Post-Reformation Church History II:
Lecture Notes
Spring 1961
IBRI Syllabi #22
President & Professor
Faith Theological Seminary
© 2014 John P. MacRae
Abstract
This is the second semester of a two-semester course in Reformation and Post-Reformation Church History. These lectures were transcribed from a sound-recording, and lightly edited, so they still have much of a spoken flavor. The lectures begin with the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England as James I. This is followed by the Anabaptists of the 16th century; the Counter-Reformation; Europe during the first half of the 17th century; Great Britain during the same period; then Europe and Great Britain during the remainder of the 17th century; this is followed by the 18th century, first in Europe and then in the English-speaking world; the 19th and 20th centuries (to 1950) are treated more topically. The first semester, though sketched in the Contents and Outline at the beginning of these lectures, is covered in IBRI Syllabi #21.
Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute
This material under First Semester is covered in the previous syllabus (IBRI Syllabi #21), but is listed here for your convenience. The material in this syllabus is outlined here.
Purpose of the course
1. To understand the world in which we live
2. To see how God has worked
3. To see how Satan has worked
4. to see the successes and failures of all sorts of men
Negative reasons
1. Not to learn what is right or how God wants us to live.
2. Not to determine doctrine.
I. The world into which the Reformation came
A. The Religious Situation
B. The Ecclesiastical Situation
C. The Political Situation
D. The Economic Situation
E. The Cultural Situation
1. The Renaissance
2. The Invention of Printing
3. Humanism
a. Pagan Humanism
b. Picco della Mirandola
c. Lefevre
d. John Colet
e. John Reuchlin
f. The "Letters of Obscure Men"
g. Erasmus
F. Forerunners of the Reformation
1. John Wyclif
2. John Huss
3. Geronimo Savonarola
II. Martin Luther
A. Early LIfe
1. His parents
2. Secular Education
3. Monastery Experiences
4. Luther's Trip to Rome
5. First years at Wittenberg
6. Lectures on Romans
7. Theses on Scholasticism
B. The Beginning of the Reformation
1. The Coming of Tetzel
2. Luther's Theses
3. The Immediate Effect of the Theses
4. Tetzel's Counter-theses.
C. 1518-1520
1. The Heidelberg Meeting
2. Trierias
3. The Appearance Before Cajetan
4. Miltitz
5. John Eck
6. The Leipzig Debate
7. The Papal Excommunication
8. Luther's Three Great Reformation Treatises
a. The Address to the Christian Nobility of the German nation 1520
b. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church
c. On the Freedom of a Christian Man
(Sometimes called Treatise on Christian Liberty)
9. The Burning of the Papal Bull
D. The Diet of Worms
1. The New Emperor
2. Luther Summoned to Worms
3. Luther's Trip to Worms
4. Luther's First Appearance Before the Emperor
5. Luther's Second Appearance Before the Emperor
6. The Edict of Worms
E. The Wartburg
1. Luther's Life in the Wartburg
2. His Homilies
3. His Translation of the N.T.
4. Luther's Health at the Wartburg
5. His Influence
6. Events in Wittenberg
a. Carlstadt
b. Clerical Marriage
c. Masses
d. Monks left Monasteries
e. Carlstadt's Extremes
f. The Heavenly Prophets
g. The Breaking of Images
h. The Elector's Fear
i. Luther's Decision
F. Return to Wittenberg
1. The Journey
2. The Series of Sermons
3. Continued Activities
G. Change in the Papacy
1. Adrian VI
2. Clement VII
H. The spread of Luther's Teaching
J. The Peasant War
K. Katherine von Bora
L. Political Events from 1522-1530
M. Luther and Erasmus
N. The Marburg Colloquy
1. Zwingli
2. Luther's Attitude Regarding the Lord's Supper
3. The Plan of Philip of Hesse
4. The Actual Meeting
O. The Diet of Augsburg
1. The Situation
2. Luther at the Fortress of Coburg
3. Melancthon at the Diet
4. The Augsburg Confession 1530
P. The Spread of Luther's Ideas Outside Germany up to 1530
1. In England
a. Henry VIII
b. Luther's Writings
c. Defender of the Faith
d. William Tyndale
e. Controversy
f. Henry's Desire for Divorce
g. The Reformation Parliament, 1529
2. Scotland
3. The Netherlands
4. Sweden
a. The Union of Kalmar
b. The Blood Bath
c. Gustavus Vasa
d. Petri
e. The Diet of 1527
5. Denmark
a. Christian II
b. Frederick I, his Successor and Uncle
c. John Tausen
d. Petersen's New Testament
e. Public Debate
f. Christian III
g. Bugenhagen
6. France
a. Lefevre
b. Margaret of Angoulême
7. Switzerland
a. Zwingli
b. Henry Bullinger
8. Poland
a. John Alasko
9. Italy
a. Victoria Cologna
b. Michaelangelo
10. Spain
a. Inquisition
Q. Political Events and Protestant Advances in Germany 1530-1542.
1. The Abrogation of the Edict of Augsburg
2. The Schmalkaldic League
3. The Death of Duke George
4. Brandenburg, 1539
5. Secularization
6. Discussion
7. Brunswick
8. Charles Decides to Destroy the Reformation by Force
R. Building the Church
1. Bible Translation
2. Luther's Catechism
3. Luther's Hymns
4. Visitation
5. Personal Influence
6. Church Government
S. The Bigamy of Philip of Hesse
T. Luther's Last Years
1. Activity
2. Luther's Disappointment
3. Renewed Sacramentarian Controversy
4. Last Work against the Papacy
5. Last Days and Death
U. The Emperor's Success
V. The Interim
W. The Tide Turns
X. Development of Lutheran Orthodoxy
1. Controversies
III. John Calvin and His Works
A. Relation of Calvin to Luther
1. Calvin is a second-generation Reformer
2. Calvin was a careful Exegete and Systematizer
3. Calvin was a scholar who became a practical man.
4. Calvin was a leader of men.
5. Comparison of the Teachings of Calvin with those of Luther
6. Calvin was not responsible for the division into Lutheran and Reformed
B. Beginnings of the Reformation in France
1. Jacques Le Fevre d'Taples
2. The Repression
3. William Farel
4. The Placards
C. The Beginning of the Reformation in Geneva
D. Early Life and Education of John Calvin
1. Parentage and Youth
2. Education
3. His Conversion
4. First Writing (on Seneca's Discussion on Clemency)
5. Departure from Paris
6. Psychopannychia
7. The Institutes of Christian Religion
8. Trip to Italy and France en route to Strasburg
9. Call to Geneva, July, 1536
E. Geneva, 1536-1538
1. Organization
2. The Discussion at Lausanne
3. Pierre Caroli
4. Opposition in Geneva
5. Banishment, April 23,1538
F. Strasbourg, 1538-41
1. The Call to Bucer
2. The Little Church
3. His Marriage
4. His Meeting with Melancthon
5. The Letter of Cardinal Sadolet and Calvin's Reply
6. Geneva Requests Calvin to Return, Dec. 1640
G. Geneva, 1541-57
1. Return to Geneva, Sept. 1541
2. New Ordinances of Religion
a. The Venerable Company
b. The Consistory
c. Relation to the Civil Government
d. Oversight of Individual Conduct
e. Calvin's Personal Activities
3. Re-Codification of laws and negotiations with Bern
4. The Psalter
5. Calvin's Commentaries
6. Calvin's Correspondence
7. The Academy
8. The Refugees
a. Bernadino Ochino (Italy), Capuchin monk
b. John Knox
9. Civic Help
10. Calvin Seeks Independence for the Church
H. Servetus
J. Geneva, 1557-64
1. Calvin's Condition
2. Calvin's Activities
3. Calvin's Death
K. Calvin's Theology
1. In Relation to the Bible
2. Sovereignty of God
3. Saviorhood of Christ
L. Calvin's Influence
1. Great Extension and Solidification of the Reformation
2. Organization and Systematization
M. Progress of the Reformation in France
1. Beginnings of the Reformation in France
2. Henry II
3. Catherine de Medici
4. Charles IX
5. Henry III, 1574-89
6. The Accession of Henry IV
a. Edict of Nantes
N. Calvinism in the East
1. Germany
2. Bohemia
3. Poland
4. Hungary
O. The Netherlands
1. Beginning of the Reformation in the Netherlands
2. Philip II
3. Calvinism in the North
4. William the Silent
5. The Beggars
6. The Duke of Alba
7. Alexander of Marmese
8. The Division of South and North
9. Freedom Gained by Holland
IV. The Reformation in Great Britain
A. The Beginnings of the Reformation in England
B. Henry VIII
1. His Character in General
2. Henry's Persecution of Lutheranism
3. The Divorce
4. Thomas Cranmer
5. Entrance of the Reformation
6. Overthrow of the Monasteries
7. Anne Boleyn's Fate
8. Birth of Edward VI
9. The Fall of Thomas Cromwell
10. The Pilgrimage of Grace
11. The Act of the Six Articles
12. Henry's Last Two Wives
C. The Reign of Edward VI
1. The General Character of the Period
a. Political
b. Religious
2. The Book of Common Prayer
3. Increasing Reformation Emphasis
4. The Death of Edward at the age of 16
D. The Reign of Mary 1553-1558
1. Mary's Right of Succession
2. Mary's Aim
3. The Marriage with Philip
4. The Persecution
5. The Effects of Mary's Reign
E. Queen Elizabeth, 1558-1603
1. Her Accesion
2. Her Religious Attitude
3. Her Political Astuteness
4. The Romanist Danger
5. The Puritans
F. The Beginnings of the Reformation in Scotland
G. The Early Career of John Knox
H. Establishment of the Reformation in Scotland
J.
Mary, Queen of Scots
K. James VI.
V. The Anabaptists of the 16th Century
A. General Characteristics
B. The Zwickau Prophets
C. The Chiliastic Anabaptists
D. Menno Simons
A. Its Nature
B. The Papacy
C. The Inquisition and the Index
D. The Council of Trent
1. The Calling of the Council
2. The First Period, 1545-47
3. The Second Period, 1551-2
4. The Third Period, 1562-3
5. The Results of the Council of Trent
E. The Foundation of the Jesuit Order
1. Ignatius Loyola
2. The Society of Jesus
3. The Methods of the Society
a. Careful Selection
b. Long Training
c. Spiritual Exercises
d. Complete Obedience
e. Mutual Spying
f. Freedom from Ordination Requirements
g. Abstention from Church Offices
h. Emphasis on Educational Work
i. Influence through the Confessional
j. Casuistry
k. Missions
(1) Francis Xavier
(2) Japan
(3) Paraguay and Lower California
(4) China
(5) The Malabar Ceremonies
F. The Progress of the Counter-Reformation
1. Italy
2. Spain
3. Austria
4. Germany
5. Sweden
6. Poland
7. Bohemia
8. France
9. Belgium
10. England
VII. The Continent of Europe during the First Half of the 17th Century
A. The French Reformed Church
1. Its Strength
2. The Activities of the Jesuits
3. Cardinal Richelieu
4. Moses Amyrault
B. Holland, 1600-1650
1. The Political Situation
2. The Rise of Arminianism
a. Jacob Van Harmin
b. The Remonstrance
3. The Synod of Dort
4. Religious Toleration in Holland
C. The Thirty Years War
1. The Causes
a. Ecclesiastical Reservation
b. Donauwörth
2. The First Phase, 1619-29
a. Bohemia
(1) The General Situation
(2) The Revolt of 1618
(3) The Winter King
b. The Palatinate
c. The Edict of Restitution
3. The Second Phase, 1629-35
4. The Third Phase, 1635-48
5. The Peace of Westphalia, 1648
VIII. Great Britain in the First Half of the 17th Century
A. The Rise of Puritanism
B. English Churches in the reign of James I, 1603-4
1. The Millenary Petition
2. The Hampton Court Conference, 1604
3. The Decision to Prepare a New English Bible
C. English Bibles to 1650
1. First English Bible of Importance: John Wyclif
2. Tyndale
3. Coverdale Bible
4. Matthew's Bible
5. The Great Bible
6. The Taverner Bible
7. The Geneva Bible
8. The Bishop's Bible
9. The Douai Bible
10. The King James Bible
D. English Churches in the reign of James I: 1604-1625
1. Attitude of the Archbishops
a. Whitgift
b. Bancroft
c. Abbott (1611-1632)
2. Exile for Conscience Sake
a. Francis Johnson
b. John Smyth
E. Beginning of Puritan Colonization in America
1. The Scrooby Congregation
2. A Dozen Years in Holland
3. Difficulties in Undertaking the Trip to America
a. Previous Unsuccessful Attempts of Puritans to Settle
b. Fear of the Indians
c. Difficulties in Establishing a Colony
d. The Problem of financing it
4. The Voyage
5. The Difficulties of the First Winter
6. The Coming of Samoset
7. The Lord's Providential Arrangements
a. The Epidemic
b. The Sending of Squanto
8. The Abandonment of the Communist System
9. The Success of the Colony
10. The Future of Plymouth
11. The Result of the Coming of the Pilgrims: The Puritan Migration
12. The Founding of Harvard University
13. Roger Williams
14. John Eliot
F. England and Scotland, 1625-49
1. The Policy of Charles I
2. Archbishop Land
3. Scotland
4. The Long Parliament
G. The Westminster Assembly
1. Its Calling and Purpose
2. Its Membership
3. The Procedure of the Assembly
4. First Doctrinal Task
5. Its Work on Discipline and Liturgy
6. The Westminster Confession
7. The Larger and Shorter Catechism
8. Cromwell
IX. Continental Europe in the Last Half of the 17th Century
A. The Reformed Church in France
B. Jansenism
X. Great Britain in the Last Half of the 17th Century
A. The Accession of Charles II
B. The Reign of Charles II
1. The Persecution in Scotland
2. Persecution in England
3. John Bunyan
4. The Quakers
a. George Fox
b. William Penn
C. The Glorious Revolution of 1688
1. James II, 1685-1688
2. The Events of 1688
3. William and Mary
XI. The 18th Century on the European Continent
A. Pietism
B. Zinzendorf
C. France
D. The Suppression of the Jesuits
XII. The 18th Century in the English-speaking World: The Great Awakening
A. The Condition of England at the Beginning of the Century
B. The Background of the Evangelical Revival
1. The Wesley Family
2. The Holy Club
3. George Whitefield's Conversion
4. The Wesleys in Georgia
5. Whitfield's Voyage
6. Wesley's Conversion 1738
7. Wesley's Trip to Germany
8. The Beginning of Field Preaching
C. The Great Awakening in America
1. The Beginning of American Presbyterianism
2. The Tennents
3. Jonathan Edwards in Northampton
4. Whitefield in America
D. Progress of Wesley's Work in England
1. Extensive Preaching
2. His Organizing
3. His Publications
4. Hymns
E. Results of the Evangelical Revival
1. Establishment of the Methodist Denomination in England
2. Effects on the Church of England
a. John Newton
b. William Cowper
c. Charles Simeon (IVF)
d. Wilberforce
3. Effect on Other British Churches
a. The Presbyterians (The Countess of Huntingdon's Connection)
b. The Baptists
William Carey
c. Other Mission Boards
F. America in the Latter Part of the Century
1. Results of the Great Awakening
a. David Brainerd
b. Jonathan Edwards
2. The Organization of the Presbyterian General Assembly
3. The American Methodists
4. Effects of the American Revolution on the Church of England
5. The Spread of Unitarianism and Infidelity
A. Scotland
1. Background
2. Evangelical Stirrings in the Early Part of the Century
3. Thomas Chalmers
4. The Disruption, 1843
5. William Robertson Smith
6. The United Free Church
7. The Wee Free
8. The Union of 1929
9. The Present Situation
B. England
1. Conditions at the Beginning of the Century
2. The Oxford Movement
3. The Victorian Era and the Rise of Evolution
a. The Nature of the Victorian Age
b. Moral and Ethical Principles
c. The Spread of Rationalism and Indifference
d. The Rise of Evolution
e. Charles Darwin
f. T.H. Huxley
g. The Rapid Spread of Evolution
4. Baptist Churches in England during the 19th Century
a. Results of the Evangelical Movement
b. Andrew Fuller and the Particular Baptists
c. Growth during the Century
d. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 1834-92
C. United States
1. Unitarianism in New England
2. Evangelism in America
a. Charles G. Finney
b. Dwight L. Moody
3. Presbyterian Developments
a. The Presbyterian Association with the Congregation
b. Founding of Seminaries
c. Old School and New School Split
d. North and South Split
e. The Reunion of the Northern Church in 1870
D. The Roman Catholic Church in the 19th Century
1. The Re-establishment of the Jesuits
2. Pius IX
a. The Immaculate Conception
b. The Syllabus of Error
c. The Vatican Council 1870
d. Italians take Rome as Capital, Sept. 20, 1870
A. The Roman Catholic Church
1. The General Attitude
2. Losses to Communism
3. 1950, Pope's Ex-Cathedra Claim of Virgin Mary's being bodily taken to heaven
4. Progress in America
B. The Spread of Higher Criticism
C. Modernism
1. Ecumenism
2. Establishment of Kingdom of God on Earth
D. Fundamentalism
We are proceeding with a survey of the history of the church and going on from the point we reached at the end of last semester. I wish we could have completed the whole of the 16th century last semester so that we could have this semester for the 3½ centuries that have come since that time. But there are some matters of very great importance in the 16th century that we still have to cover. And the most important of those will be the Counter-Reformation, because the Counter-Reformation is still with us. It is a vital force in the world today, perhaps more vital for us in the world today than the Reformation is.
But
we have a few other matters to complete before we can get to the
Counter-Reformation, which is our big subject for the beginning of this
semester. We were looking at the end of the last hour at IV, The Reformation in
Great Britain, and we were dealing with J, Mary, Queen
of Scots. We ended the hour with Mary having fled from her country into
England, and her enemies being in complete control in Scotland. I'm going to
just say a few words about another heading under this heading IV.
K. James VI. We are still dealing with Scotland. In Scotland the struggle was between John Knox and his supporters—who were standing for the Reformation, standing for the Word of God, the Bible as the sole standard—and the forces behind Mary Queen of Scots, which were trying to bring Scotland back into the control of the Roman Church. There was an excellent chance that these forces would have succeeded if Mary Queen of Scots had been able to control her own passions. She was so popular—such an attractive woman—that many people were ready to give up anything to stand for anything she wanted; she was a clever, brilliant, able woman, but she could not resist giving into her own passions, which made it absolutely impossible for the people to support her.
The result was that after she had blown up her husband and married his murderer, after that a great number of her supporters no longer would stand with her; and eventually she had an army which was defeated; she fled to England, and Scotland was now in the hands of her half-brother, who was a strong Protestant.
I won't bother you with his name because within a few years her friends had assassinated him and there was a series of leaders in Scotland, but the thing we are interested in is that nominally the ruler of Scotland now was Mary's son, James VI.
James VI had been born a month or two after she had murdered James' father, Lord Darnley, in blowing up his place at Edinburgh. So he was a little boy, under 5 years old, when his mother left the country for the last time. He was then king of Scotland; he was raised by the people who would be controlling Scotland; he was raised as a Presbyterian; he was a bright young fellow, he learned to know the Bible very well; he learned to be able to dispute theology very effectively. But he was always, from the time he was a little boy, viewed as the king—as the great lord of the nation—and he never was able to reconcile in his mind, how he could be the king, the ruler, the lord of the nation, and at the same time the people had rights as the Presbyterian system maintained that they did. How could these two things fit together? The little boy was never able to reconcile them in his mind; he always found himself pushing in the direction of the supreme power of the ruler. But during a good many years his power was not very great; and Knox died, but his successors, other leaders in the church, were the dominant forces in the realm; and all through Scotland, the Bible was taught; churches were organized along the lines recommended by Calvin; and Calvin's system was put into effect in Scotland as in France; much more than it ever was in Geneva, because in Geneva you always had the state exercising a rigid control; but in France the state was hostile; and in Scotland the state was now in the hands of those who believed in Knox's viewpoint and who wished to make the Bible central.
In the end, as he grew older, James stressed the importance of maintaining the bishops; so bishops were kept in Scotland, but they merely had the title; they had no authority at all. The authority was in the hands of the representatives of the church. The control of the church was in their hands, but there were men who had the title of bishop who were sort of superintendents and had a rather nominal authority. The century ended with James, as he grew older, constantly struggling to get more control over the state and the church, but all his struggles being affected by the thought that, after all, Scotland was a small and weak nation, but he was next in line to the throne of a great and powerful nation; and maybe he could become king of England.
His
mother, you know, had wanted to become ruler of England; and if she had
succeeded, England would have been made solidly Roman Catholic. James of course
had no Roman Catholic sympathies; he was raised entirely by the Protestants; he
had no connections with the Roman Catholics but he was next in line for the
kingship of England, and we have much to say about him later on. But at this
point we go to
And this is a movement—I don't think movement is the right name for it, but for want of a better I'll say it is a movement—which is very prominent in every history of the l6th century. You can read no books about the 16th century without finding mention of the Anabaptists. But actually it is not a movement; to write a reliable history of the Anabaptists of the 16th century, would be very difficult, because the word Anabaptists is sort of a catch-all in that century. It is a term which was applied by their enemies to a great many different groups of people, some of which had no relationship to each other whatever. And the name was selecting something that many of them considered a comparatively small part of their viewpoint; but selecting this because this was the thing that particularly impressed their enemies at first contact with them.
And so the enemies applied the name Anabaptists, in the 16th century, to all individuals who not only were opposed to the Roman Catholic Church, but who were also opposed to the established churches in their area. All individuals of this type were called Anabaptists by others. The word Anabaptist means re-baptized—those who baptized again—and in a way it was a logical term to give to these people, because they were individuals who were not claiming any continuity with any previous movement.
The Roman Catholics of course claimed to be the church that had continued from the time of Christ. The followers of Luther and Calvin claimed to be the true Christian church which had continued from the time of Christ, though corruption had come into many parts of it; they were trying to remedy these corruptions; but it was a continued church, and they felt the right to take over the buildings the Christians in their areas had established, and to continue the established churches as centers for the teaching of the Bible.
But the Anabaptists were those people in this period who began other groups; these other groups were largely centered around the personality of whatever leader started it; and there were a great many leaders. A few of these leaders were highly educated men; most of them were simple cobblers—or workers of one sort or another—who learned to read and began reading the Bible. They got some ideas and began to disseminate the ideas that they got. Some of them were men of very attractive personality, who were able to get together great numbers of other people around them. I have here the Manual of Church History in 2 volumes by Professor [Albert Henry] Newman, published by the American Baptist Publication Society; this is the 22nd printing which I have of this book and the standard Baptist church history. Naturally he takes a greater interest in the Anabaptists in the 16th century than perhaps most church histories written from other viewpoints would do.
And so for this section, I have looked now at the material that he gives about the Anabaptists of the 16th century; he points out that they were a group—a quite varied group, they aren't really a movement at all—but they are a great many different movements; he discusses a great many of the individual leaders, but he divides them into 5 groups. He lists the following: 1. The Chiliastic Anabaptists; 2. The Soundly Biblical Anabaptists; 3. The Mystical Anabaptists; 4. The Pantheistic Anabaptists; 5. The Anti-Trinitarian Anabaptists. Now as he points out, these 5 divisions that he gives are a rather general attempt to arrange them according to their principal characteristics. But they overlap very frequently; actually the Anabaptists of the 16th century were all the different groups which, opposing the Roman Catholic Church, also were opposed to the locally established churches, whatever they might be.
So
there is a tremendous variety of these groups. We do not have a great deal of
information about most of these groups. Some of their leaders wrote quite a few
books; and some of these individual groups kept considerable records; but most
of them varied: they'd become very large and split up five or six different ways;
they would have all sorts of changes taking place, and not many records kept of
them. And they have not, on the whole, left a great effect upon the modern
world, though there are some very definite effects. So we will not in this
course take a good deal of time on them, but I want to bring out a few main
factors in the development (in this century) of the history of the Anabaptists.
So under V, I will make
A. General Characteristics. And as I mentioned from Newman, the general characteristics vary tremendously, but the main thing that they had in common was that they were new groups with no background in a previous movement—new groups which sprang up around individuals, who organized a movement for some view or other which they held—but as such they all of them indicated their separation from the established church by a form of joining their particular group.
