The
Reformed Church
The following information is provided by
Voice to the World. http://www.vttw.com
Please provide proper accredition in your work.
This information is from, Christian
Symbolics or Exposition of the Distinctive Characteristic of the
Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed Churches as well as the Modern
Denominations and Sects represented in this country,
By E. H. Klotsche, A. M., Ph.D., D.D. Published by The Lutheran
Literary Board(1929), Burlington, Iowa. ©1929 R. Neumann,
Burlington, Iowa.
Web master note: The
following information was scanned and then corrected for scanning
errors. It was formatted in Corel WordPerfect and a three week
attempt was made to encode into a PDF file using Adobe Acrobat. This
process failed do to delinquencies in Acrobat. Since we are not
endorsing products but rather providing information; we are offering
this approximate version with links for quick study. If you wish an
accurate version for research, it is suggested that you download the WordPerfect
file.
I. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
We use the term
"Reformed Church" as designating that body of Protestant
churches known historically in distinction from the Lutheran Church
as the Reformed or Calvinistic Churches. It is allowable to speak of
"the Reformed Churches," for the various Reformed bodies in
Europe and America are branches of the same family and recognize each
other as such. They differ from one another in church discipline and
form of worship but they adopt the doctrines of the Reformed system.
Almost contemporaneous with,
but rather independent of, the Lutheran movement in Germany was the
Zwinglian reformation in Switzerland. Zwingli's reformation differed
more than Calvin's from the Lutheran in the doctrine of the
sacraments, especially in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Zwingli
was also more radical in his reform and departed farther than Calvin
from the received traditions in matters of government, discipline and
worship. The direct influence of his theology, however, was short
lived. The Arminians adopted his doctrine of the Lord's Supper, but
it received no symbolical authority in the Reformed Church. Even men
like Bullinger, Zwingli's successor in Zurich, accepted his doctrinal
views in a modified form. Calvinism triumphed over Zwinglianism
everywhere in Switzerland.
The true founder of the
Reformed Church was Calvin. It is true the Reformed theology had its
origin in the reformatory movement begun in Switzerland under the
leadership of Zwingli, but its fundamental principles received their
ultimate form and systematic exposition through Calvin. His theology
in its essential points became the adopted doctrine of the Reformed Church.
Calvin's system of theology
is laid down in his Institutio
religionis christienae, first
published in Latin in 1536, then in French, and much enlarged in
subsequent editions. The Institutes have remained ever since the
standard of orthodox Protestant belief in all the Reformed Churches.
Luther and Caivin have more
in common than in distinction. Both agree in the rejection of Roman
hierarchism and Pelagianism as well as the recognition of the dogma
of the ancient church. There were minor differences in their
conception of the doctrine of sin and grace, faith and works,
atonement and justification, repentance and sanctification. Calvin
differed from Luther particularly in his conception of predestination
and the sacraments as also in his aim and method of practical reform.
We shall now first give a
brief historical outline of the more important Reformed Confessions.
Then we shall discuss the distinctive doctrines and characteristic
features of the Reformed Church. This will be followed by a brief
account of the various reformed bodies represented in this country.
2. THE REFORMED CONFESSIONS
Of the numerous confessions
of the Reformed Church only the more important will be discussed
under this heading. E. F. Karl Miiller, in "Die
Bekenntnisschriften der reform. Kirche, Leipzig, 1903, counts no less
than 58. None of them is so universally accepted as the Augsburg
Confession in the Lutheran Church, but with all
this variety they are as much agreed in the essential articles of
faith as the Lutheran symbols (see Schaff, Creeds, I, 356 f.).
A. The Earlier Reformed Confessions.
The earlier Reformed
confessions set forth Zwingli's doctrinal views with important modifications
largely due to the influence of Bucer's irenic efforts.
(I) The first confession of the Reformed Church
is the Tetrapolitan Cofession
(Confessio Tetrapolitana), so
called, because the four cities of Upper Germany, Strassburg,
Constance, Memmingen and Lindau, presented it to the emperor at the
diet of Augsburg, in 1530. It was drawn up by Bucer, with the aid of
Capito and Hedio. It consists of 23 articles. The Tetrapolitana
agrees in general with the Augsburg Confession but in Art. XVIII
presents a view of the Lord's Supper deviating from that of the
Augsburg Confession and leaning to that of Zwingli. In Art. XXII the
use of images is rejected. The diet declined to receive this
confession. In opposition to it the papal divines wrote a confutation
full of misrepresentations. In 1531 the four cities adopted the
Augsburg Confession to join the Smalcald League, and the
Tetrapolitana ceased to be a formally adopted symbol of any branch of
the Reformed Church, although it was held in high
esteem among the churches of Switzerland. Today it has little more
than historical significance.
(2) Zwingli's
own Confession of faith which was
presented to the emperor at Augsburg, shortly after the Lutheran
princes had presented their confession, suffered
the same fate as the Tetrapolitana. It has remained a private
document without symbolical authority.
(3) The First
Confession of Basle (Confessio Fidei Basileensis prior)
is a brief and simple creed occupying an intermediate position
between Luther and Zwingli. It was drawn up by Oswald Myconius, in
1532, on the basis of a briefer formula prepared by Oecolampadius,
and contains ra articles. It was published by the magistrate of Basle
in 1534 and adopted and issued in 1537 by the confederated city of
Mülhausen, hence also called Mylhusiana.
In 1826 it was made binding on the clergy.
It has remained the official symbol of the church of Basle to this day.
(4) The first Reformed creed of national
authority is the First Helvetic
Confession (Confessio Helvetica prior),
drawn up by the Swiss divines, Bullinger, Myconius, Grynaeus, Leo
Judae, and Grossmann, at Basle in I536. It is therefore also called
the Second Confession of Basle (Basileensis
posterior). It was composed with a
view (a) to a union with the Lutherans of Germany, and (b) to its
presentation at a proposed general council. It consists of 27
articles. Art. XXII sets forth the characteristic Zwinglian view of
the sacraments especially of the Lord's Supper. The original was in
Latin. A German translation was prepared by Leo Judae. The Confession
was subscribed, March 27, 1536, by the clerical and lay delegates of
seven cantons of Switzerland.
B. The Later Reformed Confessions.
The later Reformed confessions were drawn up,
more or less, under the controlling influence of the spirit of Calvin.
(1) In order "to
restore the catechetical instruction of the ancient church"
Calvin prepared a catechism in the French language, at Geneva in
1536, the so-called Geneva Catechism or
Catechismus Genevensis. It presents
a brief summary of the Christian religion. In a new edition of 1541
he arranged the material in guestions and answers. The Catechism was
used for a long time in the churches and
schools of French Switzerland, France and Scotland, but as a symbol
it possessed only secondary authority.
(2) The
Consensus of Zürich or Consensus
Tigurinus was drawn up by Calvin in
1549 and adopted by the churches of Zürich, Geneva, Neuchatel,
Schaffhausen, St. Gall and Basle. It was published at Zürich and
Geneva, in 1551. In 26 articles it treats of the Lord's Supper. The
united views of Calvin and Bullinger on the Lord's Supper are herein
set forth, that is, the Zwinglian type is combined with the
Calvinistic. The words of the institution are to be taken
figuratively, and yet the Lord's Supper is not a mere symbol, but
with the symbol "the elect" receive Christ with all
spiritual gifts.
(3) Calvin's doctrine of
predestination was attacked, in 1543, by Albertus Pighius, a Dutch
Roman Catholic controversialist, who taught the freedom of the will
in the Semipelagian sense and predestination conditioned by
foreknowledge, and, in 1551, by Jerome Bolsec, formerly a Carmelite
monk, then Protestant and physician near Geneva, who objected to
Calvin's doctrine of predestination as unscriptural and blasphemous.
In consequence of these attacks Calvin composed the Consensus
Genevensis, in which he defended
and more distinctly set forth his doctrine of predestination. The
Consensus appeared in Geneva, in 1552, in the
name of the pastors of that city. It is a polemic treatise rather
than a confession and was of official authority only in the Genevan church.
(4) The Reformed Church in
France had been without an official symbol. But when in Poitiers, in
1559, a dispute over the doctrine of predestination broke out the
need of a common symbol was strongly felt by the pastors of that
city, who were unable to settle the difficulties. A common confession
of faith drawn up under the influence of Calvin was adopted by the
first national synod of the Protestant Church of France at Paris, in
1559. At the colloquy of Poissy, in 1561, Beta presented this
confession to Charles IX. It was at this colloquy that the
distinctive title "The Reformed Church" originated. The
confession was soon published as Confessio
Gallicana or French
Confession of Faith. It is also
known as the Confession of Rochelle,
because it was later enlarged and ratified at the seventh national
synod held at La Rochelle, 1571. In 40 articles the Confession presents
a summary of the doctrines of Calvin. It is the adopted symbol of
the French Protestant Church.
(5) In 1561 Guide de
Brès, an evangelist and martyr of the Reformed Church of the
Netherlands, drew up a private confession of 37 articles thoroughly
Calvinistic. It was revised by Francis Junius of Bourges, and
published in the French language in 1562 and afterwards translated
into Dutch, German and English. Following the order of the Gallican
Confession it presents the symbolical statement of the Calvinistic
system of doctrine. The confession known as the Confessio
Belgica was adopted by the entire
Church of the Netherlands and publicly approved by the synod of Dort,
at the 144th session, 1619. Together with the
Heidelberg Catechism it is the official symbol of the Reformed
churches of Belgium and the Netherlands and of the (Dutch) Reformed
Church in America.
(6) The Confessio
Hungarica or Czengerina
was drawn up and adopted by a Hungarian Reformed synod held at
Czenger in 1557 or 1558. It was occasioned by the anti-Trinitarian
controversies and the controversy on the Lord's Supper. Accordingly
it rejects the anti-Trinitarian and Socinian teaching and strongly
opposes the Romish transubstantiation and the Lutheran
"sarcophagia"; it is silent about Calvin's double
predestination. The Confession was soon thrown into the shade by the
Second Helvetic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism which became
the confessional standards of the Reformed Church in Hungary and Austria
The aforementioned
confessions were drawn up, more or less,
under the influence or supervision of Calvin. In the following
confessions Calvin's influence is more or less limited.
(7) Frederick III., Elector
of the Palatinate, professed the Reformed creed as distinct from the
Lutheran and made it his chief object to carry out the reformation
begun by his predecessors. In order to give the Reformed party a
definite and established organization he commissioned, in 1561,
Caspar Olevianus, professor and preacher in Heidelberg, and Zacharias
Ursinus, who had studied under Melanchthon, to draw up a new church
order and to compose a catechism. In 1562 the new catechism was laid
before superintendents and ministers, assembled at Heidelberg, for
revision and approval. In the following year it was published in
German, in the name of the Elector, as the doctrine of the
Palatinate, under the title "Catechismus, Oder Christlicher
Unterricht, wie der in Kirchen und Schulen der Churfürstlichen
Pfalz getrieben wird." In the second official edition, which was
published a few weeks later, there was added a new question, the
eightieth, concerning the difference between the Lord's Supper and
the Romish mass. The third edition of the same year contains the
condemnatory words in regard to the adoration of the host: "the
mass at bottom is nothing else than a denial of the one sacrifice and
passion of Jesus Christ and an accursed idolatry"--"eine
vermaledeite Abgötterei." The fourth edition of 1563, which
is essentially identical with the third, is to be regarded as the
textus receptus.
The Synod of Dort, in 1619,
officially declared the Heidelberg Catechism
one of the general symbolical books of the Reformed Church. It has
been translated into all European and many Asiatic languages. The
Dutch and German Reformed Churches in America accepted it as their
symbol. The General Assembly of the reunited Presbyterian Church, at
Philadelphia in 1870, officially authorized the use of the Catechism
in the churches if they desire to employ it in the instruction of
their children. The (German) Evangelical Synod of North America uses
the Heidelberg Catechism besides the Augsburg Confession and Luther's Catechism.
The Heidelberg Catechism
presents a milder type of Calvinism than the other Reformed
confessions; it says nothing of limited atonement, of a double
predestination or eternal decree of reprobation. It contains 129
questions and answers divided into the 52 Sundays of the year for the
purpose of the catechetical afternoon sermons. In its arrangement the
Heidelberg Catechism does not retain the traditional order of the
five articles of faith but following the order of the Epistle to the
Romans presents in. three parts an organic doctrinal system. After
two introductory questions the first part (quest. 3-II) treats of
man's misery (Rom. 1:18-3:20); the second (quest. 12-85), of man's redemption
(Rom. 3:21-II: 36);the third (quest. 86-129), of thankfulness, i.
e., the new life of the Christian which he lives in gratitude for
mercies received (Rom. 12 to 16).
(8) Frederick III., Elector
of the Palatinate, who had seceded from the Lutheran and joined the
Reformed Church, was, for this reason, threatened by the Lutherans
with exclusion from the benefits of the religious peace of Augsburg,
which were confined to the adherents of the Augsburg Confession. He,
therefore, requested Bullinger to prepare an expression of the
Reformed faith showing that it differs in no point from the apostolic
doctrine. Bullinger sent him a copy of a confession which he had
composed for his own use, in 1562, and which, in 1564, during the
plague, he had revised and elaborated and added to his will to be
presented, in case of his death, to the magistrate of Zürich, as
an abiding testimony of his faith. It pleased the Elector so much
that he had it translated and published in Latin and German. It is
known as the Second Helvetic Confession,
or, Confessio Helvetica posterior.
At the same time the Confession gained a favorable hold on the Swiss
churches. It was adopted not only in the Palatinate and Switzerland,
but also in Scotland (1566), Hungary (1567), France (1571), and
Poland (1578). It was held in high esteem in Holland and England.
Next to the Heidelberg Catechism it is the most widely adopted
Confession of the Reformed Church.
In the order of topics
following the First Helvetic Confession it states in detail, in 30
chapters, the articles of faith and discipline that then concerned
the church: I-II, Scripture; II-V, God and worship; VI-VII,
providence and creation; VIII-XI, the fall, and preparation of
salvation; XII-XVI, appropriation of salvation and new life;
XVII-XXI, church, minister, sacraments; XXII-XXVIII, church rites and
usages, festivals, church property; XXIX, celibacy and marriage; XXX, magistrate.--The
Confession harmonizes the German and the French Swiss, the
Zürich and Genevan theology, but with all its elasticity it
expresses the peculiarly Reformed conception of Christianity.
(9) The
Scotch Confession of Faith (Confessio Scoticana)
was constructed by John Knox and five associates appointed by the
Scotch Parliament, in 1560. It was introduced throughout Scotland by
state enactment. Though tending in a marked manner towards Calvin's
doctrine it presents in the sacramental dogma and in that of predestination
a mild form of Calvinism, but is more pronounced in its opposition
to the Roman Catholic Church than most of the other Reformed
confessions of the 16th century.
(10) The
Anglican Confession or Thirty-nine Articles
of the Church of England, and
(11) the Irish Articles of
Religion, will be treated under "Anglican Communion." (Web
Master note: see foot note "A")
(12) The Canons of the Synod
of Dort present orthodox CaIvinism over against Arminianism. Jacobus
Arminius (d, at Leyden, 1609) rejected the strict Calvinistic view of
predestination and advocated universal redemption. His followers,
notably Episcopius and Uytenbogaart, formulated their doctrine and
set it forth in the five articles of the Remonstrance, in 1610,
addressed to the states of Holland and West Friesland. A
counter-remonstrance sharply condemned the view of the Remonstrants.
To settle the dispute the National Synod of Dort was convened by the
states-general; it met November 13, 1618, and adjourned May 9, 1619.
Foreign countries had been invited to participate, and delegates were
present from the Palatinate, Nassau, Hesse, East Friesland, Bremen,
Emden, German Switzerland, Geneva, England and Scotland. It was the
largest and, next to the Westminster Assembly, the most imposing of
all synods of the Reformed Churches.
The synod condemned the five
articles of the Remonstrance and expressed its final decision in the
form of canons which define the five points of Calvinism over against
Arminianism: (I) absolute predestination; (z) limited atonement; (3)
total depravity and absolute inability of man; (4) irresistible
grace; and (5) perseverance of the saints.
The Canons of Dort were
established by law as the official doctrine of the state church of
the Netherlands, They were also officially indorsed by the Reformed
Church of France and received with respectful consideration --though
not adopted -- in Switzerland, the Palatinate,
and by the Puritans. The English Episcopal Church, however, rejected
them. The Reformed Dutch Church in America recognizes them as a
public standard of doctrine.
(13) The
Formula Consentsus Helvetica was
called out by a modified form of Calvinism held by the school of
Saumur, notably by Moses Amyraldus. He taught that God wills all men
to be saved, on condition that they repent and believe (hypothetical
universalism);and if all should repent and believe no purpose of God
would stand in the way of their salvation. But owing to inherited
corruption, they stubbornly reject, so that this universal will for
salvation actually saves none. Salvation depends upon the divine
election. The elect will be saved as inevitably as the others will be
damned. The Helvetic Consensus, composed by Professor John Henry
Heidegger Zürich, in 1675, rejects Amyraldus' view, condemns
universal atonement and the doctrine that God desires the salvation
of all, and teaches the strictest particularism in the election.
The Helvetic Consensus was
introduced in the Reformed Church of Switzerland and officially
adopted by several of the cantons. Its authority was confined,
however, to Switzerland, and even there, about the beginning of the
18th century it gradually lost its symbolical importance.
(14) The
Westminster Confession1
was framed by the Westminster Assembly, a synod consisting chiefly of
divines, hence called Assembly of Divines, which by act of Parliament
met in Westminster Abby, July 1, 1613, with the purpose of settling
the government, liturgy and doctrine of the Church of England. It
held 1163 regular sessions till February 22, 1649.
The Westminster Assembly
began with a. revision of the Thirty-nine Articles, but the work was
suspended by an order of Parliament, October 12, 1643, requiring the
Assembly "to confer and treat" of church government and
discipline. There at once serious differences arose among the members
of the Assembly which contained representatives of the Presbyterian,
the Episcopalian and Independent parties. The Episcopalians soon
ceased to attend the Assembly. The Independents were few in number.
The Presbyterians were preponderant and gained in strength.
The Confession of Faith
constructed by the Assembly is strictly Calvinistic in doctrine and
anti-episcopal in government. It emphasizes the sole authority of the
Scriptures, the sovereignty of God, the rights of conscience, and the
sole jurisdiction of the church within its own domain.
In 33 chapters the
Confession sets forth all the leading articles of the Christian
faith: I, of the holy Scripture; II, of God, and the Holy Trinity;
III, of God's eternal decree; IV, of creation; V, of providence; VI,
of the fall of man, of sin, and of the punishment thereof; VII, of
God's covenant with man; VIII, of Christ the Mediator; IX, of free
will; X, of effectual calling; XI, of justification; XII, of
adoption; XIII, of sanctification; XIV, of saving faith; XV, of
repentance unto life; XVI, of good works; XVII, of the perseverance
of the saints; XVIII, of the assurance of grace and salvation; XIX,
of the law of God; XX, of Christian liberty, and liberty of
conscience; XXI, of religious worship and the Sabbath Day; XXII, of
lawful oaths and vows; XXIII, of the civil magistrate; XXIV, of
marriage and divorce; XXV, of the Church; XXVI, of the communion of
saints; XXVII, of the sacraments; XXVIII, of baptism; XXIX, of the
Lord's Supper; XXX, of Church censures; XXXI, of synods and councils;
XXXII, of the state of man after death and of the resurrection of the
dead; XXIII, of the last judgment.
