Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/261

 REFORMATION 245 ciple, or principium essendi. The former pro- claims the canonical Scriptures (to the exclu- sion of the Apocrypha of the Old Testament), and more particularly the word of Christ and the apostles, to be the only and sufficient in- fallible source and rule of faith and practice, and asserts the right of private interpretation of the same; in distinction from the Roman Catholic view, which declares the Bible and tradition or church authority to be two coor- dinate sources and rules of faith, and makes tradition, especially the decrees of popes and councils, the only legitimate and infallible in- terpreter of the Bible. In its extreme form Chillingworth expressed this principle of the reformation in the well known formula : " The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants." Genuine Protestantism, how- ever, by no means despises or rejects church authority as such, but only subordinates it to and measures its value by the Bible, and be- lieves in a progressive interpretation of the Bible through the expanding and deepening consciousness of Christendom. Hence, besides having its own symbols or standards of pub- lic doctrine, it retained all the articles of the ancient Catholic creeds and a large amount of disciplinary and ritual tradition, and re- jected only those doctrines and ceremonies of the Catholic church for which it found no clear warrant in the Bible, or which it thought contradicted its letter or spirit. The Cal- vinistic branches of Protestantism went fur- ther in their antagonism to the received tra- ditions than the Lutheran and the Anglican reformation ; but all united in rejecting the authority of the pope (Melanchthon for a while was willing to concede this, but only jure humano, as a limited disciplinary super- intendency of the church), the meritoriousness of good works, the indulgences, the worship of the holy Virgin and of the saints and relics, the seven sacraments with the exception of baptism and the eucharist, the dogma of tran- substantiation and the sacrifice of the mass, purgatory and prayers for the dead, and the use of the Latin language in public worship, for which the vernacular languages were substi- tuted. The other fundamental doctrine of the reformation has reference to the personal ap- propriation of the Christian salvation, and has for its object to give all glory to Christ by de- claring that the sinner is justified before God, i. ., acquitted of guilt and declared righteous, solely on the ground of the all-sufficient merit of Christ as apprehended by a living faith ; in opposition to the theory, then prevalent and substantially sanctioned by the council of Trent, which makes faith and good works the two coordinate sources of justification. Genuine Protestantism does not, on that account, by any means reject or depreciate good works; it only denies their value as sources or condi- tions of justification, but insists on them as the necessary fruits of faith and evidence of justi- fication. To these two prominent principles of the reformation, which materially affect its theology and religious life, must be added the doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers, and the right and duty of the laity not only to read the Bible in the vernacular tongue, but also to take part in the govern- ment and all the public affairs of the church. We now present an outline of the history of the reformation in the various countries in which it finally succeeded, leaving out Bohe- mia, Italy, and Spain, where it was suppressed by the combined opposition of the secular and ecclesiastical authorities. I. THE REFORMA- TION IN GERMANY. The movement in Ger- many was directed by the genius and energy of Luther and the learning and moderation of Melanchthon, assisted by princes, especially the electors of Saxony, and sustained by the majority of the people in spite of the opposi- tion of the bishops and the imperial govern- ment. It commenced in the university of Wittenberg with the protest against the traffic in indulgences, Oct. 31, 1517 (ever since cele- brated in Protestant Germany as the festival of the reformation), and soon became a pow- erful popular movement. At first it moved within the bosom of Catholicism. Luther shrunk in holy horror from the idea of a sepa- ration from the religion of his fathers. He only attacked a few abuses, taking it for grant- ed that the pope himself would condemn them if properly informed. But the irresistible logic of events carried him far beyond his original intentions, and brought him into irre- concilable conflict with the central authority of the church. Pope Leo X., in June, 1520, pronounced the sentence of excommunication against Luther, who burned the bull togeth- er with the canon law and several books of his opponents. The diet of Worms in 1521, where he made his memorable defence, added to the excommunication of the pope the ban of the emperor. But the dissatisfaction with the various abuses of Rome and the desire for the free preaching of the gospel were so ex- tensive, that the reformation both in its nega- tive and positive features spread in spite of these decrees, and gained a foothold before 1530 in the greater part of northern Germa- ny, especially in Saxony, Brandenburg, Hesse, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Luneburg, Friesland, and in nearly all the free cities, as Hamburg, Liibeck, Bremen, Magdeburg, Frankfort, and Nuremberg; while in Austria, Bavaria, and along the Rhine it was persecuted and sup- pressed. Among the principal causes of this rapid progress were the writings of the re- formers, Luther's German version of the Scrip- tures, and the evangelical hymns, which intro- duced the new ideas into public worship. The diet of Spire in 1526 left each state to its own discretion concerning the question of reform until a general council should settle it for all, and thus sanctioned the principle of territo- rial independence in matters of religion which prevails in Germany to this day, each sover-