Was Protestantism a mistake? Were John Huss, John Wyclif, Martin Luther, and their fellow Reformers, all in error? Was the mighty movement which swept the earth in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of the evil one? Are we to apologize for the break made in the Catholic Church at that time, as many are apologizing to-day?
These are serious and vital questions. If Protestantism was a mistake, it is still a mistake. If it was a mistake, then the Roman Catholic claim to be the only church of Christ is true, and all Protestants are heretics, and the sooner Protestants renounce their Protestantism and get back to Rome the better.
But if that great Reformation was of God, then Protestantism started out on right principles, and upon those principles ought to be perpetuated. If Protestantism has wandered away from those principles, to them it ought to return. If Romanism is still the same, as she indubitably is and as she declares herself to be, then the principles of the Reformation should be living, molding elements in the world to-day. The principles of the Reformation are thus set forth in the historian of the Reformation, D'Aubigné:
"The Reformation was accomplished in the name of a spiritual principle. It had proclaimed for its teacher the Word of God; for salvation, faith; for king, Jesus Christ; for arms, the Holy Ghost; and had by these very means rejected all worldly elements. Rome had been established by the law of carnal commandment; the Reformation by the power of an endless life."
"If there is any doctrine that distinguishes Christianity from every other religion, it is spirituality. A heavenly life brought down to man — such is its work. . . ."
"The Gospel of the Reformers had nothing to do with the world or with politics."
The Basis of Faith
And this is the testimony of Chillingworth, who became a Catholic by persuasion when young, but who subsequently, after long, thoro, and prayerful study, renounced Catholicism:
"The Bible, I say, THE BIBLE ONLY, is the religion of Protestants! . . . I for my part, after a long and (as I verily believe and hope) impartial search of the true way to eternal happiness, do profess plainly that I can not find any rest for the sole of my foot, but upon THIS ROCK ONLY. . . . In a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only, for any considering man to build upon."
And this from John Dowling ("History of Romanism"):
"The great question at issue between popery and Protestantism, is this: Is the Bible only to be received as the rule of faith, or the Bible and tradition together? Is no doctrine to be received as matter of faith, unless it is found in the Bible, or may a doctrine be received upon mere authority of tradition, when it is confessedly not to be found in the sacred Scriptures? The whole Christian world, both nominal and real, are divided by this question into two great divisions: the CONSISTENT AND TRUE-HEARTED PROTESTANT, standing upon this rock — 'THE BIBLE, AND THE BIBLE ONLY' — can admit no doctrine upon the authority of tradition; the papist and the Puseyite place tradition side by side with the Bible, and listen to its dictates with a reverence equal to or even greater than that which they pay to the sacred Scriptures themselves; and he who receives a SINGLE DOCTRINE upon the mere AUTHORITY OF TRADITION, let him be called by what name he will, by so doing, STEPS DOWN from the PROTESTANT ROCK, passes over the line which separates Protestantism from popery, and can give no valid reason why he should not receive all the earlier doctrines and ceremonies of Romanism, upon the same authority."
The Roman Catholic platform is the Bible AND tradition, or the Bible interpreted by tradition, making tradition higher than the Bible. The true Protestant basis is the Bible and the Bible alone.
Therefore from the true Protestant standpoint the Roman Catholic Church is as much in need of a spiritual, fundamental reformation as she was when Martin Luther nailed his theses to the Wittenberg chapel door.
Departing from the Faith
But the great so-called Protestant churches are not prepared to preach that Reformation message which will lead men back to God and His Word. The Reformation message is needed in the Protestant churches. For within the Protestant churches themselves the very foundation is undermined. The Word of God is no longer the basis of modern Protestantism. Listen to the testimony of a conservative and a radical; the conservative, Rev. David James Burrell, a Presbyterian and well-known author:
"The course of liberal thought is in evidence. It seems but yesterday when the boldest of free-thinking clergymen in evangelical pulpits could scarcely summon courage to deny the entire truth of any portion whatsoever of the Scriptures; to-day there are many who flout in toto the three miracles on which Christianity rests; to wit, the incarnation, the atonement, and the resurrection of Christ."
"There is nothing strange in the denial; the strange thing is that the deniers are the ministers of Christ, under oath to preach and maintain the very doctrines which they deny. This is not 'liberalism;' it is infidelity. It is not merely infidelity; it is mendacity. It is not merely mendacity; it is a flagrant violation of common honesty, and would be instantly branded as such in any of the common walks of life."
And much more than this he said. (See SIGNS of August 25 of last year, or the Homiletic Review of July, 1907.)
This from the radical side, from the New York Independent (June 24, 1909), which once stood strong and clear for orthodox Christianity:
"When we found that the world was more than six thousand years old, that there was no universal Flood four thousand years ago, that Adam was not made directly from the dust, and Eve from his rib, and that the Tower of Babel was not the occasion of the diversification of languages, we had gone too far to stop. The process of criticism had to go on from Genesis to Revelation, with no fear of the curse at the end of the last chapter. It could not stop with Moses or Isaiah; it had to include Matthew and John and Paul. Every one of them had to be sifted; they had already CEASED to be TAKEN AS UNQUESTIONED, FINAL AUTHORITIES, for plenary inspiration had followed verbal inspiration just as soon as the first chapter of Genesis had ceased to be taken as true history. THE MIRACLES OF JESUS had to be tested as well as those of Elijah. The date and purpose of the Gospel of John had to be investigated historically as well as that of the prophecy of Isaiah; and the conclusion of historical criticism had to be accepted with no regard to the old theologies. We have just reached this condition, and there is repeated evidence that it marks an EPOCH, A REVOLUTION, in theologic thought. This is what we learn from Chicago and New York, from two such militant denominations as the Baptist and the Presbyterian. . . ."
"But THIS DOUBT, even this questioning or denial, CHANGES THE OLD, EVANGELISTIC THEOLOGY. It questions or DENIES THE TRINITY, the RESURRECTION, the SACRIFICE OF THE CROSS, even ALL MIRACLES, and it determines all authority of inspiration or even revelation, and SENDS US BACK TO HUMAN REASON, with such divine guidance as may be allowed; the authority of the Bible and the authority of the church both to be validated ONLY BY HUMAN REASON. Just how this differs from the old Unitarianism, and what need there is for Unitarianism to maintain itself, are questions that must arise for consideration."
Therefore the message of need, in teaching, in life, in power, to bring men back to the Word of God, to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to loyalty to His holy law; from tradition to His Word; from evolution to creation; from ethics and hypotheses of men to the power of the Spirit of God. Such a message is needed to-day. It is due to-day. God has provided it in the Scriptures of truth; and to-day it is being fulfilled in your ears. It is found in epitome in the threefold message of the everlasting Gospel in Revelation 14. What attention have you given it? Study it with us.