Now in the other group were the Roman Catholic Church and the established churches. The people joining the Anabaptists brought their infants to be baptized, which symbolized joining these groups as something new. The other group—the other people—tended to give this name Anabaptists from that one feature, which to some of the groups was a very prominent feature, but with others was quite an incidental feature, but they called them for that reason "Re-Baptizers." About 40 percent of them, perhaps, baptized by sprinkling; perhaps about 40 percent by pouring. Servetus, for instance, whom Newman gives as one of the Anabaptist leaders, insisted that a person is not truly baptized unless he knelt in water, so that his ankles and his knees were covered with water, but the rest of him was not in the water, and then water was poured over his head; and Hoffman—who was a leader of the Anabaptists whom Newman thinks is most like the Baptists of today of any of the Anabaptist leaders—Hoffman baptized 3000 people out of a milk pail, according to the records. And so whether that was pouring or sprinkling, I don't have evidence; but they certainly couldn't immerse that many in a milk pail. So immersion was not a feature of the Anabaptist of the 16th century—that is, it was a feature of a very, very few of them—and not of those of them who are most like Baptists of today.
Those
who did immerse, some of them, were groups who had very different attitudes on
many different points; as we've noticed they varied tremendously, but one thing
which practically all of the Anabaptists had in common was that they did not
hold the sort of polity that is characteristic of Baptist churches today—that
is, the idea of the local church as an independent autonomous organization.
That idea seems to have been non-existent among the Anabaptists. Newman says
that whenever you had a group of Anabaptists of any size, they always
recognized an interdependency between their local churches—an interrelationship
with some sort of a control over a number of different local churches. The idea
of an independent local church was unknown at least among most of the
Anabaptists of the 16th century. Now
B. The Zwickau Prophets. These are men whom we have already met in connection with the life of Luther. They were the men from the town of Zwickau, who at first were greatly attracted by Luther's preaching. And they felt that in his opposition to the Roman church he was making a great step forward, but who—they were uneducated men, men who were able to read and were reading the Bible, but they insisted that as the prophets of old received messages direct from God, they also were receiving direct from God—and it was when Luther was in the Wartburg that these men came into Wittenberg. And they got the peop1e of Wittenberg all stirred up; and they were making all sorts of changes; and everybody was doing whatever he thought right in his own eyes; the situation got so chaotic that Luther found it necessary to leave the safety of the Wartburg—you remember—and to come back to Wittenberg and to give that series of sermons on orderliness and on conducting the church in line with the Scripture; but studying the Scriptures together and deciding what it taught; and moving forward in orderly fashion rather than knocking over images and making changes as individuals wanted to make them, and so on.
And when the Zwickau prophets met Luther and said, "Luther, you're interfering with the work of God; we're just as much prophets as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and we're telling what should be done." Luther said those prophets were able to prove their right to speak directly from God by the performance of miracles. Now he said "Let's see you do some miracles as proof that you can do that." He said, "I make no such claim. I do not claim to be a prophet from God, to speak directly from God; I simply interpret those words that God has given, and study to see what it says." But he says, "If you make this claim, you must be able to prove it, as the Bible prophets could, by the working of miracles." These men were ready to make predictions to tell exactly what was going to happen 300 years later, but none of them would live long enough to find out whether their predictions occurred. But when it came to the performance of miracles, they were unable to do it; so the people of Wittenberg stood with Luther and these people left. Later they became mixed up with the Peasants Revolt; they did not start the Peasants Revolt, but when it was under way, they joined in with it. And they tried to make the Peasants Revolt into a religious movement against the established leaders of every sort; and many of these people were killed in the Peasants Revolt.
I've
read to you the names of several of the divisions that Newman makes of the
Anabaptists, simply to show what a variety there was of them. But probably most
of you noticed what he called the first group—he called them Chiliastic
Anabaptists—and that is a name that I regret his applying to them, because we
still use the word Chiliastic today; but we use it in quite a different sense,
though referring back to the same subject. I guess I'll call
C. The Chiliastic Anabaptists, using his title. But in doing so I must inform you that I consider myself a Chiliast, but a different sort of Chiliast from these particular individuals.
The word Chiliast comes from the Greek word that means "thousand"; and it goes back to the teaching in the book of Revelation that for a thousand years the saints will rule with Christ. I believe that to be definitely taught in Revelation, as well as elsewhere in the Scripture. But I think the Scripture teaches with absolute clarity that this thousand year reign with Christ is going to be introduced by divine intervention, not by human effort; that God is going to intervene; that Christ is going to put an end to evil in the world, and set up his kingdom of righteousness, happiness and peace upon this earth.
Now these men—what Newman called the Chiliastic Anabaptists—had the view that there was going to be a reign of the saints upon earth for a thousand years, but that this reign was going to be established by the righteous killing off the wicked; that the righteous by force were going to establish themselves in power and put an end to all that was wicked; they were going to destroy entirely the wicked people—all who would not join with them and adopt their views—and they were going thus to establish the thousand-year reign; so they called themselves Chiliasts.
As I say, I'm sorry to have the term applied to them, because I think it's a good term, to fit a truly Biblical teaching; but the way they interpret the teaching I do not feel is a correct interpretation of the Bible. Yes? [student: Is this the ecumenical movement?] No, the ecumenical movement will do it by legal means rather than by forceful. Dr. [J. Gresham] Machen says in his book that he does not believe that the Holy Spirit will prove unable to convert the world. He says he feels that Pre-millennia1s are real Christians; he feels a real bond of fellowship with them; but that on this point he thinks they're wrong, because he does not think that the Holy Spirit will prove unable to convert the world in this age. And I certainly would agree with him on that; I think the Holy Spirit could convert the world in one day if it was His will to do that. But it is the Lord's will—I believe the Scripture says—that the church shall be a witness in this age, rather than that the church is going to conquer the world; and that Christ will conquer the world when he comes by His force; and it will be by force, but not by human force. But that is a very important doctrinal error. The difficulty in dealing with something like this is that here you have a great movement concerning many different individuals moving in many different countries of Europe, in many different directions; and you try to notice what is in common and you try to find a few high points in development, and so you're going characterize them. Now the Zwickau Prophets were the first of these that came prominently to attention in church history; that was on account of its connection with Luther. But they proceeded to get mixed up in the Peasant's Revolt, and many of them were killed in that; others of them who survived probably became a part of what Newman has called the Chiliastic Anabaptists. But during the latter part of the 1520's and the beginning of the 1530's you have a great many individuals in Europe who felt that they were part of the army of the Lord, which was going to put an end to all that was evil and set up the kingdom of righteousness on earth; and that was a movement which came to a very sad end in the beginning of the 1530's. It made a very great impression all over Europe, so we have to look a little bit at the details of it, such as will go under this heading, the Chiliastic Anabaptists.
These individuals, different individuals, were preaching that, and some of them were gathering large groups of people about them, and they were maintaining this teaching that there was going to be set up a kingdom upon this earth soon by their force which would destroy all established rule upon this earth. And in 1532 that date which was noted here, in 1532, the Chiliastic Anabaptists got control of a city called Münster.
This city of Münster is a city in western Germany—about central, perhaps a little north of central Germany—and in this city of Münster the bishop had been in control of the city; the city till 1532 was a stronghold of Roman Catholicism but the bishop—the prince-bishop—was a very dissolute man, a very licentious, wicked man; and the people of the town were strongly turning against him, even though he had the force to keep out any Protestant teaching. But it aroused such an enmity to him and all that he stood for, that once he died and his power was removed, people began moving into the city and preaching the gospel; Philip of Hesse and other leaders tried to support them in bringing in gospel preaching into the town. This was a period when in many a town in Germany, the gospel preachers moved in; the people stood with them; they did away with the Roman Catholic control and established it as a Protestant city. And this was on the way to happening in Münster.
But a large group of the Chiliastic Anabaptists came into the town from many different places in Europe. Their principal leader was a man named Jan Mathys. He was a fisher from Holland—Jan Mathys, sometimes called Jan of Leiden, a city in Holland—and Jan Mathys preached with great force in Münster against the corrupt leadership of the prince-bishop (who was now dead) and of the leaders; and the rank and file of the people easily turned into not only a movement against the Roman Catholic religion, but a movement against all the civil control that had formerly been effective in the town. Mathys said he was an instrument in God's hands, for the blotting out of the enemy from the face of the earth. The previous Anabaptist leader there had been declaring that the Prophet Enoch would appear just before the inauguration of the new dispensation. Now Mathys said he himself was the prophet Enoch. And within a few weeks many thousands of people had been introduced by baptism into this new covenant in Mathys' kingdom in Münster.
And so they succeeded in getting control of the city of Münster. Mathys appointed 12 men whom he called his 12 apostles to be the leaders with him in the control of the city; the city took its stand against all the established authorities in Germany, not only against the Roman Catholic but also against the Lutheran—against all other groups. They welcomed to the city people who would become part of their movement, following the new Enoch, to establish the new dispensation on earth. Naturally, the other cities sent armies to put an end to this, and soon the city was besieged; and in the city, in the siege, the leaders began to receive new messages from God as to how it should be controlled. Mathys said that Münster was to be the New Jerusalem. Hoffman had thought Strasburg. Mathys said Strasburg has failed of the honor because of its sins. Many people were coming to them from all over Europe; many were seized by the authorities and executed on the way, but great multitudes got into the New Jerusalem; and there in the city, Mathys was slain in battle and another leader took over—this was 1534—and this new leader got a revelation that polygamy was to be reestablished; when men died in the battle defending the city, he took their wives as his additional wives; and polygamy was established in the city so that there would be no widows; any whose husbands died, were immediately married by others; many young ones were married by these different men, and the city resisted for nearly two years. But finally in 1536 the enemy succeeded in breaking through the walls, taking control of the city; the great bulk of the people were massacred; the leaders of the city were taken and most cruelly tortured; one of the leaders, the one who had instituted polygamy was put in a cage which was too low for him to stand up in, and too narrow for him to lie flat out, and this cage was hung up high above the church steeple, where everybody could see him left dying. And the torture of the people—it was terrible the way the thing was put down; but the worst of it was, that the story of the New Jerusalem at Münster; and its holding out for two years; and its claim that it was going to take over all of Europe and kill all of those who did not come under its control; the story was spread all over Europe, and the tendency then was for the leadership in the different countries to consider all Anabaptists as people who would like to introduce a Münster to rebellion, and to kill all those who would not join their particular group.
Now this was not a fair accusation to bring against the Anabaptists because, as Newman gives it, it was only one of the five groups into which he divided the Anabaptists. Many of them would never think of such a thing as this at all; in fact, most of those people probably wouldn't have if it hadn't been for a few leaders who were men of dynamic personality, able and filled with enthusiasm for it. But it gave a name to the Anabaptist movement all over Europe, and it resulted in the rulers all over Europe tending to think of Anabaptists as per se anarchists, and it resulted in a great many tortures and executions of Anabaptists all over Europe. Yes? [student] Well, actually, of course, in the view of the Roman Catholics, they were either true sons of the church or heretics; there were only two groups according to them. Now according to the Peace of Augsburg, there were three groups: there were the Roman Catholics, there were the Lutherans, and there were those who were outside of the pale. But actually there were great differences between the Calvinists and the Lutherans; and the church of England was different from either one of them; and many different groups had differences; but in people's thinking, those who were not a member of some established church, were considered as Anabaptist. Of course they gave different names to them, but this was the commonest one that was applied. And most of the Anabaptists joined themselves into large movements. There were not many of them that were individual local churches, with no connection with others. As a rule there would be several thousand people in a group, but the groups varied from time to time; there were all kinds of splits and repositioning and all that; and of course this Münster situation gave a name to the movement that is still used against them in many circles up to this day.
In a way that I think it is unfair; because when uneducated people become filled with enthusiasm and are under the leadership of brilliant men who themselves are not particularly educated, they may be led in almost any direction; and the fact that a certain group was led in this direction—it is not right to characterize them all by it, but they did suffer as a result of it—many did—all over Europe.
For instance, in England, Henry VIII had burned many people at the stake; under Edward VI, burning at the stake was completely done away with, except in the instance of one or two people in the whole reign; and I think one of them was considered an Anabaptist.
Yes?
[student: Did Luther and Calvin themselves speak out?]
Yes, I'm sure they had quite a bit to say about it, but I don't recall their
exact words upon it; I'm sure that both of them were very much against anything
that would lead to this; but I'm sure also that they both distinguished a great
many people who were of an entirely different sort. For instance, Calvin
himself married the widow of an Anabaptist, though he converted her to
Calvinist views before he married her. But this event at Münster,
while it was a terrible situation that meant death for many thousands of people
there, its great importance in our history is the
impression it gave and the way it was used against all Anabaptists throughout
Europe. Then D we will name after an individual. Out of the many individuals
whom Newman discusses here in his account of the Anabaptists, many of whom we
know very little about, out of them there came an individual who is
particularly important here and who came to the fore after the time of the Münster movement. This was a man named
D. Menno Simons. Menno Simons had been a Roman Catholic priest, and he became convinced that the Roman Catholic teachings were wrong; that the Bible was central, was the primary authority; and he gradually moved out of the Roman Catholic viewpoint; and whether he, at the time of the Münster movement, had completely come out of it or practically so, I am not sure. But he was tremendously impressed by the Münster situation, and was determined to go just as far in the opposite direction as he possibly could. He earnestly disclaimed having any sympathy with the Anabaptists who had taken part in this fanaticism, or any historical connection whatever with them; and with the other groups from which forces had joined in the Münster movement.
And so Menno Simons began moving about among the Dutch Anabaptists, and then among the German Anabaptists; he began—you might say—picking up the pieces; taking the little groups that were all upset, disheartened and discouraged, because they had been looking to the great coming of the kingdom of God which was to be brought about with the establishment at Münster of the New Jerusalem and everything; and now it had all come to pieces; nothing done, thousands killed. He tried to tell these people that their hope was in another kingdom—not in the kingdom of this world—but in another world; and that their place was not to fight the established wicked order of this world, but to submit without being in any way involved in it; and therefore he began as he went about among the groups preaching the gospel and expounding the word and trying to get them re-established.
He began preaching the very opposite of the emphasis of the Münster group. That is, that they were not to oppose the wicked governments of this age, but to have no part with them; to simply submit but not to partake of them; that they oppose, they would have no connection with warfare; take no part in war: not in the wicked wars, nor in war against the wicked; they would not resist evil; they would not take oaths; they would not assume positions in any government whatever; they would oppose capital punishment; they would take a position of quiet submission and standing for the truth without forceful means of any sort. And so under Menno Simons, what remained of the Anabaptist movement—a very large portion of it—was saved from the catastrophe of Münster and gathered together into a carefully knit group controlled by its central leader; and as long as Menno lived he was practically the supreme source in the group: telling them how to organize churches; closely connecting them with another; and considering the old established order as wicked and wrong; but not fighting to destroy it; but peacefully resisting it. That is, not resisting it with any force, but resisting it. And so great was Menno Simons' influence that the portion of the Anabaptists which has continued through the succeeding centuries came to be called after his name, came to be called Mennonites. He seems to have been a very godly man; and a very active, very energetic man, traveling about from place to place and preaching and organizing people; settling their little disputes and helping; trying to get them together; and organizing them into a group which followed these principles the exact opposite of the Münster principles.
Unfortunately, Menno himself did not have a very thorough theological education. His viewpoint, to quite an extent, seems to have been a reaction against the Münster group, rather than the development of views based upon Scripture. He seems—not entirely of course but in many points—to have established his views and then looked to the Scriptures for evidence to support them, while ignoring the evidence that would look in the other direction. And at one point Menno had great difficulty, because he conceived the idea that Jesus Christ did not have a human nature—that is to say—the human which he had was a new creation of God, it was not derived. But it led him to a very unorthodox position on the character of Christ. Many of his associates refused to go along with him on this matter; but it certainly was not the main emphasis of his life, because by 1559 the date of his death, there were many thousands of pious Anabaptists more closely associated with the movement that Menno had organized who were in the Netherlands and throughout Western Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea.
It is a very interesting thing, that among the Anabaptists—what their enemies at least considered as the outstanding, distinguishing feature of them—was the denial of infant baptism, the rebaptizing; and of course what they meant by that was denial of connection with the state service, but it gave up of course other aspects of Biblical teaching. There is the aspect which they held—which is very important in Scripture—that everyone must be personally converted, but then there is the other aspect of clear Scriptural teaching, that God's mercy is upon the children of those that love him. Most Christian groups believe that through infant baptism we show our belief in the covenant, that God will bless our children if we truly love Him and follow Him; and the Anabaptists in their practice deny that teaching; but I know of no better proof of the truth of God's blessing upon the children than the continuance of the Mennonite movement through the succeeding nearly 400 years, in which these people were persecuted and mistreated and driven from one country to another; but they pass on their teaching from father to child and from father to child have stood to it and continued their existence in spite of all attempts to destroy it. And so the Mennonite movement was a true God-sent movement; standing true to the Lord, until within the last 30 years, it, like most other denominations, has begun to be affected by modernism. Some portions of it are very greatly affected; but in other sections there are some very fine true stands being taken for the Lord. I know of no real incursion of modernism into the Mennonite movement until within the last 30 or 40 years, when it did come in with considerable power into certain of their ranks.
But that is the one thing that continued from the Anabaptists of the 16th century. The connection of the Baptist churches with the Anabaptists of the 16th century is very, very slight. None of them are directly derived from it, though in some cases there was an indirect relationship, which helped in their establishment. We look at that under the 17th century when the Baptist movements of modern times began.
But
it is interesting to realize that the Anabaptists of the 16th century put a
certain amount of stress (and some a great deal of stress) on the denial
of infant baptism; but that they did not
take the other position that modern Baptists take, of immersion. Comparatively
few of them ever immersed. Most of them either used sprinkling or pouring. One
of them, this Hoffman, Newman writes particularly, and says that Hoffman—his
view on war, on magistracy, on the church, on all sorts of things—is almost
like a modern Baptist except on one point, and that is, that he always poured
and never immersed, as his method of baptism; but except for that one point he
was a real Baptist, like the modern Baptists. But the rest of the Anabaptists
mostly were not. Now that is all we'll have time for under V.
Newman mentions, as I read, five classes of Anabaptists, Now the five classes that he mentions, the first, the Chiliastic Anabaptists, if they truly believed in the Scripture except that they thought that God was going to bring in the kingdom by human force, I'm not sure whether that would make them correct—they certainly would be mistaken on that point—but some of them were certainly true Christians on other points and certainly some weren't. Then the second, he calls the Soundly Biblical Anabaptists—well of course they were not heretical—whichever of them were soundly Biblical. Then 3, the Mystical Anabaptists, there were quite a number of them—like the Zwickau Prophets who were receiving visions and dreams—some men like that may be simply deluded and their teaching may be truly Christian teaching; but others get off on all kinds of vagaries. Some of them would be heretical and others not. Then he speaks of the Pantheistic Anabaptists, and these who were pantheists—there are today pantheists who simply are confused in their thinking and who are real Christians—but most pantheists, I would say, are definitely heretical. And then the fifth class he gives is the Anti-Trinitarian Anabaptists; and it's unfortunate that Menno Simon's understanding of the Trinity was confused at one vital point, but I don't think it was a basic thing in his teaching at all.
But some of these men like Servetus, I would think, were very definitely heretical. So you cannot apply the name orthodox or heretical to them as a group. They are not a group, but a mixture of many different sorts of groups. But out of this, out of this chaos, you might say, Menno Simon's position consisted of persistent effort drawing together a movement that continued and that was a real force of Biblical teaching through many centuries.
About a month ago I heard on the TV, I think they called it Face the Nation, or else Meet the Press—I'm not sure—they had a bishop of the Episcopal church of California and they had the man who is the stated clerk of the Presbyterian church in the U.S.A., together discussing their movements for union of all the large denominations today; and in the course of that discussion they said they would like to call the new church Catholic and Reformed, because, they said, it would be catholic, because it would carry on the traditions from the time of the apostles, and it would be reformed because the church is always needing reformation and the Holy Spirit brings reformation as He did in the Counter-Reformation—that's the statement they made. So according to the view they presented there, the Reformation was a very unfortunate thing, dividing the church of Christ, but that they would hold that there were corruptions in the church, corruptions of life, all kinds of corruptions. The Roman Catholics would agree of course, but that these corruptions were cleansed by the Holy Spirit through the Counter-Reformation, in the Roman Catholic Church.
Now that is the exact opposite of Protestant belief on this subject. It is a fact that the Counter-Reformation resulted in the doing away with many abuses. There were all sorts of corruptions of life in the Roman Catholic group before the Reformation which you do not often find in Romanist groups today. There are all sorts of them. There was much cleaning up in connection with the Counter-Reformation. But that is a comparatively subsidiary aspect of the Counter-Reformation. The Reformation by the end of Luther's life—for say ten years after the end of Luther's life—two-thirds of Europe was in the hands of the evangelical believers; the northern two-thirds of Europe was in their hands. And in the southern third, there was Reformation teaching being disseminated in many places. But within the next 40 years the Reformation was thrown back so that nearly half of the territory it had conquered was taken back from them; and within a hundred years after that time, fully half of the territory taken by the Reformation had been won back from them; and won back so completely that for the next 200 years there was not the slightest opportunity of any Biblical preaching whatever in those areas.
The
country of Austria, which for the last 300 years now, has had hardly a
Protestant in it, been just about solidly Roman Catholic. Austria, within 15
years after the death of Martin Luther, was practically entirely Protestant.
The representative of the pope visited the emperor in Vienna; he sent a report
to the pope that the emperor Ferdinand and the representative of the pope were
so far as he could see the only Roman Catholics left in Vienna. That's the
report he sent back; and even the emperor's son, Maximillian seriously
considered becoming a Protestant. Protestantism was on the way to conquer
Europe; but the Counter-Reformation stopped it dead in its tracks, and rolled it
back so that for the next 300 years more than half, nearly two-thirds of
Europe, the southern part, was not even entered by Reformation preaching
whatever; and so the Counter Reformation is one of the greatest movements in
the world history as far as effectiveness is concerned. And if you were to name
the ten men in the world's history who had more effect on the world than any
other ten, I have no doubt that one of the ten would be Ignatius Loyola, the
founder of the Jesuit Order; if it were not for him, my personal guess is that
within a century the Roman Catholic Church would have completely died out. But
the result was the exact opposite. Well now our time is up, we have to stop for
today but we continue there tomorrow...
A. Its Nature. We began VI, The Counter-Reformation, and under that A, Its Nature. And we should be under no misunderstanding about that. A counter-Reformation, by the meaning of the term, could mean one of two things. It could be un-reforming something in view of its having been reformed, that would be a counter-reformation. Or it could mean doing something to oppose a reformation that had come. The term counter-Reformation could have either one of those two meanings. In Roman Catholic history they refer to this as the Reformation of the Church; and they call what we call the Reformation, the Lutheran Revolt. It is one or the other: what we call the Reformation was a revolt against proper authority and what we're now looking at could to some extent be called a Reformation. Or else, what we've been discussing this year so far is a Reformation and what we're now speaking about is the marshalling of forces against the Reformation. It is the Countering of the Reformation.
I told you about hearing these two great ecclesiastical leaders of today on the radio speak of how the Holy Spirit brought about the Counter-Reformation and the reform of the church. That statement is contrary to the whole history of Protestantism. It is a statement which a Roman Catholic might well make because it would fit with their views, because from their viewpoint also the church needed a reformation. I think they would prefer perhaps to call it a reform; but it needed reform in morals; it needed a reform in discipline; it needed a reform in getting away from the selfish attitude of the bulk of the clergy, at least of the higher clergy; and just getting what they could for themselves out of it, and not doing much for the church as an institution. It needed that kind of a reform. It needed that badly, and it got that sort of a reform at the time of the Counter-Reformation to some extent. Today I believe you can say that in countries where the Roman Catholic Church is in a minority, it does have that sort of a reform. In other words, in a country like the United States where they are in a minority; in a country like England; or like France, where they are actually a comparatively small minority now, I believe—the rest being atheists—I believe that you will find that the Roman Catholic organization is tolerably free from the sort of corruption that was so flagrant and so widespread before the Reformation. You will not find a great deal of licentiousness and concubinage, of gambling and drunkenness, on the part of the clergy; you won't find men having the position of bishop and drawing a salary and never going near the area where they officiate, but living somewhere entirely different; you won't find a man being bishop of three or four different places, drawing a salary from all of them, doing the work of none. You won't find that sort of thing in any country where the Roman Catholic is in the minority. You will find—I fear—today in some countries where they have everything their own way; in some countries where there is very little religious opposition to them; you will find large portions of the clergy in conditions of great corruption; but the organization has readied itself to become a strong force against Protestantism in those countries in which Protestantism is a strong force. And to that extent there was a real reform, but that reform is a comparatively small element in what we call the Counter-Reformation.
