The Reformation and Liberty
By L. A. Reed
freedom of conscience, a question of the rule of the church through the State. A compromise was proposed. There was to be no further carrying forward of the Reformation in States which had not yet accepted it. Protestantism was to be confined to the territory where it already existed. But the princes declared: "Let us reject this decree. In matters of conscience the majority has no power." To protect liberty of conscience is the duty of the State, and this is the limit of its authority in matters of religion. The matter of the jurisdiction of the State in matters of religion could not be more clearly outlined than in this protest of the princes. And when, against this principle, the emperor declared that the decree was a settled thing, and submission was the only thing left, the princes brought their protest directly to the national council. Among other things, this protest declared: "We protest by these presents, before God, our only Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, and Saviour, and who will one day be our Judge, as well as before all men and all creatures, that we, for us and our people, neither consent nor adhere in any manner whatever to the proposed decree in anything that is contrary to God, to His Word, to our right conscience, or to the salvation of our souls." Just as noble a stand was taken by John Knox in Scotland. His words were just as clear, and the issue was just as plainly joined. When he was brought face to face with the queen of Scotland, in whose presence the zeal of many a leader of the Protestants had abated, he stood unmoved. He was not to be won by caresses; he did not quail before threats. The queen charged him with heresy. He had been teaching the people to receive a religion prohibited by the State. She declared that he had therefore transgressed the Word which commands subjects to obey their princes. Knox answered firmly: "As right religion received neither its origin nor its authority from princes, but from the eternal God alone, so are not subjects bound to frame their religion according to the tastes of their princes. For oft it is that princes, of all others, are the most ignorant of God's true religion. If all the seed of Abraham had been of the religion of Pharaoh, whose subjects they long were, I pray you, madam, what religion would there have been in the world? And if all in the days of the apostles had been of the religion of the Roman emperors, I pray you, madam, what religion would there have been now upon the earth? . . . And so, madam, you may perceive that subjects are not bound to the religion of their princes, altho they are commanded to give them reverence." On these lines the battle was fought everywhere; and by the heroism of such men, and their uncompromising loyalty to the truth, a great light broke that banished the ages of darkness, and set the world to moving forward with an impetus it had not known before. Upon its glorious, wide-spread principles was based American liberty of conscience. The principle is clear; it has been learned by years of sorrow and anguish; it has been paid for with the price of blood. It should be held by every soul to-day as the great heritage of Christianity. To compromise now is for us to go back and repeat the sad mistakes of the Dark Ages. For us to reunite Church and State is for us to go back and tread the same dark, weary way that is marked in its every step by heart-pangs and human suffering, by fires of the martyrs and the blood of saints. Here is the great lesson for all succeeding ages; here is the great lesson for our own time. The power of evil is working against God and His Word exactly the same to-day as it did then. It is as much opposed to the Scriptures' being made the guide of life as in the sixteenth century. There is need to-day for a return to the great Protestant principle, the Bible and the Bible only as the rule of faith and duty. To-day there is a subtle working to bring men under the rule of custom and doctrine foreign to the Word of God. The same unswerving fidelity and uncompromising adherence to the great principle that gave birth and life to the Reformation is needed now. It is the only hope of the maintenance of a free conscience, of religious liberty. God give us to-day men with the same uncompromising principle and unsullied faith that Luther had when he could answer before the diet in the words of the Spirit of God. God grant us to-day unyielding men like the princes of Germany, to protest against every compromise of the Christian faith. God grant us men like John Knox, who will not quail before kings or queens or rulers, and guided by loyalty to principle, count not their lives dear, that they may remain true to Christ. God grant us the same freedom of soul exemplified by our great Head, the living Christ, who, threatened by Pilate with the power of Rome, could caution him with and apprise him of the great fact of each soul's responsibility to God. The just shall live by his faith. Then, as now, each one of us is to show, if we will, our unswerving allegiance to the great principles of Protestantism, the great life-giving power of the Reformation, pure and holy faith in the Word of God alone, scorning all temptations to resort to the laws of the State to enforce religious customs or practises of any kind whatsoever.