§ 84. Reconstruction of Church Government and Discipline.
AEMIL Lupw. RICHTER: Die evangel. Kirchenordnungen des 16 Jahrh., Weimar, 1846, 2 vols. By the same: Gesch. der evang. Kirchenverfassung in Deutschland. Leipz., 1851. By the same: Lehrbuch des kath. und evang. Kirchenrechts, Leipzig, 5th ed., 1858. J. W. F. HOFLING: Grundsdatze der evang.-lutherischen Kirchenverfassung. Erlangen, third ed., 1858. Sranu: Die Kirchenverfassung nach Recht und Lehre der Protestanten. Erlangen, 1862. MErJER: Grundl. des luth. Kirchenregiments, Rostock, 1864. E. FRIEDBERG: Lehrbuch des kath. u. evang. Kirchenrechts, Leipz., 1884.
The papal monarchy and visible unity of Western Christendom were destroyed with the burning of the Pope’s bull and the canon law. The bishops refused to lead the new movement; disorder and confusion followed. A reconstruction of government and discipline became necessary. The idea of an invisible church of all believers was not available for this purpose. The invisible is not governable. The question was, how to deal with the visible church as it existed in Saxony and other Protestant countries, and to
1 In Spain, once the richest and proudest monarchy of Europe, sixty per cent of the adult population could not read in 1877, according to the official census. Compare this with the educational statistics of Prussia, which in the sixteenth century was a poor, semi-barbarous principality. The contrast between North America and South America in point of popular education is still more striking.
516 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
bring order out of chaos. The lawyers had to be consulted, and they could not dispense with the legal wisdom and experience of centuries. Luther himself returned to the study of the canon law, though to little purpose! He hated it for its connection with popery, and got into conflict with the lawyers, even his colleague, Professor Schurf, who had accompanied him to the Diet of Worms as a faithful friend and counselor, but differed from him on matrimonial legislation. He abused the lawyers, even from the pulpit, as abettors of the Pope and the Devil.2 He was not a disciplinarian and organizer like John Calvin, or John Knox, or John Wesley, and left his church in a less satisfactory condition than the Reformed churches of Switzerland and Scotland. He complained that he had not the proper persons for what he wished to accomplish; but he did what he could under the circumstances, and regretted that he could do no more.
Four ways were open for the construction of an evangelical church polity : —
1. To retain the episcopal hierarchy, without the papacy, or to create a new one in its place. This was done in the Lutheran churches of Scandinavia, and in the Church of England, but in the closest connection with the state, and in subordination to it. In Scandinavia the succession was broken; in England the succession continued under the lead of Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury, was interrupted under Queen Mary, and restored under Queen Elizabeth.
Had the German bishops favored the Reformation, they would, no doubt, have retained their power in Germany, and naturally taken the lead in the organization of the new
1 Letter to Spalatin, March 30, 1529 (De Wette, III. 433): ‘‘ Jura papistica legere incipimus et inspicere.’’
2 Comp. A. Kohler, Luther und die Juristen, Gotha, 1873; Kostlin, M. Luth., ΤΙ. 476 sqq., 580 sq. In his Table Talk (Erl. ed., LXII. 214 sqq.), Luther has much to say against the lawyers, and thinks that few of them will be saved. ‘‘ Hin frommer Jurist,’’ he says, ‘‘ ist ein seltsames Thier.”’
§ 84. RECONSTRUCTION OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 517
ehurch. Melanchthon was in favor of episcopacy, and even a sort of papacy by human (not Divine) right, on condition of evangelical freedom; but the hostility of the hierarchy made its authority impossible in Germany.! He had, especially in his later years, a stronger conception of the institutional character and historical order of the church than Luther, who cared nothing for bishops. He taught, however, the original equality of bishops and presbyters (appealing ᾿ to the Pastoral Epistles and to Jerome) ; and held that when the regular bishops reject the gospel, and refuse to ordain evangelical preachers, the power of ordination returns to the church and the pastors. |
2. To substitute a lay episcopate for the clerical episcopate; in other words, to lodge the supreme ecclesiastical power in the hands of the civil magistrate, who appoints ministers, superintendents, and church counselors as executive officers.
This was done in the Lutheran churches of Germany. The superintendents performed episcopal duties, but without constituting a distinct and separate grade of the ministry, and without the theory of the episcopal or apostolical succession. The Lutheran Church holds the Presbyterian doctrine of the parity of ministers.2, The organization of the Lutheran churches was, however, for a number of years regarded as provisional, and kept open for a possible reconciliation with the episcopate. Hence the princes were called Nothbischéfe.
3. To organize a presbyterian polity on the basis of the
1 Apol. Conf. Aug., Art. XIV. (Miiller’s ed. of the Lutheran symbols, p. 205): ‘‘ Nos summa voluntate cupere conservare politiam ecclesiasticam et gradus in ecclesia, factos etiam humana auctoritate.’”’ He subscribed the Smalcald Articles (1537), with a clause in favor of a limited papal supervision.
2 See the Appendix to the Smalcald Articles, which have symbolical authority, on the Power and Primacy of the Pope (Miiller’s ed., p. 341): ““Quum jure divino non sint diversi gradus episcopi et pastoris manifestum est ordinationem a pastore in sua ecclesia factam jure divino ratam esse. Itaque cum episcopi ordinarii fiunt hostes ecclesie aut nolunt impartire ordinationem, ecclesie retinent jus suum.”’
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