bird come once in a hundred thousand years, and pick off a small particle of the stone, not larger than the tenth part of a grain of millet, and after another hundred thousand years let him come again, so that in ten hundred thousand years he would pick off as much as a grain of millet, we wretched sinners would desire nothing but that thus the stone might have an end, and thus our pains also; yet even that cannot be! 153 FOURTH PERIOD. FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE ABOLITION OF THE FORMULA CONSENSUS IN REFORMED SWITZERLAND, AND THE RISE OF THE WOLFIAN PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY, FROM THE YEAR 1517 TO 1720. THE AGE OF POLEMICO-ECCLESIASTICAL OLEMICO A GENERAL HISTORY OF DOCTRINES DURING THE FOURTH PERIOD. $211. INTRODUCTION. As regards the sources, and the works on the history of the Reformation, compare Hase, Kirchengeschichte p. 349-50. [ed. 5th.], and Gieseler, Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte iii. 1. p. 1 ss. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was neither a mere seientific reform of doctrine nor a revolution which affected only the external relations of life (churchpolity and form of worship), without touching doctrinal questions. It was rather a comprehensive reformation of the Church on the basis of the newly awakened evangelical faith, as it manifested itself in its practico-moral aspects. As primitive Christianity did not present a perfectly systematic theology to its adherents, so those who restored pure, Scriptural religion, did not think of establishing a complete system of doctrines. The heart, and the actions of the heart, preceded, science followed in slow progression. Thus it happened, that the publication of the 95 theses (A.D. 1517, Oct. 31st), in which Luther opposed Tetzel on moral grounds, and the zeal which Zuinglius displayed about the same time, in combating the prevailing abuses of the Church, and the errors of his age, became the signal for further contests. When the attack made upon the sale of indulgences had shaken scholasticism to its very foundations, the opposition to all that was unscriptural in the constitution of the Church, as well as in its doctrines, soon spread further, though its success was not everywhere the same. " Questions concerning principles were, on the whole, not in accordance with the mind of that age." Baumgarten Crusius, Compendium der Dogmengeschichte i. p. 326. § 212. THE PRINCIPLES OF PROTESTANTISM. Göbel, M., die religiöse Eigenthümlichkeit der lutherischen und der reformirten Kirche. Bonn 1837. From the commencement two principles manifested themselves, which determined the course taken by the reformers, the one a material, the other a formal principle. The former was contained in the Pauline doc trine of justification by faith, the latter manifested itself in the constant appeal to the Sacred Scriptures as the only decisive authority in questions concerning faith. It may be said (though it be true only to a certain extent) that the German reformers adopted rather the material principle, while those of Switzerland (first Zuinglius, and afterwards Calvin) gave preference to the formal. The important events which happened during the present age, such as the division of the Catholic Church into its two great sections, viz., the Protestants and the Roman Catholics, the separation between the Lutherans and the Calvinists (the Reformed Church), which took place at an early period, and the schism still existing between the Roman Catholic and the Greek orthodox churches, render it necessary to adopt another method in the treatment of the history of doctrines. We shall have to consider the dogmatic development of each of these great sections of the church separately, as well as the relation in which they stand to each other. Nor must we pass over those religious parties which made their appearance in the commotion of those times, and so far from joining any of the larger bodies, set themselves in opposition to each of them, and were looked upon as heretical. I. THE LUTHERAN CHURCH. § 214. LUTHER AND MELANCTHON. * Pfizer, G., Leben Luthers. Stuttg. 1836. (together with the other biographical works, both ancient and modern, which are mentioned by Hase, Gieseler, and others.) Galle, F., Versuch einer Characteristik Melancthons als Theologen, und einer Entwickelung seines Lehrbegriffs. Halle 1840. J. H. Merle d'Aubigne, Histoire de la Réformation du 16. siècle. Paris 1835 ss. 3 vol. Edinb. 1846. iv. especially vol. i. and ii.—Audin, Histoire de la vie de Luther. Paris 1839. 41. 2 vol. Michelet, Histoire de la vie de Luther. Par. 1845.] It may be said, on the one hand, that Dr Martin Luther became emphatically the reformer of the German Church, and thus the reformer of a great part of the universal church, by his eminent personal character and heroic career, 1 by the publication of his theses,2 by sermons and expositions of Scripture, by disputations and bold controversial writings, by numerous letters and circular epistles, by advice and warning; 5 by intercourse with persons of all classes of society, by pointed maxims and hymns, but especially by his translation of the Sacred Scriptures into the German language. On the other hand, it was the work of the calmer and more learned M. Philip Melancthon to lead the powerful torrent of the newly awakened life of faith into its scientifically circumscribed channel. In addition to many other valuable theological works, he composed the first compendium of the doctrines of the Protestant Church (loci communes sive theologici), which formed the basis of other treatises.8 |