Hulerreich Zwingli, the Reformer of German Switzerland, was born at Wildenhaus, January 1, 1484. In school he made rapid progress and was soon recognized as a youth of much promise. His bright mind, love of truth, and devotion to the Scriptures soon brought him prominently before the public. On discovering the corruptions of the clergy, and learning of the dogmas and traditions, not found in the Bible, such as indulgences, the worship of the “Virgin” Mary and of images, he attempted to reform the Roman Catholic Church. This soon caused charges of heresy to be brought against him, for his influence was subversive of the established order of things.
In a discussion held in the Town Hall at Zurich, January 29, 1523, in the presence of more than six hundred persons, the entire clergy of the canton and large numbers of the laity, Zwingli presented reformatory doctrines he had preached in sixty articles, and defended them so successfully that “the council at Zurich charged all the preachers to preach the pure gospel in the same manner.” Soon after Zwingli received an efficient co-laborer in his reformatory efforts by the appointment of Leo Pudea, as Lent priest in Zurich. Several events signalized at this time the cause of the Reformation. The council allowed nuns to leave their convents, several of the clergy married without hindrance, a German baptismal service was introduced, and the cathedral chapter, at its own request, received new and suitable ordinances.
The council decided that the time was ripe for a second public discussion, to be held October 26, 27, 1523. More than eight hundred and fifty persons were present, of whom more than three hundred and fifty were clergymen. On the first day, Zwingli set forth his views on the presence of images in churches, and appealed to the council to forbid their use. No champion for their use was found, and the council decided that the images and pictures should be removed from the churches, but without disturbance. On the second day the following proposition was discussed: “The mass is no sacrifice, and hitherto has been celebrated with many abuses, quite different from its original institution by Christ.” As no champion for images and mass was found, the Council of Zurich concluded to promote the reformation of the canton by diffusing the proper instruction in the country districts, for which purpose Zwingli drew up and published his “Christian Introduction,” which explained to the people the meaning of the Reformation. Soon after this the council remodeled the public worship according to the views set forth by Zwingli. While Luther favored the retention of everything in the practice of the church of Rome not forbidden by the Scriptures, Zwingli contended that nothing should be practiced that was not expressly commanded by the Scriptures. On this difference between Luther and Zwingli, D’Aubigne says:
The Swiss Reformation here presents under an aspect somewhat different from that of the German Reformation. Luther had risen up against the excesses of those who had broken the images in the churches of Wittenberg; and in Zwingli’s presence the idols fell in the temples of Zurich. This difference is explained by the different lights in which the two reformers viewed the same object. Luther desired to retain in the church all that was not expressly contrary to the Scriptures, and Zwingli to abolish all that was opposed to the Word of God. The Zurich reformer passed over those ages, returned to the apostolic times, and carrying out an entire transformation of the church, endeavored to restore it to its primitive condition. (History of the Reformation, p. 401.)
Thus Zwingli reduced the church service “to extreme simplicity; pictures and statues were removed from the churches, on the assumption that their presence was contrary to the Ten Commandments; organs were banished, and sacred music disparaged as interfering with spirituality.”
From Zurich the Reformation spread, and soon Zwingli was joined by Œcolampadius, who was a great leader and counselor. The majority of the cantons were, however, still opposed to the Reformation, and the act of Lucerne (January, 1525) endeavored to satisfy the longing for a reformation without rending the church. Its decrees did not, however go into effect; and the Catholic cantons, in accordance with the advice of Dr. Eck, arranged a new religious discussion at Baden, which began May 10, 1526. Œcolampadius was the spokesman in behalf of the Reformation. Though both sides claimed the victory, the Reformation continued to make progress. As the most zealous of the Catholic cantons resorted to forcible measures for the suppression of the Reformation, Zurich and Constance formed, December 25, 1527, a defensive alliance under the name of “Burgher Rights.” Later on this alliance was joined by eight other cantons. In the meanwhile five Catholic cantons had concluded to league with King Ferdinand for the maintenance of the Catholic faith. A war declared by Zurich in 1529 against the five cantons was of short duration, and the peace was favorable to the Reformation. In 1531 the war was renewed. Zurich had lost somewhat of its earlier evangelical purity, while the neighboring cantons were conspiring for its ruin.
In the awful emergency, when the public mind was alarmed, Zwingli maintained tranquility. The war began, but Zurich was dilatory, and far from being prepared; but the horn of the enemy echoed among the hills, and Zwingli bade farewell to his wife and children, mounted his horse and went forth as a warrior to share the common danger. The reformers were defeated with great slaughter, October 11, 1531. Zwingli was found after the battle, lying on his back, and his eyes upturned to heaven, with his helmet on his head, and his battle-ax in his hand. He had been struck near the commencement of the engagement, and then, as he reeled and fell, he was several times pierced with a lance. He was living when discovered in the evening, but the infuriated fanatics soon dispatched him. Next day his body was barbarously quartered and burned. The Protestants had provoked a contest for which they were not prepared, and the blow given at Cappel checked for a time the general progress of the Reformation in Switzerland.
