mistake. They are further said to have maintained: quod nullus damnabitur nec Judæus, nec Sarazenus, quia mortuo corpore spiritus redibit ad Dominum. § 210. ETERNITY OF THE PUNISHMENT OF HELL. RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS. John Scotus Erigena, on the basis of the universality of redemption, ventured to intimate a revival of the notion of Origen, concerning the restitution of all things, without denying the eternity of the punishments of hell.' This idea met with approbation among the mystical sects. The Catholic Church, however, simply retained the doctrine of the eternity of the punishments of hell;" as is exemplified in the concise superscription to the hell of Dante." The imagination of the orthodox mystics, inflamed by the vision of infinite woe, dwelt with painful elaboration upon this forever and ever." 1 Erigena maintained, with Augustine, the eternity of the punishments of hell, De Div. Nat. v. 31, p. 270. Nevertheless he said, p. 72: Aliud est omnem malitiam generaliter in omni humana natura penitus aboleri, aliud phantasias ejus, malitiæ dico, in propria conscientia eorum, quos in hac vita vitiaverat, semper servari, eoque modo semper puniri. Comp. v. 26, p. 255, 56, v. 27, p. 260: Divina siquidem bonitas consumet malitiam, æterna vita absorbet mortem, beatitudo miseriam......nisi forte adhuc ambigis dominum Jesum humanæ naturæ acceptorem et salvatorem non totam ipsam, sed quantulamcunque partem ejus accepisse et salvasse. Frommüller, 1. c. pp. 86, 87. Comp. § 209, note 14, and § 202. 2 4 Thomas Aquinas, Qu. 99. * Canto iii. v. 9: "Ye who enter here, leave all hope behind." 5 Suso (Büchlein von der Weisheit, cap. xi. Von immerwährendem Weh der Hölle, quoted by Diepenbrock, pp. 289, 290, by Wackernagel, Sp. 879), expressed himself as follows:-Alas! misery and pain, they must last for ever. O! eternity, what art thou? O! end without end! O! death which is above every death, to die every hour and yet not to be able ever to die! O! father and mother and all whom we love! May God be merciful to you for evermore; for we shall see you no more to love you; we must be separated for ever! O! separation, everlasting separation, how painful art thou! O! the wringing of hands! O! sobbing, sighing, and weeping, unceasing howling and lamenting, and yet never to be heard!. . . . Give us a millstone, say the damned, as large as the whole earth, and so wide in circumference as to touch the sky all around, and let a little bird come once in a hundred thousand years, and pick off a small particle of the stone, not larger than the tenth part of a grain of millet, and after another hundred thousand years let him come again, so that in ten hundred thousand years he would pick off as much as a grain of millet, we wretched sinners would ask nothing but that when this stone has an end, our pains might also cease; yet even that cannot be ! FOURTH PERIOD. FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE RISE OF THE THE AGE OF POLEMICO-ECCLESIASTICAL SYMBOLISM; THE CONFLICT OF CONFESSIONS OF FAITH. A. GENERAL HISTORY OF DOCTRINES DURING THE FOURTH PERIOD. § 211. INTRODUCTION. On the sources, and the works on the history of the Reformation, compare Hase, Church History, New York edition, p. 358, sq., and Gieseler, Church History, New York edition, Vol. IV. p. 9, sq. THE Reformation of the sixteenth century was neither a mere scientific reform of doctrine, nor a revolution which affected only the external relations of life (church polity and form of worship), without touching doctrinal questions. It was rather a comprehensive reformation of the Church on the basis of the newly awakened evangelical faith, as it manifested itself in its practical and moral aspects. As primitive Christianity did not present a complete scheme of systematic theology to its adherents, so those who restored a pure and Scriptural religion did not make it their first object to establish a perfected and final system of doctrines. The heart, and the actions of the heart, preceded, scientific forms of statement followed in slow progression. Thus the publication of the 95 theses (A. D. 1517, Oct. 31st), in which Luther came out against Tetzel on high moral grounds, and the zeal which Zwingle displayed about the same time, in combating the prevailing abuses of the Church, and the corruptions of his age, became the signal for further contests. The attack upon the sale of indulgences shook scholasticism to its very foundations; starting from this, the opposition to all that was unscriptural in the constitution of the Church, as well as in its doctrines, soon spread