Page:French Calvinism, German Lutheranism and the War.pdf/8

- 7 - German God. I have to-day the honour of having amongst my audience several distinguished ministers of the Scottish Churches. I am sure they will agree with me that ecclesiastical systems cannot be understood only in terms of abstract and dogmatic theology. A church is a living growth. We must judge it through the ages by the fruits which it produces. Judged by that standard, the Lutheran Church and those Churches which have accepted Lutheran principles nave always and have everywhere developed into national Churches. It has developed in Sweden into a Swedish Church, in Denmark into a Danish Church, in Prussia into a Prussian Church, in England into an Anglican Church. In other words, it is an historical fact that in practice Lutheranism has turned out to be a tribal religion. Everywhere and almost from the beginning it becomes a State Church. This point will become clearer if we examine with a little more detail what is my third proposition, namely that Lutheranism has meant the instauration of religious despotism.

III.

What a strange heresy such a proposition must seem to the average protestant. For is it not the chief