A LECTURE

ON

THE PROTESTANT FAITH.

I.

THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION HOW OCCASIONED.

THE sixteenth century ushered in a period of great intellectual activity. The revival of literature, art, and science; the brilliant maritime discoveries; the prevailing spirit of controversy and enterprise; but more especially the introduction of printing, whereby knowledge was disseminated, and made common to more than one nation or generation, had all given a new and remarkable impulse to human thought, distinguishing that era as an epoch in modern history. As men began to think for themselves, their first protestation, as may well be supposed, was against the restraint of

thought and its authoritative dictation. The fears of the Vicar of Croydon were well nigh realized: "We must root out printing, or printing will root "out us."

It must not be forgotten that for centuries the Roman Church had been the prominent, controlling power of Christendom. She did not mature in a day, but was "the fruit of a long array of most "learned men, distinguished colleges and councils, "sanctioned by noble martyrs and numerous mira"cles."

So much was she, for these reasons, lifted above the common crowd, that it is not surprising if to them her utterances had early the force of law, and that she, in turn, should count herself infallible.

But not content with being the spiritual head, she aspired to temporal dominion. She demanded tribute from all nations, and arrayed armed legions for her own use; she made and unmade kings; she became the umpire of trade; she dictated laws and treaties. At all Christian courts her legates took precedence, soon assuming to represent that divine right-that supreme authority-by whose sanction alone princes were then, as now, supposed to

govern.

To this supremacy she set up the claim of prescription. Had she not for a thousand years stood firm on that rock whereon Christ himself had set her, amid changing empires, the rude assaults of barbarism, and the decisions of hostile councils? Had not her edicts become the recognized theology of the greater part of the civilized world? How could she be in error who could point to a history like this?

At length her prestige began to decline; and while that result was in no small degree due to the corruptions of the priesthood, its main cause is to be found in that growing mental enfranchisement ever since peculiarly characteristic of the Protestant nations, imparting to them a superior energy and intelligence, derived, as has been most truly said, "not from the creeds they hold, but from the "private liberty which accompanies the creeds."*

Never before had the traditional pretensions and policy of the Church been so seriously and persistently questioned, nor ever before had so large a proportion of the Christian world presumed to assert anything contrary to her canons. But now the boldness of a few learned men at first, and

*Westminster Review, Jan. 1858.

afterwards of the people at large, began to shake her authority.

It was not that men had the right to think, but the undeniable, patent fact, that they did think, and could not help thinking and having intelligent opinions of their own, which gave point to the struggle.

Thus arose that great conflict between Authority, so called, and Opinion-between the authority of the Pope and the opinions of the educated classes ; between the authority of councils and the individual judgment. And it need scarcely be said that the contest, although in the most enlightened countries somewhat in favor of the individual, is not concluded even to this day.

II.

THE INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER OF THE REFOR

MATION.

The Lutheran reformation, which had, in reality, been impending from the time of Wyckliffe, was an intellectual rather than a religious movement. From it nothing has been gained directly for religion; nothing, except what has resulted from

independence of thought, free speech, and the present heterogeneous character of the Christian world-yet that is progress.

It was not wholly a failure; since, whatever may have been the theological errors of Luther, (and grave errors they were,) it cannot be denied that in the history of the present wide and fundamental variance between the hereditary assumptions of the Church and common sense, he was among the first who opened the gate of free inquiry, disenthralled men from a blind, unreasonable subservience to priestly rule, and directed them to the partial liberty they have since enjoyed.

III.

FREE INQUIRY AGAINST AUTHORITY.

That this was the occasion and essential feature of the Reformation, an assertion of the right, or rather the recognition of the necessity of private judgment and interpretation, as opposed to the authority and dictation of the Church, it will not be difficult to show from the writings and disputations of Luther himself.

"Retract," said the Pope's legate to him at