RELATION OF PROTESTANTISM TO RATIONALISM. 7 of the free-thinking school on this point, we may refer to the series of historical works by M. Laurent, which contain much valuable information, especially upon the Middle Ages. This writer holds that Christianity itself is to give place to a religion of the future, the precise character of which he does not pretend to describe. He declares that revealed religion stands or falls with the Papacy, and that Protestantism "leads to the denial of the fundamental dogmas of historical Christianity. "2 He hails the Reformation as an intermediate stage in the progress of mankind to that higher plane where Christianity is to be superseded. Whether Protestantism fosters infidelity or not is a question which can be more intelligently considered hereafter. It may be observed here, however, that the Reformers themselves considered that their work arrested the progress of unbelief and saved the religion of Europe. Luther says that such were the ecclesiastical abuses in Germany that frightful disorders would infallibly have arisen, that all religion would have perished, and Christians have become Epicureans. infidelity that had taken root and sprung up in the strongholds of the Church, in connection with the revival of classical learning, threatened to spread over Europe. Melancthon, in a familiar letter to a friend, affirms that far more serious disturbances longe graviores tumultus The would have broken out, if Luther had not appeared and turned the studies of men in another direction. The Reformation brought a revival of religious feeling, and resulted, by a reactionary influence, in a great quick another place, however, he finds in pantheism a logical result of Protestant views of predestination. § 27. 1 The title of the series is Études sur l'Histoire de l'Humanité, par F. Laurent, Professeur a l'Université de Gand. 2 "Le protestantisme conduit à la négation des dogmes fondamentaux du christianisme historique.". - La Papauté et l'Empire (Paris, 1860), p. 41. - 8 De Wette, Luther's Briefe, iii. 439. 4 Ad Camerarium (1529), Corpus Ref., i. 1083. See the remarks of Neander, Wissenschaftliche Abhandl., p. 62. ening of religious zeal within the Catholic body. Laurent himself elsewhere affirms that in the sixteenth century, religion was in a state of decadence and threatened with ruin;1 that Luther effected a religious revolution in the mind of an age that was inclined to infidelity and moving toward it at a rapid pace; 2 that he was a reformer for Catholicism as well as for Protestantism; that the Reformation was the foe of infidelity and saved the Christian world from it. But we cannot pursue the topic in this place. Let it suffice here to interpose a warning against incautious generalization. The Reformation, whatever may have been its latent tendencies and ulterior consequences, was an event within the domain of religion. From this point of view it must first, and prior to all speculation upon its indirect and remote results, be contemplated. What was the fundamental characteristic of this revolution? Before, a vast institution had been interposed between the individual and the objects of religious faith and hope. The Reformation changed all this; it opened to the individual a direct access to the heavenly good offered him in the Gospel. The German nations which established themselves on the ruins of the Roman Empire, received Christianity with docility. But it was a Christianity, which, though it retained vital elements of the primitive doctrine, had become transformed into an external theocracy with its priesthood and ceremonies. It was under this mixed system, this combination of the Gospel with characteristic features of the Judaic dispensation, that the new nations were trained. Such a type of Christianity had certain advantages in relation to their uncivilized condition. Its externality, its legal character, as well as its gorgeous ritual, gave it a peculiar power over them. But all through the Middle Ages, whilst the outward, theocratic 1 La Réforme, p. 447. 2 Ibid., p. 434. PROTESTANTISM HAS A POSITIVE SIDE. 9 element that had been grafted on Christianity developed itself more and more in the polity and worship of the Church, the reactionary operation of the primitive, spiritual idea of the kingdom of God was likewise more and more manifest. Within the stately and imposing fabric of the ecclesiastical system, there was a force, as it were, imprisoned, struggling for freedom, and gradually acquiring strength sufficient to break down the wall that confined it."The Reformation, viewed in its most general character, was the reaction of Christianity as Gospel against Christianity as law." 1 It must also be remembered that with the traditional form of Christianity "there was handed down, in the sacred text itself, a source of divine knowledge not exposed in like manner to corruption, from which the Church might learn how to distinguish primitive Christianity from all subsequent additions, and so carry forward the work of purifying the Christian consciousness to its entire completion." 