The Westminster Confession
of Faith was adopted by the Scottish Parliament in 1649, while the
English Parliament adopted it with some changes, in 1648. In
Scotland, where it took the place of the Confessio Scoticana, its
influence has lasted to the present day. In England it was modified
under Cromwell, and the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-nine
Articles were restored. The Presbyterian
Church of England, organized in 1876, has, of course, no historical
relation to the Westminster Assembly.
(15) The Westminster
Assembly framed, besides the Confession of Faith, the Larger
Catechism and the Shorter Catechism, the Directory of Public Worship,
and the Directory of Church Polity and Discipline, collectively
called the Westminster Standards though the name is usually used for
the .Westminster Confession and Catechisms
only. The Presbyterian churches throughout the world have adopted,
though with modifications, the standards of the Westminster Assembly.
(16) The
Brandenburg Confessions or Confessiones
Marchicae present a mild Calvinistic
type, and had certain symbolical authority in Brandenburg till 1817,
when under Frederick William III. the Lutheran and Reformed Churches
of Prussia were united.
They are (a) the Confessio
Sigismundi, the confession of the
Elector of Brandenburg, John Sigismund who
had abandoned the Lutheran for the Reformed Church. It was his own
confession of faith, moderate, conciliating and brief, touching only
the points of controversy; it was published in 1614.
(b) Colloquium
Lipsiense, i. e., the declarations
of the theologians who took part in the Leipzig Colloquy, 1631. The
protocol of the declarations of the Reformed theologians received
symbolic authority in Brandenburg through the Elector Christian William.
(c) Declaratio
Thoruniensis. At a conference at
Thorn, 1645, which was held to prevent religious strife between Roman
Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed, the Reformed theologians presented their
generalis professio and the specialis
declaratio in which were set forth
their view both in their agreement with, and in their departure
from, the creeds of Catholics and Lutherans. It was published in
Berlin, 1646.
(17) The Bohemian Brethren, Unitas
Fratrum, before and after the
Reformation period, had numerous confessions of faith, in the Latin,
Bohemian and German languages. The
Bohemian Catechism of 1521, probably
the work of Lucas of Prague, bears a striking resemblance both in
form and substance to the Waldensian Catechism of 1489. This catechism,
however, and all other symbols of the Bohemian Brethren were
superseded by the following confessions:
(a) The
First Bohemian Confession was drawn
up, probably, by Johann Augusta, Senior of the Brethren, in agreement
with the Augsburg Confession in order to defend their ecclesiastical
union. It was signed by all members of the nobility belonging to the Unitas
and laid before King Ferdinand at Vienna, 1535. After a few changes
in the articles on celibacy and justification had been made Luther
had it printed at Wittenberg with a eulogistic preface.
(b) The
Second Bohemian Confession,
prepared by Paul Pressius and M. Krispin, was adopted by the diet of
Prague, in 1575, and presented to Maximilian, in the same year, as
the union symbol of the Utraquists, Lutherans, Calvinists and
Bohemian Brethren. It is in agreement with the First Bohemian Confession
except in the article on the Lord's Supper, which is in harmony with
the later Melanchthonian view.
(18) The only important
symbol of the evangelical churches in Poland is the Consensus
of Sendomir or Consensus
Sendomariensis. It is an agreement
drawn up between the three dissenting parties, the Lutheran, the
Calvinists and the Bohemian Brethren at Sendomir, in 1570. The
Consensus is silent on the doctrine of predestination. In the
doctrine of the Lord's Supper it adopts the later Melanchthonian or
Calvinistic view. The Consensus was confirmed by
several Polish synods. But the Lutherans, who, in the Formula, of
Concord, proscribed Philippism, withdrew from the Consensus.
3. RULE AND STANDARD OF FAITH
The Reformed Church, like
the Lutheran, regards its confessions as testimonies of its faith.
The Formula Consensus Helvetica and the conclusion of the Canons of
Dort name the Reformed confessions in conjunction with the
Scriptures. However, the Reformed Church does not give its
confessions that prominence, which the Lutheran Church accords them
as historical monuments and testimonies of divine truth. The Lutheran
Church, owing to its conservative character, duly values the
historical development of Christian doctrine and the intellectual
labors in the past by which the faith and doctrinal thinking of the
present are conditioned, and consequently assures itself of its
essential harmony with the past. The Reformed Church, owing to its
rigid Biblicism and more radical spirit and tendency, departs further
from the authority of ecclesiastical traditions than the Lutheran and
rigidly adheres to the divine Word without reference to what has been
done toward its elucidation in the past. A Lutheran welcomes and
loves those testimonies of faith that have come down from the past
and wishes, as the Formula of Concord puts it, "that the
unanimous understanding and judgment concerning the controverted
articles" as laid down in the confessions might remain "not
only for those now living, but also for our posterity" (857)
(see Walther, Symb., p. 346).
Over against the Catholic
position the Reformed Confessions, like the Lutheran, assert that the Scriptures
are the sole and complete source and norm
of divine truth. "The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies
of religion are to be determined ... can be no other but the Holy
Spirit speaking in the Scripture" (W. C., ch. I, Io; also II
Helv., II, 4; C. Sc., Art. XVIII). The confessions reject every
authority coördinate with that of Holy Scripture (C. Sc., XX;
also Inst., IV, 9, 13). The infallible rule of interpretation of
Scripture is Scripture itself (W. C., I, 9).
Because God is sovereign his
Word is the supreme law. The Scripture being the divine rule of
everything in matters of faith and practice demands unconditional
obedience on our part. The Bible as
preëminently a divine law code
each paragraph of which is equally binding on all men everywhere and
at all times. It is, therefore, "not now left to faithful
ministers to frame any new doctrine, but it behooves them simply to
adhere to the doctrine to which God has made all subject, without any
exception" (Inst. IV, 8, g). For the Scripture is the rule of
all truth containing all that is necessary for the service of God and
for our salvation (C. G., V; W. C., I, 4), and in them nothing is
taught which is not beneficial to know (Inst., III, 21, 3).
Accordingly fanatics or enthusiasts, who discard the Scripture under
the pretence of resorting to immediate revelations, are to be
rejected (ib. I, 9); "unto the Scripture nothing at any time is
to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions
of men" (W. C., I, 6; C. G., V). Since the Scripture contains
"the whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for
His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life" (W, C., ib.),
and since it is our duty to embrace "with gentle docility and without
any exception all that is delivered
in the sacred Scriptures" (Inst., I, 18, 4) it follows that one cannot
ascribe to the several books of the Bible nor even to the two
testaments different degrees of
doctrinal values (see Luther's view, p. 150). Each book is part and
parcel of the one infallible rule of faith and practice. Calvin
describes the meaning and significance of the old covenant as being
exactly the same as that of the new. " ... all those persons
from beginning of the world whom God has adopted into the of his
people, have been federally connected with him same law and the same
doctrine which are in force among us. The covenant of all the fathers
is so far from differing substantially from ours, that it is the very
same; it only varies administration" (Inst., II, to, I and 2).
"There are not covenants of grace differing in substance, but
one and the under various dispensations" (W. C., VII, 6).
The Scriptures are the
oracles of God, for their writer "under the guidance and
dictation of the Holy Spirit" were his sure and authentic
amanuenses (Inst., IV, 8, 89). The Bohemian Confession (Art. I) and
the Hungarian Confession emphatically state that the Scriptures of
the Old and New testament were dictated by God.
The Westminster. Confession calls"the Author" of the
Scripture (I, 4); referring to the canonical books the Confession
says that "all are given by inspiration. God, to be the rule of
faith and life" (I, 2).
The theory of inspiration
as a verbal dictation by the Spirit was pushed to its extreme
consequences by the Buxtorfs, father and son, at Basle, who asserted
the inspiration of even Hebrew vowels,
and by Gisbert Voet at Utrecht, who made the same claim for the
punctuation. Louis Cappel (d. 1652) professor in the theological
academy at Saumur, opposed the mechanical theory of inspiration and
disproved the traditional view of the literal integrity and
sacredness of the Masoretic text showing that the Hebrew system of
vocalization was of late origin dating from the Jewish grammarians
after the completion of the Babylonian Talmud (5th century A. D.).
The Helvetic Consensus Formula of 1675, however, affirmed the literal
inspiration of the Scriptures and the integrity of the traditional
Hebrew text of the Old Testament, including the vowels as well
consonants (Art. I, II, III).
How do we know that the Holy
Spirit is the author Scripture? On what grounds do we accept the
Scripture divinely inspired? Certainly not on the authority of an
infallible church. Calvin had broken with this ancient authoritative
system. There was for him no way to escape the necessity of
restating some new basis of authority. The conviction that the
Scripture was dictated and inspired by the Holy Spirit, says Calvin,
is confirmed by the internal
testimony of the Holy Spirit (Inst.,
I, 7, 5). Although the Scripture is the work of the Spirit we cannot
know and recognize it as such, unless the Spirit persuades us of the
divinity of the Scripture (I,9,3). The testimony of the Spirit is
therefore necessary to confirm the Scripture in order to the complete
establishment of its authority. This Spirit is not given to all, but
only to the elect. Accordingly the testimony of the Holy Spirit
"cannot be made use of for the conviction and conversion of
others; for it is experienced only by the faithful, in whom the
Spirit dwells; and therefore he would be acting ridiculously, who
should think to persuade others that the Scripture
is divine, because he himself has been taught this by the Holy
Spirit" (P. 41).
After this certainty of the
divine origin of the Scripture has been established in our minds, rational
proofs to confirm our belief of the
Scripture have their proper place and are of great value (Inst. I, 8,
I). "Reason is the instrument which the believer uses in
examining the objects of faith by the Scripture, as by the infallible
rule of truth, but it is not the rule itself of these objects of
faith ... reason and faith, though of a different nature, are not
opposed to each other. Hence we maintain that we must not admit
anything, even in religious matters, which is contrary to right
reason" (P., 59).
Since according to the
Biblicism of the Reformed theology the Bible is word for word an
authoritative law code in all matters of faith and practice it
becomes necessary precisely to determine what belongs to this
authoritative rule and what not. The Reformed Confessions, therefore,
as a rule, determine the extent of the canon, and some even enumerate
the Biblical books, e. g., the Gallican, Belgian and Westminster
Confessions, the Irish Articles of Religion, the Confession of the
Cumberland Presb. Church, the Confession of the Calvinistic Methodist
Church. Some of them, as the Westminster. and Gallican Confessions,
do not assign Hebrews to Paul.
The Reformed Church, like
the Lutheran, regards the Apocrypha as noncanonical, but usually
passes a stricter sentence upon them. "The books commonly called
Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon
of the Scripture; and therefore are no authority in
the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of,
than other human writings" (W. C., I, 3). Since 1825, after a
sharp controversy, the Apocrypha were excluded from the editions of
the British and Foreign Bible Society.
4. God
In full accord with the
ecumenical symbols the Reformed confessions assert that God exists
one in essence and three b persons. "There are three persons in
the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three
are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory"
(Sh. C., q. 6).
The dominant thought in
Calvin's doctrinal system is the infinite and transcendent sovereignty
of God. God is the Lord who rules
omnipotently (I., 16). Calvin's concept of the sovereignty of God,
and Luther's concept of God's love in Christ Jesus, are vitally
related to the practical life of the believer. "In the one case,
we have acts of compulsion even in the heart, subjection, law,
service; in the other, inward conquest by the power of love, free
self-surrender, filial love without compulsion. The one does not
necessarily exclude the other; but the tone and emphasis give rise to
the differences which undeniably exist. From the practical energy of
the Reformed ideals--with which praxis has not always been able to
keep pace--the Lutheran Church may learn a valuable lesson. But when,
in any age of evangelical Christianity, faith grows dim, and love
grows old, and it seems as though the gospel were no longer
sufficient to satisfy the advanced spirit of the "modern"
world, then will deliverance be found, not in the views of Calvin,
but in return to the Gospel: and faith of Luther. Evangelical
Christianity has yet much to learn from her Luther" (Seeberg,
Hist. of Doctr., vol. II, 416 f.).
In Protestant thought and
life of today we note a deplorable lack of Calvin's reverence for the
majestic and sovereign God. "It would do much of modern
Protestant thinking and preaching some good if that attribute of the
divine character received more emphasis. There is such a thing as
bringing God so close to the human level as to lose all reverence for
Him. We have heard of sermons and prayers that were shockingly
familiar and irreverent. Calvin would rise from his grave if he were
in a position to know how little the majesty and sovereignty of God
count in the teaching and preaching of today. He would be shocked to
find how the love of God is exalted to the virtual denial of His
holiness and justice" (Lutheran, July 28, 1927, p. 14).
God is the author and
director of all things. The will of God is the cause of all events.
Even the actions of the wicked must be referred to the determination
of the divine will. All things minister to the glory of God (Inst.,
II, 18; C. G., VIII; II Helv., VI). "All things in heaven and
earth, visible and invisible, have been created, are preserved, ruled
and guided by his inscrutable providence to such end as his eternal
wisdom, goodness and justice have appointed them, to the
manifestation of his own glory" (C. Sc., I). The holy angels
"having been preserved by the grace of God, are ministers to
glorify God's name and promote the salvation of his elect" (C.
G., VII). Man was created "to the end that he may serve his
God" (C. B., XII). Even if the Westminster Catechism says that
"man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever"
(q. I) it means that man's chief end
is God's glory and that man can be
happy only as he glorifies God. "Not to increase his excellence
or blessedness did God create the world, but to manifest his glory
outside of his own being. The chief end for which we and all things
exist is, therefore, not first of all our happiness,
but God's honor. Our happiness and welfare are gained, however, when
God's purpose is reached. God's glory and man's welfare are
inseparable" (B., 65).
Even the
election of some and the
reprobation of others redound to the glory of God. "The great
and only object of our election is, that we should be to the praise
of divine grace" (Inst., III, 22, 3); "the reprobate are
raised up for this purpose, that the glory of God may be displayed by
their means" (ib. 11). "All things being ordained for the
manifestation of his glory, and his glory being to appear both in the
works of his mercy and of his justice, it seemed good to his heavenly
wisdom to choose out a certain number towards whom he would extend
his undeserved mercy, leaving the rest to be spectacles of his
justice" (Ir. Art. XIV; also W. C. III, 7). "God determined
the fall of the first man only because he foresaw it would tend to
the just illustration of the glory of his name" (Inst. III, 23, 8).
The Reformed theologians
maintain that God's providence according to which he ordains, rules
and governs the minutest detail does nevertheless not destroy the
freedom and responsibility of man. But if all things happen because
God wills and ordains them, is there any room for man's liberty and
responsibility! Calvin attempts to explain the difficulty by
distinguishing between necessity
which is "in some measure voluntary," and external
coercion. Man having been corrupted
by his fall, sins voluntarily ... with the strongest propensity of
disposition, not with violent coercion; with the bias of his own
passions, and not with external compulsion...Thus the soul, in a
certain strange and evil manner, under this kind of voluntary and
free yet pernicious necessity, is both enslaved and free; enslaved by
necessity, free by its will; and what is more wonderful and more
miserable, it is guilty, because free" (II, 3, 5). Bosma
attempts a similar explanation. "God rules us," he says,
"but he does not force our will or control our lives contrary to
our nature, but within our soul God by suggestion and persuasion
influences us in such a way that we voluntarily do as he wills" (82).
It is further maintained
that althoughGod has created all things and "rules and governs
them, according to his holy will, so that nothing happens in this
world without his appointment, nevertheless God neither is the author
of, nor can be charged with, the sins which are committed" (C.
B., XIII; C. G., VIII). Calvin, however, objects the idea that God
merely permits the reprobate to be blinded by Satan and maintains
that God's providence "not only exerts its power in the elect,
who are influenced by the Holy Spirit, but also compels the
compliance of the reprobate" (I, 18, 2; also II, 4, 3). God even
determined the fall of the first man (III, 23, 8). "Man falls
according to the appointment of Divine Providence," says Calvin,
but in order not to represent God as compelling a reluctant person to
commit sin, he adds immediately "but he falls by his own
fault" (ib.). This is the so-called supralapsarian view,
(from supra--above; lapsus-the
fall). The supralapsarians place the decree of predestination
"above" or before that of the fall, that is, the objects of
predestination are viewed as not yet fallen.
According to the supra-view the order of decrees is as follows: (I)
the decree to elect of all possible men some to salvation and others
to damnation, for the end of his own glory. Then follow as a means to
that end (2) the decree to create those already elected or
reprobated; (3) the decree to permit the whole race to fall; (4) the
decree to provide salvation for the elect. The infralapsarians (from infra--below;
lapsus--the
fall) place the decree of predestination "below" or after
that of the fall, that is, the objects of predestination are viewed as fallen.
According to the infra-view the order of decrees is as follows: (I)
the decree to create man; (2) the decree to permit man to fall; (3)
the decree to elect out of fallen humanity some to eternal life, and
to leave the other to the just consequences of their sins; (4) to
provide salvation for the elect. The doctrinal standards of the
Reformed Church, except the Consensus Genevensis (N., 299), and the
Formula Consensus Helvetica (Art. IV-VI), either leave the question
undecided whether infra- or supra-lapsarianism is the correct view,
or support the infralapsarian interpretation. The synod of Utrecht,
1905, expressed the position of the Reformed Churches of the
Netherlands as follows: "there is no right on the one hand to
present the supralapsarian view as being properly the doctrine of the
Reformed Churches of the Netherlands, nor on the other hand to annoy
anyone who has accepted the supralapsarian interpretation for
himself." The synod concludes this decree with "the warning
to bring such profound doctrines, which are beyond comprehension of
plain people on the pulpit as little as possible, and to adhere to
the presentation given in our doctrinal standards in the preaching of
the Word and in catechetical instruction" (H., 52). The
Heidelberg Catechism ignores the question altogether and speaks of
the providence of God only in its relation to God's creation
"that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren
years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea
all things, come not by chance but by his fatherly hand" (q. 27).
Providence in its relation
to the eternal destiny of mankind is known as predestination.
Calvin defines it as a twofold decree, a decree of election and a
decree of reprobation. "Predestination we call the eternal
decree of God, by which he has determined in himself, what he would
have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all
created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for
some, and eternal damnation for others" (Inst., III, 21, 5). The
ground of election is not the foreseen faith of the persons elected,
but the sovereign good pleasure of God. The ground of reprobation is
not the foreseen sin in the reprobate, but the just, but unknown,
will of God. "We affirm that this counsel, as far as concerns
the elect, is founded on his gratuitous mercy, totally irrespective
of human merits; but that to those whom he devotes to condemnation,
the gate of life is closed by a just and irreprehensible, but
incomprehensible, judgment" (ib. 7). The end and object of God's
predestination is the honor and glory of His name (ib. 3).
