tural discipline; but also confessed at a later day his inability to carry his views into effect. Some few regulations of discipline were introduced into the various Church Directories (Kirchen-Ordnungen), adopted by the churches in different countries; but nothing like a complete Scriptural church discipline was ever adopted in any part of our Church until 1823, when the General Synod of our American Lutheran Church published theirs, which has now been circulated over our entire country with their English Hymn-book.*

In regard to modes and forms of worship, Luther was opposed to all coercion. "The heart," he says, "is the thing with which we must worship God." "As the external forms of worship neither justify nor condemn us before God, and as they, if prescribed as a law, may easily give rise to the superstitious belief that these external forms constitute the worship of God, and are necessary to salvation, and that the neglect of them is sinful, therefore the externals of worship should be free, and without coer

* The first VII Chapters of the Formula, relating to congregations, were prepared by the present writer, and adopted by the Synod of Maryland and Virginia, in 1823, at Cumberland, Md., then adopted by the General Synod, and recommended to all the churches. The Constitution for District Synods was prepared by the same hand, and adopted by the General Synod at Hagerstown, in 1829.

cion." In general, two different tendencies were manifested during the formation of the Lutheran Church. Some advocated the rejection of all rites and ceremonies not found in the Scriptures, whilst others evinced a more ritualistic spirit, preferring to retain all the customs of the Romish Church which were not clearly inconsistent with God's word. Each section of the Church was finally permitted to follow its own judgment in this matter, and the principle was adopted, and expressed in the Augsburg Confession, "That it is not necessary that the same human traditions—that is, rites and ceremonies instituted by men, should be everywhere observed."-Art. VII. Each kingdom and principality, and even city, had its own liturgy; and whilst they all agreed in essential features, they differed widely in those things not decided in Scripture. The public worship was in a great measure restored to its primitive apostolic simplicity and spirituality, and consisted in preaching the Word, singing, prayer, and the administration of the sacraments. The catechetical instruction of the rising generation was universally required. The greater part of the Romish festivals were rejected. Luther was, indeed, at first in favor of discarding all the festivals, except the Lord's Day,—thus agreeing with the position maintained by Calvin and Zwingli. In his discourse on "Good Works," in 1520. Luther remarks:-" All

the festivals ought to be laid aside, and the Sabbath alone be retained; or, the festivals should be removed to the Sabbath."* At a later day he changed his opinion, and maintained that, in addition to the Lord's Day, several other festivals might be observed. In the churches of the General Synod, only those few festivals are observed which commemorate the fundamental facts of Christianity, viz., Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension Day, and Whitsuntide. The festival of the Reformation, to commemorate the renovated Church of Christ, is also observed by many of our churches.

Thus did the mother Church of the Reformation gradually assume definite and settled lineaments. This portraiture, however, did not, in all respects, reach the ideal at which the reformers aimed; yet had a great work of God been achieved, and many millions of souls been rescued from the dominion of Papal ignorance and superstition, and restored to the purity of gospel truth. Nor would the renovated Church have failed to extend its limits into other portions of the Germanic empire, had it not been for the union of Church and State: "For," says Dr. Mosheim, "that very religious peace, which was the instrument of its stability and independence,

* Luther's Works, (Walch's ed.) vol. x. pp. 1630 and 1647. Zwingli, Explanation of the XXV Article. Calvin's Institutes, Lib. ii. c. 8, &c.; and Herzog's Encycl., vol. iv., p. 380.

set bounds at the same time to its progress in the empire, and effectually prevented" its further ex tension there. In the Diet of Augsburg, assembled in the year 1555, in order to execute the treaty of Passau, the several States that had already embraced the Lutheran religion were confirmed in the full enjoyment of their religious liberty. To prevent, as far as possible, the farther progress of the Reformation, Charles V. stipulated for the Catholics the famous ecclesiastical reservation; by which it was decreed, that "if any archbishop, bishop, prelate, or other ecclesiastic, should in time to come renounce the faith of Rome, his dignity and benefice should be forfeited, and his place be filled by the chapter or college possessed of the power of election."* Here, then, is the response to the oft-proposed inquiry, Why did the work of the Reformation so abruptly terminate, and why has the Protestant Church in Germany remained stationary for three centuries?

For half a century after the publication of the Augsburg Confession, the Church as a whole was free from symbolic coercion. In 1580, the Form of Concord, together with all the other documents referred to, were combined into one volume; and by order of Augustus of Saxony, and subsequently other

*See Dr. McLean's translation of Mosheim's History, vol. iii. p. 215, note K., by the translator.

civil authorities, was enforced in different kingdoms of Germany by the requisition of an oath from every minister in the land. This measure, though doubtless prompted by a desire to promote harmony and peace, was unwise, un-Lutheran, and unscriptural; as these books embraced a great many minor points of doctrinal opinion, which are not clearly revealed in Scripture, and are not necessary either to harmonious co-operation, or to the purity of the Church. For Paul admonishes us "to receive the brother (that is, him whom we regard as a brother in Christ), who is weak in the faith, (or, erroneous in some of his views of the faith,) but not for doubtful disputation." A short creed seems to be necessary in order to preserve the purity of the Church, and had the Augsburg Confession alone been made binding, instead of the whole mass of symbolic books, equal in bulk to the Old Testament, the peace of the Church would have been better preserved, liberty of conscience have been respected, and the Church of the Reformation been far more widely extended than she now is. But, controlled as the Church then was, and still is in Europe, she had no opportunity in her collective capacity to influence this subject then, or to effect any reform since.

But the attempt to enforce the reception of the whole mass of the symbolical books proved a signal failure; for the rulers of different kingdoms