492 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
The mass and the sermon are the chief means of edification, —the one in the Greek and Roman, the other in the Protestant churches. The mass memorializes symbolically, day by day, the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world; the sermon holds up the living Christ of the gospel as an inspiration to holy living and dying. Both may degenerate into perfunctory, mechanical services; but Christianity has outlived all dead masses and dry sermons, and makes its power felt even through the weakest instrumentalities. |
As preaching is an intellectual and spiritual effort, it calls for a much higher education than the reading of the mass from a book. A comparison of the Protestant with the Roman or Greek clergy at once shows the difference.
2. In close connection with preaching is the stress laid on catechetical instruction. Of this we shall speak in a special section.
3. The Lord’s Supper was restored to its primitive character aS a commemoration of the atoning death of Christ, and a communion of believers with Him. In the Protestant system the holy communion is a sacrament, and requires the presence of the congregation; in the Roman system it is chiefly a sacrifice, and may be performed by the priest alone. The withdrawal of the cup is characteristic of the overestimate of the clergy and under-estimate of the laity; and its restoration was not only in accordance with primitive usage, but required by the dectrine of the general priesthood of believers.
Luther retained the weekly communion as the conclusion of the regular service on the Lord’s Day. In the Reformed churches it was made less frequent, but more solemn.
4. The divine service was popularized by substituting the
redner der alteren luth. Kirche, 1856 (pp. 830-36); G. Garnier, Sur la predication de Luther, Montauban, 1876; Thomas S. Hastings, Luther as a Preacher, in the ‘‘Luther Symposiac’’ by the Professors of the Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1883.
8 81. FEATURES OF EVANGELICAL WORSHIP. 499
vernacular for the Latin language in prayer and song, —a change of incalculable consequence.
5. The number of church festivals was greatly reduced, and confined to those which commemorate the great facts of our salvation; namely, the incarnation (Christmas), the redemption (Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter), and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Ascension and Pentecost), with the concluding festival of the Holy Trinity. They constitute _ the nucleus of the Christian year, and a sort of chronological creed for the people. The Lutheran Church retained also (at least in some sections) the feasts of the Virgin Mary, of the Apostles and Evangelists, and of All Saints; but they have gradually gone out of use. |
Luther held that church festivals, and even the weekly sabbath, were abolished in principle, and observed only on account of the requirements of public worship and the weakness of the laity.1 The righteous need no laws and ceremonies. To them all time is holy, every day a day of rest, and every day a day of good work. But “although,” he says, “all days are free and alike, it is yet useful and good, yea, necessary, to keep holy one day, whether it be sabbath or Sunday or any other day; for God will govern the world orderly and peacefully ; hence he gave six days for work, and the seventh for rest, that men should refresh themselves by rest, and hear the word of God.” 2
In this view all the Reformers substantially agree, including Calvin and Knox, except that the latter made practically less account of the annual festivals, and more of the weekly festival. The Anglo-American theory of the Lord’s Day, which is based on the perpetual essential obligation of the Fourth Commandment, as a part of the moral law to be observed with Christian freedom in the light of Christ’s res-
1 “ Propter necessitatem Verbi Dei’? and “‘ propter infirmos.’’ 2 On Luther’s views of Sunday, see his explanation of the third (fourth) commandment in his catechisms, and Kostlin, Luthers Theologie, II, 82 sqq.