further, though its success was not everywhere the same. Questions concerning ultimate philosophical principles were, on the whole, not in the spirit and thoughts of that age:" Baumgarten-Crusius, Compendium der Dogmengeschichte, i. p. 326. "It was neither the vulgar jealousy of the monastic orders against each other, nor yet any mere theoretical interest, however noble this might have been, which led Luther in the path of reform. Luther became a reformer because he had learned at the confessional the spiritual wants of the people....It was from a heartfelt sympathy with simple and honest souls, whom he saw abandoned to the arbitrary will of the priesthood, and deceived in respect to the highest good of life:" Der heutige Protestantismus, seine Vergangenheit und seine heutige Lebensfragen, Frankf., 1847, p. 15. See also Gass, Gesch. d. Protest. Dogmatik, i. p. 7, sq. [Reuter, Eigenthümlichkeit d. sittlichen Lendenz des Protest. im Verhältnisse zum Katholicism, in Jahrb. f. d. Theol., 1860. Brownson's Qu. Rev., Jan., 1855. Whately, Errors of Romanism traced to Human Nature, 1849.] § 212. THE PRINCIPLES OF PROTESTANTISM. *Göbel, M., die religiöse Eigenthümlichkeit der lutherischen und der reformirten Kirche. Bonn, 1837. Dorner, Das Princip unserer Kirche nach dem inneren Verhältniss seiner zwei Seiten., Kiel, 1842. *Schenkel, Das Wesen des Protestantismus aus den Quellen, 3 Bde., Schaffh. 1846–52. Ibid., Das Princip des Protestantismus mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der neueren hierüber geführten Verhandlungen, Schaffh. 1852. J. H. Merle d'Aubigne, Luther und Calvin, oder die luth. u. reform. Kirche in ihrer Verschiedenheit und wesentlich. Einheit; deutsch von P. E. Gottheil, Baireuth, 1849. [English, in D'Aubigné and his Writings, New York, 1846, pp. 245–273; comp. Christ. and Protest., ibid. pp. 125-145.] F. Baur, Kritische Studien über d. Wesen des Protest. in Zeller's Jahrb., 1847, s. 506, sq. H. Heppe, Dogmatik des deutschen Protestantism. im 16 Jahrb. [3 Bde. Gotha, 1857-9.] See the works referred to in the following sections. [For Hagenbach's review of Schenkel's work, see Studien und Kritiken, Jan., 1853; De Wette on Schenkel, ibid., 1848. C. Beck, D. Princip des Protest. in Stud. u. Krit., 1851. F. A. Holzhausen, Der Protestantism. 3 Bde. 1846, sq. Hundeshagen, d. deutche Protestantism. 3d ed., 1849. Thiersch, Protest. u. Kathol. Dietlein, Protest. und Kathol. Halle, 1854. Twesten, on Cathol. and Protest. in his Dogmatik d. Luth. Kirche, i. s. 96-217; and Princip ds. Protest., ibid. s. 273-282. Baur, D. Princip d. Protest. in Theol. Jahrb. (Tübingen), 1855. De Remusat, Protest. et Reform. in the Revue des deux Mondes, June, 1854. Rothe, Zur Dogmatik, in Stud. und Kritik., 1855, s. 779, sq., on the two Protestant principles, as different aspects of the same truth.-Jeremy Taylor, Dissuasives from Popery. J. E. Cox, Protest. and Popery Contrasted, 2 vols., Oxf., 1851. Oxford Tracts for Times, passim.] The common principle on which the Reformers planted themselves, was only the principle of Christianity itself, as revealed in the canonical Scriptures. The only difference was in the mode in which they respectively attained and enforced this principle, which was determined by their personal characteristics and by external circumstances. Luther, by the deep experience of his own heart and life, was led to the material principle of Protestantism, viz., justification by faith, which is the central point for the right understanding of the development of the whole Protestant system of theology. With this is connected the breaking away from the authority of the Church, and the subjection to the authority of Scripture, or the formal principle of the Reformation. Both principles belong together.' Though there is a relative truth in the remark, that the Reformation, as aroused and led by Luther in Germany, laid the most stress on the material principle, and that the Zwinglian (later, the Calvinistic, or Reformed) movement in Switzerland preponderated in favor of the formal principle,2 yet the difference of these two main tendencies, which sprung up within the bosom of Protestantism, is not fully and satisfactorily explained by their difference on this point." 