There has also been an
election of some angels (I Tim. 5:zI) and a reprobation of others
(Matt. 25:41), and the reason why some were chosen and others
rejected was in the sovereign will of God. The Westinster. Confession
fully states the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination: "By the
decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and
angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others
foreordained to everlasting death" (III, 3)..."and their
number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased
or diminished" (ib. 4) ... "according to his eternal and
immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his
will," God "hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory,
out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith
or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing
in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and
all to the praise of his glorious grace (ib. 5)..."Neither are
any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted,
sanctified, and saved, but the elect alone" (ib. 6). Their
salvation is so absolutely certain that even "elect infants,
dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the
Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth. So also are
all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called
by the ministry of the Word" (ib. X, 3). In 1913 the American
Presbyterians adopted as an explanation of this last passage the
following declaration: "We believe that all who die in infancy
are included in the election of grace." The Confession of the
Cumberland Presbyterians has changed the word "elect"
infants to "all" infants. The Confessio Sigismundi states
that the pretemporal election is the cause of our salvation, but
denies "that God does not desire to have all saved" (N.,
650) In the Heidelberg Catechism predestination is not expressly
treated. Questions 53 and 54, however, maintain for the believer the
inamissibility of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Gallican
Confession does not speak of a double predestination. It states only
that out of the corruption and general condemnation in which all men
are plunged God has chosen some, "leaving the rest in this same
corruption and condemnation to show in them his justice" (XII).
The Canons of Dort (c. I) present the Calvinistic predestination in
its unadulterated form though in a decidedly infralapsarian manner.
The Formula Consensus Helvetica, however, condemns universal
atonement and the doctrine that God desires the salvation of all, and
teaches the strictest particularism in the election (Art. XIII, XVI, XIX).
The controlling idea of the
Calvinistic system, that of the sovereignty of God, leaves no
room for mediators whom God himself
has not chosen or ordained. To worship them is to deprive God of his
honor and glory which belongs to him alone. The same is true of
image worship. It is held that Ex.
20:4, 5 does not only forbid the worship of images, but also the
imaging of God. The Heidelberg Catechism says that God requires in
the second commandment "that we in nowise make any images of
God, nor worship him in any other way than he has commanded in his
Word" (q. 96). "God may not and can not be imaged in any
way" (q. 97). "Christ indeed did take upon himself a
visible human nature, but not for the purpose of serving as a model
for makers of statues and images" (II Helv., IV, 2). Nor should
pictures be tolerated in churches even though many regard them
"as books for the laity; for we should not be wiser than God,
who will not have his people taught by dumb idols, but by the lively
preaching of his Word" (H. C., q. 98). "All knowledge of
God sought from images is corrupt and fallacious" (Inst. I, 11,
5). In obedience to the commandment Ex. 2:4, 5 "the Reformed
Churches have removed from the church buildings which were allotted
to them after the Reformation, all images and paintings and other
sensuous elements which were destined for use in worship and to
enhance its beauty and solemnity. It was also in obedience to this
command that they instituted simple services, though that there would
be no danger of arousing sensuous feelings which have no religious
value, and to which such value can so easily be attached. Thus the
old Reformed Churches not only abolished the beautiful choir music,
but did not even wish that the organ should be
used to lead in the singing. In this last point we do not agree with
them; but let us not forget, that to call in, for the benefit of the
service, all manner of sensuous elements, even
moving pictures, as is done at present in not a few Churches, is a
sign of spiritual and religious anaemia" (H., 302).
5. CHRIST
(a) Christ's Person.
In agreement with the
ancient creeds, particularly the Chalcedonian, the Reformed Church
states that in Christ there is but one person, and this one person
has two natures which exist "without mixture, without change,
without division, and without separation" (Creed of
Chalcedon),... "two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the
Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined
together in one person, without conversion, composition, or
confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the
only mediator between God and man" (W. C., VIII, 2; C. G., XV;
C. B., XIX).
As to the mutual relation of
the two natures in Christ there is disagreement between the Lutheran
and the Reformed Churches. The controversy arose in the sacramental
contention between Luther and Zwingli. Luther
explained the ubiquity of the body of Christ on the ground of the
personal union of the two natures. This personal union involves
a communion of properties
(communicatio idiomatzcm) of one
nature to the other, or to the whole person (see p. 185 f.). Zwingli
and the Reformed Church deny this. Starting from the proposition finitum
non est capax infiniti, the finite
cannot take up the infinite, Zwingli carefully discriminated Christ's
two natures in the state of humiliation as well as in the state of
exaltation. The one nature does not participate
in the life and experience of the other. If the Bible attributes
properties of one nature to the other or to the entire person this
must be explained by the way of Alloeosis,
i. e., a rhetorical exchange of one part for another. Explaining
John 12:32, "And I, if I shall be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto me," Zwingli refers the first clause of
this passage to the human nature, the second, to the divine nature of
Christ (see Zwingli's Fidei ratio and
Fidei expositio).
Calvin's Christology does
not essentially differ from that of Zwingli. He repudiates the idea
that "the Word of God was confined within the narrow prison of
an earthly body," and goes even so far as to say, "the Son
of God miraculously descended from heaven, yet in such a manner that
he never left heaven" (Inst., II, 13, 4). Speaking of Christ's
agony in Gethsemane Calvin says, "We see that what was contrary
to his will as man, was agreeable to his will as God" (ib. 16,
12). The Heidelberg Catechism (q. 33) states that Christ only in his
human nature, that is in soul and body, suffered for us. "His
Godhead, by its power in such wise strengthened the assumed human
nature that it could bear the burden of God's wrath against sin, and
deliver us from it" (q. 34). Accordingly it was not Christ who
suffered and died for us, but his human nature. The Second Helvetic
Confession (XI) admits a communication of properties of both natures
to the whole person so that whatever is done by the divine or human
nature is attributed to the person; and yet the same Confession also
asserts that "neither the divine nature in Christ suffered, nor
that Christ according to his human nature is still in this world or
everywhere" (VIII). " ... according to his human nature, he
is now not upon earth; but according to his Godhead, majesty, grace,
and Spirit, he is at no time absent from us" (H. C., q. 47). In
opposition to the Lutheran view of a real communion of the two
natures Professor Heyns states the Reformed Christology plainly in
these words: "God is infinitely exalted above all creatures,
and essentially different from it, so that between the Divine and
the human there is a chasm that cannot be bridged over" (H., 93).
(b) Christ's Work.
The Reformed Confessions
adopt Calvin's threefold division of the work of Christ, prophet,
priest, and king (H. C., q. 31; W. C., VIII, I). The distinctive
Reformed teaching is chiefly apparent regarding the priestly office
of Christ. On the one hand, Calvin lays great emphasis on the
objective necessity of Christ's redemptive work. "Christ by his
obedience has really procured and merited grace from the Father for
us ... Christ has satisfied for our sins. We have been purified by
his blood, and his death was an expiation for sins" (II, 17, 3,
4). On the other hand, in viewing Christ's atoning sacrifice Calvin
is influenced by his conception of God's sovereignty and
predestination. God has chosen the elect before the foundation of the
world. He is sovereign; therefore there can be with him no necessity
of Christ's work for the salvation of the elect. "When we speak
of the merit of Christ, therefore, we do not consider him as the
origin of it" but we ascend to the ordination of God which is
the first cause; ...Christ could merit nothing except by the good
pleasure of God, by which he had been predestinated to appease the
divine wrath by his sacrifice" (ib. I).
From the fact that God has
purposed that only the elect should be saved, and others left to the
just consequences of their sins, it follows that
Christ did not die for the whole world
and consequently, the atonement is
particular and not general. Over
against Arminianism the Canons of Dort expressly set forth the
doctrine of limited atonement in c. II and VIII. " ... it was
the will of God that Christ by the blood of the cross, whereby he
confirmed the new covenant, should effectually redeem out of every
people, tribe, nation, and language, all those, and those only, who
were from eternity chosen to salvation" (see also Sh. C., 21; W.
C., VIII, 5). With this does not conflict question 37 of the
Heidelberg Catechism which says that Christ "bore the wrath of
God against the sin of the whole human race." These words do not
mean to teach general atonement. "For there the question is not
for whom but what Christ has suffered, and the redemption of but one
person would also have demanded sustaining the undivided wrath of God
against the sins of all mankind. This is the reason that the
atonement, as far as its worth is concerned, would be sufficient for
all men" (H., 104).
The vicarious satisfaction
of Christ is said to be inseparably connected with election, the
former being possible only through the latter.
"Even human law, although it does permit that one pay for the
other in money matters, will not permit the suffering of one for the
other in cases of moral guilt. It insists that the guilty one shall
beat the punishment. And this is also the demand of the divine law:
the soul that sinneth, it shall die, Ezek. 18:4, 20. Through
election, however, the atonement of Christ was in full accord with
this demand. For it was an election in Him, Eph. 1:4, a deed,
therefore, in virtue of which the elect were from eternity one with
Christ, they one with Him as His body, He one with them as their
Head. Thus His suffering and dying for the body of the elect was not
a suffering and dying for another, but for His own body. The
possibility, therefore, of a vicarious suffering and dying of Christ
stands or falls with election. We admit both, the Pelagians deny
both" (H. 105 f.).
Concerning the states of
Christ there is a difference between the Reformed and the Lutheran
teaching. According to the Lutherans Christ's descent into Hades is
the first stage of his exaltation (see p. 160). According to the
Reformed it is the last stage of his humiliation. The Lutherans hold
that Christ after his death descended into hell to triumph over the
power of darkness and preached to the lost spirits confirming their
sentence of condemnation. The Reformed hold that Christ on the cross
when he felt himself forsaken of God, experienced in his own soul the
pains of the lost. "If his soul had experienced no punishment,
he would have been only a Redeemer for the body" (Inst., II, 16,
12). "He suffered in his soul the dreadful torments of a person
condemned and irretrievably lost" (ib. Io). "The order of
things in the Apostles' Creed, according to which the descent is
subsequent to the burial, which really preceded it" is to be
explained not chronologically but logically.
"For the relation of those sufferings of Christ, which were
visible to men, is very properly followed by that invisible and
incomprehensible vengeance which he suffered from the hand of
God" (ib.).
6. MAN
Lutherans and Calvinists
agree in their opposition to the Romish dogma of man's original
state, but differ among themselves, in two points, in their
definition of the compass of man's primitive perfection.
(I) In the anthropology of
Calvin there is to be noted a decidedly
low, estimate which he places upon man's physical body.
"Let it be understood that by his being made of earth and clay,
a restraint was laid upon pride; since nothing is more absurd than to
glory in their excellence, who not only inhabit a cottage of clay,
but who are themselves composed partly of dust and ashes"
(Inst., I, 15, I). The body is "but a prison"; we are
"kept in bondage by the fetters of the body" (ib. III, g,
4). "We are absent from God as long as we dwell in the body,...
but when absent from the body we are present with the Lord." The
soul's "liberation from the prison of the body" is the
"introduction into complete liberty," hence it should be
understood that this mortal life is "of itself nothing but
misery," and that therefore the terrestrial life as compared
with the celestial "should undoubtedly be despised and accounted
of no value" (ib. I, 15, z).
The Lutheran conception of
man as a harmonious unity is foreign to Calvin's anthropology. He
admits that the glory of God is displayed in man's external form, yet
he thinks that "extending the image of God promiscuously to the
body as well as to the soul confounds heaven and earth together"
(ib. 3). This Platonizing and spiritualistic
tendency which resembles very much the dualism as we find it in the
Romish anthropology (comp. pp. 76 ff.), is still more apparent in
Zwingli's anthropology. In his De providentia
he says, that in man there are conjoined two completely divers
natures: "the soul was deposited into the clay of the body; the
body was prepared out of clay to be the dwelling place of the soul.
But neither part can deny its nature. The spirit loves truth and
worships the Godhead; the body likewise is drawn toward its origin,
the clay and the flesh, and follows their nature."
The doctrinal standards of
the Reformed Church, with but one exception, do not support the
dualistic view of Calvin. The Second Helvetic Confession, however,
expressly states that "man consists of two, i. e., two divers
substances in one person, an immortal soul, inasmuch as separated
from the body it neither sleeps, nor perishes, and a mortal body
which nevertheless shall be raised from the dead at the last
judgment" (VII). Benedict Pictet (d. 1724), in his Christian
Theology, reproduces Calvin's theory: Man's body was formed of the
dust of the ground; "not of rich materials or precious metal,
but of the earth which we tread under our feet;... God was pleased to
create man in this way, that he might remember his origin, and thus
constantly carry with him grounds for humility, nor ever set himself
up against his Creator" (p. 131). The Reformed theologians of
today have generally abandoned Calvin's dualism and approach, more or
less, Luther's view. "The body of man may also be included in
the image of God in a wider sense. We do not mean to say that God has
a body, but man's body as an organized unity
with the soul as the animated habitation and instrument of the soul
also reflects in a material form the glory of God. The entire man is
a manifestation of the image of God" (B. 89).
(2) The Reformed
confessions, with one accord, emphasize that man, created in God's
image, was in a state of original purity, integrity and sanctity (C.
B., XIV; Ir. Art., XXI; W. C., IV, 2). "God created man ...after
his own image and similitude, to whom he gave wisdom, lordship,
justice, free will, and clear knowledge of himself, so that in the
whole nature of man there could be noted no imperfection" (C.
Sc., II). Here we notice the second point of difference between
Lutheran and Calvinistic anthropology.
The Lutherans see in the free will
of man in his original state the
right direction of the natural will,
so that nothing in man or outside man could hinder him from being
what he was, holy and righteous; the possibility of sinning being
merely a possibility of giving up his god-given freedom. Calvin
sees in man's original freedom a mere
formal freedom, a power of contrary
choice. Leaving aside "the question respecting the secret
predestination of God,... what was the real nature of man? Adam could
have stood if he would, since he fell merely by his own will; but
because his will was flexible to either side, and he was not endued
with constancy to persevere, therefore he so easily fell"
(Inst., I, 15, 8). The Second Helvetic Confession (IX) likewise sees
man's original freedom merely in this ability of either persevering
in goodness or inclining to evil.
We should like to know how
the idea of man's will being "flexible to either side"
harmonizes with man's concreated holiness and righteousness. This
conception of man's original righteousness comes very near the Romish
idea of the superadded gift of grace which man needed to prevent an
inner moral contradiction. The following, much discussed, passage
(Inst., II, 2, 12) seems to be proof of the assertion made. "And,
indeed, I much approve of that common observation, which has been
borrowed from Augustine, that the natural talents in man have been
corrupted by sin, but that of the supernatural ones he has been
wholly deprived." The same distinction between the natural and
supernatural powers of man is made by Bosma (Expos. of Ref. Doctr.),
"God gave Adam all the natural powers necessary to do what he
was required. God withheld from him, during his probation, the higher
supernatural powers that might have made it impossbile [sic]
for Adam to sin" (99).
For reasons sufficient unto
himself God sovereignly decreed to permit Adam to fall from the state
of integrity and holiness. "Our first parents ... sinned in
eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was pleased, according
to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it
to his own glory" (W. C., VI, I). "By this sin they fell
from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so
became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts
of soul and body" (ib. z).
Their fall involved the
whole human race "descending from them by ordinary
generation" (ib.3). Original sin,
i. e., the hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature
attaches to all men and pervades the entire being of man. "I am
by nature prone to hate God and my neighbor" (H. C., q. 5). The
depraved nature of man comes "from the fall and disobedience of
our first parents,... whereby our nature became so corrupt that we
are all conceived and born in sin" (ib. 7). "All the
posterity of Adam, Christ only excepted, have derived corruption from
their original parent" (C. D., c. III, Art. II). Original sin
first makes man an object of God's wrath and then manifests itself in
the works of the flesh (ib. Art. III). It is truly sin and, like
actual sin, brings guilt upon the sinner. "This evil is truly
sin, sufficient for the condemnation of the whole human race, even of
little children in the mother's womb" (C. B., XI).
Man lost the freedom of the
will to do good, but he commits sin by free will and not from
coercion (II Helv., IX). Zwingli's theory of original sin as a
defect, which one derives from birth without his own
fault, and which therefore involves no sin, was not adopted by
Calvin nor by any of the confessions.
What is sin?
The Reformed confessions answer, "disobedience" (H .C., q.
7), or "sin is any want of conforming unto, or transgression of,
the law of God" (Sh. C., q. I); "revolting from the
government of the Creator" (Inst. II, 1, 4); "eating the
forbidden fruit" (W. C., VI, I). Likewise original or inherited
sin "is the breaking of the probationary: command in Adam, our
representative. We are not charged with all of Adam's sin, only his
sin of eating of the forbidden tree" (B. 101). According to the
Lutheran conception original sin is
the breach with God, the lack of true fear of God and trust in him,
the active power of a life contrary to all that God wants and is. And
this sinful habitus is transmitted from Adam to his descendants and
charged against them by God, and not merely the single act of
disobedience of the eating of the forbidden fruit.
The question, how is Adam's
sin transmitted to all his posterity? is answered by Calvin
"because it was ordained by God, that the gifts which he
conferred on the first man should by him be preserved or lost both
for himself and for all his posterity" (Inst., II, I, 7).
Following Calvin the Canons of Dort (c. III et IV, Art. II) state
that "all the posterity of Adam ... have derived corruption from
their original parent, not by imitation, as the Pelagians of old
asserted, but by propagation of a vicious nature in
consequence of a just judgment of God."2
The Reformed theologians explain the
fact that the sin of eating of the forbidden tree is charged against
all the posterity of Adam by the idea of the covenant
of works. "Adam," says
Bosma (p. 92), "was the covenant or federal head of the human
race. The covenant of which Adam was the head is called 'covenant of
works,' because it was through work of obedience that he was to gain
eternal life, in contrast to the covenant of grace, wherein eternal
life is obtained as a free gift of God's grace." Scriptural
grounds for this covenant idea are said to be found in Hos. 6:7 and
Rom. 5: 18, 19. The doctrine of the covenants received dogmatic
formulation and symbolic sanction at a comparatively late period;
hence the earlier confessional standards do not mention it, but it is
clearly set forth in the Westminster Confession, ch. VII, of God's
covenant with man. The significance of this doctrine for the Reformed
teaching concerning the imputation of Adam's sin to all his posterity
is stated by Heyns as follows:
"The
Covenant of Works explains the imputation of Adam's sin to all his
descendants, as if they all personally had eaten of the fruit of the
tree. This cannot have its ground in our relation to Adam as our
ancestor alone, for that would be contrary to the divine rule, that
the son shall not bear the unrighteousness of the father, Ezek.
18:20. Adam's sinning as our ancestor may offer
an explanation for our natural depravity as inherited from sin, but
it offers no explanation for the imputation of his guilt on us. The
imputation of Adam's sin as our own sin is possible only through the
fact that Adam as our ancestor was at the same time our
representative Covenanthead, acting in our place and on our behalf,
and this covenant relation to Adam as our representing head was
established by the Covenant of Works" (H. 70).
