|
|
|
|
|
Christian System, The Alexander Campbell PRICE: OUT OF STOCK |
|
About This Item: Since the full development of the great apostasy foretold by Prophets and Apostles, numerous attempts at reformation have been made. Three full centuries, carrying with them the destinies of countless millions, have passed into eternity since the Lutheran effort to dethrone the Man of Sin. During this period many great and wonderful changes have taken place in the political, literary, moral, and religious conditions of society. That the nations composing the western half of the Roman Empire have already been greatly benefited by that effort, scientifically, politically, and morally, no person acquainted with either political or ecclesiastical history can reasonably doubt. Time, that great arbiter of human actions, that great revealer of secrets, has long decided that all the reformers of the Papacy have been public benefactors. And thus the Protestant Reformation is proved to have been one of the most splendid eras in the history of the world, and must long be regarded by the philosopher and the philanthropist as one of the most gracious interpositions in behalf of the whole human race.We Americans owe our national privileges and our civil liberties to the Protestant reformers. They achieved not only an imperishable fame for themselves, but a rich legacy for their posterity. When we contrast the present state of these United States with Spanish America, and the condition of the English nation with that of Spain, Portugal, and Italy, we begin to appreciate how much we are indebted to the intelligence, faith, and courage of Martin Luther and his heroic associates in that glorious reformation. He restored the Bible to the world A. D. 1534, and boldly defended its claims against the impious and arrogant pretensions of the haughty and tyrannical See of Rome. But, unfortunately, at his death there was no Joshua to lead the people, who rallied under the banners of the Bible, out of the wilderness in which Luther died. His tenets were soon converted into a new state religion, and the spirit of reformation which he excited and inspired was soon quenched by the broils and feuds of the Protestant princes and the collisions of rival political interests, both on the continent and in the islands of Europe. While Protestant hatred to the Roman Pontiff and the Papacy continued to increase, a secret lust in the bosoms of Protestants for ecclesiastical power and patronage worked in the members of the Protestant Popes, who gradually assimilated the new church to the old. Creeds and manuals, synods and councils, soon shackled the minds of men, and the spirit of reformation gradually forsook the Protestant church, or was supplanted by the spirit of the world. /viii/Calvin renewed the speculative theology of Saint Augustine, and Geneva in a few years became the Alexandria of modern Europe. The power of religion was soon merged in debates about forms and ceremonies, in speculative strifes of opinion, and in fierce debates about the political and religious right of burning heretics. Still, however, in all these collisions much light was elicited; and had it not been for these extremes, it is problematical whether the wound inflicted upon the Man of Sin would have been as incurable as it has since proved itself to be. Reformation, however, became the order of the day; and this, assuredly, was a great matter, however it may have been managed. It was a revolution, and revolutions seldom move backward. The example that Luther set was of more value than all the achievements of Charles V., or the literary and moral labors of his distinguished contemporary, the erudite Erasmus. It is curious to observe how extremes begot extremes in every step of the reformation cause, to the dawn of the present century. The penances, works of faith and of supererogation, of the Roman church, drove Luther and Calvin to the ultraism of "faith alone." After the Protestants had debated their own principles with one another till they lost all brotherly affection, and would as soon have "communed in the sacrament" with the Catholics as with one another; speculative abstracts of Christian Platonism, the sublime mysteries of Egyptian theology, became alternately the bond of union and the apple of discord, among the fathers and friends of the Reformation. The five great dogmas of the Geneva reformer were carried to Amsterdam, and generated in the mind of James Arminius, in 1591, five opposite opinions; and these at the Synod of Dort, in 1618, formed a new party of Remonstrants. Into Britain, with whose history we are more immediately concerned, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Arminianism were soon imported; and, like all raw materials there introduced, were immediately manufactured anew. They were all exotics, but easily acclimated, and soon flourished in Britain more luxuriantly than in their native soil. But the beggarly elements of opinions, forms, and ceremonies to which they gave rise, caused the "Spirit alone" to germinate in the mind of George Fox, in little more than half a century after the introduction of the Leyden theology. In Lord Chatham's days, the Episcopal church, as his Lordship declares, was a singular compound- "A Popish liturgy, Calvinistic articles, and an Arminian clergy." But every few years caused a new discussion and reformation, until the kirk of Scotland and the church of England have been compelled to respect, in some good degree, the rights of conscience, even in dissenters themselves. Abroad it was no better. The Saxon reformer had his friends; John of Picardy lived in the grateful remembrance of the Geneva family; and James of Amsterdam speculated in a very liberal style among all the Remonstrants /ix/at home and abroad. In Sweden, Holland, Germany, England, Scotland, the debate varied not essentially: the Pope against the Protestants-the Lutherans against the Calvinists-the Calvinists against the Arminians-the Bishops against the Presbyters-and the Presbyterians among themselves; until, by the potency of metaphysics and politics, they are now frittered down to various parties. While philosophy, mysticism, and politics drove the parties to every question into antipodal extremes; while justification by metaphysical faith alone; while the forms and ceremonies of all sects begat the "Spirit alone" in the mind of George Fox; while the Calvinian five points generated the Arminian five points; and while the Westminster Creed, though unsubscribed by its makers, begot a hundred others,-not until within the present generation did any sect or party in Christendom unite and build upon the Bible alone. |
|
|
