LEIBNITZ AND BOSSUET. 485 being admitted to the vision of God. The questions in dispute between Rome and Augsburg he affirms to be of less consequence than the points in debate between the Jansenists and their opponents, within the pale of the Catholic Church. He went so far as to admit the rightful primacy of the Bishop of Rome, and he professed himself to stand in an inward connection, though not in external union, with the Roman Church. But in reply to pressing invitations to conform outwardly to this Church, he declined, on the ground that within its fold he could not hold in peace his philosophical opinions, with which, in reality, the Church had no right to meddle; he denied that he was a schismatic, therefore, by his own fault, and maintained the same ground in respect to Luther and the Protestants generally. The Church universal, according to Leibnitz, ever holds and is authorized to teach the essentials of religion; but it is not authorized to go beyond this limit. In case it does so, and thus invades the rights of conscience, an individual, or a body of individuals, are not injured by excommunication; and, when they find themselves, without their fault, in this position, their ministry and their administration of the sacraments become valid and acceptable to God. His remedy for the divisions of Christendom, was a general council, in which all parties should appear, and by which their common faith should be defined; everything else being left to the free judgment of individuals, and of national churches. The point on which Leibnitz and Bossuet could not unite, was the authority of the Council of Trent. Bossuet asserted that the Catholic Church could make explanations, but no retractions; and that the creed of Trent could not be altered. Leibnitz did not allow that the Tridentine Council is an œcu 1 Von Rommel, ii. 367. 2 Ibid., p. 19. 8 Ibid., ii. 365. 4 It is interesting to notice that Dr. Pusey's recent argument for union, An Eirenicon, etc. (1866), was met by Archbishop Manning with the same demand : menical body; and he objected to some of its determinations for example, to those relating to marriage.1 The outbreaking of the Jansenist persecution, and the tyranny and persecuting policy of Louis XIV., dashed in pieces whatever hopes of union sanguine persons may have been led to entertain, in consequence of these conferences between Protestant and Catholic leaders. for the acknowledgment of the Tridentine Council. But the representations of Roman Catholic theology by men like Bossuet and Möhler must be read with the recollection that there is a stricter orthodoxy than is found in them. 1 Leibnitz wrote "a theological system " about the year 1684, which purports to be from the hand of a Catholic. His design was to exhibit that moderate type of Catholicism which must be offered on the Catholic side as a basis of negotiations for reunion. In regard to his own position he says, in a letter to T. Burnet, in 1705: "On a eu la même opinion de moi [as of Grotius], lorsque j'ai expliqué en bonne part certaines opinions des docteurs de l'Église Romaine contre les accusations outrées de nos gens. Mais quand on a voulu passer plus avant et me faire accroire, que je devais donc me ranger chez eux, je leur ai bien montré que j'en étais fort éloigné." See Niedner, Kirchengsch., p. 818. On the Eucharist, Leibnitz writes: "Quant à moi (puisque vous en demandez mon sentiment, Monsieur), je me tiens à la Confession d'Augsbourg, qui met une présence réelle du corps de Jesus Christ, et reconnoit quelque chose de mystérieux dans ce Sacrament." Letter to M. Pelisson (without date). Leibnitzii Opera, ed. Dutens, i. 718. CHAPTER XIV. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES AND THEIR RELATION TO THE CIVIL AUTHORITY.1 IN Scotland and Geneva the Reformation was established by public authority, as the result of a political revolution; in most other places, also, it was introduced by the free act of princes or municipalities, who acted as the organs of the popular will. In France, and wherever the government was not carried into the new movement, it was organized independently of the civil authority. In some countries in England, for example — civil rulers took a more active and controlling part than elsewhere in shaping, as in bringing in, the new order of things. More of the previous ecclesiastical system was retained in some of the regions where Protestantism prevailed than in others. In short, the circumstances under which the revolution was effected, as well as the varied character of the communities in which it took place, had an important effect on the form of the new institutions. 