FAITH
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FAITH
Faith, Protestant Confessions of. — That the
Catholic Church, which claims the prerogative of
teaching revealed truth with infallible certitude,
should have drawn up articles of faith and demanded
for them the internal assent and outward confession of
her children, was logical and consistent; but it is diffi-
cult to understand with what logic or consistency
Protestantism, which proclaimed tlie Bible, as inter-
preted by the private judgment of the individual, to be
the sole and sufficient rule of faith, could follow her
example. It is said that Protestants look upon their
doctrinal standards as authoritative only in so far
as they agree with the "word of God"; but each
sect so imbues its members from early childhood with
its peculiar tenets, that long before they are able to
read the Bible intelligently, their religious views are
fixed. Stray individuals may change their religion
and may be able to gather a sufficient number of fol-
lowers to form a separate communion; but the bulk of
the population remain true to the faith of their par-
ents, or of their native land. In the palmy days of
Protestantism, it was not the reading of the Bible that
held the denominations together, but their respective
Confessions of Faith, inculcated by the preachers and
enforced under severe penalties by the civil power.
As a practical result, the "word of God" was inter-
preted in accordance with formulse devised by men;
the Anglican read into his Bible the Thirty-Nine Arti-
cles, the Lutheran the Augsburg Confession, the "Re-
formed Churches" the Heidelberg Catechism. Each
new sect lieing ol)ligcil to prove its raison d'etre by show-
ing j ust how far it differed from others, a very large num-
ber of Confessions appeared, varying in size from a few
articles to long theological treatises. As a rule, the later
Confessions are merely modified copies of the older ones,
altered to suit local circumstances or personal views.
Types. — Since the Protestant revolt originated al- most independently, and simultaneously, in Germany and in Switzerland, there has been, from the begin- ning, a sharp distinction between the Lutheran and the "Reformed" tenets of Zwingli, afterwards merged into Calvinism. The cleavage between Lutheranism and Calvinism goes deeper than the divergence of views concerning the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Luther drifted into heresy gradually. In spite of his hatred of the pope, he preserved a lingering reverence for the Church in which he had been a monk and a priest for so many years. He retained as much of the ancient beliefs and liturgy as could be made to fit into his peculiar views on sin and justification. So ad- roitly and tentatively were the changes made in Catho- lic phraseologj' and worship, that but few of the Luth- eran common people felt they had drifted away from the Church of their fathers. Luther himself, in a famous passage, boasted that the eye of the oniinary layman could detect little or no difference between the Lutheran service and the Catholic Mass. As to the theological opinions, the layman was equally deceived; for it was not new for him to be taught that we are saved by the free grace of God through the merits of Christ's Blood. That the temporal ruler was zealous in the extirpation of "abuses" rather edified than shocked the common man, for a certain jus refor- mandi had always been claimed, and had frequently been exercised, by Catholic German princes. Quite different was the case with Zwinglianisra and Calvin- ism. Laying no claim to identitj' or continuity with the ancient Church, the " Reformed Churches" began, generally amidst iconoclastic riots, by rooting out the entire fabric of Catholicism. After the futile attempt of Philip of Hesse, at the Marburg Conference (1-4 Oct., 1529), to reconcile the German and Swiss Re- formers, these went their several ways, hating and re- viling each other little less than they hated and re- viled the Church of Rome. It is scarcely needless to add that since the collapse of dogmatic Protestantism, its conflicting creeds possess little more than an his-
torical interest. Even where subscription to a Con-
fession is still exacted as a condition for holding office,
the ceremony is regarded as a mere formality.
The Luther.in Co.xfessions. — (1) The oldest and most authoritative of the Lutheran creeds was the .\ugsburg Confession. It was drafted chiefly by Me- lanchthon, on the basis of Luther's Marburg, Schwa- bach, and Torgau articles, and bore the signature of seven German princes. Elector John of Saxony, his son John Frederick, Ernest and Francis, Dukes of Luneburg, Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, Wolfang, Prince of .\nhalt, and of the representatives of the two imperial cities, Nuremberg and Reutlingen. On 25 June, 1530, copies of it, in Latin and German, were presented to Charles V, at the diet of Augsburg, and the German version was read aloud before the secular and ecclesiastical Estates of the Empire. Charles re- tained the Latin copy which he brought with him to Spain, giving the other into the custody of the Arch- bishop of Mainz. Both seem now to be irretrievably lost. The document ought to have retained its origi- nal title of Apologia, for it is an artful attempt to persuade the Emperor and the Estates that in the Lutheran doctrine, " there is nothing discrepant with the .Scriptures, or with the Catholic Church, or with the Roman Church, so far as that Church is known from its writers".
The Lutherans teach (Art. I) the Nicene belief in God and the Trinity; (Art. II) Original Sin; (Art. Ill) the Incarnation ; Death and Resurrection of the Son of God; (Art. IV) Justification by Faith. By leaving out the obno.xious word sola (alone), the article might be glossed in a Catholic sense. They believe further- more (Art. V) in a Divinely appointed ecclesiastical ministry, no mention being made of Luther's univer- sal priesthood of believers. They teach (Art. VI) that "faith should bring forth good works, and that men ought to do the good works commanded by God, be- cause it is God's will, and not on any confidence of meriting justification before God by their works", as if any one had taught differently. In Articles VII and VIII, "On the Chiu'ch", instead of asserting the heresy of an invisible Church, they define it to be "the congregation of saints [the German version has it the assembly of all the faithful], in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments rightly administered ". They condemn the Donatists and others who held that the ministry of evil men is use- less and inefficacious. In Article IX, " On Baptism", they teach that it is necessary to salvation, and that infants are to be baptized. The famous Article X reads as follows: "Of the Lord's Supper they teach that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present and are distributed to those who eat of the Lord's Sup- per, and they reject the contrary' teaching." Here Luther's theory of companation is sedulously slurred over. Art. XI teaches that private absolution must be retained, though in confession it is not necessary to enimierate all sins committed.
Art. XII, "On Penance", teaches that those who fall, after Baptism, may obtain the remission of sins, whenever they repent, and that it is the duty of the Church to absolve the repentant. Penance, they teach, consists of two parts, confession and faith. In ' the hazy Article XIII, "On the use of the Sacra- ments", they "condemn those who teach that the Sacraments justify ex opere operato, without teaching that faith in the remission of sins is requisite in the use of the Sacraments", which statement shows how scant was Melanchthon's acquaintance with Catholic doctrine. Art. XIV, "On Ecclesiastical Orders", limits itself to the harmless assertion that " no one should publicly teach in the Church, or adminster the Sacraments, unless he be rightly called." Art. XV, "On Ecclesiastical Rites", retains such rites "as may be observed without sin", instancing "fixed holy- days, feasts and such like", but "consciences are not