3 1 See A. Schweizer, Glaubenslehre der evang. Ref. Kirche, Zürich, 1844, Bd. i. s. 3. Baur, Lehrbuch d. Dogmengesch. [s. 272-284, 2d ed. Baur says, that the most general difference between Catholicism and Protestantism is found in the different relation, in which what is external and what is internal in religion, are put to one another. As external as is Catholicism, so internal is Protestantism.... In opposition to the externality of Catholicism the fundamental idea of Protestantism is that of the absolute value of the religious sentiment, in distinction from all that is merely external. All that is external has a value only in relation to this internal experience and conviction. In this aspect the principle of subjectivity is the principle of Protestantism; but this is only one side of its nature. The other, equally essential, is the objective element, viz., that in all that concerns his salvation, man is entirely dependent on God and divine grace. Freedom and dependence, self-activity and absolute dependence, together make up the essence of Protestantism; as is most signally manifest in the first epoch of its history. And here, too, are the elements of the problem, which it has ever since been discussing.] * M. Goebel, ubi supra. Compare Ullmann, in the Studien und Kritiken, 1843, s. 756, sq. 2 * Schweizer, Glaubenslehre, i. 35, 38, 40. Schenkel, Wesen des Protest. i. 11. Ebrard, Abendmahlslehre, ii. 25, sq. also been thus stated: the one (the Lutheran) was chiefly devoted to opposing the Judaism, and the other (the Reformed) to opposing the heathenism of the old Church; so Herzog in Tholuck's lit. Anzeiger, 1838, No. 54, sq.; Schweizer, ubi supra, s. 15. But even this cannot be carried out without qualifications. Schweizer says, that the peculiarity of the Reformed (Calvinistic) theology consisted in holding fast to the absolute idea of God in opposition to all idolatry of the creature, while the centre of gravity of the Lutheran system is to be sought after in the sphere of anthropology. Ebrard's position (ubi supra, 27) is, that the material principle of justifica tion by faith is common to both, and that the difference consists in this, that Luther emphasized this justification (subjectively) in opposition to works, while Zwingle insisted upon it (objectively) in contrast with human mediation and reconciliation.-So much seems to be certain, that no fundamental difference can be said to exist between the principles of the Lutheran and Zwinglian reformation, but a difference simply in the mode of combining the external and internal conditions, under which the common principles were established and modified. Comp. below § 219, note 3. [See also Baur, Dogmengesch., ubi supra, who says, that the real Protestant antagonism to Catholicism is found in Calvinism, and there too in the very doctrine, which was at first common to all the reformers, but which attained its systematic development only in Calvinism, that is, the absolute decree. Against the Catholic absolutism of the external church was placed the Calvinistic absolutism of the divine purpose-it is immanent in God. The Melancthonian type of theology, with its principle of moral freedom, is here, on the Protestant side, the antagonism to Calvinism. Strict Lutheranism is merely intermediate between these two, historical, rather than ideal or material. See for the Reformed view, also, Schneckenburger, in Orthodoxe Lehre von dem doppelten Stande Christi nach luth. u. ref. Fassung, 1848, and his dissertations in the Stud. u. Krit., 1847, and in the Theol. Jahrb. (Tübingen), 1848; also in his posthumous Vergleichende Darstellung, d. ref. u. luth. Lehrbegriffs, 1855, and Schweizer's review of the latter work in the Theol. Jahrb., 1856.] § 213. RELATION OF THE HISTORY OF DOCTRINES IN THE PRESENT PERIOD TO THAT OF FORMER PERIODS. (SYMBOLISM.) Compare Vol. i. § 4, 13, 16. Note 9. The important events which occurred during the present age, the introduction of new relations affecting the whole development of the church, the division of Christendom into two great sections-viz., the Protestants and the Roman Catholics, the separation between the Lutherans and the Calvinists (the Reformed Church), which took place at an early period, and the abiding schism between the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox churches, render it necessary to adopt another method in the treatment of the history of doctrines. We shall have to consider the dogmatic development of each of these great sections of the church separately, as well as the relation in which they stand to each other. Nor must we pass over those religious parties, which made their appearance in the commotion of those times, and did not join any of the larger bodies, but set themselves in opposition to each and all of them, and were looked upon by them as heretical. And here, too, is found the determining element, which gives a new shape to the History of Doctrines, so that in its flow it is expanded into the form of Symbolism. |