1 Upon the topics of the Lecture, the principal Catholic manual is Walter, Kirchenrecht (13th ed., 1861); the principal Protestant work of a like character is Richter, Lehrbuch d. kath u. prot. Kirchenrechts, Leipzig, 1866. See also G. J. Planck, Gsch. d. Enstehung u. Ausbildung d. christl. kirchl. Gesellschaftsverfassung, 1803 seq., 5 vols.; Richter, Gsch. d. evang. Kirchenverfassung in Deutschl., 1851; Lechler, Gsch. d. Presbyterial-Verfassung, 1854. There are valuable articles by Jacobson in Herzog's Real-Enc. d. Theol., viz., Consistorialverfassung (vol. iii.), Collegialsystem (vol. ii.), Episkopalsystem (vol. iv.), Territorialsystem (vol. xv.). See also Rotteck u. Welcker, Staats Lexikon, art. Kirche, Kirchenverfassung. A concise discussion of the possible and actual relations of Church and State is given by Bluntschli, 'Staatsrecht, ii. 250. See also Von Mohl, Staatsrecht, Völkerrecht u. Politik, ii. 171, and Laurent, L'Eglise et L'État (1860). The Reformers generally agreed in discarding the hierarchical idea, and in holding that the body of the Church is the original repository of ecclesiastical authority. It was government by the laity, in distinction from government by a priestly class. This fundamental principle was adhered to, and nowhere more than in England, where the fabric of the old polity was least altered. The Reformers generally held, also, that Church and State are so far distinct that neither is subject to the absolute control of the other, or can merge in the other its own existence. They opposed, on the one hand, enthusiasts and fanatics, who clamored for the subordination or surrender of secular rule to "the saints," and thus for the establishment of a theocracy; they opposed, on the other hand, an absorption of ecclesiastical power in the State, such as marked the Roman Empire under heathenism, and the Greek Empire in Christian ages. The Lutheran Reformers professed principles upon the government of the Church and upon its relation to the civil authority, which they considered it impracticable to realize. Luther declared that all power resides in the congregation, or body of believers the Church collective. In their hands are the keys, or the right to exercise Church discipline, the sacraments, and all the powers of government. The clergy are commissioned by the people to perform offices which belong to all in common, but which all cannot discharge. They are therefore committed by the voice of the community to such as are qualified to fulfill them. The sacrament of ordination is nothing but the rite whereby persons are put into the ministry; but they are not constituted an order of priests. The churches have the power to elect and ordain their ministers, for it is the churches to whom the command is addressed to preach the Gospel. The Church is endued with the right to govern itself; the right of excommunication belongs ECCLESIASTICAL FUNCTION OF CIVIL RULERS. 489 not to a body of ecclesiastics, but to the congregation and its chosen pastors.1 But these abstract doctrines Luther and his associates thought themselves prevented by circumstances from carrying into practice. They were led, also, by the situation in which they were placed, to modify, in important particulars, these theoretical statements, especially on the point of the relations of the civil authority to the Church. The Germans, Luther said, were too rough, wild, and turbulent, and too unpracticed in self-government, to take ecclesiastical power, in this way, into their hands at once, without producing infinite disorders and confusion. The princes must take the lead in ecclesiastical arrangements, and the people must conform to their wholesome arrangements. The authority of civil rulers in the ecclesiastical sphere, was pronounced to rest partly on the old right of patrons, and on kindred prerogatives which had been enjoyed by the secular guardians of the Church, and partly on the principle that princes and magistrates, as the principal members of the Church, are entitled to be heard with respect; a doctrine quite compatible with the general theory that Church government pertains not to the clergy alone, but to the laity, to the whole congregation. It was held, moreover, that it belongs to civil rulers to maintain order, by the regulation even of the externals of worship. This indefinite function thus conceded to the State, was variously interpreted; but the tendency of events was to induce the Reformers to amplify rather than abridge it. The peasants' war and the subsequent strife with the Anabaptists, in which the coercive agency of the princes was necessarily called in, were influential in this direction. There was a strong reaction against the extreme view of the enthusiasts who proposed to divest the magistrate of every kind of authority. Luther is at 1 For the passages from Luther and from the Augsburg Confession, see Gieseler, Iv. i. 2, § 46. |