7. MAN'S CONVERSION
Fallen man has lost
all ability of will to any
spiritual good and is therefore utterly unable, "by his own
strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto"
(W. C., IX, 3). Man destitute of saving knowledge and dead in sin, is
called to salvation by the preaching of the gospel. But only the
elect are called effectually
(irresistible grace). "All those, whom God has predestinated
unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and
accepted time, effectually to call" (ib. X, I). And whosoever is
called effectually, "not only can come, but also actually
comes" (Inst., III, 24, I). The Reformed theologians, therefore,
sharply distinguish between the external
calling taking place only through
the word as an outward means, and the internal
calling being effected by the
Spirit accompanying the word. Hence the Westminster Confession (ib.)
says that God is pleased "effectually to call by his Word and
Spirit" (see also C. D., c. I, Art. VII). The external calling
very often takes place without the inner calling, but the latter
always presupposes the former. "There is a universal call, by
which God, in the external preaching of the word, invites all,... and
a special call,.., when by the inward illumination of His Spirit, he
causes the word preached to sink into their hearts" (Inst., III,
24, 8). Explaining John 6:45, "Every one that hath heard and
learned of the Father cometh unto me," Calvin says, "when
the Father is heard within he takes away the heart of stone and gives
a heart of flesh" (ib. I). This special call "favors only
believers, i. e., the elect," while the external call is
intended to be "a savour of death, and an occasion of heavier
condemnation" to the reprobate (ib. 8).
The theory of the twofold
calling as set forth by Calvin in its baldest form is also reproduced
by the Westminster Confession in ch. X, of effectual calling
particularly section 4, which is omitted in the Confession of the
Cumberland Presbyterians; in ch. XI, of justification, section I, the
words "those whom God effectually calleth" are changed into
"those whom God calleth and who obey the call." The Canons
of Dort (ch. III and IV, Art. VIII) state the doctrine of the calling
in a milder form: "As many as are called by the gospel are
unfeignedly called; for God hath most earnestly and truly declared in
his Word what will be acceptable to him, namely, that all who are
called should comply with the invitation. He, moreover, seriously
promises eternal life and rest to as many as shall come to him, and
believe on him." And yet, the same Canons (ch. I, Art. VII)
declare that "God has decreed ...effectually to call" the
elect only. But if God withholds from the majority that which alone
makes their coming to God possible what does it mean that "as
many as are called are unfeignedly called" and that God
"earnestly and truly" and"seriously"
desires "that all who are called should comply with the
invitation?" And if it is not the word, but the Spirit
accompanying the word who calls effectually, may conversion not be
effected without the word by the immediate operation of the Spirit
upon the heart of man? Reformed theologians, indeed, speak of an ordinary and
extraordinary calling; "the one
is that which God uses in the ordinary dispensation of his grace
through the ministry of men; the latter is out of the common course,
and respects those persons, whom Christ immediately called" (P.
290). This theory comes very near the idea of the Enthusiasts of an
inward operation of the Spirit without external means of grace. And
how do I know that I am called effectually, or, which is the same,
that I am an elect? The Canons of Dort answer: "By
observing" within me "the infallible fruits of election,..,
such as true faith in Christ, filial fear, a godly sorrow for sin, a
hungering and thirsting after righteousness, etc." (ch. I, Art.
XII). But then the assurance of my salvation
rests after all on something subjective, something within me, on my
feeling and my experience of God's grace, and my own good works.
The first act of inward
calling is faith
which the Holy Spirit works in us. Calvin and the Reformed
confessions, like Luther, maintain that faith is a free gift of God,
"a gratuitous and special gift which God grants" (C. G.,
XXI), but they lay more stress than Luther upon the intellectual
element of faith. "Faith consists in a knowledge of God and
Christ" (Inst. III, 2, 2. 3). "Faith is a knowledge of the
will of God respecting us.... And the foundation of this is a
previous persuasion of the divine veracity" (ib. 6). "By
this faith a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in
the Word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein" (W.
C., XIV, 2). The Heidelberg Catechism, although stating that faith
"is not only a certain knowledge .. but also a hearty trust"
(q. 21), at the same time emphasizes the intellectual side of faith
asserting that it is necessary for a Christian
to believe "all that is promised us in the Gospel, which the
articles of our catholic, undoubted Christian faith teach us in
sum" (q. 22). Heyns defines saving faith as "the living
conviction, wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit, that the Gospel
is true, John 3:33" (H., 266).
From faith proceeds repentance
which extends through the whole life of the believer. It consists in
the mortification of the flesh together with the crucifying of the
old man within us and a vivification by the Spirit. In
contradistinction to the Lutheran teaching that contrition or
repentance wrought by the law precedes faith, Calvin maintains that
repentance follows faith. "Repentance not only immediately
follows faith, but is produced by it" (III, 3, I;also Cat. Gen.,
I, de Fide).
By repentance Calvin means the renewal of life which follows faith.
He admits "that many are overcome or led to obedience by terrors
of conscience before they have imbibed a knowledge of grace"
(ib. 3, 2), but this he would not call repentance. Nor is it
necessary according to Calvin that a person pass through this
"initial fear," these terrors of conscience, for Christ has
many ways to draw us to himself. Bosma, answering the question,
"Which of the two parts of conversion precedes, repentance or
faith?" follows Calvin and advises to "be very careful not
to dictate a certain method of conversion to all alike, different
characters will be differently led by God in their experience of
conversion" (B. 188).
We Lutherans certainly do
not want to dictate a certain method of conversion, but we do
strictly hold to, and insist upon, the only safe and certain, because
Biblical, method of conversion, according to which the Holy Spirit,
through the law, working recognition of guilt and remorse for sin
leads man to repentance so that he cries out "What must I do to
be saved?" and, through the gospel, revealing to the repentant
sinner God's love in Christ works faith which receives and accepts
the righteousness which God gives.
Calvin felt that his
arrangement of faith and repentance was not quite in harmony with
Scripture, as when Christ and the Baptist "first exhort the
people to repentance, and afterwards adds that the kingdom of heaven
is at hand" (ib.). But even in these texts Calvin sees nothing
but proof of his idea of faith and repentance and says of those who
do not see this that "they superstitiously attend to the
connection of syllables and disregard the sense and coherence of the words"
(ib.). Yet, leaving aside superstitiously attending to the
connection of syllables and merely regarding the sense and coherence
of these words: "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of heaven
is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel," Mark 1:15, we
cannot but say that repentance must precede faith.
8. JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION
The believer united to
Christ by faith or "grafted into him" receives a duplex
gratia, a double grace, namely, justification and
regeneration or sanctification.
(a) Justification.
In full accord with Luther,
Calvin and the Reformed confessions assert that justification
consists in the forgiveness of sin and in the imputation of Christ's
righteousness. Calvin says, God justifies "by absolving and
pardoning us; we are justified by gratuitous imputation.... Sinners
being invested with the righteousness of Christ ... are accounted
righteous. ... Justification is opposed to accusation; which
antithesis clearly demonstrates, that the form of expression is
borrowed from the practice of courts" (III, 11, 11). "Man
is justified by faith only" (ib. 19). Not that "faith were
to justify of itself, or by an intrinsic efficacy"; it is only
"a vessel," "the instrument by which righteousness is
received" (ib. 7).
Justification as a forensic
act must not be confounded with the
renewal of life; "it is one thing to be justified, and another
thing to be made new creatures." Osiander in confusing the two
"erroneously made of two good parts one corrupt whole."
" ... in justification there is no regard paid to works"
(ib. 6; see also the Confessions: H. C., 60-62; C. B., XXIII; I
Helv., XII and XIII; II Helv., XV; C. G., XVIII; W. C., XI).
This clear-cut presentation
of this doctrine, however, suffers some eclipse from Calvin's theory
of predestination. Although he states that "Christ is
apprehended and possessed by us by faith and we, being by his
innocence reconciled to God, have a propitious father instead of a
judge" (ib. I), he also maintains "those, whom God has
chosen, he designates as his children, and determines himself to be
their father" (ib. 24, I). The Westminster Confession likewise
teaches that "God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all
the elect," but also adds that "they are not justified
until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto
them" (XI, 4). Accordingly, justification which is decreed from
all eternity actually takes place in time. This is, indeed, the usual
and popular presentation of justification in the Reformed theology.
Many Reformed theologians, however, follow Calvin and view
justification as having taken place in eternity. God, they say, does
not first justify the sinner who by faith apprehends Christ's
righteousness; God has from eternity determined to look upon him as
being righteous in his sight. By faith the sinner merely realizes
that he is justified and in virtue of this realization has peace with
God through Jesus Christ. Says Calvin, "Though by choosing his
people, the Lord has adopted them as his children, yet we see that
they enter not on the possession of so great a blessing till they are
called; on the other hand, as soon as they are called, they
immediately enjoy some communication of his election" (ib. I).
As proof text for this theory is usually quoted Rev. 13:8, "whose
names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world."3
"Here it is stated that the sacrifice of Christ has been brought
from eternity, not that it was decided before the foundation of the
world that it would be brought in time, but that it was brought from
the foundation of the world. So also it was not merely decided from
eternity in respect to the elect, who were regarded as included in
that sacrifice, to justify them in time, but they were actually
justified in eternity and their names written in the book of life as
righteous. When therefore the Scriptures speak of a justification
through faith, i. e., of a justification in time, they cannot mean
an actual justification, for that has taken place in eternity. What
it can mean is only the realization of justification through
faith" (H., 290). The idea of eternal justification and
consequent perseverance is rejected as unscriptural by the Cumberland
Presbyterians (see note attached to section 3 of ch. XVII of the
Cumberl. Confession).
(b) Regeneration
or Sanctification.
The word regeneration is
here not used in its narrower sense meaning the procreation of a true
and saving faith, but in its broader sense designating the moral
renewing of man, or sanctification.
Calvin uses the term in this wider sense and calls it also
repentance. "No one can embrace the grace of the gospel, but he
must depart from the error of his former life, enter into the right
way, and devote all his attention to the exercise of repentance"
(III, 3, 1). The Belgic Confession describes regeneration with these
words: "We believe that this true faith being wrought in man by
the hearing of the Word of God and the operation of the Holy Ghost,
doth regenerate and make him a new man, causing him to live a new
life, and freeing him from the bondage of sin" (Art. XXIV).
Sanctification comes to the
believer from Christ no less than justification. But the two are not
to be confounded, neither are they to be separated. "You must
first possess Christ; but you cannot possess him without becoming a
partaker of his sanctification; for he cannot be divided.... Union
with Christ, by which we are justified, contains sanctification as
well as righteousness" (Inst., III, 16, I). This way of
regarding the matter is said "to maintain the glory of God
unimpaired and undiminished and to assure rest and peace to us"
(ib. 13, I).
Since Calvin represents God
as working effectually in the predestinated to the end of the
sanctification of man it cannot be said that his theory of
predestination leads to moral indifference,
on the contrary "it should rather awaken and stimulate us to a
cheerful practice of it, than be used as a pretext for
slothfulness" (ib. 23, 12).
It should be noticed that
Calvin concludes the discussion of man's salvation with a
presentation of the doctrine of predestination. He does that in order
to make predestination a support for
the certainty of salvation. The
assurance which the believer has of salvation rests on the divine
choice of the man to salvation. This assurance is but increased by
the fact that God "adopts not all promiscuously to the hope of
salvation, but gives to some what he refuses to others" (ib. 21,
I). "They who know not themselves to be God's peculiar people
will be tortured with continualanxiety." On
the other hand, there is not "any other basis for solid
confidence" but God's eternal predestination "even
according to the authority of Christ ... who promises to preserve in
safety all whom the Father has committed to his care" (ib). They
alone receive the gift of
perseverance (donum perseverantiae),
and continue in faith and holiness unto the end. There can be
retrogression in sanctification, a "falling short of the grace
of God" (Hebr. 12: 15), but there can be no falling from grace.
The basis of the doctrine of
the inamissibility of grace is not the teaching of Scripture, but the
error of identifying the elect with the regenerate. An elect may
totally, but not finally, lose faith. Luther rightly held that David
and Peter had fallen from the state of grace when they fell into
heinous sin. The regenerate can totally and finally lose faith. He
cannot renew himself. The renewal is God's work alone. But the
regenerate man is able in coöperation with the Holy Spirit to
nourish, cultivate and develop the new spiritual life; at the same
time, he has the freedom not only to stunt the growth of his
spiritual life, but utterly to destroy it, to commit spiritual
suicide so that his falling from grace becomes irreparable. In Hebr.
6:4 f. we read "it is impossible for those who were once
enlightened, and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers
of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the
powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them
again unto repentance." Here we notice three things: (I) the
text speaks of regenerate
persons. Or are they not regenerate who are said "to have tasted
the heavenly gift, who have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
and have tasted the powers of the world to come?" A Reformed
theologian particularly, according to his own idea of "the
effectual call by the word and the Spirit," cannot but refer
these words to the regenerate. (2) The text speaks of a possibility
of the fall of the regenerate, "if they should fall away."
(3) If the text says that they cannot be renewed again it presupposes
that they were once renewed. Calvin attempts in vain to show (Inst.,
III, 2, II) that this passage refers to reprobate hypocrites and not
to regenerate persons.
The Canons of Dort devote a
whole chapter (V) to "the Perseverance of the Saints." Even
if they fall into "such enormous sins" as David and Peter
did, and thereby "highly offend God, incur a deadly guilt,
grieve the Holy Spirit, interrupt the exercise of faith, very
grievously wound their consciences, and sometimes lose the sense of
God's favor for a time" (Art. V), nevertheless, God
"according to his unchangeable purpose of election, does not
wholly withdraw the Holy Spirit from his own people in their
melancholy falls" (Art. VI); " ... in these falls he
preserves in them the incorruptible seed of regeneration from
perishing or being totally lost; and again by his Word and Spirit he
certainly and effectually renews them to repentance" (Art.
VII);comp. also W. C., XVII, XVIII. Accordingly, those who once have
had saving faith even though they be "drawn into great and
heinous sins" or "actually fall into these evils,"
they can nevertheless be absolutely sure of their salvation, which,
"through faith, becomes a possession which can never be lost. He
that believes on the Son hath eternal life, John 3:36, and after we
have believed, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise"
(H., 299). " ... of their perseverance in the faith, true
believers for themselves may and do obtain assurance according to the
measure of their faith, whereby they arrive at the certain persuasion
that they ever will continue true and living members of the Church;
and ... at last inherit eternal life" (C. D., ch. V, Art. IX).
But if I obtain assurance
"according to the measure of my faith" and that faith is
very weak, my assurance cannot be very firm and strong either. And if
the "exercise of my faith is interrupted, for a time," then
I am to ground the certainty of my salvation upon a subjective
experience of God's grace in the past. Suppose this experience was
never real but only imagined, is not the assurance thus obtained mere
self-deception? Calvin's theory of the certainty of salvation either
makes men self-confident and secure or drives them to despair. Calvin
himself admits, that believers, "in recognizing the grace of God
towards them, are not only disturbed with inquietude which frequently
befalls them, but sometimes also tremble with the most distressing
terrors" (Inst., III, 217).
Calvin also correctly says,
like Luther, that "we shall find no assurance of our salvation
in ourselves; nor even in God the Father, considered alone,
abstractly from the Son. Christ, therefore, is the mirror, in which
it behooves us to contemplate our election; and here we may do it
with safety" (ib. 24, 5); and "the principal hinge on which
faith turns is this, that we must ... make the promises of mercy ...
our own, by embracing them in our hearts. Hence arises that
confidence which the same apostle in another place calls 'peace'"
(ib. z, 26). But by his theory of predestination Calvin again
destroys the sure foundation of assurance. I can make the promises of
mercy, which God offers, my own only, if I am effectually called, or,
in other words, if I am an elect. How do I know that I am an elect?
Calvin admits that "there is scarcely a person to be found,
whose mind is not sometimes struck with this thought: Whence can you
obtain salvation but from the election of God? And what revelation
have you received of election? If this has once impressed a man, it
either perpetually excruciates the unhappy being with dreadful
torments, or altogether stupifies him with astonishment" (ib.
24, 4).
This assurance is also said
to be produced, besides from faith in God's promises and the
testimony of the Holy Spirit, "from a serious and holy desire to
preserve a good conscience, and to perform good works" (C. D.,
ch. V, Art. X). "Why must we do good works? ... also that we
ourselves may be assured of our faith by the fruits thereof" (H.
C., q. &6). By good works "believers ... strengthen their
assurance" (W. C., XVI, 2).
My works,
then, are to assure me of my faith
and increase the certainty of my salvation. Suppose, there is a man
who strives with might and main to do good works and makes appalling
sacrifices in order to make his election sure, when does he obtain
the full certainty of his election' How does he know when he has done
enough? And if after all he is none of God's elect, there is in him
no faith of which his works are said to be the fruits.
In the official edition of
the Confession of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church there is a note
attached to Chapter XVII stating that Church's position with regard
to the perseverance of the saints; it reads as follows:
"...The idea of eternal
justification and consequent perseverance is unscriptural: the way
perseverance is insisted on by some preachers in connection with the
preceding parts of their sermons is certainly dangerous. Example:
First preach a superficial experience, then make a great many more
allowances for weakness and wickedness, stumbling, staying, etc.,
than God's Word admits, then press perseverance, and you have the
formalist or hypocrite confirmed. On the other hand, press the
doctrine of final apostasy, if the creature does not so and so,
making the perseverance of the creature depend chiefly upon his doings:
you raise in the mind of the unregenerate
professor the fear of hell, as a high excitement to duty; confirm him
in his legality; prepare his mind, indirectly at least, to give glory
to himself for his perseverance; settle him down in a self-confident
and deplorable situation. What God's Word hath joined together, let
not his ministers put asunder; but first let them give a clear,
definite description of the new birth, and then let them press the
doctrine of heart and practical holiness as the sure
consequence...,and daily evidences (not the cause) of that gracious
state which will insure their final perseverance. Then this true and
comfortable doctrine will not be perverted neither will it have a
tendency to licentiousness in him "whom the love of Christ
restraineth," or the real Christian: no, he serves and desires
to serve God with more zeal, and from pure evangelical principles,
still laying the foundation in his own mind, and
cherishing the principle of ascribing all
the glory to God for his conversion, his perseverance, and his final
and complete redemption" (Quoted from Schaff, Creeds, f II, 775 f.).
9. GOOD WORKS
In accord with the Lutheran
symbols the Belgian Confession (Art. XIV) teaches that justifying
faith cannot "be unfruitful in man"; it is "a faith
that worketh by love, which excites man to the practice of those
works which God has commanded in his Word; which works, as they
proceed from the good root of faith, are good and acceptable in the
sight of God ... it is by faith in Christ that we are justified, even
before we do good works, otherwise they could not be good works any
more than the fruit of a tree can be good before the tree itself is
good." The Heidelberg Catechism points out particularly the source
of good works--"true
faith," the standard of good works--"the law of God,"
and the purpose of good works--"his
glory" (q. 91). The Catechism mentions as a secondary purpose
of good works "also that we ourselves may be assured of our
faith by the fruits thereof" (q. 86) (see also W. C., XVI, 2).
