believe the Bible? We believe the books of the Bible because they were 'composed at the dictation of the Holy Spirit'; the writers of the New Testament were 'authentic amanuenses of the Holy Spirit', the prophets uttered the 'oracles' of God. The authority of the Bible rests upon two facts, the fact that it was dictated by the Holy Spirit and the corresponding fact that the same Holy Spirit witnesses to it and seals it in our hearts. It is worth noticing that this view of the authority of the Bible is the result of an endeavour to improve upon the views of Luther by a doctrine derived from mediaeval Catholic theology. If the result is not entirely successful, it does express a religious truth when it asserts that there is a concurrent witness of the Holy Spirit in the written word and in the soul of the Christian. God has made a personal revelation of himself in Christ to man. The Bible is a means of putting us in contact with that Christ. And from Calvin's own premisses it might well be maintained that the tradition of the Church guided by the Spirit, and always recalled to its original type by a reverent use of the Scriptures, is a third element coalescing with the witness of the Spirit in the written word and in the individual soul. Earnest as were the disciples of Calvin, they could not exorcize the spectre that haunted the new Church which he founded. That spectre was Socinianism. Zwingli had imperilled the doctrine of the Incarnation by his shallow 1 Op. cit., Lib. IV, cap. i, sect. 18. 1 view of the sacraments, for it is in the sacraments that we find an extension of the Incarnation'. Yet he maintained a belief in the Holy Trinity and in the Deity of Jesus Christ. But Faustus Socinus (d. 1604), an Italian humanist, well born and well educated, the nephew of a priest of Siena, emphasized to the utmost the negative elements of Zwingli's teaching, so as to deny the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity. He taught a reduced view of Christ's Person and His work, corresponding with an imperfect realization of human sin and guilt. According to Socinus, Christ did not exist before He was born of Mary. He may be worshipped because God delegated divine power to Him as to a viceroy. His moral teaching is to be followed, but His atoning work is limited to His example of obedience and to the forgiveness of God which He offers. This doctrine, nominally based upon the teaching of the Bible, was in its essence a revival of the heresy taught in the third century by Paul of Samosata who replaced the scriptural truth that the 'Word was made flesh' by the theory that a divine character was infused into a human person. Its delusive modernism attracted a good many adherents, especially in Poland, and they proclaimed its victory in the lines, Tota iacet Babylon, destruxit tecta Lutherus, Socinianism certainly did not destroy the foundations of the Church. But in one form or another it never ceased to attract men who imagined that in abandoning Calvinistic doctrines of predestination sin and atonement it is necessary to abandon the substantially orthodox doctrine of Christ's Person which the Calvinists retained. For a time, however, Calvinism remained the only important Protestant rival of Lutheranism on the Continent. The differences between them are profound in theology, worship, and ethical temper, and the history of modern civilization cannot be understood unless these differences are in some degree appreciated. They had in common an appeal to the Bible, an assent to the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, a strenuous opposition to Rome, and a zeal for education. But they differed even in regard to their belief in God and predestination and good works. Luther and Calvin both wished to exclude the idea that man's works can secure his salvation. But Luther in so doing wished to preserve the believer's own subjective certainty of salvation. God is love and He means to save His elect, though they know that their works fall short of His demands. But to Calvin God is not primarily love, but infinite arbitrary power. He glorifies himself by revealing to man His sovereign freedom of action in the choice of His elect, and in their character as members of a community ruled by Christ. The first view tends to sentimentalism, the second to rigorism. In Lutheranism organized ecclesiastical life was weak. In one German State after another Lutheranism formed a little patriarchal system. The prince became the absolute ruler of the Church, the noble patron became the tyrant of the pastor. Under this territorial system discipline became such a farce that a money payment was sometimes taken in lieu of penance, and Lutherans would throw down the fee, when they approached the confessional, and demand absolution from the pastor.1 But soldiers were well drilled, workpeople were industrious, and there remained a sincerely pious remnant of people without much initiative, but witnessing to their faith and producing a devotional and even a mystical literature. Calvinism, on the other hand, created a highly organized middle-class theocracy. God is represented by His elect who choose their ministers, elders, and synods, who learn For this and for other evidence of the almost inconceivable degradation into which Lutheranism fell, see Kerr D. Macmillan, Protestantism in Germany (Princeton University Press and Oxford University Press, 1917). ། how to govern and exercise discipline. The quasi-Catholic doctrine of the Church developed a far greater sense of international life and common action than we find in Lutheranism. And at the same time the right to a share in Church government developed a power of initiative and a sense of individual responsibility. If Lutheranism produced good musicians, soldiers, and workmen, Calvinism produced good scholars and clever men of business. The modern capitalist is usually a child of the Ghetto or a grandchild of Geneva. In the century and a half which followed the death of Luther, Calvinism, a first-class fighting religion, pushed itself through the midst of Germany. One by one Bremen, Anhalt, Hesse-Cassel, and Lippe deserted Luther for Calvin, and on Christmas Day, 1613, John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, left Lutheranism for the Reformed Church. Modern Prussia has been built up by rulers trained in Calvinism moulding a people trained in Lutheranism. In the meanwhile there flourished a Lutheran scholasticism devoted to the defence and development of Luther's teaching. As a result of his teaching with regard to the Incarnation, the Lutheran schoolmen, like some of the schoolmen of the Middle Ages, disputed greatly concerning the conditions under which the divine attributes were exercised by our Lord Jesus Christ during His ministry on earth. We need not regard these disputes as a mere flood of sterilizing controversy. Similar problems were debated here early in the eighteenth century, and more recently within the memory of some who are in this church to-day. And it would be well if we could learn from the mistakes of Lutherans, Calvinists, and Socinians the moral and the intellectual dangers of departing from the Christ of the New Testament. Lutheran Christology has not the high merit of the work of Richard Hooker. It sacrifices too much to a priori considerations. It leaves the Master less humility, less reality. But Biblical exegesis had some distinguished representatives in Germany, such as Erasmus Schmidt of Wittenberg, and Sebastian Schmidt of Strassburg; and any religious community, which through the Bible tries to keep in contact with Christ, has within it a grand corrective of academic errors: Side by side with the Bible Lutheranism preserved some good ancient traditions in public worship. Corresponding with their different views of God and the sacraments, Calvinists and Lutherans manifested a wide difference in worship. The Calvinists kept alive the iconoclastic spirit of Zwingli. They denuded their churches of ornament, so that the omnipotent Spirit might be adored with less distraction. They wished for nothing in public worship which the New Testament does not obviously sanction. The Lutherans wished to retain ceremonies which the Bible does not forbid. They left their churches adorned with rich altars, tapers, and crucifixes, ready for the presence of Emmanuel. The people of Berlin rose in protest when John Sigismund tried to banish crucifixes and fonts. The Marienkirche at Danzig is still famous for its store of mediaeval vestments, and John Wesley, when he visited Meissen in 1738, was surprised to see a Lutheran minister in a chasuble of gold and scarlet, and a vast cross both behind and before '.1 The Calvinists abolished Christmas and the whole cycle of old festivals. The Lutherans kept the more important. Their services kept part of the ancient liturgical outlines. Indeed, one of the most recent Lutheran The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, vol. i, p. 113 (London, 1830). Wesley also notes that at Berthelsdorf, near the Moravian settlement of Herrnhut, there were two large lighted candles on the altar and a crucifix over the pulpit. |