CHAPTER IV

THE REFORMATION AND CHURCH POLITY

THE REFORMATION A REVOLT AGAINST THE CATHOLIC CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH, as the Seat OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY, the Source OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE, AND THE CHANNEL OF SPIRITUAL GRACE, EMBODIED IN POPE AND BISHOPS-SUFFICIENCY AND SUPREMACY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE-TEST OF SCRIPTURE AS A DIVINE REVELATION-LUTHER'S METHOD: WHEN GOD SPEAKS, MAN CAN HEAR THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT, the Right OF EACH MAN TO LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF GOD FOR HImself— JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH DIVINE SALVATION OFFERED TO THE INDIVIDUAL SOUL-INTERVENTION OF PRIEST UNNECESSARYLUTHER ON ORDINATION-PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION FATAL TO THE CATHOLIC IDEA OF EPISCOPACY-LAMBERT'S SCHEME OF CHURCH POLITY, PARTLY CONGREGATIONAL, PARTLY PRESBYTERIAN-LUTHER AND LAMBERT'S PLAN-HIS GERMAN ORDER OF DIVINE SERVICE-CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH DESCRIBED BY LUTHER, BUT PROTESTANTS NOT READY FOR IT.

THE

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HE Protestant Reformation, whatever else it may have been, was a great and successful revolt against that conception of the Church which had maintained its authority in Western Christendom for more than a thousand years. The Catholic Church, according to that conception of it, consisted of those-and of those only-who were in communion with duly appointed bishops. For Christ Himself had constituted the apostles the rulers, teachers, and priests of the Church : to resist their authority was, therefore, to resist the authority of Christ; and the apostles had transmitted to bishops the august powers which they had received from their Lord. It was the function of bishops to preserve the tradition of apostolic doctrine, to administer the sacraments, to absolve from sin, to govern the Church. They delegated some of these duties to priests, but the fountain of authority was in themselves. It was through the bishops that Catholic Christendom was

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held together, and was constituted one mystical and glorious society; it was through the bishops that the Church of later centuries inherited the grace and blessedness of apostolic times. But the bishops were confederate under the Pope; and for several centuries before the time of Luther the Pope had been usurping the powers and prerogatives of the episcopate, as the bishops had already usurped the powers and prerogatives of the commonalty of the Church.

The place of the Christian people in the apostolic polity had been lost; and the loss was something far graver than a mere loss of ecclesiastical authority-of the power to elect their own ministers, to control their own worship, and to determine the general policy of the corporate body to which they belonged. The disappearance of the organisation of the apostolic Churches was the visible sign of the disappearance of some of the characteristic ideas of the Christian Gospel. The Christian commonalty had lost their original position in the Church because their true relation to God was denied or obscured. For their certain knowledge of the contents of the Christian Gospel, Christian people had to depend on the priests, whose commission to teach was derived from the bishops. The Scriptures were withheld from the laity; and even those laymen who had access to them were under religious compulsion to receive the interpretation which had been imposed on the words of Christ and of the apostles by the great Councils which represented the bishops of Catholic Christendom. "The faith," -so it was supposed-had been "once for all delivered ". to the bishops, not to "the saints." The episcopate-not "the Church of the living God "--was "the pillar and ground of the truth."1 No man was permitted to listen to Christ for himself. The holiest women could no longer understand what Christ said to the woman of Samaria at the well, nor the most saintly men what He said to the crowd that heard the Sermon on the Mount. The definitions of Councils were necessary to prevent the words of Christ from leading unwary souls to perdition.

For the grace of pardon, and for that eternal life which was supposed to be given and sustained through the two great sacraments of the Gospel, the Church was also dependent on the bishops, and on the priests whom the bishops authorised

1 1 Tim. iii. 15.

to absolve from sin, to baptize, and to celebrate the mass. The Christian salvation was accessible only through the appointed ministers of the Church. God was afar off from common men: He came near to them through the sacraments administered by the priesthood.

Against these pretensions the Reformers asserted (1) the supremacy and sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures as the final authority in all questions of religious faith and practice; and (2) the doctrine of Justification by Faith.