In French Switzerland, the reformatory movement began in 1526, in Berne and Biel, where William Farel preached. In 1530 he established the Reformation in Neufchatel. In Geneva a beginning was made as early as 1528; in 1534, after a religious conference held at the suggestion of the reformers at Berne, in which Farel defended the Reformation, public worship was allowed to the reformers. Rapid progress was made through the zeal of Farel, Fromdnt, and Viret; and in 1535, after another discussion, the papacy was abolished by the council and the principles of the Reformation adopted.
In 1536 John Calvin arrived at Geneva and was induced by Farel to remain in the city and to aid him in his struggle against a party of free-thinkers. On July 20, 1539, the citizens renounced the papacy and professed Protestantism. Prior to this a reaction of the popish and conservative elements in the State led to such dissensions and opposition that Calvin and Farel were banished; but the earnest petition of the citizens and rulers at Geneva at last induced them to return in 1541. On his return Calvin set about modeling the policy of the reformers in Geneva on the principles of Presbyterianism, the theory which he had wrought out, and commenced the dissemination of that theological system which bears his name. Both his theology and church polity became dominant throughout Switzerland.
The theological academy of Geneva, founded in 1588, supplied the churches of many foreign countries, especially France, trained in the spirit of Calvin. When Calvin died, in 1564, the continuation of his work devolved upon Theodore Beza. Calvin disagreed in many points with Zwingli, whose views gradually lost ground as those of Calvin advanced. The second Helvetic Confession, the most important among the symbolic books of the Reformed Church, which was compiled by Bullinger in Zurich, published in 1566, and recognized in all reformed countries, completed the supremacy of Calvin’s principles over those of Zwingli.
Although the majority of German Protestant Churches remained in connection with the Lutheran Reformation, a German Reformed Church, which bore a moderately Calvinistic aspect, sprang up in several parts of Germany. In 1650 the Elector Frederick II, of the Palatine, embraced the reformed creed, and organized the church of his dominions according to reformed principles. By his authority the Heidelberg Catechism, which soon came to be regarded not only as a standard symbolical book of the German Reformed Church, but was highly esteemed throughout the reformed world, was written.
To say that the Reformation in England was brought about by the desire of Henry VIII to be divorced from Catharine of Aragon is to ignore the well-established facts of history. No king, however despotic, could have forced on such a revolution unless there was much in the life of the people that reconciled them to the change, and evidence of this is abundant.
There was much that was called “heresy” in England long before Luther raised his voice against Catholicism in Germany. Wycliffe’s writings and translations of the Scriptures into English had a tremendous influence on the people in England and for many years the fires of martyrdom were kept burning in the mad endeavor to stop the spread of the “heresy,” and so great was the exasperation that forty years after the death of Wycliffe Romanists dug up his bones and burned them, and still the “heresy” spread. As I have already shown in a former article, the work of Tyndale, “who won a martyr’s crown,” had a wonderful influence over the English people.
In the Dictionary of National Biography, Dr. Rashdall says:
It is certain that the Reformation had virtually broken out in the secret Bible readings of the Cambridge reformers before either the trumpet call of Luther or the exigencies of Henry VIII’s personal and political position set men free once more to talk openly against the pope and the monks, and to teach a simpler and more spiritual gospel than the system against which Wycliffe had striven. (Wycliffe, Vol. 63, p. 218.)
The Parliaments showed themselves anti-clerical long before Henry threw off his allegiance to Rome; and Englishmen could find no better term of insult to throw at the Scots than to call them “Pope’s men.” These, and many other things that might be mentioned, indicate a certain preparedness in England for the Reformation, and that there was a strong national force behind Henry, when he at last decided to defy the Pope of Rome. The possibility of England breaking away from papal authority and erecting itself into a separate church under the archbishop of Canterbury had been thought probable before the divorce precipitated the quarrel between Henry and the pope.
Henry clung strenuously to the conception of papal supremacy, and advocated it in a manner only done hitherto by canonists of the Roman court. It is evident that the validity of his marriage and the legitimacy of his children by Catharine of Aragon depended on the pope being in possession of the very fullest powers of dispensation. Henry had been married to Catharine under very peculiar circumstances, which suggested doubts about the validity of the marriage ceremony.
To make the alliance stronger between England and Spain the pope had a marriage arranged between Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catharine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. The wedding took place in St. Paul’s, November 14, 1501, but Arthur died April 2, 1502, and it was proposed from the side of Spain that the young widow should marry Henry, her brother-in-law, now Prince of Wales. Ferdinand insisted that if this was not done Catharine should be sent back to Spain and her dowry returned. Pope Julius II was then besieged to grant a dispensation for the marriage. At first he refused to give his consent. Such a marriage had been branded as a sin by canonical law, and the pope himself had grave doubts whether it was competent for him to grant a dispensation in such a case; but he finally yielded to the pressure and granted the dispensation. The archbishop of Canterbury, who doubted whether the pope could grant dispensation for what was a mortal sin in his eyes, was silenced. The marriage took place June 11, 1509.