The Counter-Reformation was a gathering together of the forces of the organization in order to resist the inroads of Protestantism and to drive it back. And it succeeded so well that those sections of Europe which—by the time the Counter-Reformation was in full swing—had not become Protestant, never become Protestant; and some sections of Europe—at least a third, maybe nearly half of those sections of Europe which had become overwhelmingly Protestant, as far as the people were concerned—were won back so completely that for at least two centuries there was absolutely no Protestant witness whatever permitted in that country. So the Counter-Reformation was one of the most effective movements in all history. And it is a movement which started forces that are still active today—very active today—and to a large extent very successful today; and so it is as important as anything in this whole course that we know something about the Counter-Reformation. Most Protestants know very little about it. But a Protestant leader ought to know a great deal about it.
Mr. Myers? [student: Were they sincere in their beliefs?] Well, you can't lump people all together; you say the Counter-Reformation—there were thousands of people involved in the Counter-Reformation. Among them I would say there were many who were very sincere; there were many of them who were sincerely convinced that the organization with the pope at the head, was a divinely-established order for this world; they were grieved over the corruption in the church, and were anxious to remedy it; and there had been, I think, just as many people of that type for 150 years before who had been struggling to do something; but I don't think they would have succeeded if it were not for the assistance given them by a large number of people whose primary desire was to push back Protestantism rather than make a real reform. But I think there were both kinds of people involved; and human nature is very complex; there are many people who have a mixture in their motives. We can notice certain individuals, but it's pretty much a general judgment. I think that in history, we have to recognize that the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked; that the heart of man is very complex; and that even the best of men have their evil tendencies and their evil desires; and even the worst have some good desires. I think we have to recognize that; but I think we also have to recognize that Satan is a real force in life, and that Satan succeeds in using good men to accomplish bad purposes at times. I don't think we can properly understand history without recognizing that just as God uses forces, God even uses the wrath of wicked men to praise Him. Just as God uses forces, Satan also uses forces; and this is only because God permits it, but nevertheless it is a reality. Satan uses good men to accomplish evil purposes; and there is nothing Satan likes better than to take two good men who are devoted to the work of truth and who are accomplishing much for the truth; there is nothing he likes better, if Satan cannot turn these men away from the truth, than to get them squabbling over some minor point, and giving their attention to fighting each other instead of fighting on the great issues of the Gospel. So it's very hard—God alone knows the heart—and He can judge who is sincere and who isn't; but we must realize that Satan was very effective and very successful in this operation.
Satan would like to cause everybody to deny the existence of God; he'd like to cause everybody to devote his life to drunkenness and sin and debauchery; but he knows very well that those who do have little influence on others; and when there is a great force for good, Satan, instead of giving his efforts to corrupting people into other wickedness, finds it more advantageous to try to destroy the work of those who are advancing the gospel, by getting their activity into minor directions, squabbling over points not clear in the Scripture, or in some way diverting them from really advancing the work of God.
But
we must push on to the facts. I think everybody knows he uses evil men, but I
said he uses good men. Oh yes, definitely. I would say that a good, earnest,
pious man who as pope tries to advance the Romanist church, can do far more
harm to the cause of the gospel than a wicked licentiousness man who was
enjoying the power of the position like the popes before the Reformation. But
that is not to say that the man himself is bad. God alone judges character, and
often very bad men accomplish good and very good men accomplish bad. He judges
them by their character, but we have to judge them by their effect. We ought to
go on to
B. The Papacy. If we were looking simply from a viewpoint of real historical accomplishment we would perhaps mention the papacy as one of the latter ones in the outline. It is not an element of primary importance in the Counter-Reformation. It is of importance, but of secondary importance in the Counter-Reformation, but we mention it first because, according to the theory of the Romanist system, the pope is the monarch of the church; according to the theory he has the authority and he can do what he chooses, that is, what he feels is the will of God. That is the theory and consequently we have to look first at the matter of the papacy.
You recall that last year in the spring we discussed the council of Constance in 1415 and you remember the Council of Constance was faced with 3 great problems. One was the spread of heresy, the views of Wyclif and of Huss, and that they put down with an iron hand; and one of them was corruption in the church, which the Council was very anxious to improve, but actually succeeded in doing nothing about it; and the third was the real reason for the Council of Constance, the fact there were 3 different men who claimed to be pope and some countries recognized one, and some another, and each of them was excommunicating the other two; and the Council of Constance deposed all 3 popes and elected a new one, and then they turned over to this new one the task of reforming the church and doing away with the corruption.
Well that was 1419 and during the next hundred years the pope made a pretense of improving the corruption but actually accomplished nothing in it; and their principal endeavor was to strengthen their own power; and you find this line of popes which started in 1419 coming, you might say, to a climax in the Renaissance popes, Alexander VI and Julian II and Leo X and Clement VII—these men who were devoted to the aggrandizement of their own personal families, their own personal pleasures, and to getting what they could out of the papacy and naturally doing what they could to make the papacy seem a very important thing, but not particularly concerned with the matter of the organization as a religious body, or as the meeting of other religious ideas. And this attitude continued after the outbreak of the Reformation for a time—the papacy did not bring the Counter-Reformation; the need for a Counter-Reformation produced a change in the papacy. The papacy was not the leader—I mean to some extent they led—but in general they were followers rather than leaders in this. Immediately after the Reformation broke out with Luther's theses and Luther's preaching, immediately after that there was the election of a reforming pope, as we noticed last fall. When Leo X died, the cardinals met and found themselves divided into two factions which could not agree and finally they compromised on the election of a foreigner—the first time in 144 years that a non-Italian had been elected pope—and the last time in all history up to and including the present. Ever since, they have only elected Italians popes. But this man had been the tutor to Charles V when he was a boy; this man had been the head of the Spanish Inquisition; he had been the head of the church in Spain; he was a man who sincerely desired reform in the church. But he was only pope for a year and a half before he died. And he issued statements that the church was filled with corruption from the pope on down. And that it must be reformed and God had sent Luther as a scourge to the church to make the church carry out the reform it needed. But all these statements did was to give the Protestants something to use against him, because he admitted the truth of the need of reform in the church, that is, in life; when it came to doctrine, he held the rigid medieval views of the doctrines of the church against Luther's teaching. But he was so anxious to make real reform that he only succeeded in making the officials of the church disgusted at him. And when he died, exhausted by his fruitless struggle, Preserved Smith said he died a good pope, unwept, and unhonored, as few bad popes had ever been; the cardinals wrote on his tomb, "Here lies Adrian VI, whose supreme misfortune in life was that he was called upon to rule." It was a rather peculiar thing to say about a man who, according to their theory, was the divinely-established head of the church. But the people in general in Rome expressed a similar sentiment in other words, when they erected a monument to his physician and labeled it the liberator of the fatherless. People then, being disgusted with his attempts at reform, decided the medicine was worse than the disease; they lost no time in electing the cousin of Leo X—we noticed last fall—Clement VII. And Clement VII was a man of the same type as Leo X, but with much less ability. And he was pope from 1523 to 1534; his great achievement was to get his cousin married to the second son of the king of France. That was what he longed for, to advance his family; he got the little girl Catherine de Medici married to the second son of the king of France; eventually she became queen, and eventually she ruled, while her 3 sons were nominally kings, and she killed more Protestants than any four popes put together. We discussed that last semester, I'm merely reminding you.
But when Clement VII died in 1534 it now was apparent to everyone that Lutheranism had gone far enough; that something more radical must be done; that another pope of the Medici type, the type they'd been having for the previous 20 years would mean the end of the organization; they had to do something different, and so 1534—17 years after the beginning of the Reformation—marked the time when at last the papacy was changed from electing popes mostly who simply wanted to enjoy their great position, to electing men who they thought would win back the strength of the organization; and so in 1534 Paul III was elected pope, and then we have a series of popes after this who are quite different from the previous popes; they are men who are trying to do the best they can to strengthen the organization, to meet Protestantism, and to drive it back. Most of them are also giving a fair amount of attention to enriching their own families; and getting their relatives into positions of importance; but they were on a different level, a much higher level of sincerity and ability than the preceding popes. Now it would be interesting to take up these men one after the other and go into the details of them, but actually the popes were a comparatively minor factor in the Counter-Reformation. It is the denial in actual practice of the Roman Catholic claim that the pope is the ordained head of the church—that the pope actually has had, most of them, a comparatively slight influence on the progress of events.
One thing in fact that has kept the papacy alive is the type of organization which allows it to swing back and forth; and time after time the man elected pope is the bitter enemy of the man who was his predecessor; that's happened over and over in the history of the church. There's a swinging back and forth—nominally the pope is supreme, but actually his power is extremely limited. It is the organization which controls, and those who do the controlling are not particularly known, they are rather anonymous; but their actual power is really much greater than that of the pope. That is not to say the pope could not assert himself and get rid of any one he chose; but getting rid of one of them wouldn't make a great deal of difference. And the group like that is the real controlling force in the Roman church. I'm not going to take time to go into the details of these various succeeding popes, but I'm going to ask you to do it; and I'm going to ask you to do it from a source which cannot possibly be considered as prejudiced in favor of Protestantism. It is this book which I have mentioned frequently before in this class, The Pageant of the Popes, by John Farrow, a book which is published by Sheed and Ward, the Roman Catholic publishing firm in New York, it has gone through many printings; it has the imprimatur of the Bishop of Los Angeles, and has gone through many printings in this form; and a year ago at Christmas time I stepped into Gimbels down here and found a pile this high of copies of the paperback edition of this Pageant of the Popes by Farrow published by a Roman Catholic publishing house. So that it is a book which has been printed in great numbers by the Roman Catholics for circulation among Roman Catholics, It is not a book written to combat Protestantism directly, or to reach Protestants at all; and if it admits something detrimental to the character of a pope you can be sure it is not Protestant propaganda that is involved; there may be many things that are true that it does not admit or that are known, but it is interesting to see what it does admit and what its statements are. So I'm going to post an assignment today or tomorrow, and part of that assignment will be reading about the popes during this century—the 16th century—and seeing the points that Farrow makes about this claim; see whether there are enough such points to uphold the idea that this is a divinely-established order for the control of the church. See the points that he makes about their spiritual qualities and their sincerity. See if there are enough of those to fit with the claim that he is the divinely-ordained head of the church. And on the other hand, see how much he may admit of spiritual weakness, of corruption of any sort, or of failure to accomplish what they should accomplish.
We will not take more time on the papacy; we will be reporting on popes, and touching on things they did from time to time, but actually they are a minor force in the counter-Reformation.
Paul
III is a very interesting figure, but historically he didn't accomplish one
thousandth as much as Ignatius Loyola, to whom we will come before so very
long. But I'm not going to take the most important events first, I'm going to
look at some of the less important elements first, and so
C. The Inquisition and the Index. Now I mention these first because the Inquisition, at least, was not something new. The Inquisition was an established institution, which was given new life and new energy, and something which occurred to the Roman leaders as the proper way of combating the Reformation.
The Inquisition was something which had been in existence for a long time; it constitutes a great part of the efforts of the Counter-Reformation. The Inquisition, however, was not something that could spread the Counter-Reformation; it is something that can hold; it cannot spread. In other words, if a country is under complete Romanist domination, it is possible by means of the Inquisition to prevent the entry of any Protestant teacher whatever; and that was done for the succeeding 300 years in several countries of Europe, so that when a man in Czechoslovakia in 1919 went up to an educated man there and offered him a copy of the gospel of John, saying, "I would like you to read this book in which God reveals His will," this educated man, I believe he was professor in a university, he said, "Has God revealed His will?" He was quite amazed that there was such a book. That was the result of the Inquisition and the Index, which kept the people believing that what mattered was going to church and going through ceremonies and doing what the priest said.
And in Belgium in 1919, when the Belgian Gospel Mission first was able to enter that country after 300 years in which the Inquisition had held it in tight control and not permitted the least whisper of Protestant teaching, they began after World War I to present Protestant teaching in Belgium and I remember hearing a missionary tell how he gave a highly educated man a copy of the gospel of John, and the man read it and saw him the next weekend said, "I enjoyed what you wrote very much; have you written anything else?" And ignorance was fostered in the countries in which the Reformation had not made an entrance, or had not made a large entrance. By the Inquisition and Index they could hold with force; they could forcibly prevent the coming in of Protestant ideas; but in so doing, they were hampering all liberty of inquiry and progress, and holding back their country. Lord Macaulay, about a hundred years ago, in one of his essays, marveled at the fact that before the Reformation southern Europe was the most advanced and progressive part of Europe; that in Italy and in Spain, in Portugal, in those areas they had ships that were going to various different parts of the world, carrying on extensive commerce; they had great scientists; they were great and wealthy and successful sections of the world; while the northern part of Europe was thought of as a rather backward and ignorant section; but after the Reformation, the northern section went ahead to such an extent that today there is more wealth in almost any one of the northern countries than in all the southern countries put together; and in the last—Macaulay said in the 200 years before his time, the advances in science and in every other way the northern section was way beyond anything to be found in the southern countries—not because the people were in any way superior to them, because there have been some very brilliant people from the southern countries, and before the Reformation there were outstandingly brilliant people from those countries. But it was the Inquisition and the Index with their suppression of freedom of mind and of the individual to ponder things; and putting people into the position where the safest thing is just not to think about these things for fear of punishment by the Inquisition; that hampered the countries and pushed them back and interfered with their progress; and a great part of this was due to the Inquisition and the Index, they were very, very effective in wiping out Protestantism out of Italy.
In Italy by 1535 there were groups of ardent Protestants in seven different sections of the country, including some of the leaders, some of the nobility, some of the wealthiest people, some of the most brilliant people in Italy; and there was one book on the benefits of Christ's death written by an Italian of which there were 40,000 copies circulated in Italy and the Inquisition searched them down and destroyed every single one of them, until it was thought 20 years ago there wasn't even one copy left, to know what had been in the book; and then one was found in the British Museum where it had been brought by a traveler in Italy at that time. But in Italy and in Spain the Inquisition completely wiped out any movement whatever toward Protestantism. In Spain the Inquisition had been in existence a long time before that. When Adrian VI had been head of the church of Spain 1500 people had been killed for heresy, in Spain, the great bulk of them being burned at the stake; and that was before Protestantism was really a factor at all.
It had been very active in Spain; but the Inquisition now was spread into all of southern Europe, and wherever the Romanists had control; and that includes Belgium of course and eventually France; wherever they had control they completely wiped out any tendencies toward Protestantism. This was a holding force, however, not an advancing force. You could never go into a Protestant country with the Inquisition; you would first have to get control, majority control of the country. And they did that in one or two cases; they got control of the country and then proceeded to use the Inquisition; but you have to get control by other means first. So the Inquisition is a movement which was very effective in holding the countries in which they still had the power in their hands, and it was very effective for that purpose, used very extensively, the Inquisition, and the Index.
Now the Index is a term which simply means a list of prohibited books; we use the term Index to cover the whole matter of the censorship by the church of that which is to be written or printed, and to this day the bulk of Roman Catholic books like this Pageant of the Popes here have a statement in the front, here's the statement: In Latin it states the fact that the censor says I see no obstacle to the printing of this book; and then the bishop says let it be printed; and you will find that in the front of most books published by the Roman Catholic publishing houses today, because it is still the rule of the church theoretically; and it was practically so a hundred years ago; the faithful are not supposed to read anything that does not have the imprimatur in it.
I read a very fine set of writings by a Jesuit on the life of Luther; and this was an unusually fair man, six volumes on the life of Luther. He took up all the criticisms of Luther, and wherever there was a little criticism like that Luther lost his temper sometimes or something like that, he would talk as if Luther was a terrible fellow to do such things; but he took up all the big criticisms of Luther and showed they were false; I was amazed how frequently he would take up accusations against Luther which are widely distributed in Roman Catholic circles, like for instance the claim that Luther was a drunkard, and he took that up and says, as a matter of fact, Luther was very abstemious with alcohol; he said he had difficulty sleeping and he said he would take a glass of beer at night, like a man might take Ovaltine today. But that was just about the only thing that Luther drank. And he took up criticism after criticism of Luther in this way and he devotes dozens of pages going into the evidence, and at one place in—I think it's his fifth volume, I forget—in one place he says, in view of the fact that so many of these charges are utterly without foundation, he says, how does it come that these charges have been repeated over and over and over in books about Luther? And he said the reason is that until recently Roman Catholics were forbidden to read Luther's works or anything about him that didn't have the imprimatur, so he said that even the Jesuits, he said, were forbidden to read any books favorable to Luther. And so, he said, the books that were written against him, all they could do was copy the statements previous writers had made, because they were not allowed to read anything he had written himself or any of the things that were written in his favor. That state, he admits, is no longer in force; it would be impossible to enforce it under today's conditions. But it was enforced for some centuries, and so the pope appointed commissions to draw up the Index and to state what books there were that the faithful were not allowed to read; and there was a list drawn up and published in 1546—and then somewhat larger in 1550—which mentions a number of Bibles in Greek, Latin, and the vernacular; the works of Luther, Carlstadt, Osiander, Ochino, Bullinger, Calvin, Melancthon, Zwingli, and so on; names a lot of these special writings; and for Erasmus they had about a hundred pages, simply listing books and sections of books by Erasmus that it was forbidden for the faithful to read. They prohibited great numbers of books; and they were successful in enforcing this until comparatively recently. And so the Inquisition and the Index were great factors in keeping people, holding control of nations where they had absolute control. They do not try to enforce that in the United States; it would be impossible to enforce it.
I have a friend who was in Mexico 40 years ago; he was a young boy there, and he told me how the young boys in Mexico were getting copies of the Bible and were thumbing it through in secrecy because they were forbidden to read it. And it aroused their interest to read it, to see what was in it; and in this country, the general attitude of Roman Catholics is the priest tells us what to believe and there is comparatively small curiosity with the great masses.
A
friend, when we were in Wilmington, went into the Roman Catholic bookstore
there and asked for a copy of the Roman Catholic Bible; the clerk had to hunt
around for quite a while, but he finally found one; he said, "My, it's many months since anybody asked for a copy of
that!" The attitude is: the priest says it, that settles it; and it's
amazing how even highly trained physicians and lawyers have been gotten into
that frame of mind, where they just take the priest's word and say, "I
don't understand it; the priest is the authority on it; what he says, I
take." But of course the Inquisition and the Index, they are quite
effective that way, among the faithful, to keep them faithful, but they're not
effective in reaching others.
D. The Council of Trent. And the Council of Trent was something which is of tremendous importance, not so much as a part of the Counter-Reformation—though it is of very great importance there—but its great importance actually is that it established the basis of the Roman Catholic Church. I personally consider that the Roman Catholic Church begins with the Council of Trent; that is to say, the Council of Trent took views which had been held by a minority of authoritative dogmas, and established them as that which all faithful members of the church must hold.
During the Middle Ages—in fact at the time of the Reformation—there were many earnest true Christians, truly saved through the gospel of Christ, who were members of the great church which covered most of Europe. There were people in authority in that church, perhaps not many in the higher positions, but in the lower positions, there were earnest Christians and monks who were very true Christians. And there was true Christianity being taught in many areas, in every country of Europe; but alongside of it, there was the mass of superstitions that had grown up in the Middle Ages, which were being taught by others, and which were coming to be accepted; and the two views were found side by side, one here and one there, just like in the Church of England today; you go into one church in England and you'll find the most extreme radical views of the Bible; and you go into another church and you will find a thoroughly gospel church; and the two are members of the same organization, and they co-exist—I sometimes wonder how they can—but they do in an organization which doesn't interfere much with the views, whatever they are, at least it hasn't in the past, very much; I mean in the recent past, the last century.
But the Council of Trent took the superstitions of Rome, took the denial of justification by faith alone; took the various doctrines, the un-Biblical doctrines, which had developed in the course of the centuries; and made these official dogma and declared that in order to have standing in the church it was necessary to accept and teach these dogmas. And so it seems to me that an organization consists—it's not a matter of who the people are, but what the view is, what it stands for—and the Roman Catholic organization, as an organization, has stood for those views since the time of the Council of Trent; it is the law of the church.
So
the Council of Trait is a matter of tremendous importance in the history and in
the present outlook of the Roman Catholic church; and it is a matter of
importance as part of the Counter-Reformation in that it was a part of the
consolidation process; it gave a standard by which they would judge people—who
was one of them, and who wasn't one. It gave a standard, it consolidated, and
so from that viewpoint, it was a definite part of the Counter-Reformation,
1. The Calling of the Council. I wanted to say a little bit about how the Council came into existence. Actually the Council extends over quite a long period because there were three different sessions, each of them lasting a couple of years. But first as to how they came to have a Council of Trent.
You remember that when the Council of Constance adjourned in 1419, the Council gave orders that every ten years a new council was to be held to which the pope would report; the pope was the executive officer of the church, but the Council was the supreme authority; this council had put down the three popes, made a new one; the pope was the executive officer, the council determined matters and the pope was to carry out what they determined. And so another council was to be held in ten years; but when the next council was held, the pope proceeded to sabotage it very cleverly, very skillfully. He worked things around so that it didn't last long, didn't do anything much; and they did the same with the one after—20 years—and then they got out of the habit of having one. But theoretically at the time of the Council of Constance, most of the leaders of the church believed that a council is the supreme authority. And so when Luther was attacked he appealed—you remember—from the pope ill-informed to the pope better-informed; and then when he found that the pope better-informed still was against him, then he appealed from the pope to a general council to be held; and then the pope issued a bull declaring that anybody who should appeal against a pope to a future general council should be automatically anathema. And the popes began attacking the whole idea of a general council having authority over the popes. They had been quietly trying to get rid of the council; now they began to attack it strongly; but the emperor Charles V, who thought the papal dogmas were correct, and felt that the pope should be executive head of the church, nevertheless felt that the differences between the two were such as would be possible to work out amicably; his great desire was to have one church, with the pope as head of it and he, as emperor, head of the state.
And so Charles immediately—at the beginning of his reign, in 1520—set to work to try to get a general council; and for a period of 15 years Charles was trying to persuade the pope to call a general council; and the popes were always making excuses, because the last thing they wanted was a general council. The last general council before that had been the Council of Constance which had deposed 3 popes—they didn't want to risk anything like that again—and so they made excuse after excuse against having a general council, and the emperor was constantly pushing toward one.
And of course the attitude of the Protestant leaders was, "Yes, the pope and his officials are corrupt, but the mass of the church is sound. Let's have a general council, and at a general council the facts will be laid down as to what the truth is; and the church will be shifted to the right direction." But then, as the time went on, the lines began to be drawn; and they began to see how many of the leading officials in the church were opposing justification by faith; and were opposing the idea of taking the Scripture as the basic foundation of truth; and before the popes reached the point where they were ready to call a general council, the Protestants had reached the point where they were against it. At first they were strong for it, but in the course of the arguments the Romanists would quote from past general councils in favor of superstitious dogma; and then that forced Luther and others into studying the acts of past general councils and declaring that not only can a pope make mistakes, but a general council can err; the authority is not in a general council, the authority is in the Bible; and that is the struggle that we are having today, to this day. The leaders of the ecumenical movement today say the church made the Bible, the church can change the Bible; the church is the authority; but the Protestant view is the Bible is the authority; and the church may err, the church may make mistakes; a general council may make mistakes; any leader may make mistakes; what matters is not what a church body says, but what the Bible says.
And so people's minds had become clarified on that to the point where, when Paul III became pope he was ready to agree to Charles V's idea to have a general council; but he wanted to do his best to control it, but he was working in the direction of getting one; and by this time the Protestants had a clear idea that there'd be nothing gained by a general council; and that they would be very foolish to submit in advance to the decisions of a council, because they understood that authority does not reside in a council of any church; but resides in the Word of God and that alone.
So that the result of all this was, that when finally Paul III did call a council, the Protestants would not go to the council; and in fact, Charles V himself didn't like the way it was called, and opposed it altogether at first. Charles V had said, when he established the Interim, you remember, he said, "This is the Interim; this is the way the church ought to be conducted in Germany until a free general council shall meet in Germany, and decide what the religious establishment shall be."
Well, Charles V wanted the council to meet where a pope would not have any undue control over it; he thought the pope might be just the moderator, just the presiding officer; but the pope wanted to have the council in Italy where he felt he could control it; and in the end, he called the council in Germany, but in a town in Germany which was 3 miles from Italy; so it was just across the border from Italy; in fact, it today is a part of Italy, because the southern half of the German Tyrol was seized by the Italians after World War I and has been a part of Italy ever since; so Trent is now right inside of Italy; and even then, though it was in Germany territory, it was south of the Alps, and most of German territory—98% of the German territory—was north of the Alps. You had this big jaunt over the Alps, down into this southern section, where there were a few German people on the edge of the mountains, just on the edge of Italy, so the pope insisted on calling it in Trent, which, though a German city, was right on the very edge of Italy.
