1. The first class corresponds in the main with what Bellarmine
The Principle of Protestantism The last character of the Scriptures is the power (efficacia) with which they operate through the Holy Spirit on the soul of man, in the way of illumination and renewal. This however is of no essential consequence to our present investigation.
When all this is taken together, we may say, leaving out of view a number of fathers and medieval divines, very prominent men it is true, that the holy Scriptures were first instated in their proper rights, in a general way, by the Reformers. It is felt accordingly to be a sacred duty with Protestantism, which in this view also forms a decided advance in the history of the church, to circulate them as widely as possible in the languages accessible to the people; while it lies in the interest of popery universally, to restrain their circulation, and to anathematize all Bible societies; under the convenient plea of course, that the editions are heretical, and the translation, corrupt.
We are now to investigate the relation of the Protestant Bible principle to tradition; or the place assigned to tradition in the Protestant system. To do justice however to this difficult point, we must first reduce the idea to its constituent parts; since the word is used in very different senses, and by the Council of Trent in particular is made so general as to embrace the whole mass of what has been handed down in the church. We may take up the whole compass of its meaning under the distinction of ritual, historical, and dogmatic tradition. 'To all these forms, the general relation of Protestantism is such that it affirms their historical necessity, while at the same time it places them neither parallel with the Scriptures, nor over them, but under them only, and measures their value by the extent of their agreement with this standard.
1. The first class corresponds in the main with what Bellarmine styles ecclesiastical traditions. It comprises the ancient customs habebit ejusmodi definitio, in quam communiter ecclesiarum pastores, invocato Christi spiritu, consenserint, quam si quisque seorsum domi conceptam populo traderet, vel pauci homines privati eam conficerent." He then goes on to establish this view, in part exegetically (from 1 Corinthians 14:29), in part historically; adding in the end however that the Holy Spirit may forsake an entire synod, so that the decisions of such a body are not necesarily free from error, as history shows. Hoc autem perpetuum esse nego, ut vera sit et certa scripturae interpretatio, quae concilii suffragiis fuerit recepta.
Philip Schaff
and usages pertaining to order and worship, which have gradually acquired the character of catholicity; for example, the distinctions of the clergy, the church festivals, the arrangement of divine service, the specifications of church discipline, and the whole range of church symbolism, as the custom of praying with the face toward the East, the consecration of the baptismal water, making the sign of the cross, and so on. That these points in general were established after the age of the apostles, needs in the present posture of historical inquiry no further argument.
It entered not into the design of Christ and the apostles to lay down more than the most essential ground regulations for the order and worship of the church. They wished not to burden the new organization with forms and ceremonies. This would have been wholly contrary also to the free genius of the gospel, which was expected rather to create its own body according to time and circumstances, as its wants might require (comp. Romans 14; Galatians 4:9-10;
5:4; Colossians 2:16-18). To insist on one constitution and one worship as alone true and valid, in the case at least of the militant church, is to fall back again into fleshly Judaism. So in the Church of Rome itself, many primitive customs have gone into disuse, and others again have been introduced much later, which now form an essential part of the system; as the papacy in its present form, the pomp connected with the Mass, the splendid clerical attire, the festivals of Mary and the saints, the details with regard to fasts and penances, praying by the rosary, and the like.
Now in all these secondary things, Protestantism recognizes throughout no normative force, as is done by the Church of Rome, but claims the right to exercise a free evangelical criticism in the case; rejecting absolutely all that conflicts with the true life of the church, and serves merely to promote a dead mechanical religion; while it retains only what is found to embody with suitable form and expression the Christian spirit.* As how- * Conf. Aug., Art. 15, pp. 13 f.: De ritibus Ecclesiasticis docent, quod ritus illi servandi sint, qui sine peccato servari possunt et prosunt ad tranquillitatem et bonum ordinem in Ecclesia, sicut certae feriae, festa et similia. De talibus rebus tamen admonentur homines, ne conscientiae onerentur, tamquam talis cultus ad salutem necessarius sit. Admonentur etiam, quod traditiones humanae institutae ad placandum Deum, et promerendam gratiam et satisfaciendum pro peccatis, adversentur Evangelio et doctrinae fidei. Quare vota et
Li The Principle of Protestantism ever at the time of the Reformation, the church had well-nigh petrified in these outward forms, with the loss in a great measure of all inward life, as it was with Judaism at the time of Christ; while the apostolic age, as far as we can gather from the New
Testament, was characterized by the greatest simplicity and spirituality; it was quite natural that the Reformers should have been carried too far at times in opposition to the existing system. At the same time, this was not the case so much with the Lutheran and German Reformed Churches, as it was with the Reformed Church in Scotland and France. For the Romanic nations, and the English also, are much more disposed to attach an undue value to form, than the inward-minded, idealistic Germans; and for this very reason it was natural for them, when the spirit was roused to the consciousness and assertion of its superior rights, to fall over unduly to the opposite side, on the principle that one extreme begets another.
Puritanism in particular, I am constrained here openly to acknowledge, through a false spiritualistic tendency and an utter misapprehension of the significance of the corporeal and outward, showed itself in this case rash in its zeal, and has sacrificed many beautiful customs, by which religious ideas were sweetly interwoven with common life, and outward opportunities continually supplied for the favorable application of truth to the heart. All this, it is much more difficult to recover, than to cast away. It is always more easy to destroy than it is to build. The culminating point of this abstract spiritualism has been reached in the system of the Quaker, which rejects even the ministry and the sacraments as mere forms; but strangely enough, against its own will, swings clear over at the same time to the very opposite extreme. For of all others, the Quakers are the greatest slaves of form, and the most barren and unmeaning besides in their profession; a palpable satire upon all such naked traditiones de cibis et diebus, etc., institutae ad promerendam gratiam et satisfaciendum pro peccatis inutiles sint et contra Evangelium. Comp. Art. 22, p20 (falsa enim calumnia, etc.), and the whole admirable 8th section in the Apol. Conf. de traditionibus humanis in eccles., pp. 205-223. Chemnitz,!? in his Exam. lays down in relation to ritual traditions the following very sound rule: Ceremoniae [in ecclesia] sint genere indifferentes, numero paucae, sint piae et utiles ad aedificationem, ordinem et decorum
. extra casum scandali, liberas habeat observationes."1 Cf. Conf. Helv. II, Art. 27, pp 530 f.