The first four children were either stillborn or died soon after birth; and it was rumored in Rome as early as 1514 that Henry might ask to be divorced in order to save England from a disputed succession. Mary was born in 1516 and survived, but all the children who came afterwards were either stillborn or died soon after birth. There is no doubt that the lack of a male heir troubled Henry greatly. There seems to be no reason for questioning the sincerity of his doubts about the legitimacy of his marriage with Catharine, or that he actually looked on the repeated destruction of his hopes of a male heir as a divine punishment for the sin of that contract. Questions of national policy and impulses of passion quickened marvelously his conscientious convictions. In the perplexities of his position the shortest way out seemed to be to ask the pope to declare that he had never been legally married to Catharine. He fully expected the pope to grant his request; but the pope was at the time practically in the power of Charles V, to whom his aunt, the injured Catharine, had appealed, and who had promised her his protection. From the protracted proceedings in the divorce case, Henry learned that he could not depend on the pope giving him what he wanted; and although his agents fought the case in Rome, he at once began preparing for the separation from papal jurisdiction. In the meantime, Henry had taken measures to summon a parliament; and in the interval between summons and assembly it had been suggested that Cranmer was of the opinion that the best way to deal with the divorce was to take it out of the hands of the pope and lay it before the canonists of the various universities of Europe. Through Cranmer this was so successfully done that the universities of England, France and Italy decided that the marriage was null and void. The king separated from Catharine, married Anne Boleyn, and fell under the papal ban.
Parliament sundered the connection between England and Rome, and passed an act declaring that the king was “their singular protector and only supreme lord, and, as far as that is permitted by the law of Christ, the Supreme Head of the Church and of clergy.” The king’s desire was to destroy the influence of the pope over the Church of England, to which, in other respects, he wished to preserve the continuity of its Catholic character; but it was impossible, however, for the Church of England to maintain exactly the same place which it had occupied. There was too much stirring of reformation life in the land. “The cloisters were subjected to visitation in 1535, and totally abolished in 1536; and the Bible was diffused in English in 1538 as the only source of doctrine; but the statute of 1530 imposed distinct limits upon the Reformation, and in particular confirmed transubstantiation, priestly celibacy, masses for the dead, and auricular confession.”
When Henry died in 1547 the English Church was Roman in appearance. Excepting the litany in English, he left the ritual very much as he found it, as he did nearly the whole framework of religious belief. He was, however, the instrument whereby three great barriers to improvement—the papacy, monasticism, and Biblical ignorance—were broken down. The course of national events during Henry’s latter years prepared the country for that reformation which it subsequently embraced.
A remarkable thing connected with the issuing of the Bible, in English, is that Tyndale’s New Testament, which had been publicly condemned in England at the council called by his majesty in May, 1530, and copies of it had been burned in St. Paul’s churchyard, while Tyndale himself had been tracked like a wild beast by the emissaries of the English Government in the Netherlands, was published in 1538, by the king’s command, to be “sold and read by every person without danger of any act, proclamation, or ordinance heretofore granted to the contrary.” Copies of it were placed in the churches for the people to read, and portions of it were read from the pulpit every Sunday.
When Henry died the situation was difficult for those who came after him. A religious revolution had been half accomplished; a social revolution was in progress, creating popular ferment; evicted tenants and uncloistered monks formed raw material for revolt; the treasury was empty, the kingdom in debt, and the coinage debased.
Edward VI, “a child in years, but, mature in wisdom, intelligence and virtue,” was crowned king, February 20, 1547. He collected learned men around him from every quarter, and ordered the kingdom to be purged entirely of popish fictions, and a better religion to be publicly taught. On July 31st the council began the changes. A series of injunctions was issued to the clergy, ordering them to preach against “the bishops of Rome’s usurped power and jurisdiction; to see that all images which had been objects of pilgrimages should be destroyed; to read the Gospel and Epistles in English during the service, and to see that the litany was no longer recited or sung in processions, but said devoutly kneeling.” The council were evidently anxious that the whole service should be conducted in English, and that a sermon should always be a part of the service.
The first Parliament of Edward VI made great changes in the laws of England affecting treason, which had the effect of sweeping away the edifice of absolute government which had been so carefully erected by Henry VIII. The kingly supremacy in matters of religion was maintained, but all heresy acts were repealed, giving the people an unwonted amount of freedom. An act was passed ordaining that “the most blessed sacrament be hereafter commonly administered unto the people ... under both kinds, that is to say, of bread and wine, except necessity otherwise require.” An act was also passed permitting the marriage of the clergy. The next important addition to the progress of the Reformation was the preparation of a Service Book, commonly called “The First Prayer-Book of King Edward VI.” It was introduced by an “Act of Uniformity,” which, after relating how there had been for a long time in England “divers forms of common prayer ... and that diversity of use caused many inconveniences,” ordains the universal use of this one form, and enacts penalties on those who make use of any other.
The changes made in the laws of England—the repeal of the “bloody statute” and of the treason laws—induced many of the English refugees who had gone to Germany and Switzerland to return to their native land. These, with other learned Protestants, who were invited to come to England, were appointed as teachers in the English universities. Thus the “New Learning” made great strides, leavening all the more cultured classes, leading to the discredit of the old theology, and gave a strong impulse to the Reformation movement. The feeling of the populace changed rapidly, for instead of resenting the destruction of images, they were rather inspired by too much iconoclastic zeal.
