484 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
A Romish priest or a Russian pope depends for his influence chiefly upon his official character, though he may be despised for his vices. A Protestant minister stands or falls with his personal merits; and the fact of his high and honorable position and influence in every Protestant country, as a Christian, a gentleman, a husband and father, is the best vindication of the wisdom of the Reformers in abolishing clerical celibacy.
§ 80. Reformation of Public Worship.
I. LuTHER: Deutsches Tauf bichlein, 1523; Ordnung des Gottesdienstes in der Gemeinde, 1523; Vom Grauel der Stillesse, 1524; Deutsche Messe und Ordnung des Gottesdienstes, 1526; Das Taufbichlein verdeutscht, aufs neue zugerichtet, 1526. In Walch, X.; in Erl. ed., XXII. 151 sqq. Comp. the Augsburg Confession, Pars II. art. 3 (De missa); Apol. of the © Augsb. Conf. art. XXIV. (De missa); the Lutheran liturgies or Kirchenagenden (also Kirchenordnungen) of the 16th century, collected in DAN-
IEL: Codex Liturgicus Ecclesiw Lutherane, Lips. 1848 (Tom. II. of his Cod. Lit.), and H6FLING: Liturgisches Urkundenbuch (ed. by G. Thomasius and Theodos. Harnack), Leipz. 1854.
11. ΤῊ. ΚΙΙΒΕΌΤΗ: Die urspriingliche Gottesdienstordnung in den deutschen Kirchen luth. Reformation, ihre Destruction und Reformation, Rostock, 1847. GRUNEISEN: Die evang. Gottesdienstordnung in den oberdeutschen Landen, Stuttgart, 1856. GoTrscHicK: Luthers Anschauungen vom christl. Gottesdienst und seine thatsdchliche Reform desselben, Freiburg i. B., 1887.
The reformation of doctrine led to a reconstruction of worship on the basis of Scripture and the guidance of such passages as “God is spirit,”! and must be worshiped “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24), and “ Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). Protestantism aims at a rational or spiritual service,? as distinct from a
1 j.e., all spirit, nothing but spirit, (without the article, as in the margin of the Revised Version), according to the Greek: πνεῦμα (emphatically put first) ὁ Θεός, in opposition to all materialistic conceptions and local limitations. Compare the parallel expressions: ‘‘God is love’’ (1 John 4: 8), ‘‘ God is light’? (1 John 1: 5), where neither the definite nor the indefinite article is admissible.
2 λογικὴ λατρεία, Rom. 12:1; comp. the “spiritual sacrifices”? (πνευματικαὶ θυσίαι), 1 Pet. 2:5.
§ 80. REFORMATION OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 485
mechanical service of mere forms. It acts upon the heart through the intellect, rather than the senses, and through instruction, rather than ceremonies. It brings the worshiper into direct communion with God in Christ, through the word of God and prayer, without the obstruction of human mediators.
The Reformers first cleansed the sanctuary of gross abuses and superstitions, and cast out the money-changers with a scourge of cords. They abhorred idolatry, which in a refined form had found its way into the church. They abolished the sale of indulgences, the worship of saints, images, and relics, processions and pilgrimages, the private masses, and masses for the dead in purgatory.1 They rejected five of the seven sacraments (retaining only baptism and the eucharist), the doctrine of transubstantiation, the priestly sacrifice, the adoration of the host, the withdrawal of the cup from the laity, and the use of a dead language in public worship. They also reduced the excessive ceremonialism and ritualistic display which obscured the spiritual service.
But the impoverishment was compensated by a gain; the work of destruction was followed by a more important and difficult work of reconstruction. This was the revival of primitive worship as far as it can be ascertained from the New Testament, the more abundant reading of the Scriptures and preaching of the cardinal truths of the gospel, the restoration of the Lord’s Supper in its original simplicity, the communion in both kinds, and the translation of the Latin service into the vernacular language whereby it was made intelligible and profitable to the people. There was, how-
1 Misse de sanctis, misse votivew, misscee pro defunctis. Melanchthon, in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, art. XXIV., says: ‘‘ The fact that we hold only public or common mass is no offense against the Catholic Church. For in the Greek churches even to-day private masses are not held; but there is only a public mass, and that on the Lord’s Day and festivals.”’ Masses for the dead, which date from Pope Gregory I., imply, of course, the doctrine of purgatory, and were among the crying abuses of the church.