And the pope never went to the council; but he kept in such close touch with it that the representatives there didn't know what to do till they got the mail from Rome; and so people began to say, "Well the Holy Spirit comes from Rome in the mail bag, every morning, and we have to wait till the mail bags come, to know what the Holy Spirit wants the council to do." Well, we look further at the Council of Trent Thursday.
Now we were speaking yesterday about the Council of Trent, and we began to look at 1, The Calling of the Council. And we noticed something of the background of the Council; something of the forces which led to its calling; of the pope's opposing it, while the emperor was anxious for it; and how the Protestants in the beginning had been anxious for a Council, but that by the time the pope finally got around to calling the Council; the Protestants had realized that the differences were too great to be resolved by a council; and furthermore had come to an understanding of the fact that authority in Christianity does not come from a majority vote; that no council can determine what truth is. All the world may be wrong; it is God alone who is right, and what God's Word says is the truth even if people completely misunderstand; and so by the time the Council started there was no longer any chance of bringing together the different factions and continuing one church.
But
the emperor was very anxious they have a council, though very disgusted at the
place the council was called. The pope—as you know—called it at Trent, a German
city; they wanted it in a German city, but it was a German city just about 3
miles from Italy; and with the big towering Alps between that and all the rest
of Europe. The result was that when the pope succeeded in getting his desire of
having the vote not by nations—as it had been in Constance—but by individuals
with the right to vote, bishops and heads of orders, and people like that. The
pope could always send up from Italy 15 or 20 bishops, and keep them there, and
then replace them with another 15 or 20, but you couldn't do that from Germany
or France or from distant countries, and the result was the pope was able, as a
rule, to have a majority at the sessions.
2. The First Period. The sessions were numbered consecutively all through the 3 periods of the council. The first period of the Council was 1545 to 47; the pope's representatives, the pope's legates, reached Trent in March of 1545, and then people from other nations began straggling in, one by one, gradually, they got there; but it was not till the 11th of December that the official order came from the pope that the council might be opened; so actually after all these months of people waiting around, finally it was started in December of 1545, and it continued for a period of about 18 months. This Council included representatives—men who were in good standing in the church—who had the right to vote. At first there were only 34 members entitled to vote—4 cardinals, 4 archbishops, 21 bishops and 5 generals of orders. There were other people present who were much interested in what was happening, but the number varied, and there might be many more, around 100 sometimes; it varies over a period of many years, for the sessions were held over a period of 18 years.
There were 3 main periods and this first period was 1545-1547. The people who were gathered there had many different ideas; the pope had not wanted a council, but if you had a council the main thing he wanted was to have the council support his authority. The members of the Council—most of them—were agreed that the very lax morality in the church—the great amount of vice and crime, and especially the tremendous ignorance throughout the leadership of the church, throughout the parish priests, most of them being utterly ignorant—that something must be done to remedy this.
And
there were many there who thought the first thing we should do is immediately
start in to reform these abuses; but the pope's representatives realized that
any attempts to reform abuses by the Council would soon lead to attempts to
reform abuses in the papacy and the men around the pope; and this would lead to
conflict between the pope and the council and they wanted the pope's authority
strengthened rather than weakened; so they argued we should deal with doctrine first:
we are facing a great doctrinal schism and we must deal with it; make clear
what the truth is about these matters; we must deal with doctrine.
But there were enough there who felt that they should deal with reforms, that
they were unable to persuade them to take up doctrine first. In fact, the
bishop of Trent made a stirring speech in which he said that it was very
unfortunate that the Protestants had fallen into serious errors of doctrine;
but he said we must understand that one of the basic reasons why they fall into
these errors of doctrine is the widespread corruption in the church; the low
ebb of education; the great amount of vice and crime that has found its way
into even the leadership of the church in many places. Now, he said, if we
reform the church and cleanse all of this, we will find that it will make an
impression on the people: they will see our sincerity, our desire to have the
church really do what is right; and then they'll be ready to listen to reason
on doctrine; and we'll be able to show them their errors.
And when he finished his speech—a very moving speech—it looked as if a majority of the people there might vote with him to push ahead on it, but the papal representatives then made a compromise; they said we will deal with both at once, so we will have two commissions, one to deal with doctrine, and one to deal with reform and each of them will meet and suggest things to consider and then they'll bring their suggestions into the main meeting. That way, not being able to get the council to agree to leave reforms till after doctrine, they got them to take it up piecemeal, little by little; and on each point they were able to postpone to such an extent that what it amounted to was that, although there were reforms made, the doctrine was the first consideration.
Now when it came to doctrine there were various attitudes; the first point under consideration of course was a matter of procedural form. But the level of education among church leaders had degenerated greatly in the previous century; and there were many whose idea was simply a practical idea of what they were going to do; but there were individuals highly trained and quite interested, some of whom were strongly convinced the Bible is the source of authority. And there were many there who were convinced that the so-called Apocryphal books are not authoritative at all, because as recently as 1517 the head of the church of Spain had published a copy of the N.T. in many different languages in parallel, and he had dedicated it to Pope Leo X; and in the Introduction to it, he had said how the whole church was indebted to St. Jerome, translator of the Vulgate, for having made clear the distinction between the authoritative books of Scripture, books which belonged to the Hebrew canon, and those other books which were in the Septuagint which were not a part of the inspired Word of God. That had been dedicated to the pope and the pope had accepted it; and that does not mean the official teaching of the church before this time was that only the books that they accept as inspired are part of the O.T. But it does mean that the greater number of the intelligent leaders of the church—scholars—held this view, The rank and file of course had never thought the thing through; they knew about as little about it as the rank and file of Protestant ministers today would know as to why they don't accept the Apocrypha.
The rank and file didn't know much about it, but among the people at Trent, there were those who felt that Apocrypha should be clearly stated to be books useful for reading but not inspired books. However, there were others there who were determined that everything must be done to defeat Protestantism; they realized that in their arguments with Protestantism, when the Protestants said there is no evidence for such a thing as purgatory, and they were put to it to give a Scriptural evidence for purgatory, that the only evidence they had been able to adduce from the O.T. was from the first book of Maccabees; and so from the book of Maccabees they advanced an argument for purgatory. Actually there is no mention of purgatory in Maccabees; the only thing anywhere close is this: that there were certain of the Jews in their strife with the Syrians who were killed in the battle; and they found on their bodies heathen emblems which the heathen wore to protect themselves in battle, and some of these Jewish soldiers had these on their bodies. And the Maccabean leaders didn't know what to do about this, because that would look as if these were heathen rather than Jews in their hearts. And so they said, "Let us pray God's mercy upon these departed men," so there was prayer for the dead.
Now that's the only evidence in the Scripture of prayer for the dead. Now of course, no educated Roman Catholic today would say that what the Maccabean leaders did was right; because if a person was really a pagan; if he was using heathen emblems to protect himself, they would not expect that any amount of prayer after his death could get such a person out of purgatory. That would be contrary to Romanist theology; so this is not an evidence for purgatory at all, but it was the nearest they could find. And it can be argued that if this is an argument for prayer for departed ones, there must be possibility for salvation after death. But Romanists today don't say there is a possibility of salvation after death; they say those who have been baptized, who are members of the church, have to suffer in purgatory to cleanse themselves of sin; and that prayer can shorten that period and might even get them out of purgatory immediately, though I doubt if anyone would dare to say they could actually do this.
But this was the only evidence they had, and so it ranked important in argument. There were enough of them who were anxious to get these books adopted, that in the end a statement was adopted which has been Roman Catholic doctrine ever since, that if anyone does not receive all of the books of the O.T., namely, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, etc., and including what we call the Apocryphal books scattered through—not as a group by themselves, but scattered these through among the others—and receive these books in all their parts—that includes the additions to Esther and Daniel which are in the Greek translation, not in the Hebrew, and which we do not consider as the Bible, but which are in the Roman Catholic Bible—If anyone does not accept the 46 books, with all these additions complete, let him be anathema.
That is the statement which was adopted in 1546 by the Council of Trent, and so it is Roman Catholic doctrine ever since; that these apocryphal books, which the church had never before that officially accepted, they are, according to the Roman Catholic church a part of the O.T. According to the Roman Catholic view these books—two books of Maccabees, the book of Judith, the book of Tobit, there are seven of these books in addition to other books—they claim they are part of the O .T. [student question] They are in the Vulgate. Jerome, the translator of the Vulgate, did not consider them inspired; many great leaders of the church in every century have considered not to be inspired--they include these 7 among the 46, and then they say if anyone does not accept all of these books, together with all their parts, let him be anathema. Now that does not mean that a man would automatically be lost if he did not accept one of these books; it does not mean that at all. But it does that a person could not claim to be an orthodox leader of the Romanist church and deny any one of these books.
Now in our English, when you have an English Bible that includes the Apocrypha, it is as a section which is headed "books not inspired and not authoritative for establishing any doctrine." But these useful for reading because these are not bad books; these are good books, books like Pilgrim's Progress; helpful, devotional Jewish books, but they become bad if you consider them as an authority to establish a doctrine, because they are fallible human books with human mistakes, just like anything you or I would write. And when we have the Apocrypha included in an English or German Bible, there are nine books in it. But of these 9 books, 7 are in the Roman Catholic Bible, the other two are included in the Roman Catholic Bible as portions of the books of Daniel and of Esther. So they say, with all their parts, to be included. Mr. Myers? [student] No, during the council there were bitter arguments and all kinds of terrible names were called to each other in the council—even fighting in the street between some of the participants; there was very, very bitter feeling—but particularly in the second and third periods—although to some extent in this one also; the papal representatives were maneuvering behind the scenes, and they were struggling to get a majority on the things they wanted passed.
Well, the attitude of the members of the council was: they knew what they wanted and they were very anxious to get it; but they were all committed to the viewpoint that a general council cannot err; that a general council represents the whole church and when it speaks it speaks authoritatively. Some of them would say that the pope is the great authority and the council assists the pope; many of them would say the council is the authority, the pope is merely an executive officer; but all of them agree the council cannot err. Therefore, when the council voted by majority vote, they would say that the council had spoken, and unless there's something extremely strong about it, they would be quiet.
Then in addition to that, there was this about it: that they all had good positions in the church—all of those who had any right to vote—and they all were in serious danger of losing those positions if they made difficulty after a thing had been definitely determined. Before it was passed, they might express their views; but once it was passed, that was the law of the church; and consequently they would be in serious danger of losing their position; so it took an awful lot of maneuvering and careful handling. But the Vatican Council in l870, which decided the pope was infallible, that council resulted in quite a number of bishops leaving the church because they would not accept what they considered an untrue position. But at this council at Trent I know of no individual who felt it serious enough to continue the fight after the council had decided. Of course, the Protestants outside, they were against the whole business.
The council didn't authoritatively take any action in regard to Jerome; but if individuals had been questioned about Jerome, they would do one of two things: either try to say you misunderstand the Latin in what Jerome wrote; it can be interpreted in different ways; or they would say, well, now, before, the council, representing the church authoritatively, acted, it's understandable that anyone might have made a mistake; but now that the action is taken there is no excuse for it. Mr. Wales? [student] The question is whom you mean by "they"? Now if you mean the men who did the pushing and pulling, we can't look into their hearts; but the teaching was this, that God speaks through this church; that the council represents the church; what the church decides is true; and consequently there would be those who would say, "All this talk about pushing and pulling, that was a Protestant scrap; there were some evil individuals there, but as a whole it was a godly group." And then there might be others, who would say, "Well, God makes even the wrath of wicked men to praise Him, and He could even use these evil forces to bring this group to that." They could make arguments but there was no official decision. Yes? [student] Well, now you're asking for a clear definite statement on a matter; and in all history, in political things, in religious things, everywhere, clear sharp statements are forced by circumstance. They don't necessarily come. Different individuals have different answers that they would give. For instance, if you take the Catholic Encyclopedia today, it takes a thorough-going Romanist view that the pope is the authority; he is absolute; what he says is true; and a council derives its authority from the pope who calls it, and who sanctions it himself—backs its position; that is the view of the Catholic Encyclopedia. And yet the Catholic Encyclopedia which holds that the church is infallible has to recognize the fact that, historically, the church has held that a general council cannot err; and therefore in the same article in the Catholic Encyclopedia you'll find both statements made: that the general council cannot err, and what it decides is the infallible will of God; and the statement that the council derives its authority from the decision of the infallible pope. And you'll find them both in the same article, because they are part of the church's position—both of them.
And at that time, there were those who held the pope was the supreme authority; but probably the majority of them felt he was the executive officer and that the council was the supreme authority in matters of doctrine. But this decision on the matter of authority was of course a very basic thing; the view of Luther and the view of many in the church all through the ages, certainly of most of the intelligent leaders, in the church, all through the ages, has been: God has spoken in His Word and that is our authority in matters of faith and practice, our authority is in the Word; but now, when it was necessary to justify practice that had developed through the ages, through the centuries, and thousands were questioning these practices, saying the Bible says nothing about them, there's no authority in the Bible, in the argument with the Protestants, it was necessary to try to find some authority.
Therefore, the council took a definite stand eventually, which could give a basis for such a position, and the basis was: in the first place, the Bible is true, the Bible is the authority; but that the Bible includes the Apocrypha, they don't give that as a separate thing, they include it in the list, the Bible includes the Apocrypha. That's the O.T. The N.T. is exactly like ours, but in the O.T. it includes these additional books. That is their first extension of the authority—the inclusion of the Apocrypha.
Now the second extension of the authority is also to make a declaration: that tradition, which had been passed on by those who knew Christ, by the apostles; the tradition of what Christ said when he was on earth to the apostles, which has been passed on through the ages; has an authority equal to that of the written word. They said that the council, the church receive with an equal feeling of piety and reverence, the tradition, whether relating to faith or to morals, dictated either orally by Christ, or by the Holy Spirit, and preserved in continuous succession within the Catholic church; so that the council decided that tradition, dictated orally by Christ, or by the Holy Spirit and passed on continually within the church, is just as authoritative as Holy Scripture.
Well, now there are some Protestants who would hold that position too; some Protestants who would say that if we would find a book which we knew was genuine in which St. Thomas or somebody else said that he heard Christ say so-and-so; that would be part of God's word, and dependable, because it was something he said. That is not my view—my view is that anything that Christ said was of course true; but that anything that God desires to be kept as an authority in church for future ages, he caused to be included within the limits of the written Word; and therefore if we were to find another epistle of Paul today, I would consider it extremely interesting to know what Paul had to say about the matter, but I would not consider it as part of God's Word. I would consider that if God desired it in His Word, He would have caused it to have been included before the work was finished. But this view which the Roman church had is that there is tradition which is equally important with the Scripture.
Now the difficulty in it is that there is no Scripture anywhere as to what the tradition is. There is no body of it; there is no evidence for it; no statement by anybody writing in the 3rd century A.D.: here is the tradition which has been received orally from Christ, to the apostles, which we hold; there is no such thing; it is theoretically something which has been orally passed down in the church; and that when the pope makes an infallible statement, as he did, about 10 years ago, that Mary had been taken bodily to heaven; when the pope has an infallible statement, he makes no claims that God has revealed new truth to him; the pope does not claim to be able to reveal any new truth, he makes no claims that he now is giving us truth that was previously unknown. His claim is that he is officially in custody and clarifying a portion of the tradition, which has been passed down continuously in the Catholic Church through nearly two thousand years.
But if you would ask him whether there is any more of this tradition that hasn't yet been explained by the pope, he would probably say yes; but he couldn't tell you what it is, because there is absolutely no evidence of any such thing; it's a very vague and tenuous sort of thing. But it established within the church something they could stand on. If you say, "Well now, what proof is there for purgatory? What reason do you have to believe that the body of Christ is actually there when you have the communion in the mass, that the priest can actually change the emblems into the body of Christ?" Well, they will try to bring you proof from the Scripture, like they'll say, "After all, Melchizedek brought bread and wine to Abraham; isn't that proof of the communion?" That's one of their big arguments, from the Scripture. "Doesn't that prove that the body of Christ is actually there? Why look what Melchizedek did, way back there you have a man." Well, you say, "I don't believe it, I think you are misinterpreting." And if you get to the point where you show that there is no Scriptural evidence for it and that this is based upon reading things into the text, then the answer is, "Oh, well, but we have the tradition for it, and the tradition clearly proves it," but there is no evidence that there is any such thing as a tradition; so it gives a means of having the church continue to maintain anything which it can claim they had been maintaining right along.
If the pope were all of a sudden now to say, "Now there is a fourth person in the trinity," and so-and-so—something like that—why it's just unthinkable, because he claims no authority to add to doctrine; but if you would find some Romanist churches somewhere which have a special kind of ceremony, and which remembered that the virgin Mary had the power of raising the dead even when she was a little girl, or something like that, the pope couldn't say a thing like that today if he knew revelation; but if you would find some church somewhere in which that idea had sprung up in the course of the ages, and they had a little shrine dedicated to the memory of how the virgin Mary raised the dead when she was a little girl, if you had something like that, the pope could give credence to it, he could say, "Here is this apostolic tradition which has been preserved through the ages; and I as the infallible teacher explain the tradition and point this out that all the faithful everywhere may know this part of the tradition which a few people held and most never heard of, and some would categorically deny it, was made part of the established doctrine of the church." Mr. McKean? [student] There were—at this first meeting—there were no individual Protestant representatives; the Protestants did not send representatives to this first meeting at all. They were invited. But if they came to participate, they would have to declare in advance that whatever the council decided, they would accept as the voice of God; and they would not do that. And they knew the way the council was made up, that they would be a very small minority and they would not admit these things.
Well now the council took this definite stand; it didn't do something new, they adopted superstitious ideas that had gradually developed the Middle Ages; but they had never before been made authoritative documents; now they were accepted as authoritative documents, so that the authority is not just the O.T. and N.T. we have, but it adds the Apocrypha, which many of the men in highest standing in the church would have denied before that time. Second, it adds tradition; but in addition to that, it ways that the authoritative Word of God is to be found in the Vulgate, the Latin translation that St. Jerome made. That is the authority—the Vulgate. Now that had never been the view of the church through the ages.
When individuals thought about it—most of them didn't think about it, they didn't go into it, but if they did go into it—what they said was, "Of course, it's the Bible as it was originally written, the O.T. in the Hebrew, the N.T. in the Greek, that's the authority, and our translations are good insofar as they represent the original," but when the Protestants were arguing about what the Greek means and what the Hebrew means, and so on; and many of the people arguing with them didn't know Greek or Hebrew, but they studied the Latin a great deal; they said, "But look, here's what the Latin says."
Now at the Council the position was taken, which is held by the Roman Church to this day, that the Latin Bible is the Authoritative Bible, the Latin Vulgate. Now the Latin Vulgate, as you know, was not even translated until 400 A.D., and was translated by Jerome who denied that the Apocrypha were part of the Scripture; and he refused to translate the Apocrypha—they were translated by others and added to it—but they are included in the Vulgate as it was distributed through most of the centuries, but not translated by Jerome; and in fact the Vulgate included two additional books that they don't accept as part of the Bible. So that you can't say it is whatever is in the Vulgate, because there are two additional books in the Vulgate they don't accept. But the Vulgate, according to this action, is the authoritative Bible. Well now we don't have time here in this class to think about textual criticism; so I don't want to go into details on this, but just to mention the fact that after this action was taken, the question was, What is the text of the Vulgate? And if you find variant readings in the Greek, you find three times as many in the Vulgate; and what is the correct text? Well, one of the popes said, "We've got to be studying what is the correct text." I don't have the exact facts on this case right here, because I've dealt with this in my course Introduction to the O.T. rather than here. I just want to mention at this point, this particular pope had a commission determine the correct text of the Vulgate, and this commission spent several years studying; and they compared manuscripts; they made a text, they said, it's the correct text of the Vulgate. And this correct text of the Vulgate, which they prepared, they printed up with a statement in the front by this pope that this is the correct authoritative text of the Vulgate; but before it was issued he died. And the pope who was elected to succeed him didn't like the work that this commission had done at all, and recalled the whole set-up; he didn't allow this to be distributed because he said it was a false text of the Vulgate; and so I'm not sure there is even an official correct text of the Vulgate now. But it is easier to establish a correct text of the Greek than of the Vulgate, because there are more variant readings in the Vulgate.
Well, now, just one instance that shows you the great importance, the difference between the Vulgate, whether it's the Vulgate or the Greek. We read in the N.T. that we should "repent" for salvation. Now the word "repent" in Greek is very different from what you would say for "do penance." They are two distinct words in Greek just like they are in English. One word means "repent," one word means "do penance." But in Latin the same expression means both; it means "repent," a heart attitude, and it means "do penance," perform external acts to show your attitude of the heart—the same word exactly.
So in the Vulgate, it can be translated either way; and so in the Douay Version [Roman Catholic English translation] instead of saying "repent and you will be forgiven your sins," it says "do penance and you will be forgiven." But it is the translation of the Vulgate, where the Vulgate could be translated either way; but the Greek would be different, because in any language the one expression has two meanings; it's different in different languages, and that's just one illustration of the importance of the Vulgate—whether it is the Latin or the original Greek that is the authority. And today the Roman Catholic Church has very excellent scholars who have published some excellent translations of the Bible, taken from the Greek, some very excellent translations on the whole, have come out in recent years. But they always say in the front that they are translations from the Vulgate; then they'll say, with observations of the reading of the Greek; and then they—good scholars—they realize the Greek is the authority and they try to follow the Greek, but where the Greek differs from the Vulgate, they may put a little footnote and say that it might be better to translate it so-and-so, following the Vulgate. Because they are supposed to recognize the Vulgate is the authority. But if they're good scholars they know the Vulgate is simply a translation and the Greek is the original, of course. So this matter of determination of authority was a very important matter, and in taking this action or in persuading the Council as a whole to adopt it, the papal representative succeeded in making sharper and clearer the line between those who held their view and those who held the Protestant view. That's why I say the Roman Catholic Church begins with the Council of Trent. Before that time you had a Christian church in which you had people holding thoroughly Biblical views all through the ages, and you had superstitions growing up, all through the ages; but now you have a portion of the church which adopts definite views which never were the official views of the Christian church before; and consequently I would say that was the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church as a denomination, the Council of Trent.
Well now they took this action; this is perhaps the most important action which the Council took in these first sessions; but then there was a discussion of the matter of justification; and here's where they got into real difficulty, because the Protestant teaching—the Biblical teaching—had infiltrated the church more than people had any idea of; and there were bishops among these people who held to justification by faith alone; they had been tremendously affected, whether they knew it or not, by the teachings of Luther and of Calvin and of the Protestant leaders; there were people who had been greatly affected, and on this vital point there was a portion of the Council which wanted to take the position that salvation is by faith alone. On the other hand, there were those in the Council who took the thoroughly medievalist position that gradually developed—which you will find to some extent in all Protestant churches today—among the ignorant in all—some in all—in every church everywhere there is somebody who holds that it's what he does that determines whether he will get to heaven rather than the righteousness of Christ.
There probably isn't a church that has as many as a hundred people anywhere but what you would find some people who, if you questioned them closely, that's what they really believe. It's such a natural view to slip into. And in any denomination that lasts very long, gradually there comes this position into some parts of it; and of course when the denomination gets corrupt, it becomes the basic view of it: that salvation is by what we believe, not simply by what Christ has done. But the Biblical teaching that it is Christ alone who saves us; that it is Christ alone that is the means through which he is saved. This Protestant teaching had interpenetrated all portions of Europe to such an extent, that there were those there at the Council who strongly believed that salvation was by the merits of Christ plus nothing. There were others who thought: yes, but there must be a cooperation between us and the Holy Spirit; and then there were those who came pretty close to a Pelagianist position, that it is what we believe. And the result was that after much argument in which, as Preserved Smith says,
[Preserved Smith, Age of Reformation, p. 392: "The passions of the right reverend fathers were so excited by the consideration of a fundamental article of their faith that in the course of disputation they accused one another of conduct unbecoming to Christians, taunted one another with plebeian origin and tore hair from one another's beards."]
But the decree, as it finally passed, started in with statements that would sound just as fine as anything you could want about Christ's death having been the basis on which anybody is saved, and nobody is saved apart from faith in Christ, and so on; and then after these first statements, it goes on to explain and clarify; and as they explain and clarify they gradually—more and more—make it clear that what they really mean is that there is a righteousness which is put into us; and then we are saved, not because of our beliefs or what Christ had done, but because of what we do through this righteousness which has been put into us. And so you can interpret that in a way to make it pretty much what we do determines whether we are saved. Or you can interpret that Christ by His goodness and His death has won for us a righteousness which is put into us and then we are saved because of the outworking of this righteousness in us. Whereas the Biblical view, as Paul presents it, is that nothing you do has anything to do with our salvation; we do good works to show our gratitude to God who has saved us, but our salvation is entirely and only the result of the righteousness of Christ and what He has done for us.
