RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Protestantism
G. Warneck.1
Fournier deFlaix.2
H. Wagner.3
H. ZeUer.i
H. A. Krose.6
Roman Catholics
Eastern Church
Protestants ....
230,000,000 115,000,000 185,000,000
230,866,533
98,016,000
143,237,625
263,460,000 126,200,000 179,320,000
254,500,000 114,610,000 165,830,000
264,505,922 117,875,556 166,627,109
1 G. Warneck, Abriss der Geschichte der protestantischen Missionen, p. 375, Berlin, 1901.
2 Fournier deFlaix in Bulletin de I'Institut international de Statistique, iv. 2 (1889), 146.
3 H. Wagner, hehrbuch der Geographie, p. 179, Hanover, 1903.
* H. Zeller, in G. Wameck's Allgemeine Missionszeitschrift, xxx. 70. Zeller's figures for the Eastern Church are 106 - 480,000, Orthodox; 8,130,000 " other [Eastern] Christians."
5 H. A. Krose, in Stimmen cms Maria Laach, lxv (1903), 16sqq., 187 sqq. For the Eastern Church Krose gives Greek Orthodox 109,147,272; schismatic Orientals, 6,554,913; Raskolniks (Russian dissenters), 2,173,371.
III. The Fundamental Principles of Protestantism as Conceived by Luther: A theory of Protestantism which has been widely prevalent makes it consist of a formal and a material principle, the former grounded in the doctrine of the all-sufficiency of Scripture for everything in the Church, the latter in the concept of justification by faith. Attempts to expound the theory have usually suffered from lack of clearness and faulty method, the attempt having been made to construct without sifting the concrete historical material, so that only too often the result has been to confuse the two questions, how Protestantism actually presents itself in history and how the investigator would like it to be. Perhaps the most satisfactory method is to begin with a sketch of certain of the ideas of Martin Luther — -admittedly the founder of Protestantism. The chief points wherein Luther appeared as a new messenger of the Gospel may be grouped under the five heads which follow.
Regarding the Bible as the only indubitable source of authority in religion, Luther rejected the Roman Catholic teaching regarding tradition. Concerning inspiration he stood on the same ground as the Roman Church, but he declared that the
i. Norms latter did not accord to the Scriptures
of Faith, their full rights. In controversy as to whether he might really and justly appeal to the Scriptures, he asserted what has become the distinctively Protestant position — that the Scriptures are not obscure and in need of the explanation of the Fathers, and, secondly, that they have not a twofold sense, a historical and a spiritual, but a literal sense only. Along with his unreserved readiness to follow blindly the authority of Scripture as the word of God — qualified, however, on occasion by recourse to experience — Luther recognized the ecumenical creeds, and with them the old dogmas of the Trinity and the two natures of Christ, which he found confirmed by the Scriptures. It was his method to press forward from the human nature of Christ to true knowledge of God, and this method has always been important in Protestantism. It has regulated the pericopes in the Lutheran Church, has pointed inquirers to the practical way, and has centered attention upon edification and the knowledge of God in the benefits of Christ as
[Note. The tables are necessarily carried back to about the year 1900 because that is the latest date at which anything like general statistics or even estimates are obtainable. It would afford no adequate basis of comparison to take later figures such as are available from some countries when only much earlier figures are at hand for others. — The Editors.]
the essence of knowledge. Of the creeds, Luther held the Apostles' to be the most important, regarding it as a precious document of antiquity which confirmed his understanding of the Gospel, and appealing to it to prove that he taught nothing new, but only the genuine old doctrine. He consistently represented that the ecumenical creeds formed a bond, and the strongest bond, between the " kingdom of the pope " and the Evangelical churches; and in the dogmas of the Trinity and the two natures of Christ he saw in like manner a certain measure of common ground. On the other hand, while both the Roman Catholic Church and Luther maintained the inspiration of the Scriptures, their mode of treatment was too divergent to permit the German Reformer to feel any special sympathy with the ancient Church on this score.
When Luther fell back upon his experiences with reference to the Bible and Christ, and renounced all church teachings contrary to these experiences after, in his hour of need in the monastery, he had failed to find comfort in what she authoritatively offered him, he followed a conviction of individual responsibility and compulsion which 2. Private Protestants since his time have desig- Judgment. nated as " private judgment." In thus exalting his personal religious and moral convictions above authority and tradition he acted in the spirit of the Renaissance. At the same time, while the Renaissance relied without reserve upon the autonomy of the individual, and, in the last analysis, on purely empirical, egoistic, and unmoral individualism, Luther added from the word of God the concept of man created in the image of God, and understood Christianity as both freedom and compulsion. It has ever since been the problem of Protestantism to reconcile the freedom of the world of man, and of the Church, with God's revelation, and to assign to the conscience its proper function as guide of conduct and belief when enlightened by the Gospel, or the law of Christ. Luther well knew the limits of conscience in judging others, and he was willing to leave each one to God, even the heretics if they would only keep silence and refrain from disturbing civil affairs by agitation. For himself, he recognized that he was a debtor to the Gospel, and he asserted his independence in matters of belief only in so far as the new man in him had taken the place of the Old Adam. He never lost the consciousness of sin, and by word and act he made clear the true place of conscience in Christianity.
Luther's concept of justification was derived immediately from the Bible, although he always de-
Protestantism