In 1552, the “Second Prayer-Book of King Edward VI.” was issued. which was enforced by the second “Act of Uniformity,” containing penalties against laymen as well as clergymen—against “a great number of people in divers parts of the realm, who did willfully refuse to come to their parish churches.” Soon after there followed a new creed or statement of the fundamental doctrines received by the Church of England. This is interesting because they form the basis of the “Thirty-nine Articles,” the creed of the Anglican Church of today.
It was during the reign of Edward VI that Puritanism, which became so prominent in the time of Elizabeth, first manifested itself. Its two principal spokesmen were Bishops Hooper and Ridley. Hooper was an ardent follower of Zwingli, and was esteemed to be the leader of the party. While the Reformation was being pushed forward at a speed too great for the majority of the people, Edward died (July 6, 1553), and the collapse of the Reformation afterwards showed the uncertainty of the foundation on which it had been built.
Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII and Catharine of Aragon, was crowned with great ceremony October 1, 1553, and her first Parliament met four days later. It reversed a decision of the former Parliament, and declared that Henry’s marriage with Catharine had been valid, and that Mary was the legitimate heir to the throne; and it repealed all the religious legislation under Edward VI. On taking the throne Mary promised to force no one’s religion, but as soon as she dared she began to restore Romanism with a zeal that delighted the pope.
Mary was married to Philip of Spain January 1, 1554; but the alliance was very unpopular from the first. Immediately after the marriage “the bloody acts of the tragedy were begun.” Care was taken to elect to Parliament members “of a wise, grave and Catholic sort.” This body obtained the pope’s absolution of the nation for its guilt of schism and abolished all acts which made the sovereign the supreme head of the Church. The Latin service was restored. Fully half of the clergy were thrust out of their offices. Bishop Gardner secured the passage of the terrible edicts and laws, and Bishop Bonner so applied them as to gain the title of “the bloody.” The fires of Smithfield and the ax at the Tower were in such active service during four years that some four hundred “martyrs left their record of faith and triumph as one of painful glories of the English Reformation.”
Among those burned were Latimer and Ridley. Bound to the stake with his friend, Latimer said, when the lighted fagot was applied: “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day, by God’s grace, light such a candle in England as, I trust, shall never be put out.”
Cranmer had been the decisive agent in the divorce against Catharine, thus branding the birth of her daughter, Mary, as illegitimate. This Mary never forgave. But there were other motives. “To burn the Primate of the English Church for heresy was to shut out meaner victims from all hope of escape.” He was more than any other man the representative of the religious revolution which had passed over the land. In an hour of weakness, and under the entreaties of his friends, he recanted. But in the end he redeemed his momentary weakness by a last act of heroism. He knew that his recantations had been published, and that any further declaration made would probably be suppressed by his unscrupulous antagonists. He resolved by a single action to defeat their calculations and stamp his sincerity on the memories of his countrymen. His dying speech was silenced, as he might well have expected; but he had made up his mind to something that could not be stifled. In his speech he said:
And now I come to the great thing that so troubleth my conscience, more than any other thing that I said or did in my life: and that is my setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth, which here now I renounce and refuse as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death, and to save my life, if it might be; and that is all such bills which I have written or signed with mine own hand since my degradation; wherein I have written many things untrue. And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, it shall be first burned. And as for the pope, I refuse him as Christ’s enemy and antichrist, with all his false doctrine and as for the sacrament—
He got no further; his foes had been dumb with amazement, but now their pent-up feelings broke loose. “Stop the heretic’s mouth!” cried one; “Take him away!” cried another; “Remember your recantations and do not dissemble!” cried Lord Williams. “Alas, my lord,” replied Cranmer, “I have been a man that all my life loved plainness, and never dissembled till now against the truth; for which I am sorry;” and he seized the occasion to add that as for the sacrament, he believed that it should be administered in “both kinds.” The tumult redoubled. Cranmer was dragged from the stage and led to the place where Ridley and Latimer had been burned.
The friars ceased not to ply him with exhortations: “Die not in desperation,” cried one; “Thou shalt drag innumerable souls to hell,” cried another. On reaching the appointed place he was bound to the stake with a steel band, and fire was set to the fagots of wood which made his funeral pyre. As the flames leaped up, he stretched up his right hand, saying with a loud voice, “This hand hath offended,” and held it firmly in the fire till it was consumed. No cry escaped his lips and no movement betrayed his pain. If the martyrdom of Ridley and Latimer lighted the torch, Cranmer’s spread the conflagration which in the end burnt up the Roman Catholic reaction and made England a Protestant nation.
The death of Cranmer was followed by a long succession of martyrdoms. Mary tried most desperately to restore Romanism in its fullness, but failed, and died November 17, 1558, “the unhappiest of queens, and wives, and women.” The people who had welcomed her when she was crowned, called her “Bloody Mary”—a name which was, after all, so well deserved that it will always remain. “Each disappointment she took as a warning from heaven that atonement had not yet been paid for England’s crimes, and the fires of persecution were kept burning to appease the God of Roman Catholicism.”