So the statement on justification definitely excludes salvation by faith, but it's so worded that you don't realize that until you get quite a little ways down. And they were shrewd and careful in the way they got the thing through in the Council. But it was so effective that when—I think I mentioned to you in connection with the reign of Queen Mary in England, Bloody Mary as they called her, daughter of Henry VIII, Mary Tudor, I mentioned to you how her husband Philip II brought over with him several Spanish leaders; one of them was Bartolomeo Carranza, who had been head of the church in Spain, Chief Inquisitor in Spain. Carranza wanted to introduce the Inquisition into England, but was unable to persuade England to get it. Mary burned 300 Protestant leaders at the stake, and many others; though that was only a drop in the bucket—300—compared to the thousands that they were burning in Spain, and in all the different countries of Europe; but the Inquisition was not introduced into England. When Carranza got back to Spain he wrote a book against Luther in which he tried to show what the real truth was; but in showing what he thought the real truth was, he went an awful lot further in the direction of salvation by faith than most of the Romanist leaders would go. And then when the emperor Charles V came to die, as Charles V lay on his death bed, Carranza stepped up to him and held before him the crucifix, and he said, "Sire, are you putting your faith in this one shown on the crucifix here who died for your sins, is your faith entirely in Him?" And as he said that, another of the leaders of the church, pushed him out of the way, and said to the emperor, "You trust in the church and what the church believes and all will be settled." So you had the two positions held by men in good standing in the Roman church, as represented physically at the deathbed of the emperor Charles V.
But immediately after Charles was buried, Carranza was seized and brought before the Inquisition, and accused of Lutheran heresy for what he said; and they brought up the fact that he said, "Do you put your trust entirely in this one here on the crucifix?" and said nothing about your faith in the church as a part of your salvation; and the fact that this book which he had written specifically to combat Lutheranism did contain many statements which sounded very much like Lutheran salvation by faith. And after 15 years of suffering in the dungeon—because he as head of the church, no local would have the right to deal with him—in final judgment, he was sent to Rome; and there in Rome he appeared before the pope; and the pope made the decision that—after thorough examination—that he found that Carranza had made some very indiscreet statements, but he thought the statements could be interpreted orthodoxly. And therefore, he decided that Carranza was innocent and should be freed; but that on account of his indiscreet statements, he should perform a penance before being entirely freed, that during the next year he should perform ceremonies at each of the three or four churches every day for the next year—different churches in Rome. But before the year was over, he died. This shows how the view was widespread among the church, when even Carranza was affected to this extent by it; but it also shows the new attitudes. The Council decided salvation by faith was a Protestant heresy—that which formerly had been held by great numbers of the leaders of the church in every age.
And thus it established a new line of view—a view which is widespread before—but now it becomes authoritative. You might say—like—take the Episcopal Church today; the Episcopal Church and the Church of England officially hold to the finest of orthodox positions. They officially hold to the 39 articles which are not just strongly held, but rather definitely held, very definitely held. It officially holds this, but its seminaries are mostly liberal; its younger ministers particularly are mostly trained in liberal views; and whenever I have gone to an Episcopal church, I've usually heard a service that brings out these beautiful teachings in Cranmer's beautiful words [in the Prayer Book] and then followed usually by a modernist sermon that hasn't got a bit of gospel in it at all; but you have the two together, you have the church officially holding the doctrine. Bishop Pike in his article in Christian Century recently told how his mind had changed in the last ten years; that he found out in the last ten years that the virgin birth doesn't matter. Most things doctrinal don't matter for him now, but it sounds like ten years ago he thought they did matter. And thus you have denominational organizations changing. Well, the church had changed a lot, but the church may change its doctrinal statement and bring it in line with its present views. That was what was done at Trent.
Luther died while the Council was having its first session. Well, in March, 1547 there was an outbreak of spotted fever in the area; the war was now on in 1547, and the emperor was crossing Germany at this time; but there was a good deal of turmoil and people said things were getting pretty dangerous; and so the council broke up. It broke up in March, but theoretically it was still in session until September, when in September they formally dissolved this session of the Council, leaving it possible to reopen the council.
So
this was the first period of the council, and then the second period of the
council, we'll call
3. The Second Period 1551-52. And the emperor still felt in 1551 that it should be possible to get the council together—to get them—Protestants to come and give their views, and to convince one way or the other, and to continue to have one church. So under pressure from the emperor in 1551, the new pope called the council again—a continuation of the council. He didn't want it particularly, but the Emperor you remember had introduced the Interim—the Augsburg Interim and the Leipzig Interim—and these Interims in Germany were called Interims because they were the emperor's arrangement of the religious life to last until a free German Council should decide what the churches ought to do and believe; and so now he said to the pope we've got to have a meeting to decide it, and so the pope called the new meeting.
But
at this time Henry II of France—the husband of Catherine de Medici, who was the
most bitter persecutor of Protestants in French history up to this time—for
some reason he was hostile to this council; and he wouldn't allow any of the
French clergy to come to it at all; so in the 2nd part the French had no
participation in this Council of Trent. Well, in these years the emperor
required the Protestants to send a delegation; the Protestants were at this
time, you remember, completely in the emperor's hands. And so they were
required to send a delegation, which they sent; and they presented a confession,
but they declined to recognize the authority of the body. And so the council
simply rejected their confession, and proceeded to reassert
trans-substantiation; to reassert certain of the doctrines in usage in the
church. At this session there were two Jesuit leaders who were present, working
in the interest of the papacy; The Jesuits, you see, were really just getting
underway; and through their leaders they were active in the Council, to help
get through what the pope wanted. But in 1552, in April, revolt had broken out
in Germany; this, you remember, did away with the emperor's complete power over
Germany; and it made it necessary to give the Protestants the right to carry on
their religion in Germany. This revolt was begun in one of the Saxonies, and Charles V fled over the Alps down toward
Italy; and under the circumstances they just dismissed the Council, so that
ended the second session of the Council. Then the council was broken up, and it
was ten years before it assembled again.
4. The Third Period 1562-3. It was ten years later that the council was again called; by this time, the emperor Charles V was no longer on the scene; but his brother, Ferdinand II, was the emperor, the Ferdinand who had in his early days represented his brother in the councils. From the very beginning of the Reformation he had originally been a very ardent Roman supporter; but over the years he had come to have quite a different attitude in many ways; while he still was definitely loyal to the Roman church, Ferdinand felt there was no reason why these people can't get together and reach an agreement, and so he sent in a list of demands for reform; he persuaded them to start the council again and sent these demands: that they should authorize the marriage of priests; authorize communion of both kinds; authorize the use of the common language in the services; and should make drastic moves for improvement of the congress and of the corruptions of the papal court. There were some of those present who supported the emperor, and others present were strongly against him; and the sessions were hotter and fiercer than they had ever been before; the mobs and partisans of the various factions fought in the streets; and bitter forms of French diseases and Spanish eruptions were exchanged between them. One side prophesied the impending downfall of the papacy, but by this time the Jesuit Order was well established. And there were just two very able Jesuit leaders present now, but they sent a lot of highly-trained Jesuits to the council and they managed by skilful arguments, by behind-the-scenes maneuvers, and by careful work to bring the council under control; by skilful manipulation in debate, by intrigue in the imperial force, they managed to change the emperor's mind; and the actions of the third period were exactly the opposite of what the emperor wanted; and they established all the superstitions of the Middle Ages practically, definitely as the law of the church.
Well we have to stop here; we can't conclude the council, but I'm anxious to finish it and continue with the Jesuits, which are one of the most vital parts of the Counter-Reformation. So we continue there next Monday.
[student] Miss Pickett wants a little clarification about the statement I made about the Roman church accepting the Vulgate. Jerome had translated it; but there being two books in it which they do not accept. Well, now, let me clarify that a little. The translation which Jerome made, we call the Vulgate. But Jerome only translated the books we have in our O.T. first. Then he was prevailed upon to translate two other books which he did—very hastily. Then other people translated a number of additional books and these books were included in the copies of the Roman Vulgate. So that people speak of the Vulgate to be this volume; most of which is the Jerome translation, but which contains about a dozen—a little under a dozen books—that Jerome had not translated. And those were the copies of the Vulgate that were circulated through the Middle Ages.
Now when the Council of Trent met, there were some there who wanted to accept only the books in the Hebrew Bible. There were many there who wanted to leave the thing open and not say which books they accept; but there were quite a few of them who were determined they should obliterate all distinctions and accept everything that was generally circulated as the Bible. And so these last won out in the vote; but instead of saying the Vulgate, they said the following books—and they named all the books in the Vulgate except these two: the book that is called sometimes the Second Esdras, sometimes the Fourth Esdras; the two are different names for the same book, depending on the way you enumerate them. This is in the Vulgate. There was a book which in the Vulgate was called Esdras the First, and then this book which we call the Fourth Esdras, in the Vulgate. Those two and the Prayer of Manasseh, which are in the Vulgate, are excluded in the Apocrypha, in English Bibles which have the Apocrypha; but they are not accepted as inspired by the Roman church. There was a little bit of an oversight somewhere there in the acts of the Council; they didn't clarify that point, but their action is clear, because they named the books; and they don't name these two books, and then one very small one, the Prayer of Manasseh.
But then for a little more clarification on the word "apocrypha." The word "apocrypha" originally means hidden. Now none of these books were ever hidden. It is simply a term applied. But the Gnostics in the 2nd century A. D. claimed to have hidden books, or secret books, which gave the things that Jesus taught after his resurrection; contained all the words of vital truth, that was only for the little group of initiated. And others began to see how the Gnostics were heretical in their views; and when they would want to say a book was not valid, they would say "Oh, that's apocryphal!" that's a hidden book. So the word apocryphal had come to mean a book which is falsely said to be an inspired book. Now today the Roman Catholic church uses the word Apocrypha, for any ancient Jewish religious book that they don't accept as inspired; but these books they consider as part of the Bible, they don't call them Apocrypha, they call them Old Testament. So when a Roman Catholic says Apocrypha, he means one thing, but when a Protestant says Apocrypha he means the books that the Roman Catholics say are part of the O.T., but which were not part of the Hebrew canon; those are what we mean by Apocrypha. So strictly speaking, their term Apocrypha should include the First and Fourth Esdras, and should include the Prayer of Manasseh, strictly speaking.
When Queen Elizabeth [II] was crowned in England they looked up the regulation in order to find out exactly what was necessary that she be legitimately crowned, and they found the regulation very explicitly said. She must have there an English Bible, which contains the books of the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha; and 100 years ago most English Bibles had the Apocrypha included in it; today very few do. So they had to hunt around to find a copy with the Apocrypha so she would be properly crowned. That was the law 100 years ago, but today it's not used much by English Protestants. In Germany, the German Bibles nearly all have the Apocrypha in them, but they're in small letters, with the heading, "Books not inspired, or authoritative, but useful for reading." Mr. Wales? [student] Yes the Second Period was 1551-2, and the Third Period was 1562-3. Now I'm not asking anyone to memorize those dates, but I am asking you to remember that the Council begins just about the time of the death of Luther. That much I'd like everyone to know for sure; now the precise dates of this, I don't think there is any great point in memorizing, you can always look them up; but to know that it was over a period of 20 years and began just before Luther's death, that's quite easy to remember, and I think very important. Because Luther laid the foundation of the Protestant movement; and it was just at the time of his death that I would say the Roman church was founded; because that's when they began the council that laid down the rules of doctrine which have characterized it ever since, which previously were held by some people, not by others—a tremendous variety—but now since that time, the church is entirely different than it was before. The decisions of the Council then are required of all Romanist priests; they have to hold these doctrines or they could be held as heretical; and in a country where Protestants had considerable power, they could be dismissed from their posts; in a country that was under Roman control, they could be arrested if they denied any of these. Yes? [student] Well, I wouldn't say it quite that way; I would say that during the first three centuries, there were many times when there were clarifications made of the gospel of the church; but at the beginning of the fourth century in the time of Constantine, there was a great movement in the church to deny the full deity of Christ—a movement which almost won out, humanly speaking—but in order to guard the church against that, the first ecumenical council was held; and the Nicene creed was adopted, which declared that Jesus Christ is very God of very God and has been from all eternity. Now that was a rigid rule, laid down, that the Christian church hold to the full deity of Christ; and then there was a second very important ecumenical council, and the fourth such is in 451 A.D.; the fourth ecumenical made a definite careful statement of what the Bible teaches about the person of Christ; and practically all Protestant denominations—in fact, we could say practically all denominations that have been considered orthodox Christian denominations through the centuries—have accepted these four ecumenical councils; and you would have hardly thought what you would consider a sound Christian denomination today that would not accept everything that was held by the first four ecumenical councils.
Well,
you might say that's a rigid rule, but it is a rigid rule which extends to a
comparatively few things. On a great many other things there was a great
variety, and things had not been laid down exactly because they were new ideas
that came up—or through the Middle Ages these new ideas came up—substituting
human works for divine things, and stressing the authority of certain
officials, and giving great allegiance to the virgin Mary and different things
like that. Well, now the Council of Trent took these other things and laid down
a rigid rule on them. Now of course we, in most of our Protestant
denominations, lay down a rigid rule, trying to give the main teachings of
Scripture as we understand it; and so you might say that any of our
denominations can be considered to have existed as a unit from the time when we
settled upon a specific doctrinal view and decided to hold that and as long as
we do hold it. Well from that viewpoint the Roman viewpoint—as an organization,
as it is today—began with the Council of Trent. Even though there are many
features of it which are found before in different parts of the church Yes? [student] No, the Council of Trent laid down the regulation,
and that regulation holds to this day. The only addition of any great
importance since that time was the addition in 1854 of the belief in the immaculate conception of the virgin Mary. That was adopted
by what they call an ecumenical council at that time, and in 1870 the idea of
the infallibility of the pope. And then ten years ago or less the pope
enunciated the doctrine of the assumption of the virgin
Mary. Now these two things about Mary are a comparatively small difference to
the tremendous amount of definite things laid down at the Council of Trent. The
one really drastic thing is the adoption of the belief in the infallibility of
the pope, which is not a doctrine of the belief of the Council of Trent, though
it was believed by many of the people present, but it was rejected also by
many; it did not enter in to their decisions. This is very important to have a
clear understanding, so I'm glad to have these questions to help clarify it.
5. Results of the Council of Trent. We have actually been discussing the Results of the Council of Trent in the last few minutes. But one thing we have not said, which is not particularly important, but is very interesting is the fact that when the Council finished, most people considered it as a failure. The Council had met for three reasons: 1. They had met in order to win back the Protestants; to heal the schism in the body of Christ; to make all Christians one church again. It had not done that. Instead of that, the line was sharper than ever before. So that those who had been so anxious to have a council felt the council had been an utter failure. 2. And there were many who felt that the council would reestablish the fact that the leaders of the church throughout the world were the authority and the pope merely an agent, an executive officer. Instead of doing that, it resulted in the very opposite; it increased the power of the pope. At the end, they asked the pope to validate their decisions, which was in way saying after all, you are the authority. They never would have done that at the beginning of it. There were many of them who were very much against doing that; but at the end that was done. So it did not increase the power of the different parts of the church; but rather increased the power of the pope. And 3. There was a considerable amount of reform done by it. That is to say, it passed, in its third meeting, a definite regulation that there should be schools established to train priests; many of the priests couldn't even read, practically none of them. They knew how to perform two or three ceremonies, and they'd been ordained. But it said that in every diocese there should be a school to train priests. It laid down that the standard of education of the priesthood should be raised. It laid down that individuals should not be bishops in several different territories; but that they should only be over as much as a man could reasonably do, and they were expected to do their work. That is, in different matters of reform like this, sweeping decrees were passed, and a real start was made in carrying them out.
Now
to many people, they thought the decrees were very small, and nothing to what
was really needed; but they were a tremendous step forward over what had been
done before. It brought these people—many of them felt that it was an utter
failure—that it had not accomplished its purposes at all. Well, it had not
accomplished the purposes that most of those wanted who were anxious to have a
council; but it did accomplish the purpose which was most helpful, if
Protestantism was to be checked. It drew a sharp line, and made it possible to
lay down the line, and to say you are against the teaching of the church—when a
man would present views the pope had presented 50 years ago—but which now were
held by Protestants. Views which had been held by many of the leaders of the
church before, but which were now very vital to the Protestants. These views
were definitely ruled out; and there was a line laid by which this could be
done. In girding the church for opposition to Protestantism; in strengthening
it in that way, it was a tremendous accomplishment; it established a rule, a
pattern, a formula for it; and so the council of Trent
was, from the viewpoint of the Counter Reformation, a very effective
instrument. I think we can say that it would not have been had it not been for
the next main thing we're going to look at: the foundation of the Jesuit Order.
Because these bishops who gathered for the Council of Trent, they wanted to
find what should be the situation of the church and to get something that could
reunite the church. But it was the pope's machinations—and particularly the
careful, clever work of the Jesuits—that succeeded in twisting the Council of
Trent into a method for strengthening the pope's power, instead of a method of
finding what the different bishops really wanted. And so it goes on to what I
have been stressing all along, that in the Counter-Reformation all these
various attitudes we have mentioned are important but their importance does not
compare with the importance of the one at which we must now look:
E. The Foundation of the Jesuit Order. And from the viewpoint of looking back and seeing what has been accomplished by the Counter-Reformation, I would say that E is of more importance than D, C, and B, all put together. B, you remember, is the papacy, which according to the Roman Catholic theory is the great leader of the church. Actually it was slow in getting under way; the various popes took different views on different points; even after the Counter-Reformation was well under way. The papacy more or less followed instead of leading. While the power was theoretically in its hands, the actual thinking and initiative came from elsewhere, Left to the papacy the Counter-Reformation would have been a dismal failure, and in my opinion the Romanist organization would have completely disappeared.
Second we noticed the Inquisition and the Index; and the Inquisition and the Index were means by which Protestant thinking, and in fact all freedom of thought, could be completely cut out from regions which the Romanists held within their power. It was very effective for this purpose. But this would never have expanded their power, or have won back any of the sections which had been lost to Protestantism. So the Inquisition and the Index were like a strong discipline within an army, to hold the army together. But something much more was needed if the army was to go forward, to conquer other territories.
And then third, the Council of Trent; it laid down the lines upon which they would stand; this again was a tremendous help in the enforcement of the Inquisition and the Index; and in the rooting out from the church of many in prominent positions of leadership, who had been greatly affected by Protestant ideas; it gave a line along which to work. And it was very helpful for that; but for the outreach and extension of the Counter-Reformation, the Council of Trent would not have done it. I personally am quite convinced that in a century after the death of Luther, the Roman Catholic Church would have fallen to either non-existence or to be one of our smaller denominations, if it were not for this next factor that we are going to look at, the foundation of the Jesuit order.
Now this next factor is very different from the ones we've been looking at, because the ones we've been looking at are the ways the church as a whole, or the papal leadership of it, set to work and tried to meet the menace of Protestantism; the menace, I mean, as to its continuance as a strong organization. But this is something which was begun for a different reason altogether, which came about not through the leadership of any great council or of any pope, but came about by an individual who got a vision and started to try to follow that vision. And it is my opinion that it is one of the cleverest devices that Satan ever originated, for the purpose of holding back the Gospel and preventing it from being effective. In my opinion, if it were not for the foundation of the Jesuit Order, despite all the Inquisition and the Index could do, despite the Council of Trent, despite the papacy, Protestant ideas would have filtered in to Italy and to Spain and to the other Romanist countries, and within the course of a century would have completely overtaken them.
In
fact, I've mentioned to you that the emperor Frederick, the Austrian Archduke
who had been made emperor after his brother, that one time when he was in his
capital city, that the papal legate who was there made the statement that the
emperor and he, the papal legate, were the only Romanists left in the town.
That everybody else was Protestant. That's in the heart of Austria, a region
which now for the last 300 years had had hardly a breath of Protestantism in
it; which has been 100% solidly Romanist; with hardly so much as a word of
Protestantism in it. But at that time the people were overwhelmingly
Protestant; and the emperor's own son was so attracted by Protestant teaching, that he was just about on the point of becoming a
Protestant; so the next emperor would have been Protestant. But it was the
Jesuits who won him back; who won the regent back. So, and to this day, the
Jesuit Order is the most effective and powerful instrument in the Romanist
church; and among the other ecclesiastics in the Roman church, I imagine 60% of
them bitterly hate the Jesuits; but though they hate them, they fear them far
more than they hate them. They are extremely powerful in the church; but the
reason for their power is because they are so different from ordinary
organizations; so different from any other organizations of which I have ever
heard. And you can't understand the Jesuits without knowing something about their
foundation and particularly about their founder. So under E here we will call
1. Ignatius Loyola. There are colleges called Loyola College all over the world. And there are colleges named after the part of Spain from which he came—Villanova—all over the world. Ignatius Loyola, in my opinion, is undoubtedly one of the ten men who have influenced human life more than any other. And it is very strange the way he came into it. In a way it was like Luther. Luther didn't start out to reform the church; he didn't start out to be a great influence in the church; Luther followed along and, against his will almost, he found himself in a certain situation.
Well, Loyola was in a very different situation, but encountered a very strange combination of circumstances. Now this young man, Loyola—the exact date of his birth is uncertain, but it was probably about 1492. Most of those of you who were born on this continent immediately recognize that 1492 was the year something rather important in American history took place. But about that year a young man of noble blood was born in Spain and raised to be a soldier; and while he had his share of frivolity, of sensuousness, and of the ordinary pleasures of the court of those days, his interest was never centered there. He was a man of tremendous ambition, and as a young fellow he was determined to be a great hero of chivalry. Chivalry was pretty well gone by this time, but the chivalric knowledge and everything were all around. It was customary for the knights of old to fasten their loyalty to some woman whom they would worship from afar. She was the woman to whom their life was devoted, even if they hardly knew her and she was married to somebody else. Loyola, instead of making one of the duchesses or someone in a high position like that, he picked the young queen Isabella, the wife of Ferdinand of Aragon. After the death of Isabella, he picked her as the one to whom he paid court with a genuine spirit of old chivalry. You see his ambition: he was dissatisfied with anything except at the very top. He was determined to become a great soldier. And in 1521 when he was probably 28 years of age, he was given command of a fortress in northern Spain, when the French army was invading Spain. This is 1521, just about the time of the Diet of Worms.
He was given command of this fortress and he defended it bravely against desperate odds. He rallied the troops and led them courageously; and held out in the defense until a cannon ball hit him in the legs. That broke his legs and forced him to yield. His legs were set, but in those days medicine had not advanced very far; and the bone knit crooked, making it very difficult for him to walk; he had it re-broken and reset, though they had no anesthetics in those days; he had himself pressed on racks and the protruding bones sawed off; he was ready to go through any torture, in order to continue as a soldier and become a great general. But all was in vain, and at the age of about 28 he found himself a cripple for life; and so he was convalescing in bed, and he asked for the romances of chivalry; but where he was, they were unable to get ahold of them, and the only books they had there were legends of the saints, and a life of Christ written quite some time before. He wanted to read something and began reading these things, and as he read his ambition took ahold. He thought he was done for; he wanted to be a great soldier and he couldn't be with his leg in the condition it was in; and he got a new glimpse of heroism. "What if he should be a saint like Dominic or Francis?" he asked himself. "Yes, what if he should even surpass them in sanctity?"
Now Loyola knew nothing about Christ, except what he had heard in the services—in the rather formal services—and what he read in this life of Christ. He knew nothing about the Bible; he had never had evangelical truth presented to him; but he had heard quite a bit of the facts about Christ in services, and what was presented in these books that he read there when he was sick. And so when he was able to be up and about again, he made a pilgrimage to a shrine in Spain; and there he dedicated his armor to Christ; he took his armor and he presented it to the shrine there; he declared that he was giving up his earthly armor and was going to be a soldier of Christ. Then he made a general confession, with a great deal of fasting and asceticism which he understood was necessary to become a great saint; and then he had a period of great doubt and spiritual anguish; and some have compared this with Luther, but it was altogether different from Luther's situation; but he went through a tremendous experience and he had hundreds of visions before he was through. He was practically starving himself; torturing himself, went through these ascetic things which he felt necessary to make himself a great saint and a great leader.