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1. But how are ordinary Christian people to know that the Holy Scriptures contain a divine revelation? How can they tell what books are properly included in the Canon, what books are properly excluded from it? Have not these questions been settled by the authority of the Church—or, in other words, by the authority of the bishops? And if the decisions of the Church with regard to the Canon of Scripture are infallible, may not its decisions with regard to the meaning of Scripture be also infallible?

Or, if the Canon is not accepted on the authority of the Church, must not ordinary Christian people accept it on the authority of theological scholars? How can a merchant, a tradesman, a mechanic, master the evidence which proves that the Book of Jonah was written by an inspired prophet, that the Epistle to the Romans was written by an apostle, that the Gospel of John contains an authentic record of the discourses of Christ? Must not unlearned men depend for the settlement of these questions on the authority of scholars? What is to be done if the opinions of scholars vary? And may not the tyranny of scholars be as grave an interference with Christian liberty as the tyranny of bishops? If devout men and women can never be sure that they have a divine revelation in their hands until learned men have agreed that every book that is bound up in the Bible has a right to be there, the faith of the Church, instead of resting on the strong foundation of the divine Word, rests on the uncertain supports of human learning.

Luther's method of dealing with these difficulties was singularly courageous. It consisted in a bold application

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of the principle underlying our Lord's account of the relations between the Shepherd and the sheep. "He goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.' God's wordthis was in substance Luther's contention-is not so like man's word that it is possible to mistake the one for the other. The Scriptures shine in their own light. Their authority, like the authority of conscience, is its own evidence and needs no support or confirmation either from scholars or bishops. Every true and honest man may know the voice of God when he hears it. If the books of Scripture are bright with a divine glory, why need we ask any man whether the books are divine? If they break the heart to penitence, if they inspire faith in the divine love and righteousness, if they actually reveal God, what further proof do we need that they contain a divine revelation? Who asks for the decree of a council or the judgment of scholars to assure him that the fires of the sun were kindled by a divine hand? To Luther it was equally unnecessary to ask for any external proof that the writer of the Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans was taught of God: Luther saw for himself that the teaching was divine. He carried his principle to dangerous lengths. Where he himself could not see the direct evidence that the contents of a canonical book were divine, he had no scruple in challenging its authority. He called the Epistle of James "an epistle of straw." This was presumptuous. Other men might find God where Luther could not. He was too peremptory and too self-confident. But the principle of his method was in harmony with the whole contents of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. They assume that when God speaks, devout hearts will recognise His voice.

2. In asserting the supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures the Reformers asserted what has been called "the right of private judgment." By this is not meant the right of every man to think as he pleases, which indeed is a right that no serious and rational person ever claimed either for himself or for other men. The moral and religious obligation to do our best to make our thought true to the fact is just as strong as the moral and religious obligation to do our best 2 John x. 4, 5.

to make our word true to our thought. No man claims the right to "think as he pleases" in the investigation of historical events: it is his duty to submit his judgment to the evidence and to find all the evidence he can. In scientific investigation there is a similar obligation. No man claims the right to "think as he pleases" about the laws of electricity or of light; what he claims is the right to adjust his theory to the phenomena without interference on the part of "authority"; and the right to make his theory known without fear of penalties. Where we are ignorant we can "think as we please "; where we have knowledge thought ceases to be free; it must yield to the compulsion of fact.

And the right of private judgment in religion, as the Reformers understood it, was not the right of every man to form a religion according to his own fancy, but the right of every man to listen for himself to the voice of God. In the Scriptures, which contain the record of divine revelation, there is an appeal to the whole human race. It is every man's right, it is every man's duty, to consider that appeal for himself. The Scriptures were, therefore, translated into the language of the common people; tradesmen and peasants must be free to read them. Scholars and preachers may be of service in illustrating their meaning; but the final appeal is to the heart, the conscience, and the judgment of the individual man. It is to him that God speaks, and neither bishop nor pope has a right to stand between him and God. This was destructive of that episcopal usurpation which had suppressed the vigour of the religious life of Christendom for more than a thousand years. It reinvested the commonalty of the Church with the august responsibilities of freedom.

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The doctrine of Justification by Faith worked in the same direction. The Christian Gospel, according to the Reformers, is a revelation of the infinite grace of God. God makes no terms, prescribes no conditions, but offers the remission of sins and eternal life to every man. To meet His wonderful revelation with faith secures redemption; sin is forgiven; the sinful man is justified, and is made one with God through Christ.