While there is general
agreement between the Lutherans and the Reformed concerning the
relation of good works to justification, there are differences in
their conception (I) of the source, (2) standard and (3) purpose of
good works.
(I) How is faith the source
of good works? Calvin answers somewhat like this: Faith unites us to
Christ and this union with Christ contains both our justification and
sanctification. By faith united to Christ we are made partakers of
Christ's death and resurrection. The old man being crucified with him
we are raised with him to a new life (Inst., III, 3, 8, f.). But
Calvin does not show that faith is the propelling cause of the
believer's life. Calvin is also fond of attributing our
sanctification to the influence of the Holy Spirit. "This takes
place when the Spirit of God has tinctured our souls with his
holiness, and given them such new thoughts and affections, that they
may be justly considered as new" (ib.). The Scotch Confession
(XIII) combines both ideas and says that "the Spirit of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who dwelling in our hearts by true faith, brings forth
such works" (see also II Helv., XVI, 5). But the Reformed
teaching lays the emphasis not on faith but on the
Holy Spirit as the source of good works.
The believers cannot "perform any other obedience to him, than
that which he has given them" (Inst., III, 8, 4). "Their
ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from
the Spirit of Christ. And that they may be enabled thereunto, besides
the graces they have already received, there is required an actual
influence of the same Holy Spirit to work in them to will and to do
of his good pleasure" (W. C., XVI, 3).
The Lutherans lay the
emphasis on justifying faith as the spontaneous source of
God-pleasing actions. Out of the same faith that apprehends Christ's
righteousness spring the motives of holy living. Faith is a living
active thing; and the living energy of faith manifests itself in good works.
(2) As far as the standard
of good works is concerned both Lutherans and Reformed agree that the
law of God is the rule of life and conduct, but Reformed theology
emphasizes the significance of the law for the believer in such a way
that a marked legalism characterizes the ethics of the Reformed
Church. Good works, says the Westminster Confession, are "done
in obedience to God's commandments" (XVI, 2). "Good works
... are performed according to the law of God" (H. C., q. 91).
"It is the duty of believers to present their bodies a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God" (Inst., III, 7, I).
"The moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons
as others, to the obedience thereof; and that not only in regard of
the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of
God the Creator who gave it" (W. C., XIX, 5). Speaking of the
significance of the law for the regenerate Calvin calls "the
third use of the law the 'principle one-and which is more nearly
connected with the proper end of it." He compares the relation
of the believer to the law to that of a "servant" to his
"master." "By frequent meditation, there are
differences in their conception (I) of the source, (2) standard and
(3) purpose of good works.
(I) How is faith the source
of good works? Calvin answers somewhat like this: Faith unites us to
Christ and this union with Christ contains both our justification and
sanctification. By faith united to Christ we are made partakers of
Christ's death and resurrection. The old man being crucified with him
we are raised with him to a new life (Inst., III, 3, 8, f.). But
Calvin does not show that faith is the propelling cause of the
believer's life. Calvin is also fond of attributing our
sanctification to the influence of the Holy Spirit. "This takes
place when the Spirit of God has tinctured our souls with his
holiness, and given them such new thoughts and affections, that they
may be justly considered as new" (ib.). The Scotch Confession
(XIII) combines both ideas and says that "the Spirit of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who dwelling in our hearts by true faith, brings forth
such works" (see also II Helv., XVI, 5). But the Reformed
teaching lays the emphasis not on faith but on the Holy
Spirit as the source of good works.
The believers cannot "perform any other obedience to him, than
that which he has given them" (Inst., III, 8, 4). "Their
ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from
the Spirit of Christ. And that they may be enabled thereunto, besides
the graces they have already received, there is required an actual
influence of the same Holy Spirit to work in them to will and to do
of his good pleasure" (W. C., XVI, 3).
The Lutherans lay the
emphasis on justifying faith as the spontaneous source of
God-pleasing actions. Out of the same faith that apprehends Christ's
righteousness spring the motives of holy living. Faith is a living
active thing; and the living energy of faith manifests itself in good works.
(2) As far as the standard
of good works is concerned both Lutherans and Reformed agree that the
law of God is the rule of life and conduct, but Reformed theology
emphasizes the significance of the law for the believer in such a way
that a marked legalism characterizes the ethics of the Reformed
Church. Good works, says the Westminster Confession, are "done
in obedience to God's commandments (XVI, z). "Good works ..;are
performed according to the law of God" (H. C., 9. 91). 'It is
the duty of believers to present their bodies a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable unto God" (Inst., III, 7, I). "The
moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others,
to the obedience thereof; and that not only in regard of the matter
contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the
Creator who gave it" (W. C., XIX, 5). Speaking of the
significance of the law for the regenerate Calvin calls "the
third use of the law the 'principle one'-and which is more nearly
connected with the proper end of it." He compares the relation
of the believer to the law to that of a "servant" to his
"master." "By frequent meditation on the law the
servant of God will be excited to obedience. ...To the flesh the law
serves as a whip, urging it, like a dull and tardy animal, forwards
to its work; and even to the spiritual man, who is not yet delivered
from the burden of the flesh, it will be a perpetual spur, that will
not permit him to loiter" (Inst., II, 7, 12). Commandment, law,
duty, obedience--these frequently recurring words are expressive of
the rigorous legalism which characterizes the Reformed theology.
Lutheran theology rejects such legalism and teaches that the
regenerate do good works "spontaneously and freely,"
"without constraint and with a willing spirit," "as
though they knew of no command, threat, or reward" (F. C., 807).
The regenerate are not under the law. They have been freed and
exempted not only from the curse but also from the coercion
of the law and yet they are not on this account without law. "But
the impulses to right life in the believer are not legal, but
spiritual. The New Testament, especially St. Paul in Rom. 8: I sq.,
and Gal. 5:16 sq., teaches that the believer is impelled by the
Spirit to fulfill the righteousness of the law. So the doctrine of
faith establishes the law, Rom. 3:31. The principle of life in the
believer is no longer the law, but the Spirit; but the form of the
life is defined in the law" (Voigt, Bibl. Dogmatics, p. 203 f.).
(3) Nor does Lutheran
theology emphasize the glory of God as being the object and end of
good works. The relation of the believer to God is not that
of a servant to his master, nor that of a subject to his sovereign,
but that of a son to his father; it manifests itself in love. This
love needs not be told what its end and purpose should be. Its motive
power is the love of God in Christ Jesus; its end and object is to
love God and the neighbor, I John 4: 11, 19.
10. THE CHURCH
(a) Conception
of the Church.
Zwingli, Calvin and the
Reformed confessions sharply distinguish between the invisible and
the visible church. The church is the totality of the elect of all
ages and places (Inst., IV, I, 2, 7) The Belgian Confession (Art.
X)I; VII) defines the church as "a holy congregation and
assembly of true Christian believers" --believers being
identical with the elect, for only the elect can have true faith.`The
church as the totality of the elect is invisible and an object of
faith (Inst., ib. 7). The elect, however, are found in an empirical
communion, the visible church, i. e., the multitude of professed
believers, which includes also hypocrites among its members (ib.).
The marks
of this visible church are (I) the preaching of the word, (2) the
proper administration of the sacraments, (3) the proper exercise of
Christian discipline (Ir., Art. LXIX; C. Sc., XVIII; C. B., XXIX).
We are to believe in the
invisible church which is known to God alone. We are commanded to
honor the visible church and to maintain communion with it (Inst.,
IV, I, 7). Of this visible organized church Calvin predicates all
those properties which belong to the church as the communion of
believers. Thus he maintains that the third article of the creed
"relates in some measure (aliquatenus)
to the external church" (ib.). Of the visible church he says,
"there is no other way of entrance into life, unless we are
conceived by her, born of her, nourished at her breast, and
continually preserved under her care and government:., out of her
bosom there can be no hope of remission of sins or any salvation"
(ib. 4). Withdrawal from the visible church is therefore also a
denial of God and Christ (ib.).
According to Luther the true
church is the communion of believers, "the living body of
Christ." Its outward marks are the preaching of the gospel and
the administration of the sacraments in accordance with the gospel of
Christ. To the communion of believers and to no external organized
church are entrusted the Word and the sacraments. Calvin sees in the
preaching of the Word and the adminstration [sic]
of the sacraments the marks of the true visible
church. The doctrinal standards adopted Calvin's idea of the church.
"No one ought to seclude himself and be contented to be alone;
but all jointly should keep and maintain the union of the Church, and
submit to the public teaching, and to the yoke of Jesus Christ,
wherever God shall have established a true order of the Church"
(C. G., XXVI). The Westminster Confession first speaks of the
invisible church of the elect, but says of the visible
church that it "is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary
possibility of salvation. . . . Unto this catholic visible Church
Christ has given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for
the gathering and perfecting of the saints" (XXV, 2 and 3).
Explaining Art. XXVIII of the Belgian Confession Heyns says of the
organized visible church: (a) "the Church is an institution of
Christ ..., (b) to the Church is entrusted the ministration of the
Word and sacraments ..., (c) to the Church the Holy Spirit has been
given to dwell in it and to remain with it eternally, so that whoever
withdraws himself from its communion withdraws himself from the
communion of the Holy Spirit. These things hold true for the Church
as instituted visible Church" (H., 155).
It must also be remembered
that Calvin, when speaking of the marks of the visible church,
regards the external means of grace merely as symbols of a possibly
accompanying divine influence. In keeping with his concept of God
Calvin maintains that the power of God is not confined to external
means (Inst., IV, I, 5). To many "he has given the true
knowledge of himself in an internal manner, by the illumination of
his Spirit, without the intervention of any preaching" (ib. 16,
19). But while God is not confined to external means, "yet he
has confined us to the ordinary manner of teaching ... though he
could easily make his people perfect in a single moment, yet it was
not his will that they should grow to mature age, but under the
education of the church" (ib. I, 5).
According to the Lutheran
view the church is the communion of believers where the pure Word of
God is preached and the sacraments are administered in accord with
Christ's institution. The task of the church, therefore, is to see to
it that the pure Word of God is preached and the sacraments are
rightly administered. According to the Reformed view the church is
the instituted visible church, under the care and government of which
we are preserved "till we are divested of this mortal flesh and
become like angels" (ib. 4). The task of the church,
therefore, is to see to it that there be the right kind of church
organization and church government and that church discipline be
properly exercised.
(b) Church Government.
Calvin was convinced that
the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments
necessitated the divine appointment of definite ecclesiastical
offices. The extraordinary
offices of apostles, prophets and evangelists, Calvin maintains,
"were appointed to continue for a time in the government of the
church." The ordinary
offices of pastors, teachers, elders and deacons were instituted to
be of perpetual duration (ib. 3, 5). The teachers are to interpret
the Scriptures; the pastors, to preach the gospel and administer the
sacraments. Teachers and pastors together constitute the ministerium
verbi. The presbyters coöperate
with the pastors for the government of the church; they form the ministerium
disciplinae. To the deacons is
entrusted the care of the poor; their office is the ministcrium
caritatis (ib. 3, 4. 8. g). Calvin
attaches great importance to the office of the presbyter or elder.
"From the beginning, every church has had its senate or council,
composed of pious, grave and holy men, who were invested with the
jurisdiction in the correction of vices.... Now that this regulation
was not of a single age, experience itself demonstrates. This office
of government is necessary, therefore, in every age" (ib. g)
(see also C. G., XXIX; C. B., XXX).
The Reformed theologians see
in the three ordinary offices a continuation of the offices of
Christ. In the office of the ministers of the word, who have the
power of teaching
in his name, Luke Io: 16, Christ continues his prophetic office. In
the office of the elders, who have the power of ruling
in his name, Matt. 18: 18, Christ continues his kingly office. In the
office of the deacons, who have the power of showing mercy, Acts
6:2-4, Christ continues his priestly office (see H., 165). All these
officers are not only to preach, govern, and care for the poor, but
above all to exercise Christian discipline. The people are to choose,
but the ministers chosen are to rule. "If no society, and even
no house, though containing only a small family, can be preserved in
a proper state without discipline, this is far more necessary in the
church, the state of which ought to be the most orderly of all. As
the saving doctrine of Christ is the soul of the church, so the
discipline forms the ligaments which connect the members together and
keep each in its proper place" (ib. 12, I). The consistorium or
tribunal of the church, composed of spiritual and lay-elders,
exercises the disciplinary power including that of excommunication
(ib. 2).
Holiness which is an
attribute of the communion of the saints, i. e., the invisible
church, is required by Calvin of the visible, instituted church.
Church discipline is to bring it on.
Therefore Calvin does not, like Luther, see the exercise of the power
of the keys in the proclamation of the gospel but in church discipline.
(c) Church and State--Theocracy.
At first sight it seems that
Calvin does not share Zwingli's view of the relation of church and
state. According to Zwingli church and state are not separated and
independent, each in its sphere; on the contrary, Christianity is a
matter of the state. The duty of the government is laid down by God
in the Bible. The laws of the state are valid only in so far as they
conform to the law of the church. Calvin seems not to favor this
medieval idea of Zwingli. Like Luther he distinguishes two kinds of
governments, "one, which is situated in the soul, or the inner
man, and relates to eternal life," and "the other, which
relates to civil justice, and the regulation of external conduct"
(ib. 20, I). But since, on the one hand, he makes "the
regulation of external conduct" a task of the church and, on the
other hand, demands that civil government see to it "that
idolatry, sacrileges against the name of God, blasphemies against his
truth, and other offences against religion, may not openly appear and
be disseminated among the people (ib. 3), he actually abandons the
separation of the church and state and lets the one encroach upon the
territory of the other. What should be the attitude of the Christian
to a government that refuses to coöperate with the church?
Zwingli held that a government which sets itself against God and the
Bible is to be abrogated. Calvin has not adopted this view of
Zwingli; on the contrary, he enjoins the duty upon the people to
respect and obey the magistrates "whatever their characters may
be," for "they have their government only from God"
(ib. to, 25). "But in the obedience due to the authority of
governors, it is always necessary to make one exception: that it do
not seduce us from obedience to him, to whose will the desires of all
kings ought to be subject" (ib. 32) Herein the confessions
follow Calvin in the main. As far as the relation of church and state
is concerned the Calvinistic churches of the present day stand for
the complete freedom from state control.
Calvin, like Zwingli, aimed
at a theocracy after the Old Testament pattern. Church and state
though separate in organization coöperate closely to support
each other. The church's authority is absolute in matters of
doctrine. The discipline of the church is to be carried out by
governmental agencies. "No government can be happily
constituted, unless its first object be the promotion of piety";
therefore Christian princes and magistrates "should employ their
utmost efforts in asserting and defending the honor of him, whose
vice-gerents they are and by whose favor they govern.... Their office
extends to both tables of the law" (ib. 9). The end in view in
this theocracy is to produce a people of God by governmental
agencies. God is the Lord whose will rules all. It is the duty of the
church and state to carry out his will. Hence civil authority, in its
service to God, is under obligation to exercise Christian discipline.
When civil cases arise, the church hands the offender over to the
civil government foy punishment as was done in the case of the noted
Spanish physician and anti-Trinitarian Michael Servetus, who was
arrested while passing through Geneva and, with the full consent of
Calvin, condemned as heretic and burnt alive, October 27, 1553,
though Calvin preferred for him the milder execution by the sword.
The sentence met also Melanchthon's approval (Corp. Ref., 8, 362; g,
763). With all this rigorous discipline Calvin had in view not first
of all the salvation of men, but the honor and glory of God.
"Above all, the honor of God is maintained in punishing
crimes" (Corp. Ref., 41, 76). "Within five years from 1542
to 1546 no less than 78 persons were exiled and 58 condemned to death
in the city of Geneva which at that time had about 20,000
inhabitants. Within two years, in about 400 cases punishment was
inflicted upon persons guilty of dancing, or laughing whilst Calvin
was preaching. In 1545 no less than 34 women were burnt at stake or
quartered because they were said to have used magic means as a
preventive against the threatening danger of the plague. Once several
persons, who were thought to be guilty, were condemned to immuration
until they would confess; if they could not be moved to confession
they should end the days of their life by this kind of torture. All
for the honor of God!" (Walther, Symbolik, 261 f.).
If we think of this rigorous
discipline entering into all the details of private and domestic
life, the rigid inspection of household conduct, the organized
consistory composed of pastors and laymen with wide powers of
compulsion, and if we further think of the narrow spirit, hostile to
all natural enjoyment and social pleasure, which characterized the
civil administration of Calvin, we can well imagine that in many
cases the exercise of discipline must have conflicted with the
liberty of conscience and, instead of "maintaining the honor of
God," made many hypocrites. The cold, legalistic character of
Calvin's Reformation left its impress upon the Reformed churches.
"He had affixed the stamp of legalism to the Reformed type of
Protestantism, and we see it in the widespread endeavor to legislate
society into righteous living. Calvin's faith no longer rules; but
his legalism, even among the emotional Arminians in the various
denominations, is very much in evidence" (The Lutheran, July 28,
1927, p. II).
Roman Catholic divines saw
in Calvin's theocracy a return to the hierarchy, with Calvin as its
pope. Schaff, however, maintains that "Calvin's theocracy
differed essentially from the Roman Catholic by its popular (though
by no means democratic) basis: it was not priestcraft ruling over
statecraft, but a self-governing Christian commonwealth"
(Creeds, I, 463). And yet, it is not to be denied, that a marked
nomism characterized both the church of Rome and Calvin's theocracy.
The difference between Rome and Geneva was this that there
the infallible teaching office of the church dictated and enforced
the rules which were to regulate the conduct of life; here
it was a false Biblicism, i. e., strictest adherence to the letter of
the Bible as the supreme law of the sovereign God, which led Calvin
to conform all acts and forms of life to the
words of the Bible. Because the apostles appointed ministers,
teachers, presbyters and deacons, it is therefore necessary that the
church everywhere and at all times must do the same.
(d) Rites and Ceremonies.
This Biblicism determines
also the position of the Reformed Church in regard to church rites
and ceremonies. Usages, customs, festivals that have been observed in
the church for centuries but cannot be substantiated by express
scriptural command are to be abandoned. For example, Christ and his
apostles knew nothing of the use of organs, altars, crucifixes,
candles, vestments and the like; hence these things have no place in
divine worship. Nor did Christ and his apostles use hymns in their
worship, but they did use the Old Testament psalms; hence "it is
the will of God that the songs contained in the book of psalms should
be used in public service to the exclusion of the devotional
compositions of uninspired men" (United Presb. Church of N. A.).
However, we are not familiar with the melodies according to which
they sang the psalms in the ancient church; hence there can be no
objection to putting the psalms into rhymes suitable to modern
melodies. Thus we have The Metrical Version of the Psalms approved
(Sept. 22,1909) by a joint committee from nine churches of the
Presbyterian family in the United States and Canada. Since the New
Testament mentions neither the observance of festivals in
commemoration of the great events of the life of Christ, nor of
saints' days, we are bound to observe only Sunday as the Lord's Day.