The people of England were coming to the conclusion that Elizabeth must be queen, or civil war would result. It seemed also assumed that she would be a Protestant. Many things contributed to create such expectations. The young intellectual life of England was slowly becoming Protestant. “This was especially the case among the young ladies of the upper classes, who were becoming students learned in Latin, Greek and Italian, and at the same time devout Protestants, with a distinct leaning to what afterwards became Puritanism.” The common people had been showing their hatred of Roman Catholicism, and “images and religious persons were treated disrespectfully.” It was observed that Elizabeth “was very much wedded to the people and thinks as they do,” and that “her attitude was much more gracious to the common people than to others.” The burning of Protestants, and especially the execution of Cranmer, had stirred the indignation of the populace of London and the south countries against Romanism, and the feelings were spreading throughout the country.
The accession of Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, to the throne, gave new life to the Reformation. As soon as it was known beyond the sea, most of the exiles returned home, and those who had hid themselves in the houses of their friends began to appear; but the public religious service continued for a time the same as Mary left it—the popish priests still celebrated mass and kept their livings. None of the Protestant clergy who had been ejected in the last reign were restored; and orders were given against all innovations without public authority. The only thing Elizabeth did before the meeting of Parliament was to prevent pulpit disputes.
Elizabeth was crowned on January 15, 1559. The bishops swore fealty to the new queen, but took no part in the coronation of “one so plainly a heretic.” Her first Parliament passed a new act of supremacy in which the queen was declared to be “the only supreme governor of this realm, as well in spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal.” While not proclaimed as “Supreme Head of the Church,” all the drastic powers claimed by Henry VIII were given to her. It may even be said that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction bestowed upon her was more extensive than that given to her father, for schisms were added to the list of matters subject to the queen’s correction, and she was empowered to delegate her authority to commissioners, thus enabling her to exercise her supreme governorship in a way to be felt in every corner of the land.
The same Parliament passed the “Act of Uniformity,” which threatened all non-conformists with fines and imprisonment, and their ministers with deposition and banishment. When the provisions of the act began to be enforced, a number of the non-conformist ministers who demanded a greater purity of the church (hence the name Puritan), a simple, spiritual form of worship, a strict church discipline, and a Presbyterian form of government, organized separate congregations in connection with presbyteries, “and a considerable portion of the clergy and laity of the Established Church sympathized with them. The rupture was widened in 1592 by an act of Parliament that all who obstinately refused to attend public worship, or led others to do so, should be imprisoned and submit, or after three months be banished, and again in 1595 when the Presbyterians applied the Mosaic Sabbath laws to the Lord’s day, and when Calvin’s doctrines of predestination excited animated disputes.”
In our study of the Reformation we have found that the pretentions of Roman Catholic infallibility were replaced by a not less uncompromising and intolerant dogmatism, availing itself, like the other, of the secular power, and arrogating to itself, like the other, the assistance of the Spirit of God. The mischief from this early abandonment of the right of free inquiry is as evident as its inconsistency with the principles upon which the reformers had acted for themselves.
Hence under the Protestant banner there arose sectarian churches, professing to take the Bible alone as their rule of faith and practice, when assailing the claims of Rome, and yet binding by creeds, unknown to the Bible, all embraced within their folds; till Protestantism becomes as creed-bound as Romanism. Taking into view the larger results of this inconsistency, they bring under notice the Lutheran Church, the State churches of England and Scotland, as well as non-conformist churches which have arisen from them.
Bible interpretation by the dogmatic and mystic methods even before the death of Luther, but more intensely afterward, made the Lutheran churches a very Babeldom. Then came “Forms of Concord,” made obligatory, each one resulting in further discord. Lutherans acknowledge the head of the State as the supreme visible ruler of the Church. The supreme direction of ecclesiastical affairs is vested in the councils or boards, generally appointed by the sovereign termed “consistories,” consisting of both laymen and ministers. The Lutheran established churches are so interwoven with the State as to be usually dependent on it. They are almost destitute of discipline, and, in some places, exclude dissent. Dr. Schaff says:
The congregations remained almost as passive as the Roman Church. They have, in Europe, not even the right of electing their pastor. They are exclusively ruled by their ministers, as they are ruled by the provincial consistories, always presided over by a layman, the provincial consistory by a central consistory, and this again by the minister of worship and public instruction, who is the immediate organ of the ecclesiastical supremacy of the crown.
Add to this infant baptism and infant membership, and then you have the world in the Church, and a state of things, if not so bad as that of Rome, yet as completely unlike the apostolic churches, and as wide a departure from what must result from surrender to the Bible alone and submission to Christ and his apostles as it were possible to reach.
The Reformation in England was fraught with immense blessings to the world at large, the advantage of which the English people now enjoy. But in England’s so-called Protestant Church there is no trace of the three fundamental principles enunciated by the reformers:
- (1) The Bible the only rule of faith and practice.
- (2) The duty of every man to judge the Bible for himself.
- (3) The priesthood of every member of the Church.
