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 PROTESTANTISM

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PROTESTANTISM

easy act of faith, there is no further need of ordained teachers and ministers of sacrifice and sacraments. The sacraments themselves, in fact, become super- fluous. The abolition of priests, sacrifices, and sacraments is the logical consequence of false prem- ises, i. e. the right of private judgment and justifica- tion by faith alone; it is, therefore, as illusory as these. It is moreover contrary to Scripture, to tradi- tion, to reason. The Protestant position is that the clergy had originally been representatives of the people, deriving all their power from them, and only doing, for the sake of order and convenience, what laymen might do also. But Scripture speaks of bishops, priests, deacons as invested with spiritual powers not possessed by the community at large, and transmitted by an external sign, the imposition of hands, thus creating a separate order, a hierarchy. (See Hier.\rchy; Priesthood.) Scripture shows the Church starting with an ordained priesthood as its central element. History likewise shows this priest- hood living on in unbroken succession to the present day in East and West, even in Churches separated from Rome. And reason requires such an institu- tion; a society confessedly established to continue the saving work of Christ must possess and perpetuate His saving power; it must have a teaching and minis- tering order commissioned by Christ, as Christ was commissioned by God: "As the Father hath sent me, I also send you" (John, xx, 21). Sects which are at best shadows of Churches wax and wane with the priestly powers they subconsciously or instinc- tively attribute to their pastors, elders, ministers, preachers, and other leaders.

IV. Private Judgment in Practice. — At first sight it seems that private judgment as a rule of faith would at once dissolve all creeds and confes- sioas into individual oi)inions, thus making impossible any church life based upon a common faith. For guol capita tot se?isus: no two men think exactly alike on any subject. Yet we are faced by the fact that Protestant churches have lived through several cen- turies and have moulded the character not only of individuals but of whole nations; that millions of souls have found and are finding in them the spiritual food which satisfies their spiritual cravings; that their missionary and charitable activity is covering wide fields at home and abroad. The apparent incongruity does not exist in reality, for private judgment is never and nowhere allowed full play in the framing of religions. The open Bible and the open mind on its interpretation are rather a lure to entice the masses, by flattering their pride and de- ceiving their ignorance, than a workable principle of faith.

The first limitation imposed on the application of private judgment is the incapacity of most men to judge for themselves on matters above their physical needs. How many Christians are made by the tons of Testaments distributed by missionaries to the heathen? What religion could even a well-schooled man extract from the Bible if he had nought but his brain and his book to guide him? The second limita- tion arises from environment and prejudices. The assumed right of private judgment is not exercised until the mind is already stocked with ideas and no- tions supplied by family and community, foremost among these being the current conceptions of religious dogmas and duties. People are said to be Catholics, Protestants, Mahommedans, Pagans "by birth", because the environment in which they are born in- variably endows them with the local religion long before they are able to judge and choose for them- selves. And the firm hold which this initial training gets on the mind is well illustrated by the fewness of changes in later life. Conversions from one belief to another are of comparatively rare occurrence. The number of converts in any denomination com- XII.— 32

pared to the number of stauncher adherents is a negligible quantity. Even where private judgment has led to the conviction that some other form of religion is preferable to the one professed, conversion is not always achieved. The convert, beside and beyond his knowledge, must have sufficient strength of will to break with old associations, old friendships, old habits, and to face the uncertainties of life in new surroundings. His sense of duty, in many cases, must be of heroical temper.

A third limitation put on the exercise of private judgment is the authority of Church and State. The Reformers took full advantage of their emanci- pation from papal authority, but they showed no inclination to allow their followers the same freedom. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Knox were as intolerant of private judgment when it went against their own conceits as any pope in Rome was ever intolerant of heresy. Confessions of faith, symbols, and cate- chism were set up everywhere, and were invariably backed by the secular power. In fact, the secular power in the several parts of Germany, England, Scotland, and elsewhere has had more to do with the moulding of religious denominations than private judgment and justification by faith alone. Rulers were guided by political and material considerations in their adherence to particular forms of faith, and they usurped the right of imposing their own choice on their subjects, regardless of private opinions: cujiis regio hiijus religio.

The above considerations show that the first Prot- estant principle, free judgment, never influenced the Protestant masses at large. Its influence is limited to a few leaders of the movement, to the men who by dint of strong character were capable of creating sei)arate sects. They indeed spurned the authority of the Old Church, but soon transferred it to their own persons and institutions, if not to secular princes. How mercilessly the new authority was exercised is matter of history. Moreover, in the course of time, private judgment has ripened into unbridled freethought, Rationalism, Modernism, now rampant in most universities, cultured society, and the Press. Planted by Luther and other re- formers the seed took no root, or soon withered, among the half-educated masses who still clung to authority or were coerced by the secular arm ; but it flourished and produced its full fruit chiefly in the schools and among the ranks of society which draw their intellec- tual life from that source. The modern Press is at infinite pains to spread free judgment and its latest results to the reading public.

It should be remarked that the first Protestants, without exception, pretended to be the true Church founded by Christ, and all retained the Apostles' Creed with the article "I believe in the Catholic Church". The fact of their Catholic origin and sur- roundings accounts both for their good intention and for the confessions of faith to which they bound them- selves. Yet such confessions, if there be any truth in the assertion that private judgment and the open Bible are the only sources of Protestant faith, are directly antagonistic to the Protestant spirit. This is recognized, among others, by J. H. Blunt, who writes: "The mere existence of such confessions of faith as binding on all or any of the members of the Chris- tian comnmnity is inconsistent with the great prin- ciples on which the Protestant bodies justified their separation from the Church, the right of private judgment. Has not any member as just a right to criticise and to reject them as his forefathers had a right to reject the Catholic creeds or the canons of general councils? They appear to violate another prominent doctrine of the Reformers, the sufficiency of Holy Scripture to salvation. If the Bible alone is enough, what need is there for adding articles? If it is rejoined that they arc not additions to, but