One day he had a vision of the Trinity as a ball of fire; he never forgot it. Another day he saw the Trinity as a clavichord with three strings; he saw trans-substantiation as life in bread and wine. He had all these very strange visions; he was doing everything he could to get himself into the situation where he could be a saint that could surpass even St. Dominic, or St. Francis the founders of the great orders. And he went through—even while Luther was in The Wartburg, translating the Bible, and writing sermons—Loyola was in Spain there living in a cave now for a time, reading and fasting and performing all kinds of self-tortures and doing everything he could in order to make himself a great saint; but he didn't just give way to any of these things, he had a purpose in them all; he would notice if he was in a certain physical position when he got a vision; or that he had certain particular things before, and all that; and he kept very careful records of everything in his experience and used it later in his dealings with others.
And he was determined to become a great saint; and so he made a vow that he would preach to the infidels, and made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but there in Jerusalem the Romanist authorities turned him back; this peculiar young fellow, about 30, they thought, coming with queer ideas; they said, "We don't want you in Jerusalem," and he went back and to Spain; and he said, "I can't do it alone; I have got to have two things: I have got to have companions, people to work with me, and I have got to have education." And so he came back to Spain; he could read and write Spanish very well, but he knew no Latin; and all scholarship in those days was in Latin. And of course everyone who pretended to have any scholarship, as a youngster learned Latin. You remember that Queen Elizabeth and her brother, when Edward was 10 and she was 13, they always conversed in Latin, because the children who were given an education were educated in Latin. But his education had all been for fighting. So now he went into the schools with the little boys, in order to learn Latin there. But he settled down to learn Latin thoroughly; and then he got a foundation, went to one of the Spanish universities; there he won some people to his great enthusiasm, but the Inquisition began to wonder about this queer fellow; what he was doing? and they seized him and put him in prison for 6 weeks while they investigated thoroughly and they forbade him to gather disciples or to hold meetings; but they found nothing heretical in his teaching, because actually he had not thought of trying to find the truth; or of studying the Bible to see what it taught; what he was anxious for was to become a great saint, and a pillar of the church; but whatever the church believed he was perfectly ready to say yes to; he had no desire to investigate it or to try to change it. So after 6 weeks of investigation, the Inquisition did something that it rarely did, it released him. Often the people seized by the Inquisition were kept in prison for years; rarely were they ever released without some severe penalty; but he was released.
And he went to another Spanish university, and studied there; and there again he was seized by the Inquisition and was held for 22 days; and again was prohibited from holding religious meetings; he decided, with the Inquisition as severe in Spain as it was, it would be pretty difficult for him to get the training he needed, so he left and went to France. And there in France, he entered one of the colleges in the University of Paris, and there the college authorities publicly whipped him as a dangerous fanatic; but he took it, the Inquisition there didn't bother him; he took it, and he studied and he learned; but he looked about for students, for associates, and looking about, he picked out two men who were outstanding there. Two, and then shortly after two others, so that he got four men who were leading among the students. They were men of personality, men of noble blood, men of ability, fine students. He was hardly more than 5 feet 2 inches high, deformed and scarred, at the age of 35; but by his great enthusiasm he won these men to come and to join with him; and then there was a book that he had written which he called Spiritual Exercises; and if books are to be listed according to the influence they have exercised over men, the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius is certainly one of the five or ten books that have been most influential in the world's history. It is not a book which has been influential over great numbers of people. But it is a book which through the years has had a deep influence over quite a substantial number of individuals.
Loyola had worked out a system for training men to be soldiers of Jesus. And he worked out these spiritual exercises; and in them he tells what they are to think about; tells what position they are to be in as they think of it; what they are to eat, and so on; he worked out details for a 30-day course of spiritual exercises. This course has to be given by somebody; nobody could just take it himself, because it is very powerful medicine; and the one who is giving it has to regulate it to give enough to have the influence desired and not enough to drive a person out of his mind; but enough to have just the right influence; and sometimes they stop and give a person a week's vacation before they go on.
I was told when we first came here [Elkins Park, PA] by one of the boys over across here in the Christian Brothers, that every spring a Jesuit comes here and gives the spiritual exercises to the boys who are graduating over there. They are not Jesuits over there; they belong to a different organization; but he said that the Jesuit comes and gives them the spiritual exercises of Loyola. Now these spiritual exercises are worked out so as to stimulate one's imagination; to the point where one can become an absolutely devoted instrument for the purposes laid down. Its purpose, he states, is that man was created to praise, reverence and serve God our Lord and thereby to save his soul. You see right in the beginning of it, there is a denial of any Protestant teaching; there is nothing of justification by faith in it whatever; I don't think that when Loyola wrote that he realized that he was simply expressing the background of the part of the church in which he had been raised; but that is the purpose, according to him, of his spiritual exercises: to praise, reverence and serve God our Lord and thereby to save one's soul.
And so he gave these exercises to these men, and they have been given to thousands of others since. They take 30 days ordinarily to give; they divide it into four periods which are called weeks, though each period may be shortened or lengthened at the discretion of the director. The first week is devoted to the consideration of sin. One is in absolute solitude except for visits from the one who is directing him. Absolute solitude for a week; that is for the whole course, but during this first week he thinks about sin. He is in solitary meditation; he is supposed to see the length, breadth and depth of hell; to hear the lamentations, the blasphemies of the damned; he is told to smell the smoke and the brimstone; he is told to taste the bitterness of the tears, and the worm of conscience; and to feel the burning of this unquenchable fire; and it's all made very vivid, that he should spend the whole day for a week thinking of these things; thinking of his own sin; thinking of how he deserved hell; thinking that, if it wasn't for God and for the church, he would be in hell forever; and how he must be entirely devoted to those who have saved him from it. And so it is all very vivid in the spiritual exercises; the thinking and the feeling, the hearing, and the smelling; and all this, with absolute directions as to how to sit or stand or kneel; or what position to be in, when different things are thought of; it is very, very carefully, cleverly worked out psychologically by Ignatius.
In the second week, he thinks of Christ's life as far as Palm Sunday; he thinks through different incidents of it, and imagines them vividly. The third week is devoted to the death of Christ, thinking of his passion; and the fourth to His resurrection and ascension. And the purpose of all this is to make a person so aware of these things that everything else becomes minor in comparison. He is to be completely subject to the church; he is directed to praise all the precepts of the church; holding them up; ready to find reasons for their defense and never against them. He is to be unconditionally surrendered to the church in all things. Loyola said, to make sure of being right in all things, we are always to hold by the principle that the white I see I should believe to be black if the hierarchical church should so rule.
Well now of course that sounds very extreme to us; but the fact of the matter is, that a tremendous part of what any of us believes we take from what others say. And a thing looks to us a certain way; but if we are taught it's a different way; if everybody around us believes it's a different way; then we take that for granted. But of course, in ordinary life you see people around; and you gather a great deal from others; and you correct a good bit of what you see; but you are still constantly checking what you get from others, by what you see; and if you reach the point where you think they are completely misleading you, then you completely reject what they say and look for other guidance; but you cannot simply see everything, and you can be easily misled by your eyes. But Loyola takes it to the extreme that the church—the organization with the bishops and the cardinals and the popes—this organization is the organization which has the truth, and I can be mistaken; I probably am mistaken, so my purpose in life is not to find what the truth is but to defend the truth which they hold; and this he expressed here in this broad way: if a thing looks white to me but the church says it is black, I will unhesitatingly say it is black.
He said that he tells them in the Spiritual Exercises that they should be like a stick, which the order can pick up, and move about, and use as they choose.
When my wife was a girl, she and her brother used to play with some children just a half a block down the street. They knew them very well, and the families became acquainted that way; and later on when a son had gone off and had become a Jesuit, the mother of the Jesuit told her that her son had told her that no matter where he was, he never went to bed at night without realizing the possibility that the next morning when he woke, he might find pinned to his pillow a piece of paper; go to Alaska; or go to Australia, or any part of the world; and he would immediately start out. Yes? [student: Is Loyola's book of Spiritual Exercises available?] I don't know, but I do know that just about any encyclopedia, or any book on Church History, tells you about it; so it seems to me it must surely be available. I've never actually seen it myself. But as I say, you will find it mentioned in dozens of books on church history; you will find it in encyclopedias; you'll find Roman Catholic books about this, which will refer to the spiritual life started in this way, so there must be hundreds of copies of it available. Now whether those copies are kept in the hands of those who perform it; or whether they could be gotten ahold of by others, I don't know. It certainly is not generally distributed. Yes? [student: Could they change the book?] Yes, they would have the authority to add to it if they chose, but he did a consummate job; it would probably be very difficult to improve on it. Yes? [student: How long is the book?] It is a small one, but just how many words I don't know [rcn: It is available in Kindle format from Amazon at 99 cents].
Well now Loyola picked out these men who were outstanding men, and he persuaded them to let him give them the spiritual exercises. And he talked with them about his desires, his ideals; he said, "Why can't we form a company?" He used the Spanish word campagna, which means a military company, a group of men who work together for a military purpose. "Why can we not form a company whose leader will be Jesus, and we call ourselves a company of Jesus?" And the company means a military organization. There were six at first, yes. These men he got at first were some from Spain, some from France; they were from different countries. He was gradually picking up individuals, but he had about six or eight within a couple of years. Just where he got each one, it would be easy to find, but I haven't got it memorized. That is where he made his big start, but that's the University of Paris. But of the first two, one was a Spaniard, one was a Frenchman. They were international right from the start. Before that he had disciples in Spain; but each time he did, the Inquisition seized him and ordered him to have nothing more to do with them. But by this time he knew what kind of disciples he wanted; and he was not interested in reaching the masses particularly; he was interested in reaching the leaders. He wanted people, a small select group, carefully thoroughly trained; and today in many an order of the Roman Church, a person can be in there quite a short time and be ordained as a priest; but I believe the Jesuit today has to be about 12 years in education before he is ordained as a priest; it has perhaps the most thorough education of any group in the Romanist church. It selects its men very, very carefully, and trains them very, very carefully. It's a very extensive course, it's supposed to condition for life.
There was one fellow who went from here to another school, where he wanted to write a master's degree on the claims of the pope. And I saw the head of that school, and he said, "I don't know what to do about so-and-so; he presented us his master's thesis, and we didn't have time to direct him from here; we don't have any specialist in that line." And he said, "The paper he handed in said that the claims of the pope are true. I don't see how we can give a master's for that." Then I heard the rumor that he had gone into the Roman church, but I have heard it denied by those who have seen him recently. I was very sad about that, because he was a very fine chap, a very bright fellow; extremely active in fine sound churches in this area when he was at Faith; but you never know who the devil is going to get ahold of, you never know how people are going to move in some unexpected way; and of course on the other hand, in their schools they don't know who has gotten ahold of something contrary to what they believe. The Jesuits have been among the most skilful and careful educators in the world's history, and they have trained a great many very able people, but from some of their schools have come some people who have reacted violently against their teaching; and they have used the very fine training that they get against what they hold. But there are very few of them comparatively. But that's getting ahead of our story.
We
have noticed here, I have just put under this heading Ignatius Loyola and his
early activities
2. The Society of Jesus. Now I told you that Loyola called it the company of Jesus; but later on when the pope sanctioned it—which took quite a while to persuade the pope to do—but when they sanctioned the order, the pope said this word campagna, this Spanish word, which means a company of soldiers, will not have that meaning if you put it into Latin. He said take the word society in Latin, societa; he said that means a group of soldiers, united together. So the official name of the society actually is the Society of Jesus. It's a Society of Jesus but it doesn't mean a society in our sense at all; it means exactly what Loyola meant by company. It means a military organization which had definite purposes which it is setting out to accomplish, in unified action for the purpose; and so Loyola got this group of followers, they took vows to live in poverty and chastity and to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and they set out to Venice, but there they found they couldn't get to Jerusalem; and then they went to Rome to seek for papal approbation of their enterprise.
Now as you see, Loyola's first purpose had nothing to do with Protestantism; his original purpose was to form an order, the soldiers of Jesus, that would fight against infidels; preaching to the infidels, or doing saintly work rather than military work—he being unfit for military work anymore; but work like that against the infidels, that was his original purpose. And now finding it necessary to change it because he couldn't get to Jerusalem at that time, they went to Rome; and began in Italy working among poor people; and Italy in general had become pretty irreligious by this time; religion was quite formal, there was very little piety among the people; and they began, with their great enthusiasm and their readiness to do anything to help people; they would go and help those who were sick with the most loathsome diseases and would help them; they figured that any suffering, any loss or deprivation that they had to go through was all a part of their fitting themselves for their work; and they rejoiced in what they had to suffer and so they would do the most difficult services for people; and they made a name for themselves; and they managed, after considerable difficulty, to get the pope to give them permission to be an established order within the Roman church; and so in 1540, the pope approved the organization; and 80 years later, when the pope canonized Loyola a saint, the canonization spoke of him as an instrument raised up by divine providence especially to combat that foulest of monsters, Martin Luther. And a great part of the purpose of the Jesuits came to be fighting of Protestants; it was not their original foundation purpose, but it soon became a very vital part of their purpose.
At first, the pope limited them to 60 members. There were not to be more than 60 Jesuits; but very soon he agreed to change that, to do away with the limitation; and then he allowed them to be free from the jurisdiction of the bishops in the different areas. They were subject directly to the pope.
Now they made one rule which was very different from all the other orders; and here is where they put the stress in the Jesuit Order. You look in the Catholic Encyclopedia, you look up Dominican, Franciscan, Benedictine, any of these; they'll say we've had so many of our men who have been popes, so many Archbishops, so many have been cardinals; they are proud of the way their people have gotten ahead in the church. In the Jesuit Order, a member is forbidden to take any position in the church unless he has a special permission from the order; they do not want to work directly in the hierarchy, except on rare exceptions. They work behind the scenes; and thus a great part of the natural ambition is removed, which would be a snare to the individual in keeping him from carrying out their purpose. Well, we look further at that tomorrow.
We are looking at VI: the Counter-Reformation, and yesterday we began E, the Foundation of the Jesuit Order; and this, as I mentioned yesterday, is the most important feature of the Counter-Reformation. There are many writers who may not give it as much importance as I give it, but I do not believe you will find any article or book dealing with the Counter-Reformation, whether written by a Protestant or by a Romanist, who does not give great attention to the formation of the Jesuit Order as an extremely important part of the Counter-Reformation; and of course the Jesuits have had their great enemies not only among Protestants but in the Roman Church. Their enemies became so strong there that 200 years after they were founded they succeeded in causing the Order to be completely, forever, permanently, dissolved by the pope. So the importance of the Order is recognized by all regardless of their viewpoint. We looked at 1, Ignatius Loyola, noting how it was from the thought of one man—the development of his thoughts and aspirations—the ideas of one man that this whole tremendous movement came. A movement which by the end of Loyola's life—which was at the end of Calvin's life—had a thousand members in the order, most of them highly trained men and scattered through many parts of the world.
But Ignatius Loyola had to resist difficulties from the Inquisition; difficulties from the Dominicans; difficulties from many different sides before he was able to get his Order under way. And that is an interesting feature of life—that men can plan big governmental organizations, to accomplish great tasks—but in the end most tasks are accomplished by individuals who have an idea; who set forward to try to fulfill that idea. There is no organization in the world which, according to its theory, would be thought of more definitely as a monarchical organization than the Roman church; with its claims that the pope is absolute monarch, who controls, directs it, determines what it is to do. But if you go to Rome and there you visit the greatest ecclesiastical edifice in the world—the great center of Romanism, the Church of St. Peter, which is connected directly with the Vatican, the central church of the denomination—in that church, you will find many popes buried—not all by any means, probably not more than 20—we find the tombs of quite a few popes off to the side; with a statue of the pope, you find different sorts of shrines around; but up on the side there are niches with great statues in them, to celebrate the great men who have done the most for the advancement of the Roman Catholic Church; and in these great niches in the most prominent places in the church of St. Peter, the statues represent not men whom the pope selected to do a task, but men who like Ignatius Loyola had a vision of a task they desired to do and pushed ahead to do in spite of opposition; and finally they received the approval of the pope for it, but often with great reluctance on his part. There is a great statue there of Ignatius Loyola; there is one of St. Dominic, founder of the Dominicans; one of St. Francis, founder of the Franciscans; one of St. Benedict, and so on; a number of these founders of orders; they have the most prominent places in the statues around the wall of the church of St. Peter; and every one of them is a certification to the way that God has made man, a way in which it is individual enterprise; as a man gets an idea and pushes ahead, and he persuades others that his idea is good, and accomplishes it; that it is the fact the Roman church has been able to utilize this, and to bring it into its service, that has accounted for its continuance; but most particularly for this one particular organization, the organization of the Jesuits.
Well,
now, we mentioned 2, The Society of Jesus, telling something of its
organization, and then I'm going to make
3. The Methods
of the Society.
And under this I have just some material that I have already given, I mean I
just placed it in the outline; other material I have given in addition, but
some of the points about its methods we inevitably touched upon in discussing
its organization. Well, I'll give them in order here.
a. Careful
Selection.
The rule is that no one who is tainted with error is ever to be allowed to
become a member of the Jesuit Order. Ordinarily, they are men of noble birth;
that is, in countries in which nobility counts. They are people, not simply
people who have a desire for a religious life, but they are people whom the
Order thinks have possibilities of leadership in the work of the Order. And so
the Order has through its history maintained careful selection of those who are
permitted to enter. Then
b. Long Training. I've already mentioned the fact that in the Society the educational course is longer than in any other group of Roman Catholic officers of any sort. The Catholic Encyclopedia says, in its article on the Society of Jesus, how men who enter the Order are Novices for two years; and then at the end of two years, the Novices make simple but perpetual vows; and if they are aspirants to the priesthood, become Formed Scholastics—that's what they call them after two years. But they remain Formed Scholastics, it says, as a rule, from two to fifteen years; that is to say, if they come in as young fellows into the Order, they have a 15-year course of education before they can become priests. It might be shortened if they already had a certain amount of education, before actually coming to the Order. But after 15 years, they go through a third period of probation, and their talents are normally tested by the examination for the degree of Doctor of Theology. And now they may become Professed Members of the Order; so it takes at least, in most cases, 15 years, in some cases 8, before they can become members of the Order, Professed Members of the Order; they're merely Scholastics up to that time. And then after they are members of the Order, they remain members for at least five years before they have opportunity to become what they call Professed. Now they have all taken the ordinary vows that monks take: the vows of poverty, of chastity, and of obedience; but they are permitted, those who are called the Professed, to take a fourth one, which is a vow of special obedience to the pope; undertaking to go wherever they are sent, without even asking money for the journey; and there are certain essential, certain additional minor vows, which are included in this; but they become Professed of the Four Vows; and it is only those who are Professed of the Four Vows who are allowed to have vote in the selection of the General of the Order, and in the control and direction of the Order. So a man has to be in the Order, and under observation for a period of 20 years before he is permitted to have a vote and a voice in the direction of the Order. You see how this is intended to keep the Order on the lines in which it started, and to keep the control in the hands of a few who have a definite understanding of this.
Two years ago, two or three years ago, the Jewish College down here, Dropsie College, celebrated I forget whether it was its 50th or 75th anniversary; but for that purpose they had a meeting, a convocation at which they gave degrees to the President of RCA, the President of Princeton University, and half-a-dozen other people of similar standing; and they asked all the educational institutions in this area to send representatives to them; so I went to it to represent Faith Seminary; and among the group of educational representatives there, I found myself sitting next to a man who represented St. Joseph's College, a Jesuit College; so we had a few minutes before it started and I began chatting with him; and he was quite surprised that I knew a fair amount about the Jesuit Order, expressed his modesty that he was sure they didn't know as much about our group as I did about them; it was interesting that I would have such an interest in the Order and know so much about it; but we chatted on about it, and I referred to this matter of the Professed of the Four Vows, and said, "I suppose, of course, you are one of those." And he said, "Oh, no. There's a big examination after 15 years, and usually how you do on that examination determines whether you're ever permitted to become a Professed of the Four Vows." And he said he had not been permitted to become a Professed of the Four Vows. But he said he had noticed this: that many of the Heads of their Colleges were not; so he said it didn't seem to make a great difference with your advancement if you failed that test and were not permitted to become a Professed of the Four Vows.
Now that's something I've never read in a book, and I was quite interested to get his view upon it. But it fits in with what the books do say, that the control of the Order is kept in the hands of a small group which carefully scrutinizes those who become members of the group; that is, there will be a few thousand people, but out of the whole order maybe a fourth or fifth, I suppose, of the whole Order who are the Professed of the Four Vows. And so this Vow of course is purely a matter of form, a vow of special obedience to the pope; because actually the whole matter is completely in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church; as they say, as a piece of wood or a stick is in the hands of a man to do what he will with it; but an interesting thing is that their obedience to the pope is actually to a very, very minor part. The Jesuit Order is obedient to what the Jesuit Order considers to be the interests of the Church, not obedient to what the particular pope of the time happens to say. While they give him lots of lip service, their service is to the church, not to an individual.
Theoretically they are completely under the pope's control; and if the pope issues a great official statement on some vital matter, as a rule they give in to him. Then also there is, I believe, of tremendous importance, this attitude of the Jesuits: that the Jesuits are ambitious as to what they consider to be for the interests of the church; that is their sole aim. Now the Dominicans are ambitious too, and the Franciscans; but the Dominicans and the Franciscans are particularly happy when their own men get to be Archbishops; but a Jesuit keeps that particular individual note of personal ambition in the background. Secondly, by the fact that instead of trying to get these church positions as the others do, they refuse to allow their men to take them; and no Jesuit is allowed to become a Bishop or take any other position like that of importance to the general church, without first securing special permission from the Order; and that permission is very rarely given.
There have been Franciscan popes, Dominican popes, Benedictine popes, but so far as I know there has never been a Jesuit pope; it is contrary to the Order to have a Jesuit pope; they do not stand out in view to be clapped at; they stand in the background, and watch the others; and if the others don't do as they would like, then they get after them. Yes? [student] No, I think it is understood when a man joins the Order that he can take the 4th vow if he is permitted to, I think that's understood. They are members of course, but they are members of the Professed of the Four Vows; that is, they are the inner circle that controls the Order. The Jesuits normally wear black costumes, like all priests do; the ordinary priests, of course; some orders wear white and some brown, they have different colors; but the Jesuits don't wear a particular garment; they wear the garb that is customary in the area where they are to preach, and that's more apt to be black than anything else.
So a General of the Jesuits isn't marked by the beautiful white costume that the popes wear; and so calling the pope—he is dressed in white, that shows off his position, the white uniform he always wears. The General of the Jesuits is dressed like an ordinary priest, which is black; but the General of the Jesuits has his headquarters a few blocks from the pope; he is not visited by pilgrims from abroad, or given great adulation or anything like that; but he probably actually has more power in the church than the pope has; and consequently some of the people have criticized and called him the black pope, I'm sure he wouldn't think of that title himself; he would indignantly deny any such thing. But with—I do not know the inner situations in this pope's cabinet, I suppose it wouldn't be hard to find out—but I know that in the pope's who died a while ago, that his private confessor (for the pope has to confess his sins every day), his private confessor was a Jesuit, so that there could be nothing private in the pope's mind that wouldn't be known to the Jesuit Order. His Confessor was a Jesuit; two of the leading members of his cabinet were Jesuits; and the General of the Jesuit Order, a Belgian whose office was a few blocks from the Vatican, would have the opportunity of exerting actually a greater personal influence on details than the pope did; but the pope gets all the honor; there is very little honor to the General of the Jesuits; but his power over the members of his order is absolute. He can issue any order that he chooses; and he has absolute power over them. There was a very interesting book which came out about 20 years ago, by a man named Layman, a Roman Catholic priest from Iowa who was either the founder or one of the leaders of Christ's Mission in New York, the Mission to Roman Catholic Priests. And this man told in the book of his great interest in a college in Iowa where he had been trained. It was a Roman Catholic College and had trained many Roman missionaries; he was very interested in the work of this college, and the first thing that started him in the direction of his departure was that for some reason this college displeased the Jesuits, and they brought measures to have it closed; and the thing was carried to Rome, and the pope gave a decision that the college should be continued; and yet despite that fact, the college was boycotted by practically all organizations and was so treated that it was forced to close down. The author was a representative in carrying papers to Rome; and he tells in this book how he went to different people and asked them to give some help in the preservation of the college; and he says these different people said to him, "Well, there's nothing we can do; you know how the Jesuits are, and they're determined to destroy it." He said that he found that everybody disregarded the actual order the pope had given, because of the Jesuits' decision on that college. Well now that is just one of many illustrations which could be found of the fact that they exercised a tremendous control over the church, but they do it by all sorts of devious ways; and their intention is to work for the advancement of the church as they consider the church to be. It is not subservience to any man or group of men, but the church as they consider the church to be; and what they consider the church to be is pretty much what the church was when the organization was founded. Mr. Brown? [student: on the Jesuit vows] The substance of the Four Vows is this:
The first vow is the vow of poverty; and that means they are not supposed to have any property whatever. Now of course for the Franciscans, St. Francis tried to make that order a reality; but then the Franciscan Order became very wealthy; but it was the Order that held the wealth, yet the individual used it; and then a group broke off from that, and declared they should not have any property because they we sworn to poverty; so then for that group it was ruled that the pope held the property for the Order, but the Order still used it. So, too, the Jesuits as an Order have tremendous wealth; but no individual has any theoretical right over even the clothes they have on; they belong to the Order.