Instead of “the Bible only as the rule of faith and practice,” they have creeds and Parliamentary control of church services; in place of “the duty of every man to interpret the Bible for himself,” this same State Church has burned and hung Roman Catholics and Dissenters, the one for holding too much Romanism, and the other for not holding as much as the king and the clergy were pleased to demand. Then, in lieu of “the priesthood of every member,” there is a limited priesthood, differing but little from that of Rome; with infant baptism, infant membership, and numerous other human inventions “making void the commandments of God.”
Had I the time and space I would be glad to give a history of the Reformation in Scotland under John Knox and others. After all the prolonged suffering and conflict, it has precious little more of Protestantism than is common in the English State Church. There we also find the reigning monarch represented in the General Assembly by a nobleman, as Lord High Commissioner, who, on some occasions, has taken upon himself to dissolve the Assembly without the consent of its members. In 1843 a conflict between the ecclesiastical and civil courts brought about a great disruption, giving rise to the Free Church of Scotland, so that there is also the “General Assembly of the Free Church.” But these two General Assemblies are not on equal footing—in the very nature of the case could not be. In the one, the proceedings of the Assembly carry with them the sanction of the law, backed by the civil power; while those of the other have no such sanction, and are only binding upon willing adherents, who, by tacit agreement, are under moral obligation. The one is a corporate body in the eye of the law; the other entirely voluntary. But both bodies hold that the acts of their respective assemblies are binding upon their churches. Consequently those churches are in subjection to a rule of which the apostolic churches knew nothing, and, therefore, are not in faith and practice in subjection to the Bible alone. The “Confession of Faith” is the standard of appeal. Infant baptism, infant membership, and numerous other departures from apostolic Christianity stand out to refute any claims that these churches of Scotland might put in. They may protest against Rome or Episcopacy, but what matters that, as the Bible protests all of them?
But it is not to be supposed, even though the multitudes settled down in violation of their professed principles, that all would refrain from a fuller application of them. Hence the multiplication of distinct parties, each claiming to be the church, or a nearer approach to the church as ordained by Christ. Coming out in this way from the English State Church we find the Independents, who sacrificed property, liberty and life. They were glad to escape to Holland or to this country. Others suffered on and aided largely to win against a persecuting State Church the liberties the people now enjoy. Belknap’s “Life of Robinson” gives the following principles as underlying their church organization:
- (1) That no church ought to consist of more members than can meet in one place for worship and discipline.
- (2) That a church of Christ is to consist only of such as appear to believe in and obey him.
- (3) That any competent number of such have a right, when conscience obliges them, to form themselves into a distinct church.
- (4) That, being thus incorporated, they have a right to choose their own officers.
- (5) That these officers are teaching elders, ruling elders, and deacons.
- (6) That elders being chosen and ordained have no power to rule the church, but by consent of the brethren.
- (7) That all elders and all churches are equal in respect to power and privileges.
- (8) That the Lord’s Supper is to be received sitting at the table. (When in Holland they observed it every Lord’s day.)
- (9) That ecclesiastical censures are wholly spiritual, and not to be accompanied with temporal penalties.
They admitted no holy days but the “Christian Sabbath,” though they had occasional days of fasting and thanksgiving; and finally they had renounced all human inventions or impositions on religious matters.
In Scotland we find Congregational principles as far back as the Commonwealth. Independency had obtained much hold in England among all classes. The soldiers of Cromwell carried their principles with them, and are said to have formed a Congregational church in Edinburgh. But that church was not permanent, and we find nothing of churches of like order in Scotland till 1726, when John Glass, an eloquent and able minister, with avowed convictions in harmony with those of the English Independents, withdrew from the Church of Scotland and formed churches in most of the large towns of Scotland. These churches were called “Glassite.” Mr. Glass and his adherents taught:
- (1) That national establishments of religion are unlawful and inconsistent with the true nature of the Church of Christ. That the church being spiritual, ought to consist only of true spiritual men.
- (2) That a congregation of Jesus Christ, with its elders, is in its discipline subject to no jurisdiction under heaven, save that of Christ and his apostles.
- (3) That each church should have a plurality of elders or bishops, chosen by the church, according to instruction given to Timothy and Titus, without regard to previous education for the office, continuous engagement in secular employment being no disqualification.
- (4) That the churches observe the Lord’s Supper on the first day of every week; and that love feasts be held, after the example of the primitive Christians.
- (5) That mutual exhortations be practiced on the Lord’s day, any member able to edify being at liberty to address the church.
- (6) That a weekly collection be made in connection with the Lord’s Supper in aid of the poor, and for necessary expenses.
Mr. Glass was largely eclipsed by Robert Sandeman, whose activity wielded a wide influence. Those who adhered to his teachings were called “Sandemanians.” Sandeman prominently repudiated that mischievous mysticism which views “saving faith” as an inspiration directly from the Holy Spirit. His teaching has been thus summarized:
“One thing is needful,” which he called the sole requisite to justification, or acceptance with God. By the sole requisite to justification, he understood the work finished by Christ in his death, proved by his resurrection to be all sufficient to justify the guilty; that the whole benefit of this is conveyed to men only by the apostolic report concerning it; that every one who understands this report to be true, or is persuaded that the events actually happened, as testified by the apostles, is justified, and finds relief to his guilty conscience; that he is relieved not by finding any favorable symptom about his heart, but by finding their report to be true; that the event itself, which is reported, becomes his relief so soon as it stands true in his mind, and accordingly becomes his faith; that all the divine power which operates in the minds of men, either to give the first relief to their consciences, or to influence them in every part of their obedience to the Gospel, is persuasive power, or the forcible conviction of truth.
