RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Protestantism
Luther's new ideas concerning the constitution of the Church are developed in his An den christlichen AM. He preferred to say " Christendom " rather than " Church," and in this work he represents Christendom as ordered in estates and callings. He declares that the worldly estates belong to the body of Christ and are on an equality with spiritual persons, both in their religious quality and from the point of view of their moral actions. A rightly chosen priest is no different from a public official, and all men are alike fit for the service which Christ has appointed to Christendom, namely, to work together for the good of body and soul. Luther by no means had in mind only the nobles, to whom he addressed his appeal, but expressly mentioned shoemakers, smiths, and farmers. They must all know that they are all spiritual estates, all equally ordained priests and bishops, to the end that each in his way may be useful and serviceable to the other and help him to live and grow as a Christian in his appointed place.
Luther often declared that, while all are spiritual priests, there are also priests of the Church, that is, those whose duty it is to administer the word and the sacraments. This leads to his theories of the Church in relation to its rites and ceremonies. He never doubted that there should be special provision for all the elements of worship in Christendom; what was new with him was that he distinguished between the concepts " Church " and " organization for public worship," considering the latter, so to speak, as only a province of the former. He found no difficulty, however, in regarding the Church, in its capacity of an organization for public worship, as instituted by God and ordered by Christ, sndowed by him with special gifts. Its function is to extend the kingdom of Christ, its foundation the command to baptize. He was convinced that any Christian could read the Bible and profit from it, but he believed that all, himself included, needed also the instruction of well-ordered preaching. He would not, however, have the hearing of sermons made a " commandment of the Church," aiding in salvation by compliance with a law. Hence, in ordering the Evangelical service Luther put all emphasis on the preaching of the word of God, to the end that the Bible might be understood and have its full efficiency as the true means of grace. He put the sacraments by the side of preaching, because in his own experience he had found help and comfort in the sacraments. In his doctrine of the Lord's Supper he retained more of the old doctrines than elsewhere; but he utterly rejected the concept of sacrifice, and put no other interpretation on the mystery of the Supper than that it inspired the trembling, guilty conscience to faith. His regard for church services and rites never became a snare to him. He was convinced that unjust excommunication does not exclude from the Church; he taught that if the priests of the Church will not serve, any Christian brother may officiate in their place; and he regarded parents' reading of the Bible, catechetical instruction, and prayers at home as supplementary to the similar offices of the Church, and filled with the same sort of power.
IV. The Lutheran Church: The historical study of Protestantism leads naturally from Luther to Melanchthon. The part of the latter in the Reformation has given rise to most divergent opinions. Extreme views, such as those which, on the one hand, regard him as a sort of destroyer of true Lutheranism, and, on the other hand, i. Luther make him the real genius of the Reforand Me- mation who determined its course, are lanchthon. not justified. Luther was no organizer, and, as a theologian, no systematizer. Melanchthon was both, though with limitations. The word of God could not be presented and made effective without trained preachers who knew how to use the Bible and were in sympathy with the spirit of the time as represented in the Renaissance. His ability to meet this need by making schools and universities, as well as all their teachings, subservient to the preaching of the Gospel was Melanchthon's peculiar gift. Luther recognized this and was not blind to his own restrictions. He justly admired Melanchthon's skill in getting at the kernel and formulating it instructively and systematically, even though the latter's work as the " preceptor of the Reformation " inevitably resulted in a narrowing of Lutheran concepts which was not without momentous consequences.
This reduction of Luther's thoughts appears in what Melanchthon has to say of the Church in the third edition of his Loci (1543). Interest in the organization and in its officials and specific functions here comes to the front. Melanchthon 2. The compares the Church with a school, Church a and considers his definition of it as a School, coetus scholasticus to be a complete refutation of the papal definition of the Church as a kingdom. The Church consists of teachers and taught, who are to be distinguished one from the other, and it must set forth the Bible as the sole truth. In case of doubt as to the meaning of the Bible, the principle to be followed is that the word of God is itself the judge, " with," it is characteristically added, " the confession of the true Church." Luther might have written all this, though to him the Church was more than a school, and the word of God more than a mere matter of teaching. The pastors, or teachers, too, seemed less important to him than to Melanchthon, and he did not lay as much weight as the latter on the harmony of all Church doctrine.
Melanchthon wrote his Loci originally as a brief compendium of the great truths of the Bible for the private edification of those who were reading the Scriptures; but in the two later editions he aimed to produce a text-book for the Church as a school, and to collect all the articles of faith 3. Melanch- and arrange them in proper order This thon's was done primarily for the use and System, benefit of the teachers in the school (i.e., the pastors), especially as bitter experience with the fanatics had made a theological education seem a necessary requisite for the preacher's office. In all thre editions of the Loci justification by faith is the center of pure doctrine, and the chief article of the faith. The entire content of the Bible is arranged under the headings,
Protestantism