2 Protestantism, therefore, had a positive as well as a negative side. It had something to assert as well as something to deny. If it discarded one interpretation of Christianity, it espoused another. Old beliefs were subverted, not as an effect of a mere passion for revolt, but through the expulsive power of deeper convictions, a purer apprehension of truth. The liberty which the Reformers prized first and chiefly was not the abstract right to choose one's creed without constraint, but a liberty that flows from the unforced appropriation by the soul, of truth in harmony with its inmost nature and its conscious necessities. It is evident, also, from the foregoing statement, that in Protestantism there was an objective as well as a subjective factor. The new type of religion, deeply rooted 1 Ullman, Reformatoren vor der Reformation, i. p. xiii. 2 Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church (Torrey's transl.), iii. 1 seq. The view taken in the paragraph above substantially accords with that of Neander in the passage referred to. though it was in subjective impulses and convictions, owed its being to the direct contact of the mind with the Scriptures. In them it found alike its source and its regulative norm. This distinguishes Protestantism, historically considered, from all movements on the plane of natural religion, and stamps upon it a distinctively Christian character. The new spiritual life had consciously its fountain-head in the writings of the Prophets and Apostles. There was no pretense of. devising a new religion, but only of reforming the old, according to its own authoritative standards. Yet the Protestant Reformers, in transferring their allegiance from the Church to the Word of God, practically asserted a right of private judgment. Their proceeding was founded on a subjective, personal conviction. Deny to the individual this ultimate prerogative of deciding where authority in matters of religion is rightfully placed, and then what the acknowledged rule of faith means, and their whole movement becomes indefensible, irrational. Hence intellectual liberty, freedom of thought and inquiry, was a consequence of the Reformation, that could not fail to be eventually realized. But while the Reformation in its distinctive character is a religious event, it is not an isolated phenomenon. It is a part and fruit of that general progress of society which marks the fifteenth century and the opening of the sixteenth as the period of transition from the Middle Ages to modern civilization. This was the period of inventions and discoveries; when the magnetic compass coming into general use enabled adventurous mariners. to steer their vessels into remote seas; when gunpowder revolutionized the art of war by lifting the peasant to the level of the knight; when printing by movable types 1 Weber, Weltgeschichte, ix. 307. Duruy, Hist. des Temps Modernes (1453– 1789), p. 1 seq. J. I. Ritter, Kirchengeschichte, p. 142 seq. Humboldt, Cos mos (Bohn's ed.), ii. 601, 673, 683. THE REFORMATION NOT AN ISOLATED EVENT. 11 furnished a new and marvelous means of diffusing knowledge. It was the era of great nautical discoveries; when Columbus added another hemisphere to the world as known to Europeans, and Vasco da Gama, sailing to India round the Cape of Good Hope, opened a new highway for commerce. It was likewise the era when the heavens were explored, and Copernicus discovered the true system of the universe. Then, also, the masterpieces of ancient sculpture and the literary treasures of antiquity were brought forth from their tombs. It was the period of a new life in art, the age of Raphael and Michael Angelo, of Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Dürer. The revived study of Greek and Latin literature was directing intellectual activity into new channels. Equally momentous was the change in the political life of Europe. Monarchy having gained the victory over feudalism, the principal kingdoms, especially France, Spain, and England, were becoming consolidated. The invasion of Italy by Charles VIII., in 1494, commenced the wars of which Italy was at once the theatre and the prize, and the conflicts of the European States for the acquisition of territory or of ascendency over one another. To the intercourse of nations by means of commerce, which had spread from Venice, Genoa, and the towns of the Hanseatic League, through the rest of Western Europe, was added the intercourse of diplomacy. A state-system was growing up, in which the several peoples were more closely connected by political relations. In the various changes by which the transitional era is characterized, the Romanic peoples on the whole took the lead. But the Reformation in religion was not their work. As Protestantism in its origin was not an isolated event, so it drew after it political and social changes of the highest moment. Hence it presents a twofold aspect. On the one hand, it is a transformation in the Church, in which are involved contests of theologians, modifications |