From this we see that he saw with some degree of clearness the nature of faith, but not that the divine economy provides that faith shall be perfected by surrender to an ordinance of the Lord’s own appointment. On some other points in regard to faith he was more or less confused. He advocated the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper; love feasts; weekly contribution for the poor; mutual exhortation of members; plurality of elders; conditional community of goods; and approved of theaters and public and private diversions, when not connected with circumstances really sinful. His influence extended to the north of Ireland, but the people there did not adopt all his views. They attended weekly to the Lord’s Supper, contributions, etc., but were opposed to going to theaters or such places of amusement; to the doctrine of the community of goods; feet washing, etc., as advocated by Sandeman. Sandeman’s influence extended also to England and to this country.
At the close of the eighteenth century spiritual religion in Scotland was at a very low ebb. Then village preaching and extensive itineraries were entered upon by James A. Haldane and John Aikman. They were members of the Established Church of Scotland. They took in hand preaching tours unauthorized by the clergy. They were “laymen,” and preaching by such men was then a strange thing in Scotland. Their labors were so far successful that a revival of spiritual life set in at many places and a spirit of inquiry was aroused. They made successive tours throughout all Scotland, as far as the Orkney Islands. Then Robert Haldane turned his attention to the spiritual needs of his native land, and determined to devote his large fortune to spreading the Gospel through its benighted districts. This led to the formation of a society for the dissemination of religious knowledge, and to the employment of young men of known piety to plant and superintend evening schools for the instruction of the young in religious truths. This movement grew to considerable proportions. But it met with determined opposition, both from Presbyterian Dissenters and the Established clergy. The decrees were fulminated by entire bodies, as the Relief Synod, obviously leveled against the devout and ardent itinerants. In like spirit the Antiburger Synod decreed:
That as lay preaching has no warrant in the Word of God, and as the Synod has always considered it their duty to testify against promiscuous communion, no person under the inspection of the Synod can, consistently with these principles, attend upon or give countenance to public preaching by any who are not of our community; and if any do so they ought to be dealt with by the judicatories of the Church, to bring them to a sense of their offensive conduct.
Going beyond this, the General Assembly of 1799 accused the itinerant preachers of “being artful and designing men, disaffected to the evil constitution of the country, holding secret meetings, and abusing the name of liberty as a cover for a secret democracy and anarchy.” In the midst of this opposition a church was formed of some fourteen persons in a private house on George Street, Edinburgh, which was the beginning of the Tabernacle Church Leith Walk, in which James Haldane eventually became minister, in which capacity he exercised, without any emolument, all the public and private duties with unbroken fidelity and zeal for a period of fifty years. For some time this church was content with monthly communion, but in 1802 it resolved to spread the Lord’s table on the first day of every week. By the close of 1807 some eighty-five Independent churches had been established. Out of this movement a further advance took place, and thence arose Baptist churches in Scotland.
Churches holding the immersion of believers as the only authorized baptism have, possibly, stood out against the apostasy (not as Baptists), even from the days of the apostles, though frequently driven into hiding places by the force of persecution and for the preservation of their faith and order and also of their lives.
Concerning the origin of the Baptists in England I shall not dwell; though their early history is very interesting, and far more in accord with the apostolic style than the present-day Baptists. Passing at once to Scotland, I find no trace of Baptist churches till the latter part of the eighteenth century, excepting one of short duration formed by soldiers of Cromwell’s army. The earliest Scotch Baptist Church is said to have been formed in Edinburgh in 1765 under the efforts of Robert Carmichael, who had been a minister in the Antiburger Church at Coupar-Augus; but later became minister of an Independent Church (“Glassite”) in Edinburgh, of which Archibald McLean was a member. Early in life a strong impression had been made on the mind of McLean by the preaching of George Whitfield. In 1762 he withdrew from the Established Church of Scotland and united with this Independent Church. But it was not long till some trouble arose over a case of discipline which resulted in the withdrawal of both Carmichael and McLean from the church. While thus standing aloof from church membership they directed their attention to baptism. McLean, not having read a line upon the subject, went carefully through the whole of the New Testament with the inquiry before him, “What is baptism?” This led him to the firm conviction that only those capable of believing in Christ are its subjects and that it must be performed by immersion of the whole body in water. A year later Carmichael reached the same conclusion. He then went to London where he was immersed by Dr. Gill at Barbican, October 9, 1765. On returning to Edinburgh, he baptized McLean and six others, and formed a Baptist church. In 1769, Carmichael moved to Dundee, and McLean became minister of the newly-formed church. Other churches of immersed believers were soon planted in Glasgow, Dundee, Montrose and other places, and the sentiment in favor of returning to the scriptural act of baptizing grew among the people. The marked piety and noble disinterestedness of Archibald McLean stand out as worthy of all admiration. His labors were immense and given gratuitous, as he persisted in continuing in employment as overseer of a printing establishment.