The second vow is the vow of chastity. And this vow is taken by all monks and nuns in the Roman Catholic Church.
The third vow is the vow of obedience, and this is obedience to the Order. I think I've already mentioned in class how a friend of mine, a lawyer in Wilmington, who attended quite a few of our classes while we were there, told me of being on a train one day and getting to talking to a man who sat next to him, and finding that this man was a Franciscan monk. In this country they very often do not wear their garb, but if you were in a Roman Catholic country you would find dozens of people on the street wearing the long flowing gown of the monks; in this country the nuns are much more apt to go with their outfits on than a monk. But this man he got to speaking to, he found, was a Franciscan monk. And he found that he was taking courses for a Ph.D. at the university in Medieval History, and the lawyer said to him, "It sounds ghastly, it sounds tedious," and the man said, "It is, I hate it." Well the lawyer said, "What are you studying it for?" "Oh," he said, "I'm ordered to; that's my orders; I am to study to get a Ph.D. in Medieval History." And that was not the Jesuit Order, that was the Franciscan Order; but you see that is the vow taken by the member of any Order; there are probably 150 different orders, but the most common of them are the Benedictine, Dominican, Franciscan and the Jesuit. There are many other orders, not as large or as powerful as these; but in the Jesuits, the obedience is carried to a point many times further than any of the others; they are explicitly taught that they are to be like a hoe, that a man takes and uses for what he chooses; they are just an instrument in the hands of the church; but in the hands of the church means in the hands of the leaders of the Order. They are to do what the leaders of the Order tell them to do at any time; to go anywhere and to do anything they are commanded to do.
The fourth vow is a vow of special obedience to the pope, and readiness to go without ever asking money for the journey anywhere they're told to go, and certain other things connected with it. Well, all that is already proved, so it's just a form, I mean it's not proved specifically, but actually complete obedience to the Order is proof of anything else.
There was a very interesting case in Boston, about 15 or 10 years ago, of what they call the St. Benedict Center. A Roman Catholic woman established it at Harvard University, for the training of students in Roman Catholic doctrines and in loyalty to the Roman Church; and there was a Jesuit, Father Sweeney, who was appointed to be the Head, to be the advisor to this society; and he listened with them and instructed them; and evidently he was a very earnest fellow, one utterly devoted to the ideals of the church; and was very much beloved by the members of this society. But two of the people who were trained in the very fanatical type of Romanism which is inculcated in this society there, these two became teachers in the Roman Catholic college in Boston; and there in the college they found they were not interested in theology, I think it was a mathematics course or something like that, but anyway in their course they taught that no one could be saved who was not obedient to the pope; there was no salvation except in obedience to the pope; and they quoted the pope Boniface VIII, about 1300, who issued the statement that apart from obedience to the Roman pontiff there is no salvation; that outside of the church salvation is impossible; and they were fired from the college for that teaching. And they appealed to Rome and the pope sent his blessings, but told them that he Archbishop of Boston had started it and he upheld the Archbishop by official policy. And then when the St. Benedict Center objected, he visited the St. Benedict Center and told them to be quiet and do what they're told; and when they didn't do it, he excommunicated them—the center, and eventually Father Sweeney was dropped from the Jesuit Order. He was ordered to go to another place, and he refused; and so they dropped him from the Jesuit Order. Well, I heard there was a book about it by Catherine Clark, the woman who had founded the organization, which she called The Loyolas and the Cabots. See, her view was that the Loyolas were the Jesuits, who were doing whatever they thought was in the interests of the church; and the Cabots were the New England Unitarians; and the Loyolas, in order to get the support of the Cabots, were hiding their real views or going against the church; and the two formed an unholy conspiracy which resulted in St. Benedict Center.
And I heard there was such a book, so I stepped into the big Brentano's book store in New York and said, "Do you have Catherine Clark's book The Loyolas and the Cabots, and the man reached under the counter—you couldn't see it anywhere—and you would never have dreamed it was in the store. It is a most interesting book; as I went through it, I felt as if I were in the old days, when we were in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and the Modernists were trying to destroy our influence and to get us out; because as I read, it was just exactly the same sort of thing, as the leaders of the church who were so friendly, so very, very gracious; the Archbishop was so kind, and then he went home and 3 hours later they received an order by registered mall that they were to cease any teaching whatever; and she tells how the Jesuits sent the man there to investigate the case, about their dealings with him, and all this sort of thing, full of various details on it; and she ends up her book saying how she just wishes that some of their people could run through the Boston Commons yelling, "Outside the church there is no salvation," and that is of course the ideal of her life and she doesn't even realize it. But of course, the ironic thing is that they have been expelled from the church for their belief that outside the church there is no salvation; they are expelled from the church if they point out the pope has declared it; the infallible pope has said it, how can they be expelled from the church for saying it? But of course what she holds is that the leaders of the church there, and the leaders of the Jesuits, feel that they will advance the church more by pretending to be friendly with the Unitarians; and by not displeasing the Protestants by saying such a thing.
Right after that, I was at a chaplain's conference in Washington, where about a third of the people present were Roman Catholic Bishops; and in between the lectures we used to chat, and we were speaking to one of them and he explained what they mean by "no salvation out of the church." He said, "If you know that the Roman church is the true church and you refuse to join it, then of course there can be no possibility of salvation; but if you don't know it, you're invincibly ignorant of it; then you may still be saved." Well, I tell them, "I certainly would agree with them, that if a person was thoroughly convinced it was the true church and wouldn't join I couldn't see either how that person could be saved." But of course this reduces the statement to nothing; and that's what the Jesuits are able to do in most situations. They are not tied to statements, but they're tied to an idea; and their idea is the strengthening and extension of the hierarchical church—the organization which has the pope at Rome for its head. But they consider the pope as merely the particular man who happens to be in that position at the moment; and they give him great honor; but when it comes to what he says, they do it if the Order feels that that is the thing that is best for the church. Back about 1775 most of the princes of Europe became so disgusted at the Jesuits that they ordered them expelled from their countries. And in the end the pope gave an order that the Jesuit Order was to be finally, completely, definitely, and permanently destroyed, and all of its members were to quit having anything to do with it whatever; the name of it was destroyed; the organization was destroyed; the property was taken over by the Roman church; it was the end of the Order. And when the pope signed this, they say that he said to someone, "I've signed my death warrant." And just a few weeks afterward he died, and there were rumors he was poisoned; but of course there's no proof.
But the interesting thing is that the order was destroyed in America here; the Jesuits at that time had Lower California and Paraguay completely in their control, so that even the King of Spain couldn't enter those territories without permission from the Jesuit Order. But with this order from the King of Spain, the soldiers landed in Lower California; and they suddenly seized all the Jesuits there and told them they could take two books—their prayer book and one other—and what they could carry with them—they could carry one case—and they were immediately taken and shipped off, back to Spain. All the Order was just immediately destroyed in all the Spanish dominions. The same thing happened in the Portuguese Dominions, the French Dominions, and nearly all the countries in Europe; and then the pope gave this order—the whole Order was definitely and permanently ended, for the good of the church.
Well, now it so happened that King Frederic of Prussia was very violent1y anti-Romanist; King Frederic of Prussia refused to pay any attention to the pope's orders; and the Jesuits in Prussia said, "Well, the order has not been officially published in Prussia, because the king has not permitted it; therefore we have no official knowledge of this order." So they kept right on. And in Russia, Queen Catherine of Russia recognized that there were various Jesuit schools in Russia which she was tolerating; and she was dead against the Roman Catholic Church; so she refused to allow the government to declare the order of the pope to do away with the Jesuit Order. So the Jesuits continued in Russia. In Prussia the king died 3 or 4 years afterward; and the new king took a different attitude, so the Jesuits were ended there; but they continued for 20 years in Russia. And here they were, taking this vow of obedience to the pope—that was their great absolute obedience to the pope. The pope had ordered that the Order be completely dissolved and ended; but the Order was maintaining itself in Russia, taking on new members who took this vow of obedience to the pope. Though the pope declared that the Order had no significant rights, under the laws of Russia, this could not be promulgated, as the pope had no authority in Russia. Then after some years they persuaded the new pope to reestablish the Order, and they came back from Russia and re-established themselves in all the countries of Europe. But that is getting ahead of our history here; we don't come to that for 200 years. But I thought it was interesting at this point to mention it, as showing the real character of their loyalty to the pope; it is not a loyalty to the pope as a man. But that there is loyalty to an organization is indubitable. The Jesuit Order is dedicated to the advancement of the Roman Catholic organization; and it does what it thinks is for the welfare of that organization. Their interest is not in doctrine; it is not in ideas; it is in that which practically promotes the church. Now the Dominicans were the great inquisitors of that day; they were the leaders of the Inquisition. The Dominicans also have had many very fine scholars. St. Thomas Aquinas, whose theology today is the theology of the Roman church, was a Dominican; and the Dominicans have a loyalty perhaps more to a body of doctrine than the Jesuits; but both of them are loyal to the Roman church. A Jesuit whom I knew in Jerusalem remarked that he was one of the rare cases of a man who was a Jesuit who had a brother who was a Dominican; but it is very rare.
But
now we will proceed with our points of our outline: a, Careful Selection; b,
Long training—a very long course of training; and naturally, individuals are
dropped at different times during the training; and individuals themselves
sometimes drop out; but there is a long enough period that they know exactly
who they're getting, what they're getting by the time that they are permitted
to become members; and then only maybe a third or a fourth of them are
permitted to become Professed of the Four Vows, who can hold the top offices in
the Jesuit Order and can vote for the
new General. But aside from that, all the members are equal—that is in running
a school for instance—they'll pick the man for head of it who they think is
most efficient for that purpose; he is completely subject to the Order anyway.
Then
c. Spiritual
Exercises,
which we've already discussed rather fully; they need to be mentioned here
though, because they are a continuing factor and an extremely vital factor; and
the spiritual exercises are given to others at times, though they are mainly
for the Jesuits, I mentioned to you that this young fellow from the school
across the street here [Christian Brothers] told me that once a year a Jesuit
comes and gives these exercises to those of their members who are about to graduate.
This Order by the way over here is a different type of Order altogether. It is
the Christian Brothers. It is not an order of priests as the Jesuits are;
Jesuits are priests, but this fellow told me they—over here—are teachers; and
they are not ordained; they take the same vows as the others: the vows of
poverty, chastity, and obedience to the Order; but they take a fourth vow,
which is that they will devote their lives to teaching without securing any
monetary remuneration for their teaching; in other words they're supported by
the Order and not supposed to have any property of their own—not even their
clothes—everything belongs to the Order; but they are to devote their lives to
teaching; and of course they teach in Romanist and other schools; they are another
one of the many Orders of the Romanist church. They're not the only Order that
does that; the Benedictines are noted for it; in fact, that's if you pick up a
liquor menu in most any restaurant you will see a Benedictine,
one particular type of liquor; and many of the Orders have been noted for their
liquor.
d. Complete
Obedience.
And we notice how this is more complete with the Jesuits than with any other
Order. There are cases like this Father Sweeney in Boston who was dropped from
the Order; I think he has two brothers who are leaders in the Order. He was
dropped from it, but in this case he was thoroughly in agreement with the
general purposes of the Order, but it was the immediate purpose that he refused
to follow along on; and on account of that he was dropped. He is still carrying
on—as far as I know—the same work in Boston, training people to believe that
there is no salvation outside the Roman church, Then, Time Magazine told about 2 years ago of a prominent Jesuit in Rome,
who was very active anti-Communist; but he suddenly left the Order and became
Communist. And there are cases like that, no matter how careful you are; there
are cases like that in any organization. But their cases are probably far less
than almost any other organization, because of their long course of training
and selection and complete control which they endeavor to exercise. And in
connection with this complete obedience,
e. Mutual
Spying.
In other words every Jesuit is constantly under observation from other Jesuits;
everyone has two others who are under special orders to report everything that
they see or observe about him, so that the central headquarters has full
information about every idle word and offhand remark. And they endeavor in that
way to know when anybody is beginning to show signs of losing his loyalty to
the organization. I have never heard of a Jesuit becoming a Protestant
believer. I would think it very unlikely, because there is such a long course
of training. I would imagine that anyone would come out either for or against
it. That is to say, if a man was in a country under absolute Roman Catholic
control, he might of course be put in a dungeon or executed; but nowadays it
would be a lot easier in such a case to leave; and a man who wanted to leave, I
think nobody would be apt to force him; but they would be apt to catch on any
tendency in that way before they let him get to that place in most cases. There
was, I know, a doctor in Brazil who had left—a French nun who had become a
Protestant—and they tried to declare her insane; and she had quite a time
keeping from being thrown into an insane asylum; a very brilliant woman, but
she was able to get the French Protestants to protect her. So things are done
to try to hold them, but certainly if a person wanted to drop out, they
could—least in any Protestant country—but they try not to let anybody get that
far to want to.
f. Freedom from
Ordination Requirements. The other orders were all founded—that is, the
orders that were founded, say, before 1850, were all founded and many since
that time—with the idea of developing the spiritual life of those who belong.
And consequently the Benedictine Order was just bringing together hermits into
an organization. These hermits became hermits, thinking that way they would
develop their spiritia1 life, a life of solitude and prayer; and so most of the
Orders have definite rules that a man must spend so many hours a day in reading
his prayer book, or in particular, in unified chanting songs and other chants; and
you go into most any monastery church—in Europe at least—and you will find
quite a group of monks there chanting. I think they get up at 5 in the morning
and usually chant for an hour or so; at midnight I think there is half an hour;
there is a set routine, and there is a very extensive course of religious
services that each one is required to do—a certain amount of time reading their
prayer books, and so on; it's written in the Constitution of practically all
the Orders. But the Jesuits persuaded the pope to give them exemption from this
requirement. They would ordinarily require their men to spend a certain amount
of time in rituals, but there is no requirement which the Order cannot remove
when it desires. Because the Jesuit Order is not an Order—like the
others—founded for the purpose of developing the spiritual life of its members;
it is a military Order; it is an Order founded for the advancement of the
church—not simply against Protestants—it is the advancement of the church
against everything that is contrary to the church; this includes foreign
mission work; it includes work in anything that is connected with the
advancement or protection of the church; but they are active workers, rather
than people seeking to develop their spiritual life. That is the idea;, and so their freedom from these requirements. The
others—the Capuchins, the Franciscans, wearing the long brown gowns, with a
piece of rope tied around their waists, and the Dominicans wearing the long
white gowns, and they have their special costumes—but the Jesuits, as I
mentioned, have no special costume; they wear what is ordinarily the garb of
the priest in their area. The freedom from ordinary requirements is a very
important thing in the facility of the Order. Now it is claimed by some—they
would probably deny it—but it is claimed that they retain the right to go into
secrecy; to pretend not to be Jesuits, or even not Roman Catholics; and that
there have been Jesuits doing this sort of thing. Now whether that is so, of
course, would be very difficult to prove. The Catholic Encyclopedia definitely denies it. This we know, that in
England under Queen Elizabeth, many Jesuits came to England in disguise, but
they claimed that their purpose was to bring the sacraments to the Roman
Catholics in England who had no access to the sacraments; and who would be
unable to be saved if they couldn't get to the sacraments; so they would go to
their houses; and some of these Roman Catholics in England had what they called
the priest's hold—a hidden place where priests could hide—and he would perform
the mass which only a priest could perform, and thus their souls could be
saved. And they claim that their purpose in England was doing that; and you
must admire—even though a man's beliefs are wrong—you must admire his courage
and his loyalty to what he believes, that he is willing to risk his life in
order to bring the sacraments to others. But they claimed that's why they were
in England; but there were many plots to kill Queen Elizabeth, there were many
such plots; and there was a decision given by one of the popes that anyone who
killed Queen Elizabeth would be doing a good service to God; and consequently
the belief of the people of England was that the Jesuits were coming to England
not simply to bring the sacraments but to raise up sedition and plots against
the Queen, and to take over control of England; and it cannot be proven whether
they were or not, but many Jesuits were hanged or beheaded in England at this
time. It was never done on the ground of their religion but on the ground of
their alleged involvement in plots against the Queen. The Jesuits are allowed
to do anything that the Order permits them to do; but they cannot take offices
in the church without very special permission given in advance. Well now,
whether in connection with public office any such reservation was made, I don't
know; but I'm sure that if the Order disapproved, he would immediately resign.
They have no duties that they have to observe; they will establish a duty if
they think it wise, to the advantage of the Order; but they are devoted
entirely to the advance of the church; and in the case of anything like eating
meat on Friday, and that sort of thing, the Order could absolve members from it
for particular purposes, if desirable.
g. Abstention from Church Offices. We've just been speaking of that, but I think that more is involved in that than just the one point of abstention. The Jesuits have all through their history tried to make others do the tasks that are prominent and that bring dislike upon them. The great emphasis is on education, and on teachers and so on; they don't seem to be in the middle of controversy. They're trained to do that sort of thing; they're trained to be gentlemen; they're trained to be courteous; they're trained to be kindly. When I got to Rome in 1947, I walked down the platform with all these people around talking Italian—which I can't speak—and I was wondering just where I'd go next; and then I saw a little short fellow with a long black skirt on, coming down the stairs, and I recognized him as a Jesuit I'd known when I was in Berlin as a student—in the same classes with him, classes in Babylonian with a professor there—and I had written him about coming to Rome and asked him if he could give me some help in finding some books for our library. He came to the train and met me there; and he did everything he could to find a nice place for me to stay, very reasonably, did everything he could to make it pleasant for me in Rome; and they are the nicest people to be with you'll ever find anywhere; but they are trained to be. They're trained to be nice and pleasant and helpful; and they never take such tasks as running the Inquisition; the Dominicans do that; the Jesuits do not take that sort of thing, but if the others don't do it right then they see that it is done. They keep in the background as far as controversial matters are concerned. In organizations all over the world, you'll find Jesuits taking an active part in them; and they have gone into every line of study; but as Preserved Smith says, they have been among the second class of leaders; in just about any kind of study you want anywhere. They've not been the first primary ones, because that's never been their major purpose; their major purpose is to advance the church; but they are trained to win people, not to injure people. If the injuring is necessary, somebody else does it. But they decide it is necessary, they see to it that it is done.
As long as they're Jesuits their purpose is to advance the church. And of course they have their meetings; they have their confession regularly; they have their constant emphasis on their primary purpose. Well, we continue there Thursday.
We're looking at the Counter-Reformation, And I had mentioned g, Abstention from Church Offices. And this of course was a great instrument in increasing the control of the Order over its members. It cut down individual ambition; of course that's one big point of the vow of poverty; if people can't get money except for the Order, it tends to make their activities to be more for the Order than for their own personal advancement; and this matter that they could not get personal advancement meant that not only was the money impulse curbed, but also the impulse for pride, position, and honor.
Now in our Protestant churches these impulses are tremendously used of the Devil—these impulses—to hurt the work. Many a wonderful Christian worker finds the need of more money; and then when he gets a little more he wants still more; you even find it here. I've known students to come here to seminary who had big debts. And they wanted to earn money to pay off the debt; and having worked a great deal, they found very good positions in order to pay off their debt. And then when the debt was paid off, they were in the habit of making money; and they thought of all the things they could get with this; and they continued to get money at that rate; and in the end they had to drop out of school because their lessons had suffered to the point where they we getting no value out of their courses. Not many like that; but it almost makes you feel like urging a person who has debts, to stay out of here and pay them off before coming. People come with a motive to serve the Lord; then the devil uses the desire for money to lead them astray from God's work. Now that desire to a great extent occurs only a few times, but to a lesser extent many times. The same is true of ambition; that would be more apt for one who is in the church; but many a minister, many a Christian worker, gets ambitious to have a larger church, to have a wider influence, to have a bigger name; and in the end it destroys his effectiveness.
The
arguments of the Modernists—the arguments of unbelief—do not destroy people's
faith in themselves; but the thing is that everybody is subjected constantly to
the temptation—spiritual temptation—to turn aside, and then they find in these
arguments excuses for giving up their faith or from moving their hearts away
from the work of the Lord. Now the Jesuits try to cut down the pull of these
things in their members—and to be abstentious from church offices; it was a
very helpful thing in that regard, but of course the most influential thing was
the Spiritual Exercises. The Spiritual Exercises are something that
we would not favor at all; they put a man too much under the control of another
man, and we'd be against it; but there is a good principle in them—the
principle of a person meditating on the things of the Lord to the extent where
they're not just propositions, but where they are emotional matters in your
life; and I believe that we Protestants ought to do that; that we ought to
meditate on the life of Christ and on what He has done for us; to the point
where our emotional feelings for that will overcome our emotional desires for
our own personal ends, with which the devil is always trying to lead us astray.
Then
h. Emphasis on Educational Work. Now I'm sure that this was no part of Loyola's original idea. Originally his purpose simply was to form an Order that would fight for the church, that would be a military Order; but not using military methods—using other means—but to fight for the advancement of the church. But as he got his education to be able to do this, he doubtless came more and more to realize what a tremendous force education could be, if used for the purposes that he had in mind. I noticed when I was in college—the college I was in was a very, very fine Christian college a few years before I went there—but the Modernists had gradually begun to infiltrate it; and by the time I was a student there modernistic force was very strong in it; and I noticed there that the course in Bible that the people were required to take was filled with modernism and unbelief; and they destroyed the faith of many a student. But there were many others who were not much affected by it, because they said, "I know this Bible teaching is un-Christian; I know it's contrary to the Word; I'll just learn what is necessary to pass the exam but it won't affect me; and it didn't have a great effect on them, as other courses did. But they get in a course in English, a course in History, a course in Literature, and there speaking simply from a viewpoint of learning literature, or learning history, the professor would fill them up with anti-Christian propaganda; and many lost their faith entirely through the influence of education in those other areas. Well, Loyola felt and saw in the long course of his education what a tremendous influence these professors were having on other students; and he saw how the influence could be made far greater; and he saw how all the wealthy, the nobility, and the princes of the royal families, were desirous that their children have good education; and it wasn't long before the Jesuits began to lay tremendous emphasis upon education as a means by which they could extend the work. That is to say, to the Jesuits—the object is the advancement, the enlargement, the protection of the Romanist church—that is the end, and every means is regulated in relation to that end. But education is used as a means for that and used extremely effectively.
When they went into countries, many a country where it would have been hard to get access as a group coming in to propagandize, they got access as a group coming in to build schools; and they were soon starting schools all over Europe. They called them all colleges, but many of them were what we call elementary schools, or high schools; but their objective was to have universities eventually, or at least to have as many of them as possible have a high standing; and in that they put great stress on giving an education which would be such a fine education that their graduates would all have an influence far beyond their number; and then it would attract people to get their education, even though they did not believe in their viewpoint. And the result was that within a century, the Jesuit schools were known as the best schools in Europe; and even the Protestant monarchs—many of them—were sending their children off to Jesuit schools, because they could get so much better education there than they could in any other schools that were available. They worked very hard on the problem of training people to bring out their ability and to enable them to achieve the utmost impact they could with whatever abilities they had. And they built educational institutions all over, which became one of their great instruments in the extension of their work. Today in many fields of science, and particularly of course in archeological and Biblical science, you will find Jesuits taking a very great part; and if you go to any meeting of a Society of Oriental Languages, or of Archeology, or anything like that, you are quite sure to find one or two Jesuits giving papers there, and usually presenting some very excellent work which they have done; and they cooperate in very fine fashion in these meetings, and they win others to them. There are laymen who are connected, more or less loosely, with the Order. In all the Orders—the Franciscans, the Dominicans, and the Jesuits—there are people who are not ordained who have connection with them. If it was a country to which they had no access, they might train one of their men to be a doctor or a lawyer to go into that country, hiding the fact that he is a Jesuit, to establish a beachhead. You can't prove that they have ever done that; but certainly it is generally believed that they have done a great deal of that. But the Jesuits of today, with the great bulk of them being in the work that is directly connected with what they consider the work of the church, yet a definite part of that is the running of schools; and the running of the schools entails such research and such scientific study as would be a normal part of education. In saying this I'm certainly not criticizing them in the least, but am simply mentioning that they stake this out as an area in which they can have a very active interest. I've never heard of a Jesuit physician, but certainly many of their missionaries emphasize practical skills. Any one of us could run for public office; no objection to that. If they felt it was the best thing for the Order, and for the church then they would not hesitate to run for office; but it's not their makeup; they don't put their stress on that sort of thing; but they do put stress on education, and they built the best schools in Europe, and their schools train very able people. And some of the greatest enemies of the gospel in preceding generations are men who had received the Jesuit training and had turned violently against all religion. But some of them, their effect was much greater because of the Jesuit education they had received.
