Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/620

* LXJTHERANISM. 552 LUTHERANISM. in God's command and tunnccted with God's word," and its saving pilcfts are "produced l)y the word of God, which aecompanies and is con- nected with the water, and by our faith which relies on the word of God connected with tlio w-ater." So with its distinctive doctrine of the Lord's Supper. The 'great effects' of the Sup- per are ascrihcd to the words connected with its institution: "given and slied for you for the re- mission of sins," which words arc besides the bodily eating and drinking the chief things in the sacrament. The word is accordingly determinative in everything pertaining to the Church or to the individual Christian. Whatever in tradition or usage conflicts with the word is renounced, wliatever embodies or emphasizes the word re- mains. Such Church festivals are observed as cnnunemorate the fundamental facts of redemp- tion recorded in tile Word. The liturgy, pruned of everything which taught or insinuated un- sound doctrine, is retained, since it "aims at ex- pressing and appropriating in due order and in their organic connection the various parts of the one Word of God." From the doctrine of a spiritual priesthood follows logically the par- ticii)ation of the people in all public worship. Lutheranism furnishes, therefore, a prescribed order which in its chief parts is the same every- where, but which neither in whole nor in part is made obligatory on congregations. Art in the sanctuary is not discarded. The symbolic ar- rangement and decoration of God's House is en- couraged so far as art is expressive of the Gosjiel and impressive as an aid in exciting and deepening faith in it. By tile word likewise is determined the limit of the ministerial office, which consists in the proclamation of the Gospel and the dispensing of the sacrament. What tlic word offers, and only that, in its infinite application to human needs, is the theme of the iiuljiit. Its inherent power works repentance, faith, and obedience. With this ends the scope of the sacred office, and the authority of the Church, from which its ministers and shepherds derive all their func- tions. Nothing can be bound on men's consciences which God's word does not bind, nothing can be loosed therefrom which God's word does not loose. By the word also is determined the polity of. the Church. Lutheranism finds no form of eccle- siastical government instituted in the New Testa- ment, but as the spiritual priesthood and equality of believers is there established, any^ polity is approved which safeguards the rights of all and vests final authority in the congregation. In Scandinavian countries the episcopate remains. In German lands the Consistorium. the spiritual cabinet of the State government, lias the supreme supervision. In the I'nited States there are a number of synods and general liodies and govern- ment varies from Congregational to Presbyterian types. In the word Lutheranism finds the effective instrument of social reform. By it are set all boundaries in ethics. To this test is subjected every plan for moral amelioration, and in this is recognized the sole basis for Church unity. The true unity of the Church is found solely "in agreement concerning the doctrine of the Gospel." .^nd this magnifying of the word determines the attitude of Lutheranism toward modern thought and criticism. Whatever maj- be found true in the pretensions of scientific conclusions, God's word cannot oppose. And whatever un- questionably contradicts that word must be op- posed and overcome. Lutheranism would be false to its principles should it assume any other position: yet in the conllict between the old and the new, the Lutheran Church has a singular < ailvantage in this, that none of its symbols either : jirescribe the canon of Holy Scripture or define inspiration. The material principle of Protestantism, hohU also a unique rank in Lutheranism. While justi- fication by faith alone has a place in all Ke- formed confessions, it is the centre of tile Lu- theran system. Luther calls it "the one article and rule in theology, into which come and go all the others, and without it all the others are nothing." The Augustana strikingly exhibits the central, regulative, organic position of tiiis doc- trine "in the middle of the confession as its con- structive centre," the iireceding articles forming the objective background, those following relat- ing to its instrumental cause, its fruit in the i individual, and its import for the Churcli. ' The contention of Lutherans for the Real Pn-- eiice in the Eucharist, "the most consjiiciioiM divergence" from the Reformed, is not incon- sistent with this preeminence of justification, for the sacraments were ordained chietly "tliat they should be signs and testimonies of the will of God toward us, set forth to excite and confirm faith in such as use them." The Holy Supper with its supernatural content is the tender, the application to the individual, of the promise of justification, the means for its appropriation. Christ thereby "especially confirms the certainty of the promise of the Gospel to every one that believeth" (Formula of Concord), "adding as the memorial of so great a promise His own body and blood in the bread and wine" (Luther). The designation of this iloctrine as eonsubstantiation is repudiated by Lutheran theologians. That term ini]dies the commingling of body and blood with bread and wine so as to form one substance, but Lutheranism denies all change of elements in the , sacramental imion of the heavenly and the earthly, which is limited to the fruition, and which faith receives unto salvation, unbelief unto condemnation. Closely connected with its doctrine of the Real Presence, though not originally developed as a defense of it, Lutheranism has another distinctive doctrine in its explanation of the coiininiiiicntio idiomdtum. According to its interpretation by the early councils and in opposition botli to Roman, Catholic and Reformed teachings, it developed the reciprocal relations of the two natures in the personal union, viewing the human and the divine in Cliri'^t as inseparable yet un- confuscd. and ascribing all redemptive offices of the one jierson both to the human and the divine constituents, the divine personality acting. sufTer- ■ ing, rising from the dead and reigning in both j natures. J Pr.ctic.l Life. Such confidence in the power of the word and such stress laid on solafidianism. ( it has been objected, are unfavorable to religions earnestness. The abuse of these principles doubt- less is, but the record of Lutheranism is on the whole one of faithful attention to spiritual in- terests. By its catechisation this Church trains its children in Christian faith and life, maintain-