As Scotch Baptist churches multiplied there arose a disturbing element. McLean and others held the necessity of an ordained elders to the proper observance of the Lord’s Supper; consequently, notwithstanding that they taught the importance of observing the Lord’s Supper on the first day of every week, it had to be omitted when an ordained elder could not be present. But ere long others among them saw more light and insisted that elders were not essential to the being of a church, that the church existed before its eldership, and that where the church is the Lord’s table should be spread on the first day of every week, irrespective of the presence of an ordained elder. This led to contention, and, indeed, to separation. But truth will not down. We may go with it any distance we please, but when we say, “Thus far and no farther,” truth struggles to remove the hindrances thrown across its path, and in the end starts on afresh to complete the journey.
As leaven will permeate so truth must influence more or less the mass into which it is cast. From Scotland the principles associated with the names of the Haldanes, Carmichael and McLean found receptive hearts in Wales. Even in Ireland, also, there was in men’s minds the struggling of truth and error, the partial expulsion of the false by the true, the consequent advance to apostolic faith and order, and falling short of a complete return thereto, notwithstanding progress calling for thankful recognition.
About the year 1802 there were a few persons in Dublin, most of them connected with the religious establishments of the country. The most noted among them were John Walker, G. Carr and Dr. Darby, all of whom organized religious bodies, differing in minor points from one another. Their attention was directed to Christian fellowship, as they perceived it to have existed among the disciples in apostolic times. They concluded from the study of the New Testament that all the first Christians in any place were connected together in the closest brotherhood; and that as their connection was grounded on the one apostolic gospel which they believed, so it was altogether regulated by the precepts delivered to them by the apostles, as the divinely commissioned ambassadors of Christ. They were convinced that every departure of professing Christians from this course must have originated in a withdrawing of their allegiance from the King of Zion, and in the turning away from the instruction of the inspired apostles; that the authority of their word, being divine, was unchangeable, and that it can not have been annulled by or weakened by the lapse of ages, by the varying customs of different nations, or by the enactments of earthly legislators.
With such views in their minds they set out in the attempt to return fully to the course marked out in the Scriptures; persuaded that they were not called to make any laws or regulations for their union, but simply to learn and adhere to the law recorded in the divine Word. Their number soon increased; and for some time they did not see that the union which they maintained with each other, on the principles of scripture, was at all inconsistent with the continuance of their connection with the various religious bodies round them. But after a time they were convinced that these two things were utterly incompatible; and that the same divine rule which regulated their fellowship with each other forbade them to maintain any religious fellowship with others. From this view, and the practice consequent upon it, they were called “Separatists.”
They held that even two or three disciples in any one place, united together in the faith of the apostolic gospel, and in obedience to the apostolic precepts, constitute the Church of Christ in that place.
They held that the only good and sure hope toward God for any sinner is by the belief of this testimony concerning the great things of God and his salvation. And as they understood by faith, with which justification and eternal life were connected, nothing else but belief of the things declared to all alike in the Scriptures, so by repentance they understood nothing else but the new mind which that belief produces. Everything called repentance, but antecedent to the belief of the Word of God, or unconnected with it, they considered spurious and evil.
They considered the idea of any successors to the apostles or of any change of Christ’s laws as utterly unchristian, and did not tolerate any men of the clerical type among them. They believed that the Scriptures taught the community of goods. They held that there is no sanction in the New Testament for the observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath; and that the Jewish Sabbath was one of the shadows of good things to come, which passed away on the completion of the work of Jesus on the cross. They believed themselves bound to meet together on the first day of the week, the memorial day of Christ’s resurrection, to show his death, in partaking of bread and wine, as the symbols of his body and his blood shed for the remission of sins.
In their assembly they joined together in the various exercises of praise and prayer, reading the Scriptures, exhorting and admonishing one another as brethren according to their several gifts and ability; contributed of their means and saluted each other with “an holy kiss.” In the same assemblies they attended, as occasion required, to the discipline appointed by the apostles, for removing any evil that might appear in the body.
When any brethren appeared among them possessing all the qualifications of the office of elders or overseers, which are marked in the apostolic writings, they thought themselves called upon to acknowledge them as brethren in that office, as the gifts of the Lord to his church. They held themselves bound to live as peaceable and quiet subjects of any government under which the providence of God placed them; to implicitly obey all human ordinances which did not interfere with their subjection to their heavenly King.
The baptism of believers was cast aside as anti-Christian, except in the case of the heathen, who on conversion had made no previous confession of faith. Their mistake lay in the belief that baptism was intended to mark the mere profession of Christian faith. They failed to see that it was commanded by the Lord himself to follow upon a real believing with the heart, and a confession with the mouth. Any act called baptism prior to that is not the ordinance of Christ, and stands for nothing. The time for baptism is so soon as that believing confession and heart trust exists as a fact. So long as it remains unperformed after that there is a cessation in that particular of compliance with the divine command, which should be terminated by obedience so soon as possible.
While these people were scriptural in a number of things, in others they fell far short of returning to apostolic Christianity. So we must continue our search.