14 ORIENTATION.
that his opponents might charge him with having borrowed everything from John Wessel if he had known his writings earlier. The fuel was abundant all over Europe, but it required the spark which would set it ablaze.
Violent passions, political intrigues, the ambition and avarice of princes, and all sorts of selfish and worldly motives were mixed up with the war against the papacy. But they were at work likewise in the introduction of Christianity among the heathen barbarians. ‘ Wherever God builds a church, the devil builds a chapel close by.” Human nature is terribly corrupt and leaves its stains on the noblest movements in history.
But, after all, the religious leaders of the Reformation, while not free from faults, were men of the purest motives and highest aims, and there is no nation which has not been benefited by the change they introduced.
§ 5. The Genius and Ain of the Reformation.
Is. Auc. DorNER: On the formal, and the material Principle of the Reformation. Two essays, first published in 1841 and 1857, and reprinted in his Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin, 1883, p. 48-187. Also his History of Protestant Theology, Engl. trans. 1871, 2 vols.
Pui. ScHarr: The Principle of Protestantism, Chambersburg, Penn., 1845 (German and English); Protestantism and Romanism, and the Principles of the Reformation, two essays in his “Christ and Christianity,” N. York, 1885. p. 124-134. Also Creeds of Christendom, Vol. I. 203-219.
Dan. SCHENKEL: Das Princip des Protestantismus. Schaffhausen, 1852 (92 pages). This is the concluding section of his larger work, Das Wesen des Protestantismus, in 3 vols.
K. F. A. Kaunis: Ueber die Principien des Protestantismus. _ Leipzig, 1865. Also his Zeugniss von den Grundwahrheiten des Protestantismus gegen Dr. Hengstenberg. Leipzig, 1862.
CHARLES BEARD: The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in its relation to Modern Thought and Knowledge. Hibbert Lectures for 1883. London, 1883. A Unitarian view, written with ample learning and in excellent spirit.
Henry Wace and C. A. BucHHerm: First Principles of the Reformation, or the 95 Theses and three Primary Works of Dr. M. Luther. London, 1885.
The literature on the difference between Lutheran and Reformed or
Calvinistic Protestantism is given in ScHAFF’s Creeds of Christendom, I. 211.
§ 5. THE GENIUS AND AIM OF THE REFORMATION. 15
The spirit and aim of evangelical Protestantism is best expressed by Paul in his anti-Judaistic Epistle to the Galatians: “ For freedom did Christ set us free; stand fast, therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.” Christian freedom is so inestimable a blessing that no amount of abuse can justify a relapse into a state of spiritual despotism and slavery. But only those who have enjoyed it, can properly appreciate it.
The Reformation was at first a purely religious movement, and ; furnishes a striking illustration of the all-pervading power of religion in history. It started from the question: What must.a , man do to be saved? How shalla sinner be justified before God, and attain peace of his troubled conscience? The Reformers were supremely concerned for the salvation of the soul, for the glory of Christ and the triumph of his gospel. They thought much more of the future world than of the present, and made all political, national, and literary interests subordinate and subservient to religion.’
Yet they were not monks, but live men in a live age, not pessimists, but optimists, men of action as well as of thought, earnest, vigorous, hopeful men, free from selfish motives and aims, full of faith and the Holy Ghost, equal to any who had preceded them since the days of the Apostles. From the centre of religion they have influenced every department of human life and activity, and given a powerful impulse to political and civil liberty, to progress in theology, philosophy, science, and literature.
The Reformation removed the obstructions which the papal church had interposed between Christ and the believer. It opened
1 What Dr. Baur, the critical Tiibingen historian, says of Luther, is equally applicable to all the other Reformers: “ Dass fiir Luther die Reformation zur eigensten Sache seines Herzens geworden war, dass er sie in threm reinsten religidsen Interesse auffasste, getrennt von allen ihr fremdartigen blos Gusserlichen Motiven, dass es thm um nichts anderes zu thun war, als um die Sache des Evangeliums und seiner seligmachenden Kraft, wie er sie an sich selbst in seinem innern Kampf wm die Gewissheit der Siindenver gebung erfahren hatte, diess ist es, was thn zum Reformator machte.” Gesch. der Christl. Kirche, vol. IV. 5 (ed. by his son, 1863). Froude says of Luther: “He revived and maintained the spirit of piety and reverence in which, and by which alone, real progress is possible.” Luther, Preface, p. vi.