In the Reformed churches, as a rule, all festivals except Sunday were
abolished. Calvin made exceptions in the case of the Swiss of Bern,
who desired to keep the gospel festivals, but his Puritan followers
rejected the Christian year with its festivals insisting only on
strict Sabbath observance in a spirit of Jewish legalism.
Calvin, like Luther, saw in
the Sabbath law a part of the ceremonial law of the Jews and not a
part of the moral law which is binding on all men in all times and
therefore he asserted the abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, but he
departed from Luther's view by maintaining that the Lord's Day was substituted
in the room of the Sabbath
(Inst., II, 8, I. 34). This latter view of the substitution of Sunday
for the Sabbath soon became the dominant one in the Reformed Church
and the perpetual moral obligation to observe the first day of the
week as a day of rest and worship was emphatically maintained. It is
claimed that the substitution of Sunday for the Sabbath "dates
from the time of the Apostles, so that it must have received
Apostolic sanction" (H., 308). But just the opposite is true.
Neither Christ nor any of his apostles appointed a day of rest or
worship; on the contrary, the New Testament warns all Christians:
"Let no man judge you in respect of an holy day,... or of
Sabbath-days, which are a shadow of the things to come," Col. z:
16, 17; see also Gal. 4: Io, 11; 5:4.
Out of this legalistic
conception of Sunday grew the Puritan theory of the Christian Sabbath
which received its first symbolical indorsement in the Irish
Articles. "The first day of the week, which is the Lord's
Day, is wholly to be dedicated unto
the service of God; and therefore we are bound therein to rest from
our common and daily business, and to bestow that leisure upon holy
exercise, both public and private" (Art. LVI). The Puritan view
is stated still more distinctly by the Westminster Confession, ch.
XXI, "As it is of the law of nature, that, in general, a due
proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in his
Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all
men in all ages, he has particularly appointed one day in seven for a
Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which, from the beginning of the
world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week;
and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day
of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's day, and is to
be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath"
(7). "This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men,
after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common
affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from
their own works, words, and thoughts, about their worldly employments
and recreations; but also are taken up the whole time in the public
and private exercises of this worship and in the duties of necessity
and mercy" (8). See also Sh. C., q. 59-61. The Sabbath theory
held by the Presbyterians may also be learned from a statement made
by the Presbyterian Board of Publication "in introducing to the
public a new edition of the inimitable Institutio of the Christian
Religion." Commenting on Calvin's interpretation of the fourth
commandment the Executive Committee of the Presb. Board of
Publication says:
"The most decidedly
objectionable feature in the 'Christian Institutes,' is to be found
in the explanation of the fourth commandment, where the author
asserts the abrogation of the Sabbath. In Calvin's view, this
ordinance was a mere type of better blessings, and, with the types
and ceremonies of the old dispensation, was done away by the
introduction of a new and better dispensation. In this opinion there
can be no doubt that he greatly erred and so universal is the
conviction of the Church on the perpetual obligation of the Sabbath
as a moral institution, that no danger is to be apprehended from a
contrary view, even under the sanction of so great a name as that of
Calvin. In justice to his opinion on this subject, however, it should
be stated, that he distinctly recognized not only the propriety but
the necessity of a consecration of stated days for public religious
service, without which regulation, he declares that 'it is so far
from being possible to preserve order and decorum, that if it were
abolished, the Church would be in imminent danger of immediate
convulsion and ruin.' It is much to be lamented that so great a mind
should have been led astray on so important a
point by attempting to avoid an opposite extreme" (Vol. I, p. 4;
6th American Ed.).
But if, as the Lutherans
maintain, there is in the New Testament no divinely appointed day of
rest or worship why then do we
observe Sunday? The Lutherans
answer: "It is man's duty to worship, to honor, to praise his
Maker. In the New Testament the law fixing particular days has been
revoked, and only the command to worship God remains. Neither can man
worship God as he pleases, but God has told us how to worship Him.
His Word shall be preached. The Sacraments are to be administered.
Public prayer and praise shall be in vogue. If this is to be done, it
is evident that a certain time and place must be fixed for public
worship. While in the Old Testament God prescribed time and place of
public worship, He has in the New Testament left these details
entirely to the discretion and the choice of His people. And so from
the early times of the apostles the Christians
have chosen Sunday, the day of Christ's resurrection, as the day
which they would use for public worship" (Concordia
Encyclopedia, p. 671).
11. THE MEANS OF GRACE
The means of grace are the
Word of God and the sacraments.
(a) The Word of God.
According to Zwingli the
Word of God is not a means of grace. He severed the influence of the
Holy Spirit from "the instrument" of the word and held that
the Holy Spirit operates immediately upon man's heart. He
distinguished sharply between the external and internal word; only
the latter, he said, is efficacious (Fid. rat., N. 21).
Calvin goes further than
Zwingli in that--in the case of the elect--he holds to a real divine
energy connected with the word. He says that "our ignorance,
slothfulness, and the vanity of our minds require external aids, in
order to the production of faith in our hearts, and its
increase"; and "God has provided such aids in compassion to
our infirmity" (Inst., IV, I, I). But from this it must not be
concluded that this "prescribes a perpetual rule for God,
precluding his employment of any other method; which he has certainly
employed in the calling of many, to whom he has given the true
knowledge of himself in an internal manner, by the illumination of
his Spirit without the intervention of any preaching" (ib. 16,
18). In the same way "infants are regenerated by the power of
God which is as easy to him as it is wonderful and mysterious to
us" (ib. 18).
Why should not God, since he
can produce faith in the elect and save them without external means,
save also heathen who never heard the word of God? Calvin did not
draw this inference. Zwingli, however, (ut supra) maintained that the
elect are not confined to the number of those who attain faith before
they die, but unbaptized children and even
pious heathen
are among the elect and accordingly will be saved. (Regarding the
operation of the Holy Spirit aside from the means of grace see also O
7. Man's Conversion, p. 218).
(b) The Sacraments.
For the same reason that the
Holy Spirit is said to operate immediately upon man's heart, Zwingli
attaches also very little significance to the sacraments. They are
mere symbols of no sacramental significance but only of a mere
obligatory sacrificial character. The sacraments are rites which
rather impose obligations on the recipient than confer benefits. On
the one hand, they remind the believer in a symbolic form of
salvation and its blessings; on the other hand they are a means by
which he testifies his membership in the church. "I believe,
yea, I know that all sacraments are so far from conferring grace,
that they do not even offer or distribute it." They are
"outward testimonies of the grace which is already present in
the individual" (Fid. rat. N., 24, 25). His rationalism would
not permit Zwingli to accept a mystery that did not appeal to his reason.
According to Calvin
a sacrament is something more than significative. He defines it as an
outward sign (extremum
symbolum) by which God seals the
promises of his grace to our consciences and we in turn testify our
piety toward him (Inst., IV, 14, I). But "the sacraments produce
the effect, which they represent, in the elect alone"; for the
unbelieving they are merely signs without contents (ib. 15). In order
to be efficacious the Spirit-- "this inner teacher who inwardly
opens, moves, and enlightens the heart"-must follow the
sacraments (ib. 7; see also Cons. T., XVI).
As this view of the
sacraments certainly minimizes their significance as means of grace,
so also does the Reformed idea that the Old Testament sacraments,
circumcision and the passover, were the same in essence with the
sacraments of the New Testament. "The sacraments of the Old
Testament, in regard of the spiritual things thereby signified and
exhibited, were, for substance, the same with those of the New"
(W. C., XXVII, 5). They differ from each other so far as outward
signs, "ceremonies," and "duration" are
concerned, "but they all agree in the following particulars:
Both have God for their Author, both signify the same thing, namely,
Christ with his benefits, hence the ancients are said to have
"eaten the same meat, and drunk the same drink";
(I Cor.10:31, 4); both were to be received in the same way, namely,
by faith; both have the same word of command and promise, though not
the same expressions; and, lastly, both had the same effect"
(P., 410).
(c) Baptism.
Zwingli saw in baptism
merely an introductory symbol of obligatory character; hence infant
baptism is necessary. At first, Zwingli was not in favor of infant
baptism. But when the Anabaptists began to establish churches of the
regenerates and made pedo-baptism a prominent object of their
assaults, he insisted upon baptism as an obligatory symbol, the rite
of initiation of the new dispensation as circumcision was of the old.
According to Calvin baptism
is a seal of a covenant "like some sealed diploma." It signifies
for the elect the beginning of the development of the "new
life" in the church. It testifies
to us forgiveness of sin, not only for the past alone, but also for
the future. It serves both for the
confirmation of faith and a
confession before men (Inst., IV, 15, I-6). It signifies, testifies;
but nowhere does Calvin say: baptism bestows,
or gives
the new life, or forgiveness of sin.
Unbaptized children
are not "deprived of the grace of regeneration." Hence even
in case of necessity "it is not right for private persons to
take upon themselves the administration of baptism ...this is a part
of the public ministry of the church" (ib. 20).
Baptism is
necessary for all Christians
because commanded by Christ, but it is not
necessary for salvation.
"Although it be a great sin to contemn or neglect this
ordinance, yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed
unto it, as that no person can be regenerated or saved without it, or
that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated" (W. C.,
XXVIII, 5). The doctrine that "baptism is necessary to
salvation" is styled by Calvin as an "ill-stated notion
from which resulted mischievous consequences" (ib.).
"Infants are not excluded from the kingdom of heaven, who happen
to die before they have had the privilege of baptism." The
fulfillment of God's promise "depends not on baptism, or on any
thing adventitious." Children of believers are said to be born
in covenant relation. "The sacrament is afterwards added as a
seal, not to give efficacy to the promise of God, as if it wanted
validity in itself, but only to confirm it to us" (ib. 22).
"We condemn the Anabaptists who hold that newborn children of
believers should not be baptized. For according to the doctrine of
the gospel theirs is the kingdom of God, and they are in God's
covenant; why should the sign of God's covenant not be given to them?
Why should they not be initiated through holy baptism since they are
God's possession and in his church!" (II Helv., XX; see also H.
C., q. 74).
The confessions all agree
with Calvin in this that baptism does not give but only exhibits the
promised grace; that forgiveness is not conferred by baptism, but by
the Holy Spirit, that baptism is not, as Scripture calls it, the
washing of regeneration, or the washing away of sins. "The
efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is
administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this
ordinance the grace promised is not only offered, but really
exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or
infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of
God's own will, in his appointed time" (W. C., XVIII, 6).
"Is, then, the outward washing of water itself the washing away
of sins? No; for only the blood of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit
cleanse us from all sin. Why, then, does the Holy Ghost call baptism
the washing of regeneration and the washing away of sins? God speaks
thus not without great cause: namely, not only to teach us thereby
that like as the filthiness of the body is taken away by water, so
our sins also are taken away by the blood and Spirit of Christ; but
much more, that by this divine pledge and token he may assure us that
we are as really washed from our sins spiritually as our bodies are
washed with water" (H. C., q. 72 and 73). The
mode of baptism, whether immersion,
or sprinkling, or pouring "is of no importance; churches ought
to be left at liberty, in this respect, according to the difference
of countries" (Inst. IV, 15, 19). "Dipping of the person
into the water is not necessary; but baptism is rightly administered
by pouring or sprinkling water upon the person" (W. C., XXVIII,
3). The Second Helvetic Confession, however,
teaches that "the most perfect mode of baptism is that after
which Christ was baptized" (XX, 5).
(d) The Lord's Supper.
In keeping with his
conception of a sacrament Zwingli
considered the Lord's Supper (I) as a memorial celebration reminding
us of our redemption through the death of Christ and (z) as a feast
of confession and thanksgiving. He interpreted the 
in the words of the institution as equivalent to "signifies"
or "symbolizes." Bread and wine signify the body and
blood. There is only a spiritual eating in the Supper. Faith in the
sacrifice of Christ which is confessed by the congregation is really
the eating of Christ's body; this is in keeping with John 6: 63 f.,
"the flesh profiteth nothing." The real body of Christ
being in heaven cannot be in a number of different places on earth
(Fid. rat. N. 26; Fid. expos. N. 47 ff.).
Calvin was opposed to the
view that eating the flesh of Christ and drinking his blood means
only that Christ is received by faith. He maintained a real presence
of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Calvin calls the object received in
the Lord's Supper the substance of the sacrament. "What I call
the matter or substance, is Christ, with his death and
resurrection.... If it be true that the visible sign is given to us
to seal the donation of the invisible substance we ought to entertain
a confident assurance, that in receiving the symbol of his body, we
at the same time truly receive the body itself" (Inst. IV, 17,
10). "In the mystery of the Supper, under the symbols of bread
and wine, Christ is truly exhibited to us, even his body and blood,
in which he has fulfilled all obedience to procure our justification.
And the design of this exhibition is, first, that we may be united
into one body with him, and, secondly, that being made partakers of
his substance we may experience his power in the communication of all
blessings (ib. 11).
It is true, in his
conception of the Lord's Supper Calvin stands nearer to Luther than
to Zwingli, and yet his view of the Lord's Supper differs widely from
that of Luther. Luther held to a real bodily presence. Calvin styles
that a "preposterous error." "Christ's body is finite,
according to the invariable condition of a human body, and is
contained in heaven, where it was once received, till it shall return
to judgment; so we esteem it utterly unlawful to bring it back under
these corruptible elements, or to imagine it to be present
everywhere" (ib. 12).
What, then, do the Reformed
mean by "receiving the true body and blood of Christ?" They
do not mean the body but all the blessings which Christ offers in his
body. Calvin denied any bodily presence of Christ and maintained only
Christ's spiritual influence, his power and efficacy as Redeemer.
Accordingly the body and blood of Christ are taken with the bread and wine
not orally by mouth, as Luther held,
but only spiritually by faith.
" ...we also do as certainly receive by faith (which is the
hand and mouth of our soul) the true body and blood of Christ our
only Savior in our souls, for the support of our spiritual life"
(C. B., XXXV). Bread and wine are signs, which "represent to us
the invisible nourishment which we receive from the body and blood of
Christ.... And because this mystery of the secret union of Christ
with believers is incomprehensible by nature, he exhibits a figure
and image of it in visible signs ...and ...by giving tokens and
pledges, renders it equally as certain to us as if we beheld it with
our eyes" (Inst. ib. I).
Calvin explains the words of
the institution metonymically, in the sense that the sign is used for
the thing signified and thus refuses to take on faith what the
Scriptures plainly teach. Someone has rightly said: "The Roman
Catholic Church must see
the presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament; the
Lutheran Church believes
it; the Reformed Church must understand
it." The Reformed Church takes the "is" of the words
of the institution as symbolical;
the Catholic Church, as real;
the Lutheran Church as synecdochical,
i. e., we receive, with the earthly element, the body of Christ.
"Lutheranism sees the supernatural in the natural, Calvinism above
the natural, Romanism without the natural" (Schaff, Creeds, I,
217). According to the Reformed view the communicants actually
receive only bread and wine. According to the Catholic view they
receive only the real body of Christ. According to the Lutheran view
they receive both, bread and wine, and the true body and blood of Christ.
Calvin also held that only
the believer, i. e., the elect,
through faith receives spiritually
the body and blood of Christ in the Supper, while the unbeliever
receives mere bread and wine. Consequently Calvin rejected Luther's
doctrine of the manducatio indignorum,
i. e., that also the unworthy and unbelievers receive the true body
and blood of Christ (see also W. C., XXIX, 7, 8). "The ungodly
indeed receives the sacrament to his condemnation, but he does not
receive the truth of the sacrament. As Judas and Simon the sorcerer
both, indeed, received the sacrament, but not Christ, who was
signified by it, of whom believers only are made partakers" (C.
B., XXXV).
But if the body of Christ is
"contained in heaven" how is "the secret union of
Christ with the believer" in the Lord's Supper possible? Calvin
answers: "Not by the exhibition of a vain or uneffectual sign,
but by the exertion of the energy of his Spirit" (Inst., ib.
10). "He feeds them with his own body, of which he gives them a
participation by the influence of his Spirit" (ib. 18). Christ
being at the right hand of God in heaven, does not descend to earth,
but believers by the power of the Holy Spirit are raised to communion
with him in heaven (ib. 36), or Christ by the power of his Spirit and
the outward symbol descends to us (ib. 24). In Calvin's liturgy (in
his La manière de celebrer la cène)
the ancient Sursum corda
is paraphrased: "Let us lift up our hearts and minds thither
where Jesus Christ is in the glory of his Father." (See also
Form of the administration of the Lord's Supper of Dutch Reformed
Church). This spiritual union of Christ with the believer is, of
course, not confined to the Lord's Supper, but takes place whenever
faith is exercised.
Not the Zwinglian but the
Calvinistic view of the Lord's Supper became the dominant one in the
Reformed Church. The First Helvetic Confession, Art. XXII, and the
First Confession of Basle, Art. VI, present the Zwinglian type of
doctrine. The Gallican Confession, which was drawn up under the
influence of Calvin, exactly presents Calvin's conception of the
Lord's Supper. "Thus all who bring pure faith, like a vessel, to
the sacred table of Christ, receive truly that of which it is a sign;
for the body and blood of Jesus Christ give food and drink to
the soul, no less than bread and wine nourish the body" (C. G.,
37). The Shorter Catechism defines the Lord's Supper as "a
sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according
to Christ's appointment, his death is showed forth, and the worthy
receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith,
made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their
spiritual nourishment and growth in grace" (q. 96) (see also W.
C., XXIX, I, 5). The Heidelberg Catechism seems to approach the
Lutheran view when it says (q. 79) that "Christ by his visible
sign and pledge" wants "to assure us that we are as really
partakers of his true body and blood," but it makes it at once
clear that it does not present Luther's but Calvin's view when it
adds: "through the working of the Holy
Ghost, as we receive by
the mouth of the body these holy
tokens in remembrance of him."
To the Reformed the
celebration of the Lord's Supper is also a public
profession of faith in Christ's
sacrifice. In attending the Lord's Supper the communicants
"publicly declare their acceptance of Christ as Savior and
Master" (B., 276). Hence it is essentially "a communion, in
which the fellowship of believers with Christ and with one another is
set forth." It should therefore "be held in the gathering
of believers. In particular cases, however, some Reformed teachers
held it may be administered in private homes for the benefit of
believers long confined by sickness provided the officers and some
members of the church be present to preserve the true character of
the ordinance as a communion" (B., 279). The Reformed Church
rather discourages private communion, while the Lutheran Church
freely allows it.
Since the Lord's Supper is
chiefly of symbolical significance the
breaking of the bread is essential
in the Supper; it symbolizes the rending of Christ's body on the
cross. But as far as the bread
is concerned the Reformed "believe that the common bread of
daily life best fulfills the requirements of the symbols. Because
unleavened bread was the only kind at hand in the passover Jesus used
this in instituting the Supper, but that did not mean that we also
must use this as the Romish and Lutheran Churches hold. The wine used
was fermented juice of the grape" (B. 275). In order to guard
against partaking of the Supper in an
unworthy manner, self-examination
for the Supper is necessary. The point with which self-examination
must concern itself "is this: whether we are in the right frame
of mind to proclaim the death of the Lord" (H., 225).
