99. The luxuriant separate growth of these interests, as un-
Zo7 The Principle of Protestantism with the whole body of which it is a part, it follows that no sect can ever do justice fully even to the single interest to which it is one-sidedly devoted.
96. Sects then owe it to themselves, as soon as they have fulfilled their historical vocation, to fall back to the general church communion from which they have seceded, as in no other way can their spiritual acquisitions be either completed or secured, and they must themselves otherwise stiffen into monumental petrifactions, never to be revisited with the warm life pulse of the one universal church.
97.
It is a cheering sign of the time that in the most different Protestant lands, and particularly in the bosom of the Reformed
Church, in which religious individualism both in the good and in the bad sense has been most fully developed, it is coming to be felt more and more that the existing divisions of the church are wrong, and with this is waking more and more an earnest longing after a true union of all believers, in no communication whatever with the errors either of Oxford or Rome.
98.
Finally, also, the liberation of the secular spheres of life from the church since the Reformation, though not the ultimate normal order, forms—notwithstanding as compared with the previous vassalage of the world to a despotic hierarchy—an advance in the naturalization process of Christianity.
99. The luxuriant separate growth of these interests, as unfolded in the Protestant states, sciences, arts, and social culture, lays the church under obligation to appropriate these advances to herself, and impress upon them a religious character.
100.
'The signs of the time, then, and the teachings of history point us not backward, but forward to a new era of the church that may be expected to evolve itself gradually from the present process of fermentation, enriched with the entire positive gain of Protestantism.
101. As the movement of history in the church is like that of the sun from east to west, it is possible that America, into whose broad majestic bosom the most various elements of character and education are poured from the Old World, may prove the theater of this unitive reformation.
Philip Schaff
102.
'Thus far, if we put out of view the rise of a few insignificant sects and the separation of church and state, which to be sure has very momentous bearings, American church history has produced nothing original, no new fact in the history of the church as a whole.
103. Nowhere else however is there at present the same favorable room for further development, since in no country of the Old
World does the church enjoy such entire freedom, or the same power to renovate itself from within according to its own pleasure.
104.
'The historical progress of the church is always conditioned by the national elements, which form its physical basis.
105. The two leading nationalities, which are continually coming into contact in this country, and flowing into one another with reciprocal action, are the English and the German.
106.
The further advancement of the American church, consequently, must proceed mainly from a special combination of German depth and Gemuetlichkeit with the force of character and active practical talent, for which the English are distinguished.
107.
It would be a rich offering then to the service of this approaching reformation, on the part of the German Churches in America, to transplant hither in proper measure the rich wealth of the better German theology, improving it into such form as our peculiar relations might require.
108.
This their proper vocation however they have thus far almost entirely overlooked, seeking their salvation for the most part in a characterless surrender of their own nationality.
109.
In view of the particular constitution of a large part of the German immigration, this subjection to the power of a foreign life may be regarded indeed as salutary.
110.
But the time has now come, when our churches should again rise out of the ashes of the old German Adam, enriched and refined with the advantages of the English nationality.
111. What we most need now is, theoretically, a thorough, intellectual theology, scientifically free as well as decidedly believing, together with a genuine sense for history; and practically, a determination to hold fast the patrimony of our fathers and to go forward joyfully at the same time in the way in which God's Spirit
The Principle of Protestantism by providential signs may lead, with a proper humble subordination of all we do for our own denomination to the general interest of the one universal church.
112. The ultimate, sure scope of the church, toward which the inmost wish and most earnest prayer of all her true friends continually tend, is that perfect and glorious unity, the desire of which may be said to constitute the burden of our Lord's last, memorable, intercessory prayer.