12. ESCHATOULGY
The Lutheran and Reformed
confessions are in agreement so far as the doctrine of the last
things are concerned. Like the Augsburg Confession, Art. XVII, so
does the Second Helvetic Confession reject
the apocatastasis and chiliasm of the Anabaptists (XI, 14) and
teaches that the second coming of Christ will be to judge the quick
and the dead (ib. 13).
13. THE VARIOUS CALVINISTIC CHURCHES AS
REPRESENTED PARTICULARLY IN AMERICA
Initiated in Switzerland the
Reformed faith passed over into the Palatinate, in the days of
Frederick III. (1559-1576). From thence it extended northward into
other German states. At the same time it gained ground in France,
England, Scotland, Hungary, Bohemia and Poland. Later, emigration and
colonization secured a still wider diffusion of the Reformed faith.
As early as 1652 Dutch settlers transplanted it to South Africa. The
collective membership of the various Dutch bodies in that country
amounts to over half a million communicants. At a
still earlier date Dutch emigrants had planted the Reformed Church
upon the shores of the New World.
(I) The
Reformed Church in America.
Rev. Jonas Michaelius
organized the first congregation according to the Reformed discipline
in New Amsterdam, in 1628. As immigrants settled along the Hudson, on
Long Island, and in New Jersey, other congregations were gathered and
churches erected, some of which are still standing after more than
two centuries. This branch of the Reformed Church being one in
denominational polity and doctrinal type with the Reformed Protestant
Dutch Church of the Netherlands bore the title, "The Reformed
Protestant Dutch Church in North America" until 1867, when the
present name, "The Reformed
Church in America" was adopted.
Its recognized theological standards are, besides the ecumenical
creeds, the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the
Decrees of the Synod of Dort. In polity it is Presbyterian, only
instead of the sessions, presbyteries, synods and general assemblies
of the Presbyterians it has consistories, classes, provincial synods
and general synods. Statistics for 1926: 717 churches with 153,739 members.
(2) The
Reformed Church in the United States.
In the early part of the
18th century German immigrants from the Palatinate and other parts of
western Germany and also from Switzerland planted the German Reformed
Church in the United States. Until 1792 it had been under the control
of the Reformed Church of the Netherlands. In the following year the
Reformed German Church became an entirely independent body and
adopted as its standard only the German Creed, the Heidelberg
Catechism. In 1869 it dropped the word "German" from its
title. The Reformed Church in the United
States is, like the Reformed (Dutch) Church, Calvinistic in its
doctrine and presbyterian in polity. Statistics for 1926: 1,709
churches with 361,257 members.
(3) The
Christian Reformed Church is a
branch of an organization of the same name in Holland, formed by a
secession in 1835 from the Reformed Church of Holland. In this
country the denomination increased considerably in 1882, when it
received an accession of half a dozen Michigan congregations which
had split off from the Reformed Church in America because of the
refusal of its general synod to condemn freemasonry. In 1890, the
True Reformed Dutch Church, located in New Jersey and New York
(formed by the secession of five suspended ministers from the
Reformed Dutch Church, in 1822, giving as their reasons "errors
in doctrine and looseness of discipline"), also united with the
Christian Reformed Church. Its creeds are the Belgic
Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort. In
polity it is strictly presbyterian. Statistics for 1926: 245 churches
with total membership of 98,534.
(4) The
Hungarian Reformed Church in
America was organized in New York City in 1904. Since 1916 this
church has ceased to exist under this name. The constituency of the
newly organized Free Magyar Reformed
Church in America
is made up to a large degree from that of the Hungarian Reformed
Church in America. The Magyar Church was reported in 1926 with 11
churches and 3,992 members.
(5) The Presbyterians.
"Presbyterianism"
designates, on the one hand, that form of church government in which
presbyters or elders occupy a prominent place; on the other hand, it
has come to have a doctrinal as well as an ecclesiastical
significance, thus designating the doctrinal, ethical, governmental
and liturgical principles and regulations of the Presbyterian churches.
The real presbyterial idea
was worked out by Calvin whose teachings also form the basis of the
doctrinal standards of nearly all Presbyterian bodies; hence the
words "Calvinistic" and "Presbyterian" are to a
large extent synonymous.
Next to Calvin, John Knox is
the chief founder of the Presbyterian polity. While an exile from his
native land under Mary the Bloody (1553-58) he came also to Geneva
where he found "the most perfect school of Christ that ever was
since the days of the apostles." He became a close friend and
disciple of Calvin though four years older than the great Reformer.
Through Knox influence the Protestant Church in his native land
finally won a complete victory. The new Confession of Faith (see p.
199) and the First Book of Discipline drawn up by Knox and five other
ministers were adopted and the Reformed Kirk established by the free
Parliament of 1560.
The fundamental principles
of Presbyterianism are the absolute sovereignty of God and the
supreme authority of his holy word. Upon this basis rests the whole
church, its faith and practice, worship, discipline and government.
The Scriptures are not only the rule of faith, but also the rule of
government and discipline of the church. Presbyterianism claims to be
the form of ecclesiastical organization set forth in the New
Testament. It holds a middle position between the episcopal and
congregational systems. In contradistinction to the national church
of England in which there are three major orders of clergy--bishops,
priests and deacons,--the Presbyterian Church holds that all
clergymen are peers one of another, and that church authority is
vested not in individuals but in representative bodies. In every
well-organized congregation there are three classes of officers--the
pastor or teaching elder, the ruling elders who, with the pastor,
have the spiritual oversight of the church, and the deacons who
administer the benevolences of the church and, in some churches, also
the financial affairs.
In opposition to
Congregational independency Presbyterianism asserts the lawful
authority of the larger church. The primary governing body is the church
session which consists of the
pastor as presiding officer and the ruling elders; it supervises the
spiritual affairs of the congregation. The deacons are responsible to
the session. Pastor, elders and deacons are chosen by the
congregation, but the election of the pastor, in contrast with
Congregationalism, is subject to the approval of the presbytery. The
church session is under the authority of the next higher court, the presbytery,
in which all congregations within a limited territory are
represented, each by its pastor and an elder. The presbyteries are
united in a larger governing body called the
synod; while the supreme court of
Presbyterianism is the general assembly
which meets annually and to which all the presbyteries in the church
send representatives. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, IIth ed., vol.
22, p. 183, illustrates the intermediate position of Presbyterianism
between episcopacy and Congregationalism by the following striking comparison:
"In episcopacy the
supreme authority is a diocesan bishop; in~cotlgregationalism it is
the members of the congregation assembled in the church meeting; in
Presbyterianism it is a church council composed of representative
presbyters. In episcopacy the control of the church affairs is almost
entirely withdrawn from the people; in congregationalism it is almost
entirely exercised by the people; in Presbyterianism it rests with a
Council composed of duly appointed office-bearers chosen by the
people. The ecclesiastical unit in episcopacy is a diocese,
comprising many churches and ruled by a prelate; in congregationalism
it is a single church self-governed and entirely independent of all
others; in Presbyterianism it is a presbytery or council composed of
ministers and elders representing all the churches within a specified
district. It may be said broadly, therefore, that in episcopacy the
government is monarchical; in congregationalism, democratic; and in
Presbyterianism, aristocratic or representative."
The Alliance of the Reformed
Churches throughout the World holding the Presbyterian System,
organized in 1875, popularly but incorrectly called
Pan-Presbyterian Alliance, consists
of a purely voluntary association of the Presbyterian bodies. Its
object is not to form one great Presbyterian organization, but to
promote unity and fellowship among the numerous Presbyterian churches
throughout the world. The Alliance is merely advisory, exercising
neither legislative nor judicial function.
Following is a list of the
various Presbyterian bodies and their distinctive characteristics (A)
in the British Empire and Colonies and (B) in the United States.
A. In Scotland
there are at present two chief branches of Presbyterianism. The Church
of Scotland, numerically the
largest church in Scotland--it has a membership of 756,000-commonly
known as the Established Church, was organized in 1560 and legally
established in 1592 by the Scottish Parliament.
The United Free Church of Scotland
was formed on October 31, 1900, by the union of the Free Church and
the United Presbyterian Church. It numbers
435,000 communicants. The Established Church and the United Free
Church are practically one on questions of doctrine, but differ on
the relation between church and state.
Presbyterianism in England
traces its historical origin to the strong Presbyterian element in
English Puritanism. It manifested itself in the famous Westminster
Assembly, 1643. In 1686 it was by act of Parliament denied civil and
religious rights. From that time on until the middle of the 19th
century it had only a feeble existence. In 1876, the English
congregations of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which
was well represented in Northumberland, Lancashire and London, united
with the English Presbyterians to form the Presbyterian
Church of England. It has a membership
of 85,000. It has adopted twenty-four articles of faith which are in
full accord with the Westminster Confession.
The most conservative of the
great Presbyterian churches of the United Kingdom is the
Irish Presbyterian Church with a
communicant membership of 150,000. Besides this body there are three
small independent Presbyterian communities in
Ireland, viz., the Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Eastern Reformed
and the Secession Church.
The Calvinistic Methodist
Or Presbyterian Church of Wales,
organized in 1743 under the influence of Whitefield, has been
Calvinistic from its beginning. After 1748 its connection with
England was gradually broken off. In 1864, the two synods, that of
North Wales and that of South Wales, united in one general assembly.
This Church maintains cordial fellowship with
the Presbyterian Church of England. In this church every elder is a
member of the presbytery. It has a communicant membership of over 187,000.
In Canada
Presbyterian congregations and synods were organized in various
provinces but maintained a separate existence until by 1870 the
numerous bodies had been reduced to four and, in 1875, June 15, in
the city of Montreal, these four were united into one organization,
the Presbyterian Church of Canada.4
It has over 90,000 communicant members.
There are also Presbyterian
Churches in all of the other British possessions and colonies, Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa, Jamaica, etc.
B. There are ten Presbyterian bodies in the United
States.
I. The
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
Presbyterianism was planted
on the virgin soil of America chiefly by English Puritans and Scotch
and Irish immigrants in the first half of the 17th century. Long
before the Declaration of Independence there were Presbyterian
churches established in Virginia, New England, Maryland and Delaware.
The first presbytery, the oldest in America, was organized in
Philadelphia, in 1706, and the first synod, composed of four
presbyteries, was formed in 1716. The synod of Philadelphia, in
17"9, adopted the Westminster Confession "as being, in all
the essential and necessary articles, good forms of sound words, and
systems of Christian doctrine." This so-called "adopting
act" allowed scruples as to "articles not essential and
necessary in doctrine, worship and government." In the same year
the church gave also definite ecclesiastical form to the distinctive
American doctrine of the independence of the church from control by
the state by denying to the civil magistrate power over the church,
and also the power "to persecute any for religion."
Two parties had developed
with the growth of the church. The stricter party, known as "Old
Side," insisted on full and
unreserved subscription to the confessions. The liberal party, known as
"New Side," contended for
a free interpretation of the standards. In 1758 the two bodies were
united as the Synod of New York and Pennsylvania upon the basis of
the Westminister standards pure and simple.
After the Revolutionary War,
in 1788, the united synod decided to organize a general assembly with
four synods. It revised and adopted the Westminster Confession of
Faith, together with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and also a
Form of Government, a Book of Discipline and a Directory of Worship,
as the constitution of the church. In the following year the first
meeting of the General Assembly was held in Philadelphia. (Regarding
the so-called Cumberland separation which took place in 1806, see
Cumberland Presb. Church, p. 246.)
In 1837 the Presbyterian
Church was again divided into "Old
School" and "New
School" which terms are not in
any manner equivalent to the terms "Old Side" and "New
Side" in use a century before. The division resulted from
contention respecting the plan of union formed in 1801 between the
General Assembly and the Congregational associations of New England.
The plan agreed upon allowed the interchange of Presbyterian and
Congregational ministers and the formation of churches composed of
members of both denominations. The Old School opposed the continuance
of the union plan; the New School, under the influence of the New
England Theology, favored it. The controversy involved also doctrinal
differences between general atonement and atonement for the elect
only, between mediate imputation and immediate imputation, and
differences concerning creed subscription, polity and discipline. In
1869 the two assemblies agreed to a reunion which was
consummated in the same year at Pittsburgh,
Pa., on "the doctrinal and ecclesiastical basis of our common standards."
At the outbreak of the Civil
War, in 1861, the Southern Presbyterian Churches separated from the
churches in the North. [See Presb. Church (Southern), p. 248.] Since
the reunion in 1869 the Presbyterian Church in the United States of
America has made steady progress along all lines. It is the largest
body of the denomination. In 1926 it had a communicant membership
of1,909,111. The Assembly of 1902, held at New York City, adopted a
brief statement of the Reformed Faith as an aid to the interpretation
of the Westminster Confession, and on the
love of God for all men, mission, and the Holy Spirit.
2. The
Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
This body arose in
circumstances connected with the revival which began among the
churches of the Transylvania Presbytery in Kentucky in the closing
years of the 18th century. The revival grew rapidly so that the
demand for ministers became greater than the supply. The anti-revival
party objected to the ordination, by the Cumberland Presbytery, of
men who had not had the usual academic and theological training and,
besides were permitted, if they so desired, to express their dissent
from the teaching of the Westminster Confession as to "the idea
of fatality," i. e., the doctrine of absolute decrees. The synod
of Kentucky, of which the Cumberland Presbytery was a member,
dissolved the Presbytery, in 1806, and the General Assembly confirmed
the action of the synod, in 1809. The dissenters, however, organized
an independent presbytery, the Cumberland Presbytery, in 1810. The
new denomination grew rapidly. In 1813 it was divided into three
presbyteries and in the same year a general synod was constituted.
The synod revised the Westminster Confession and excluded
"fatalism and infant damnation."
The Cumberland Presbyterian
Confession (accepted 1813, subjected to a final revision and adopted
in 1829) departs from the Westminster Confession in rejecting
unconditional election and reprobation, and affirming unlimited
atonement and the salvation of all infants dying in infancy, and yet
the Confession maintains the final perseverance of the saints. The
Larger Catechism was omitted. The Shorter Catechism has been changed
in the questions pertaining to God's eternal decrees. In doctrine
the Cumberland Church represents the medium between Calvinistic and
Arminian theology. In polity
it is distinctively presbyterian.
In 1906, the northern
General Assembly and the Cumberland Church united on the basis of the
doctrinal and ecclesiastical standards revised and adopted by the
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in 1902. At that
time the Cumberland Church had about 200,000 members and about 1,600
Ordained ministers. A majority of the ministers and about one half of
the members went into the other church. Those
who remained in the Cumberland Church held to the same creed and the
same polity as before. Statistics for 1926: 763 ministers, 65,876 members.
3. The
Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Colored,
is a branch of the Cumberland Fresh. Church, organized in 1869, on a
racial basis. It was constituted of colored ministers and members who
had been connected with the Cumberland Church.
It has the same doctrinal basis and polity as the parent church. In
1926 it had 135 ministers and a membership of12,000.
4. The
Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church,
known also as the Welsh Presbyterian Church,
is a branch of the body of the same name in Wales (see p. 244). Its
doctrinal standards are the Forty-four Articles which correspond in
general to the Westminster Confession of the Presbyterian Church and
the Thirty-nine Articles of the Episcopal Church. "Eternal
reprobation" is not mentioned in the
articles. This church exists among the Welsh in 13 states of the
republic. In its services the Welsh language is used. It has a
membership of about 15,000.
5. The
United Presbyterian Church of North America
does not derive its origin from the United Presbyterian Church of
Scotland (see p. 244), though it was formed in a similar way and by
similar elements. It was organized in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1858. by a
union of Scotch immigrants and their descendants who had belonged to
the Secession Presbyterians and the Associate and the Reformed
Presbyterians of Scotland. It adopted the Westminster standards
modifying somewhat the chapter on the power of civil magistrates, and
a "Judicial Testimony" consisting of 18 articles designed
to set forth the views of the Church on "certain points not
distinctly introduced into the Confession of Faith." Five of the
18 articles or declarations are special to this denomination: (I)
slave holding is a violation of the law of God and contrary both to
the letter and spirit of Christianity. (z) All secret and oath-bound
societies are inconsistent with the genius and spirit of Christianity
and forbidden to church members. (3) None are to be admitted to the
sealing ordinances of the Church except such as give their assent to
its doctrines. (4) Public social covenanting at special times is a
moral duty. (5) It is the will of God that the songs contained in the
Book of Psalms should be used in public service to the exclusion of
the devotional compositions of uninspired men.
In 1881 the General
Assembly, by a very small majority, repealed the rule forbidding the
use of instrumental music in public worship. Statistics for 1926: 901
churches and 171,571 members.
6. The
Presbyterian Church in the United States (Southern).
The action of the General
Assembly (Old School), in 1861, led to the withdrawal from that
Assembly of a number of synods within the bounds of the Southern
Confederacy. In May 1861, the General Assembly (Old School), meeting
in Philadelphia, asserted the loyalty of the church to the Union and
promised the support of all its churches and ministers to the federal
government. This resolution was bitterly opposed by the commissioners
from the synods in the South, who felt that the church was
transcending her sphere in pronouncing on a political question.
Presbyteries in the seceding states generally coincided with this
view, and "concluded that a separation from the General Assembly
aforesaid was imperatively demanded. Not in the spirit of schism but
for the sake of peace and for the protection of the liberty with
which Christ had made them free." Accordingly the
representatives of 11 synods and 47 presbyteries met in Augusta,
Georgia., December 4, 1861, and constituted a General Assembly, under
the name of the General Assembly of the Confederate States of America
and adopted as their standards of doctrine the Westminster Confession
of Faith and the Form of Government as held in the old Church. After
the war, however, the name of the Church was changed to the Presbyterian
Church in the United States.
In 1864 the United Synod of
the South, composed of the presbyteries and churches which had
withdrawn from the New School Assembly in 1858, in consequence of
some decided action taken with reference to slavery and emancipation,
united with the Presbyterian Church in the United States. In 1869,
the Synod of Kentucky and, in 1874, the Synod of Missouri which for
the same reason had severed their connection with the Northern
Assembly united with the Southern.
The Presbyterian Church in
the United States-commonly called the Southern
Presbyterian Church as
distinguished from the parent body, the Northern Church-disavows all
connection with political matters and emphasizes its purely
ecclesiastical mission. It also forbids women the public expounding
of the Word of God, or other functions pertaining to an ordained
minister. Several unsuccessful attempts have been
made to bring about a union of the northern and southern churches.
Statistics for 1926: 2,235 ministers, 462,177 total church membership.
7. The
Associate Synod of North America (Associate Presbyterian Church)
is the continuance of those Associate and Reformed Presbyterian
bodies which did not enter the union which resulted, in 1858, in the
United Presbyterian Church (see p. 247). The Associate Presbyterians
denounced slavery as immoral and excommunicated slaveholders from
their communion alienating thereby their
southern congregations. Statistics for 1926: II churches and 329 members.
8. The
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church
is the result of a secession from the Associate Reformed Synod of the
South in 1821. The separation was on account of differences concerning
the exercise of civil power, the use of Psalms alone as hymns and
strictness in admission to the Lord's table. This body was reported
in 1926 With 145 churches and 20,410 members.
9. The
Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America
(Old Light) was organized in 1809. In 1825 a number of its ministers
withdrew to join the Presbyterian Church in the United States of
America. In 1833 a division occurred resulting in two organizations.
The one party to the division took the above name. It refused to
allow its members to vote or hold office until there is
"constitutional recognition of God, as the source of power, of
Jesus Christ as the ruler of nations, of the Holy
Spirit as the supreme rule, and of the true Christian religion."
The members of this church do not take part in state or national
elections; they neither vote nor hold office. This church was
reported in 1926 with 89 churches and 7,166 members.
10. The
General Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church
(New Light), the other party to the division of 1833, allows its
members to decide for themselves as to
participation in political affairs. It was reported in 1926 With 13
churches and 1,929 members.
All Reformed Presbyterians
(8, 9, 10) have in common the exclusive use of Psalms in singing and
the opposition to secret societies.
14. THE WALDENSES AND THE
BOHEMIAN BRETHREN
A. The Waldelzses.
The name Waldenses was given
to a sect of dissenters from the Roman Catholic Church, which arose
in southern France about 1170 and has survived to the present day.
Conflicting views as to their origin were held both by friend and
foe. According to Catholic writers the Waldenses date from the 12th
century and took their name and doctrines from Pierre Valdo or Peter
Waldo. Waldensian` historians have claimed for them an earlier origin
than the end of the 12th century and attempted to show that they are
a branch of the primitive church which has always been independent of
the Roman Catholic Church since the time of Constantine. This claim,
however, as modern criticism has shown, can no longer be sustained.
Modern historians, such as Comba and others, see in the Waldensian
movement the blending together or the fusion of several distinct
reform movements of the 12th century brought about by four men who
had much in common in their teaching but each of whom stressed one
particular feature of Christian life. Pierre de Bruys or Petrus
Brusius (d. about 1125), whose followers were known as Petrobrusians,
insisted especially on simplicity and purity in the worship of God.
Henry of Lausanne (d. after 1145), whose followers were called
Henricians, emphasized the purity of life. Arnold of Brescia
(executed at Rome, 1155) Maintained the independence of the church
from the state and its spiritual mission; his followers were known as
Arnoldists. Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant of Lyon (d. before 1218)
laid the stress on poverty; his followers called themselves "the
poor men of Lyon," or simply "the poor." According to
this theory of modern historians the name Waldenses indicates all
heretics after the four movements had been blended together.
The Waldensian movement was
a practical protest against the worldliness of the church. The
Waldenses made the profession of extreme poverty a prominent feature
in their own lives. Well-versed in Scripture they emphasized by their
practice the need of the much neglected task of preaching the gospel
to the people in the city and rural districts, allowing women also to preach.
Maintaining the supremacy of
the Scripture over the traditions of men they rejected the papal
hierarchy, purgatory, indulgences, prayers for the dead, worship of
images, of saints, and of Mary, the mass and transubstantiation. They
also refused to take oaths and considered the shedding of human blood
as unlawful, and, consequently, condemned war and the infliction of
death penalty.
The distinctive doctrines
held by the Waldenses before the Reformation period are set forth in the
Waldensian Catechism Or "The
Smaller Questions," written about 1489 (not later than 1500). It
bears a striking resemblance to the Bohemian Catechism which appeared
in print in 1521, Or 1522 (see p. 202).
The Waldenses did not intend
to separate from the church; on the contrary, they sought for the
recognition of the church and the pope. But Pope Lucius III. (1184)
answered with the ban of the church. They were formally condemned by
the Lateran council of 1215. Henceforth the Waldensian society became
a persecuted church. It suffered severely from the bloody Albigensian
wars. Those who survived looked to the valleys as a place of refuge,
especially the secluded valleys of Piedmont where they found brethren
in the faith. At times attempts were made to suppress and exterminate
the sect; yet, even during the period of their fiercest persecution a
remnant of that venerable martyr church has maintained itself and
continued to exist to the present day. It was at this time (1655)
that Cromwell used his influence to stay the persecutions and
threatened "to make the thunder of English canon resound in the
castle of St. Angelo," and Milton wrote his sublime sonnet of protest:
"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered
saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold."
When the Reformation began
in Germany and Switzerland the Waldenses were ready to sympathize
with it. They communicated with the Reformed theologians,
Oecolampadius, Bucer and others, and ultimately adapted their old
beliefs to those of the Reformed Church. At a synod which met in the
valley of Angrogne, in 1532, the tenets of the Swiss Reformation were
adopted by a large majority. In their Brief Confession of Faith of
the Reformed Churches of Piedmont (1655), which is based on the
Gallican Confession, the Waldenses adopted the doctrines of the
Reformed churches of France, Great Britain, Holland, etc., as well as
those of the altered Augsburg Confession. Accordingly they hold to
the Reformed conception of the sacraments as signs and symbols.
Calvin's doctrine of absolute predestination has received definite
expression in their Brief Confession, in Art. IX. Art. XIV explains
John 3: 16, "God so loved the world" as "those, whom
he has chosen out of the world." Although Art. XXII denies that
good works are meritorious, yet Art. XXI maintains that they are
absolutely necessary to salvation, "so that believers cannot
obtain the kingdom of heaven without them."
After their emancipation in
Italy (in 1848) the Waldenses have established missions in Italy5
and abroad, in Abyssinia, Madagascar, Basutoland and Barotseland,
also flourishing agricultural settlements in Uruguay and Argentina
with 8 organized churches and to settled groups with a total
population of 7,000 people. Waldensian colonies have settled in the
United States, at Wolfe Ridge, Texas; Valdese, N. C.; Monett, Mo.;
Prove City, Utah; and Santa Ana, Calif. The
headquarters of the Waldensian Church in the United States are in New
York City, where there is also one Waldensian Church.
The Waldensian Church is
organized on the Presbyterian system.
B. The Bohemian Brethren
The Bohemian Brethren were
originally composed of remnants of the Hussites. When in 1433 the
moderate Hussites, the Calixtines,--so called from their zeal for the
chalice (calix)
for the laity--came to terms with the Roman Catholic Church, the
radical Hussites, the Taborites,--so called from the mountain which
their leader Ziska fortified and called Mount Tabor--rejected all
compromise with Rome and insisted on a thorough reformation. After
their complete defeat in 1434 they ceased to exist as a party. But a
remnant remained and continued to exist under the name Bohemian
Brethren, or Unitas Fratrum.
They were scattered throughout Bohemia; some of them emigrated to
Moravia, Saxony and Poland. They dwelled in separate communities.
They adhered to the rigid discipline of the Taborites and were known
as Brothers of the Rule of Christ. Their enemies often confounded
them with the Waldenses and Picards, while, on account of their being
compelled during persecution to hide in caves and solitary places,
they were called Grubenheimer, i. e., pit-dwellers.
In opposition to the
secularized church they insisted on the simplicity and spirituality
of the church. They regarded the Bible as their only rule of faith
and practice, using the Bohemian version of the Bible revised by Hus.
They denounced the pope of Rome as Antichrist. Like the Waldenses
they rejected all worldly amusements, oaths, military service and
capital punishment. In 1467, at a synodical meeting at Lhota, they
effected an independent organization with an independent priesthood
seeking regular ordination from a Waldensian bishop, Stephen, who had
been ordained by a Roman bishop in 1434. In this way the Brethren
meant to retain an unbroken succession of the episcopate.
At the beginning of the
reformatory movement in Germany and Switzerland they conferred with
the Wittenberg theologians but refused to join Luther because of the
Lutheran doctrines, particularly of the Lord's Supper and of
justification by faith alone and, like the Waldenses, ultimately
passed in a body to the Reformed communion. (For confessions of the
Bohemian Brethren see p. 202 f.)
During the bloody drama of
the Thirty-Years' War the Catholic Counter Reformation actually
exterminated Protestantism in Bohemia. The exiled Bohemian Brethren,
who had settled in Moravia from whence they emigrated in 1722, became
the nucleus of the Moravian Church founded at Herrnhut (see p. 313).
A scanty remnant of the Brethren congregations continued to exist
even in Bohemia. In 1781 Emperor Joseph II. issued the Edict of
Toleration "which granted religious freedom with some
reservations to certain non-Catholic groups, the Lutherans and
Calvinists, that is, the Augsburg and Helvetic Confession churches.
All other sects, including the Bohemian Brethren were excluded. After
the events of 1918 both confessions returned to the old confession of
the Bohemian Brethren" (Keller and Stewart, Prot. Europe, p.
295). The Evangelical Church of Bohemia
which was organized after the World War claims descent from the old Unitas
Fratrum.
15. THE EVANGELICAL SYNOD OF
NORTH AMERICA
We shall conclude this
chapter with a brief sketch of that large church body which holds a
neutral position as to the doctrinal differences between the Lutheran
and Reformed churches, namely the
Evangelical Synod of North America,
before 1920 known as the German
Evangelical Synod. This body was formed by a union of Lutheran and
Reformed churches, effected in 1840, at Gravois Settlement, Mo., and
by subsequent similar unions of organizations, including the united
Evangelical Synod of North America, the German Evangelical Society of
Ohio, the United Evangelical Society of the East, and others, which
consolidated in 1877.
The Evangelical Synod
represents in this country the old state church of Prussia,6
which is a union of the Lutheran and Reformed churches (see p. 136).
"Union here means neither fusion of the Lutheran and Reformed
churches nor absorption of one by the other, but means the two
confessions existing side by side, coördinated and united"
(Keller and Stewart, Protestant Europe, p. 209). Accordingly the
Church of the Old Prussian Union recognizes the Augsburg Confession,
the Apology, the Smalcald Articles, and the Small and Large
Catechisms in the Lutheran, and the Heidelberg Catechism in the
Reformed communities. The Evangelical Synod of North America,
however, accepts both Lutheran and Reformed Confessions as
far as these symbols are in agreement
and, where they are not, Scripture passages cited in support of the
conflicting statements may receive either the Lutheran or the
Reformed interpretation (see 2 of the Constitution of 1877). There
were in the United States in 1926, 1,287 churches of the Evangelical
Synod of North America, with 314,418 members.
LITERATURE:
Doctrine:
M. J. Bosma, Exposition of
Reformed Doctrine, 4th ed., Grand Rapids, Mich., 1927.
C. A. Briggs, Theological
Symbolics, New York, 1914, Part II, ch. IV, VI, VII, VIII.
John Calvin, Institutes of the
Christian Religion.
W. Cunningham, The Reformers and
the Theology of the Reformation, Edinburgh, 1862.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th
ed., vol. 7, Creeds, p. 398 f.
J. I. Good, The Heidelberg
Catechism in Its Newest Light, Philadelphia, 1914.
W. Hastie, Theology of the
Reformed Church in Its Fundamental Principles, New York, 1904.
W. Heyns, Manual of Reformed
Doctrine, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1926.
Charles Hedge, Systematic
Theology, New York, 1873, 3 vols.
idem, Discussions in Church
Polity, New York, 1879.
A. A. Hedge, Commentary on the
Confession of Faith, Philadelphia, 1869.
E H. Klotsche, Hist. of
Doctrines, Burlington, Iowa, 1927, gd period, II, VI, VII.
E. F. Karl Müller, Die
Bekenntnisschriften der ref. Kirche, Leipzig, 1903.
H. A. Niemeyer, Collectio
Confessionum in Ecclesiis Reformatis, Leipzig, 1840.
G. F. Oehler, Lehrbuch der
Symbolik, Stuttgart, 1891.
B. Pictet, Christian Theology,
transl. from the Latin by Fr. Reyroux, publ. by Presb. Board of
Publ., Philadelphia.
Schaff, Creeds, vol. I, pp. 354
ff, vol. III, part II.
R Seeberg, Hist. of Doctrines,
Engl. transl. by Charles E. Hay, vol. II, PP. 3o6-33I; 390-425.
Wilh. Walther, Lehrbuch der
Symbolik, Leipzig, 1924, Book III.
History :
American Church History Series,
Vol. VIIL, The Dutch and German Reformed Churches.
M. d'Aubigné, Hist. de la
réformation, 5 vols., Paris, 1835-53 (in Engl. translation in
many editions).
idem, Hist. de la
réformation au temps de Calvin (the two in Engl.
translation in 13 vols., New
York, 1879).
D. D. Demarest, The Reformed
Church in America, New York, 1889.
G. P. Fisher, Hist. of the
Reformation, New York, 1906.
D. Hay Fleming, The Reformation
in Scotland, London, 1910.
J. A. Froude, Calvinism, London, 1871.
J. I. Good, The Historical
Handbook of the Reformed Church, 3d ed., Philadelphia, 1915.
M. G. Hansen, The Reformed
Church in the Netherlands, New York, 1884.
Charles M. Jacobs, The Story of
the Church, Philadelphia, 1925, ch. XVIII, XXI, XXII, XXIII.
T. M. Lindsay, Hist. of the
Reformation, 2 vols., New York, 1906, 1909.
J. N. Ogilvie, Presbyterian
Churches of Christendom, London, 1925.
L. Pullen, Religion since the
Reformation, Oxford, 1924, Lectures II, III, V, VI.
Christian Symbolics
R C. Reed, Hist. of the
Presbyterian Churches of the World, Philadelphia, 1905.
M. J. Spalding (Rom. Cath.)
Hist. of the Prot. Reformation, Baltimore, 1875.
J. V. Stephens, The Presbyterian
Churches, Divisions, and Union in Scotland, Ireland, Canada and
America, Philadelphia, 1910.
Preserved Smith, The Age of the Reformation.
R. E. Thompson, Hist. of the
Presbyt. Churches in the U. S. (in American Church Hist. Series, vol. VI).
H. Wace, Principles of the
Reformation, Practical and Historical, London, 1910.
Williston Walker, John Calvin,
the Organizer of Reformed Protestantism (in Heroes of the Reformation
Series), 1906.
idem, The Reformation, New York, 1900.
J. A. Wylie, The History of
Protestantism, London, Paris, New York, 1874-77,3 vols.
THE WALDENSES AND THE
BOHEMIAN BRETHREN
LITERATURE:
E. Baines, A Visit to the
Vaudois of Piedmont, London, 1855. A. Blair, Hist. of the
Waldensians, Edinburgh, 1833.
A. Best, Hist. of the Bohemian
and Moravian Brethren, London, 1863.
T. Gay, The Waldensians, Their
Rise, Struggles, Persecutions and Triumphs, London, 1895.
J. Gibson, The Waldensians,
Their Home and History, Edinburgh, 1903.
W. Jones, Hist. of the
Waldenses, new ed., a vols., London, 1882.
Keller and Stewart, Protestant
Europe. New York, 1927, Waldensians, p. 286 ff.; Bohemian Brethren,
293 ff.
V. Krasinsky, Religious History
of the Slavonic Nations, Edinburgh, 1851.
P. Melia, The Origin,
Persecutions, and Doctrines of the Waldenses (from Documents),
London, 1870
W. Sims, Hist. of the
Waldensians from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, 3 vols.,
Edinburgh, 1839. E. D. Schweinitz, Hist. of the Ch. known as the
Unitas Fratrum, Bethlehem, 1885.
Footnotes
1 Consult
: W. Beveridge, Short Hist. oi the Westminster. Assembly, Edinburgh
and New York,1904. W. W. Henry, The Westminster Assembly, New York,
1897. T. McCrie, Annals of English Presbytery, London, 1872. A. F.
Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly, Its History and Standards,
London, 1883. A. P. Stanley, Memorials of Westminster Abby, London,
1868. Return to The
Westminster Confession.
2The
italicized words are omitted in the
editions of the standards oi the Christian Reformed Church and the
Reformed Dutch Church. Return to What
is sin?
3 "every
one whose name hath not been written from the foundation of the world
in the book of the Lamb that hath been slain," R. V. Return to Justification.
4 In
1915 the three Protestant bodies known as the
Presbyterian Church of Canada, the Congregational Churches, and the
Methodist Church formed the United Church of Canada each of the three
bodies preserving Its vital elements without separate organization.
Return to Canada Presbyterian.
5
The Waldensian theological seminary founded
at Torre Pellice In 1855 was later removed to Rome. Return to The Waldensian
Church.
6 The
Old Prussian Union Church, which now, by law
of the state of Prussia on April 8, 1924, enjoys full autonomy,
numbers nearly 18,000,000 souls. Return to The
Evangelical Synod of North America.
A.
The Anglican Confession or the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of
England were a gradual formation. In the reign of Edward VI. Cranmer
with the aid of Ridley had drawn up the Forty-two Articles of
Religion for the English Reformed Church. They were revised by other
bishops and laid before the synod of London in 1552 and published in
1553. It is, however, doubtful whether they ever received the
official sanction of convocation. During the Catholic reaction under
Mary the Bloody (1553-1558) the Articles were set aside, but under
Elizabeth (1558-1603) they were revised in 1562 and reduced to 39
articles. They were adopted by two convocations in 1571, and the
clergy were required to subscribe to them. Since then they have been
the doctrinal symbol of the Church of England.
It is a moderately
Calvinistic creed. Art. XVII, of Predestination and Election, knows
nothing of the decree of reprobation and speaks exclusively on
predestination to life. Art. VI emphasizes the sole and supreme
authority of the Scriptures. The Apocrypha may be read "for
example of life and instruction of manners," but the Church
"doth not apply them to establish any doctrine." Art. IX,
of Original or Birth-sin, sees in original sin not the total loss of
original righteousness but only a departure from it; "man is
very far gone from original righteousness." Art. XI maintains
the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Arts. XXII and XXXII
denounce the doctrine of purgatory and celibacy. Concerning the
sacraments (Arts. XXV, XXVIIXXIX) the creed follows the Swiss
reformers, Bullinger and Calvin. Art. XXXI rejects the Romish
doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass. The polity of the creed is
that of a national episcopal church, the reigning sovereign being the
supreme governor of the Church of England. The episcopal organization
and the ritual of the Anglican Church were largely retained from the
Roman Catholic Church. In 1628 a declaration issued by Charles I., in
concert with Archbishop Laud, known as "His Majesty's
Declaration," was prefixed to the Thirty-nine Articles
prohibiting all controversies and dissensions (between Calvinists and
Arminians, Puritans and High-Churchmen), restricting theological
opinions to "the literal and grammatical sense" of the
Articles and threatening to visit all offenders with severe penalties.
Besides the Common Prayer
Book, the Thirty-nine Articles and the Catechism, the Anglican Church
regards also the First and Second Book of Homilies of '547 and 1562
respectively as doctrinalstandards. The first book has twelve
homilies, five from Cranmer; the second has twenty-one, nine from
Bishop Jewell. The Homilies were intended to be read from the pulpit,
instead of sermons. They are declared in Art. XXXV of the Anglican
Confession to contain sound doctrine. Return
to Irish Articles of Religion.