A stress on education has been characteristic of the Jesuits, right from the start. Now the Franciscans had schools, too, and the Dominicans, and the Benedictines, and a hundred other Orders had schools, but none of them have taken the outstanding place in education that the Jesuits have taken. The Dominicans perhaps are greater scholars on the whole than the Jesuits, that is scholars of Biblical things. But the Dominicans would have as their objective the study of the Bible: in determining what it means; in getting evidence that would relate to it; and that would be to them an objective. Whereas to the Jesuits that would be an objective insofar as it advances the church. Scholarship would be with the Jesuits a secondary objective. But for the Dominicans it might be a primary objective; and probably there is no group that has done more for Palestinian archeology than the so-called French School, in Jerusalem, which is a French Dominican school.
I heard a statement made just yesterday by a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, that he considered that the best translation of the O.T. that has ever been made into any modern language is a translation made not long ago by the French Dominicans into French. They have done excellent scholarly work; and perhaps in the Biblical field better than the Jesuits. But from the viewpoint of school administration, of influence on other schools, and of the use of these means, the Jesuits are supreme.
[student: Do Jesuits work in parochial schools?] It's my impression that the parochial schools are under the control of the Bishop. I believe the bishop of the area has complete control over them. Now he might very well secure Jesuits to take an active part in helping, but they would not be under the control of Jesuits. However, the Jesuits would be apt to take a very great interest in how the parochial schools are doing. And if they found that the parochial schools weren't doing a good job; or that they were allowing some Protestant propaganda to get into some of their books; or that they were letting people just get an education without receiving a strong Romanist influence; they would use means to bring pressure on the Bishop. They take an interest in everything. The bulk of the Jesuit schools are colleges and universities, and I would say that the Jesuit colleges as colleges would rank high as to educational standards. There's tremendous variety in our system, and there is greater variety in the Roman Catholic system than there is in ours. But the Jesuits would be at the very top of the Roman Catholic education system, as far as the effectiveness of their training is concerned.
Now, everybody at times lets local or secondary considerations take the place of primary; and the Jesuits certainly have, but their system tries to keep it down; and the probabilities are that their leaders would very carefully consider: here are two measures which would be equally helpful to the church, but one would be helpful to the Jesuit Order; that's the one they would take; but if one would be considerably more helpful to the church, but not to the Jesuit Order, their leaders are trained to select that.
There is one difference between the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Benedictines, on the one hand, and the Jesuits on the other. The Benedictines had monasteries; the Franciscans formed an order of women, the Franciscan order of women. The Dominican sisters are right across the street here, their retreat house where they have gatherings, people coming; we're always finding people coming here asking if this is the Dominican Retreat House. They are women connected with the Dominican Order, an Order of women. Ignatius Loyola, when he got his work fairly well started, he soon had many women who were giving a great amount of time to the work and tremendously interested in it; and there was one woman in particular who was greatly interested and she soon wanted to form a Jesuit Order of women; but Loyola declared that the Jesuits were strictly men; there was to be no women's Order in the Jesuits. And he declared it and insisted upon it; he held to it to the point where the woman who had given him perhaps more money than any other was alienated and turned against him; but that was one thing in which he was different from other Orders.
I have heard it said that there is an Order called the Order of the Sacred Heart, or something like that, which may be an Order of women trying to become similar to the Jesuits; I don't know. But the Jesuits played it down—as a strict measure—that it was only men. But of course in the nature of their work, the way the Jesuits did it, they were certain that would have been difficult for women, much more than any of the other Orders. None of the Orders have women as direct members of the Order; but they have a related Order or an allied branch, of women; the other Orders nearly all have.
Well, the emphasis on education was a tremendous factor in the advancement of the Jesuit power all through Europe; and they used it as a tremendous factor in advancing their control over Europe and in pushing back Protestantism. And to this day the Jesuits are known as educators primarily; there are Jesuits who are in the confessional many times; there are men preaching—many of them—but the great bulk of those you find are connected to its schools; but that is never to them a final end in itself, it is a means.
When
you read that in France—in the course of their first 20 years in France—they
established 50 colleges, you know that's quite a few colleges. Maybe three or
four of them were what we would call colleges and the bulk of them were high
schools. They would do whatever was desirable in the area; but I doubt nowadays
in an established settled country that they would have anything under college
level. I don't know; but their emphasis is on the college level. They have
colleges and universities in just about every large area, strong Jesuit
colleges.
i. Influence through the Confessional. And it soon became—that is to say, by 1610—most of the Roman Catholic monarchs had Jesuits for confessors. Now that's a remarkable thing when you think of it; this was a comparatively new order; there were many other Orders; this became one of the largest, but there were several others just as large or much larger; and many of these had their close ties with the royal houses; and the Jesuits had a difficult time getting established in many of the countries of Europe. Their hardest country to get established in was Spain, even though they had more Spanish Jesuits than of any other place. In Spain the Dominicans were so well established that they made tremendous difficulties to letting the Jesuits get a foothold in Spain at all. And they managed to persuade the king of Spain to take quite a stand against them for a time, even though their motives were almost identical with his. And yet in the end, it became customary for the kings of Spain for 2 or 3 centuries always to have a Jesuit confessor, and the same with the kings of Portugal and of France, and of many other countries. The Jesuits very soon got the positions as confessors. Just how they worked things so as to get this important relation to the kings, you'd have to have their inner records to find out; but the fact that they did is mentioned in the Catholic Encyclopedia, it has a long article defending the Jesuits from all the attacks against them, but in the course of the article it mentions that it became customary for most of the monarchs to have them as confessors.
Now why did they have them as confessors? We cannot give the whole explanation, but one explanation of it is that the Jesuits learned to use the confessional as an instrument for advancing the church; and they did it in such way that it was easier to get absolution for many people from a Jesuit than it would have been from other priests. Of course that is part of the error of the Roman Catholic System. We believe that if we confess our sins, Christ is faithful to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness; and we should confess them to God; we cannot have unconfessed sin in our lives, in our hearts, and expect a blessing from the Lord. He wants us to think through a situation and think of the errors and wrongs we are doing; and confess it to Him; the Lord wants us to do that. Well, theoretically it can be a great help in that task, which is the duty of each of us, to have a trained confessor probing into your heart and bringing to your attention those things that you've done that were wrong, those attitudes you have that are wrong, that you ought to confess. Theoretically it can be of very great help. And of course for many a Protestant spiritual leader, one of the great ways in which he is a real help to others is his bringing them to a realization of their sin; and to a realization of what they should confess to God, and turn away from it. But we do not have the system of confession at all because we feel that the dangers in it are greater than the good that comes from it.
Well now in the Romanist system, theoretically, I suppose it would be just as we would do: that the man helps them to expose their heart and to find what is wrong so they can confess it to God. And then, if he feels that they really have opened up their heart and found what was really wrong there, and have confessed it and turned away from it; then God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness; and he then assures us of forgiveness. There are thousands whose lives are utter misery because they go on for years, maybe with some sin of their youth, or maybe some sin of more recent time, and they're always thinking of that sin; how can God ever forgive them for it? And their lives are just made sad and miserable because they are constantly thinking of that sin, and what can they do about that sin. Well, God doesn't want us to be that way; He wants us to realize the terribleness of our sin; but then He wants us to realize that Christ died for our sin; to turn away from it, put it under the blood and leave it there; and go on and rejoice in the Lord. Well, that's what He wants us to do. Well, the priest helps to find the sin; and then he assures them that they are forgiven from heaven. But it's a very easy step from these helpful things, of assuring you that your sins are under the blood, to thinking that the priest has the power to remove the sin; that he can absolve you from it; and very early in the Middle Ages the attitude of most of the people, toward the priests, was this: that the priest had the power to absolve you from your sin; if your sin is on you, you will be lost; if it's a mortal sin, you go to hell; if a venial sin, you go to purgatory. But in any event you have to suffer in purgatory for that sin that is not forgiven; but that the priest can absolve you from it, and of course that's the basis of the indulgence. That the pope—the greatest priest—would give them a paper absolving them for their sins, past, present, future. So when it came about that the people thought that the priest had power to absolve them or to refuse to, it gave the priest tremendous power to move the man in the direction in which he might choose to move him; and that's one reason why many people are so very much afraid about having a Roman Catholic president; because if the R. C. president had that idea—that he is in a terrible situation unless he gets absolution for his sins by the confessor—it puts the priest in a position where he can easily push him in one direction or another, and have a big influence on him, even against his will.
Now some came to feel that they could get absolution from the Jesuits more easily than they could from others. That was a great factor in the Jesuits becoming confessors, and it doubtless was a great factor in the work of the Jesuits, that they were able to induce royalty to put their children under their upbringing; or to use methods of persecution against the Protestants in their area to do different things; because they could not be absolved if they did not do it. And at the same time on other matters they would be very honest. And they wrote books in Latin which explained, discussed all the problems of the confessional, and just how to handle them, and took up the study of moral theology, at great length, Preserved Smith says,
["Moreover, there can be no doubt that in their eager pursuit of tangible results they lowered the ethical standards of the church. Wishing to open her doors as widely as possible to all men, and finding that they could not make all men saints, they brought down the requirements for admission to the average human level. One cannot take the denunciations of Jesuitical "casuistry" and "probabilism" at their face value, but one can find in Jesuit works on ethics, and in some of their early works, very dangerous compromises with the world. One reads in their books how the bankrupt, without sinning mortally, may defraud his creditors of his mortgaged goods; how the servant may be excused for pilfering from his master; how a rich man may pardonably deceive the tax-collector; how the adulteress may rightfully deny her sin to her husband, even on oath. Doubtless these are extreme instances, but that they should have been possible at all is a melancholy warning to all who would, even for pious ends, substitute inferior imitations for genuine morality." ibid., p. 411]
Well, these instances which Smith gives would seem to be well-authenticated, in writings which have been made by individuals who claim to be giving translations from the Latin works of the Jesuits for giving them instructions in the rite of the Confessional. I have not read those in the Latin; I can't speak from first-hand knowledge; but it is a matter which is stated in many books on the subject; and there is no doubt that they became very skilful in figuring ways of explaining things in such a way as to reach the end desired and to make the end desires seem to be a perfectly permissible end.
Newman's Church History has a section which he calls The Ethical System of the Jesuits, and he is extremely severe in what he says about them. He says,
[Albert Henry Newman, A Manual of Church History, Vol II, p. 376:
"Their system was simply a logical carrying out of principles that had for centuries been fully recognized in the Roman Catholic Church and had long before had a terrible fruitage; but many Catholics were shocked by the utter immorality of Jesuit teaching and conduct. A more diabolical system it would be difficult to conceive."]
Well,
now whether he is quite extreme in this statement, one would have to spend a
lot of study, but I think we can say that some of them certainly were guilty of
the things with which they have been charged. And there was enough of it to
give them a reputation even among Roman Catholics, which resulted 200 years
after their establishment in the Order being driven out of all the Catholic
countries of Europe, and being suppressed by the pope with an order that would
end it forever. But Newman, in his discussion of the Ethical System of the
Jesuits, gives six points which I want to mention to you.
First he speaks of the place of obedience; and he feels that their requirement of absolute, blind willingness, that this was something which would be inherently immoral and would lead to that which was utterly so. Second, he says, there has been much controversy as to whether the Jesuits inculcated and acted upon the principle that the end sanctifies the means. The Romanists are probably correct in denying that the phrase used with approval can be found in any writing authorized by the church. But that the principle involved underlies the Jesuit system and has been approved by the Roman Catholic hierarchy can scarcely be denied by anyone familiar with the literature and with the history of the Society. And he quotes from the Constitution of the Society. He says in the Constitution of the Society, the following remarkable passage occurs. After enunciating in the heading of the section, the principles that the constitutions do not induce the obligation of sinning, and elaborating the statement somewhat, it is stated, this is the Constitution of the Jesuit Order, part VI, chapter 5, edition of 1583, Newman quotes:
[ibid., p. 378: "After enunciating in the heading of the section the principle that the 'constitutions do not induce the obligation of sinning' and elaborating this statement at some length, it is stated: 'It has seemed good to us in the Lord, the express vow by which the society is held to the supreme pontiff for the time being excepted, and the three other essential vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, no constitutions, declarations, or any order of living, can induce an obligation to mortal or venial sin ..., unless the superior should order these things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in virtue of obedience, which may be done in those things or persons in which it shall be judged that it will contribute in the highest degree to the particular good of each or to the general good; and in place of the fear of offense let the love and desire of all perfection succeed, and that the greater glory and praise of Christ the Creator and our Lord may follow.' It seems to be admitted, to start with, that the four vows are so fundamental as to induce an obligation to sin if this be involved in their observance, and all other cases are covered by the provision that if the judgment of a superior that the individual good of each or the general good requires the commission of sin, it is to be done, the sinful character of the deed being put out of mind and the love and desire of all perfection and the promotion of the greater glory and praise of Christ taking the place of compunction in the act. The attempts to evade the plain meaning of this language are in the writer's judgment futile. When it is taught in Jesuit manuals of moral theology that poorly paid servants may by thieving from their employers raise their wages to a proper scale, that to relieve poverty the goods of the wealthy may be stolen, etc., this doctrine is inculcated in a form easily understood and exceedingly demoralizing."]
In
other words it makes the principle that the superior can order the ordinary
members to do something, and the moral code is up to the superior if he says,
"it is for the glory of God that you do this thing," and the other
one is then obligated to do it if he would carry out his vows as a Jesuit.
Second, the principle then that the end justifies the means is a principle which, rightly understood, there is certainly nothing wrong with it; all means are according to what end they produce; but the thing that should not be forgotten is that if the means is sinful, one of the things produced is an infraction of God's law; and therefore the end is bad, if there is sin involved in it; but anything is right or wrong according to what it leads to, and so the end in view is what should be given a primary consideration. But it was used by many in such a way as to do things which would ordinarily be thought of as utterly wicked.
[student: on the Jesuit connection to the assassination of
Abraham Lincoln] Well, I've read Father Chiniquy [re/
his exposé, Fifty Years in the Church of
Rome (1886)], but whether there is any truth to it I don't know. It would
be pretty hard to prove. I would personally doubt it, because while it is true
that Lincoln, in the case of Chiniquy, did that which
was very harmful to the Roman Church—in preventing them from putting him into
penitentiary on trumped up charges—yet his assassination was years later, and I
don't see how his assassination would have helped them. One thing about the
Jesuits is they're interested in what advances the church now, rather than in
paying somebody off for a past grudge; so I would question it very much; and Chiniquy was not in a position to know, but it was his
theory; and he might be right, but I question it.
Third Newman speaks of the principle of Probabilism. And this is a principle which you find enunciated in Jesuit books, and also in other books; in fact it was a principle known long before the establishment of the Jesuit Order; but it is a practical principle; the person who was truly interested in the glory of God, will be interested to know what it is that will advance His glory; what is for the advancement of the good of this world which God has made; and will be interested in trying to find just what is right and what is wrong. But the person who was interested in influencing someone in the Confessional; or is interested in determining how to lead his own life in such a way as to reach the ends that he desires; may be interested in, not what is right, or what is wrong, but what is it that it would be dangerous for me to do, because it would interfere with my chances of heaven; or, what is there which I can safely do; and therefore this matter of probabilism, which is greatly developed by the Jesuits, was originated long before there were Jesuits; but they brought it to a very high degree; and this probabilism consists of this: to take books of moral theology and hunt them through, written by various recognized church leaders through the ages; and see what they say about all sorts of things; and as you read them you find that there is no unanimity. One may think this particular act is a terrible act, while this other thing he thinks should be excused. Another thinks that is a terrible act and this should be excused. So instead of trying to find for yourself what is right and what is wrong, the position taken is if you find a writer who is recognized as a Christian leader of repute, who says it's all right to do a thing, well who are you to argue with him? You can go ahead and do it because this man feels it's all right. And consequently you take this man's word on this, another man's word on that, that man's word on this, and this man's word on that; and pretty soon you get a standard that's way below normal, because all writers have some things that they're tremendously concerned about and some things that they tend to look lightly at. And they call it probabilism because the idea is here is an argument made that this is a terrible thing, and here is another man makes an argument that it's perfectly all right under certain circumstances. Well, what is probable, not what is certain, not what is right, but what is probable. That if a view is probable—that is to say, if there is a writer of some importance, even if it doesn't sound sensible to me, if there is a writer of some standing who thinks it's all right—well it's probably all right.
And the view was expressed specifically in the statement that if something is probable it may be followed; it is not necessary to decide which is more probable or which is most probable, you can take what is clearly less probable, just so it is probable at all. So that was the theory of probabilism, a theory under which it was possible to follow the sort of conduct that one might wish; or possible to excuse a ruler from doing things that would shock one thoroughly; but you could excuse him for these and then on something else you could be very strict with him; and in the end you could lead him in the direction you thought would be most advantageous for the church.
Well now I think an example of this might be given. I knew of two women; one said, she said, "My husband always washes the dishes," and the other woman said, "Oh I wish my husband would do that, he never does touch a dish." But she says, "He gets up in the morning before I do and he always has breakfast ready for me," and the first one says, "My, I wish my husband would do that." Well now you see the two women could say, one could say to her husband, "What's the matter with you? Mr. so-and-so, he gets his wife's breakfast every morning. You get up in the morning, you just sit down and read the paper; you don't do anything." The other one says to her husband, "What's the matter with you; it seems to me you just sit and read; you don't ever help me with the dishes like Mr. so-and-so." But the men can look at it the other way. "You see," the man can say, "What are you talking about, getting breakfast? Don't I wash dishes for you?" The other one says, "What are you talking about, washing dishes? Don't I get breakfast for you in the morning? You shouldn't think of such a thing."
And
that is the principle of probabilism. If you can take all your other direction,
and of course the person who is in the confessional, who wants absolution,
doesn't know all these sources of emphasis; so you can tell him that's very bad
to do that, why this great moral leader says anybody who does this is in danger
of hell; that's terrible, you've got to do a severe penance or you can't be
absolved; while to another person you can say, well now you have a terrible
thing on your conscience but it's maybe not so bad; such a writer says this is
a thing that can be excused under certain circumstances. You see, it was not
the crime that decided what is right and wrong, but finding an authority who
justified it; and that's the principle of probabilism, which became to be known
all over Europe as characteristic of the Jesuits, both in their dealings with
people in the confessional and in their own lives; they were accused of that
and considered guiltless. Now whether they all were, or whether a comparatively
small part of them were, we cannot prove; but it would seem that certainly some
were; and certainly at crucial points, these principles were used,
Fourth. And then Newman says that schemes for evading responsibilities for sinful and criminal conduct by the method of directing the intention; these were discussed earlier. He says, according to this, one may commit murder without burdening his conscience if his intention be directed to the vindication of his honor, or to deliver the community from a nuisance, or some more important thing. When they commit adultery, if in the act, the intention be directed—not for the gratification of lust or the injury of the husband of the subject—but for the promotion of one's health and comfort, or some other worthy end. One may commit robbery if the intention be directed not to the wrong done to the subject, but to the lawful object of making suitable provision for one's needs. And so on.
Well, you can see the danger in that sort of thing. The end is the vital thing; the means, however, are a vital part of the end. But the Lord had laid down certain things as definitely wrong; they're wrong under all circumstances; and there is no end which can possibly make them right. [question] Newman does not give references, only the quotation I gave you from the Constitution, but for this other he doesn't give any evidence of it, but I'll read you what Preserved Smith says. He has a footnote in which he says, "Substantiation of these statements in excerpts from Jesuit works of moral theology, printed in C. Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte, 1911, p477ff." (op. cit.)
In
other words, with the statements I read from him, he gives that as an evidence; and there was a French author, Paul Burton, of
50 years ago, who was quite an educator in France; he was very much against the
Jesuits, and he had a book which he claims was translated from Jesuit books. It
was when I was a boy I had this book, and in it he quoted in French a great
many such things and then some he kept in Latin, because he said he couldn't
put it in French. But I imagine that that could be so. But it is not our
purpose to pass judgment upon the individual Jesuit, but to realize the fact
that some of this at least entered in and affected their work; and whether any
of it does today, or a great deal does, is something that no one can tell. But
the Jesuit work was tremendously affected, and the Jesuits soon became hated
among Protestants as the very worst of the Romanists; and they became hated by
great parts of the Romanists as well, and to this day there is great hatred of
them among many other Roman Orders; but of course that's natural, many of the
Orders hate each other anyway. That is, whenever you have groups of people,
those things tend to develop; we have to watch to prevent it if they are not to
develop in ourselves.
Fifth. Newman said, equally objectionable is the doctrine of mental reservation or restriction, whereby one may, without burdening his conscience, tell a downright falsehood provided the Word of God that would make the statement true is in the mind, reserving the statement, under his breath. This morning, he may promise to do something, reserving in his mind a condition of which the person concerned knows nothing. By use of ambiguous language and by tones or gestures, promote the understanding of it in a false sense. Now this of course is a matter which is difficult to give an absolutely categorical answer to. It is not everyone's duty to tell everybody else fully anything that they may ask you.
Like if I was planning to give you an examination—a special test next Monday—without warning; if I was planning on it, and I wanted to be equally fair to everybody, to have it come on the same day, without warning to anybody. Now if one of you were to say, "Dr. MacRae, is this right what I heard, that you're going to give us a special test next Tuesday?" Why I could just say no, and it would be entirely true, because you said Tuesday, rather than Monday. It would be entirely true under the circumstances; it would be entirely proper for me to keep it secret that I was going to give a test on a certain day; because it should be fair to all, either all should know of it, or none should know of it. It wouldn't be fair to have one know. Consequently if you ask your question in such a way, that verbally the answer was absolutely accurate and yet it gave you a false impression, I would consider it would be perfectly acceptable under those circumstances. But now there are other things that a person has a perfect right to ask anybody. A court of law looks into your conduct and from that there are questions raised which a person has a perfect right to ask you; and under those circumstances if a person asks you and something in the manner of asking, makes it possible for you to give an answer that is technically right, and yet it gives a false impression—you are lying if you do so. In such case it's your duty to correct the statement and to show them what the truth is.
Now it's difficult to get an exact point on it; you cannot lay down rules that can be followed with absolute clarity. Here you have to get the objective: if the objective is giving the truth and standing by the truth, one does his best to follow; but it is very difficult to judge others. I find that no matter how careful a person is about the truth, it is easy to find instances where you can prove he lied. Because his statement has elements in it that he didn't know, or you didn't know; and on the other hand, if a person is absolutely undependable, you just can't trust anything he says. Absolute truth is vital in the thing. But you can easily twist things, and they did twist them. It is my impression that at one time, one of the popes made an order condemning certain of the publications of the Jesuits. I read a statement, there's a statement in the Catholic Encyclopedia, that only a hundred Jesuit authors had been put on the Index—been forbidden to Romanists to read—but they said, "A hundred sounds like a lot, but when you think of how prolific they were in writing, how there have been as many as 2000 Jesuit authors, why 100 is a comparatively small number." But there have been those who have been condemned, Dominicans and others, have criticized the pope and secured a condemnation and then the Jesuits say that once a pope has spoken they say they have been exonerated.
Any Roman Catholic book for Protestants telling about great Romanist scientists is sure to mention Blaise Pascal; he was a French scientist of about 1650, one of the greatest scientists in the world's history, and he was a R.C. But Blaise Pascal was a friend of others who were developing a spiritual movement; it was a movement within the Roman church, but it was a very spiritual movement; and except for its loyalty to the church, its teachings were very, very close to Protestant teaching. And the Jesuits secured a condemnation of a friend of Pascal for his views. They secured a condemnation from the pope; and they moved against him. And Pascal anonymously wrote a series of letters called Provincial Letters. They're called provincial because they're supposed to be from a provincial authority of the Jesuits writing to others about all kinds of things. It is ironic. But they rank among the treasures of French literature, and they are so regarded. But according to the Catholic Encyclopedia they are full of misrepresentations of the Jesuits.
Now it's interesting that the Romanists all praise Pascal so highly, such a great scientist who was a Romanist; but he is the one who's written these letters to expose the attitudes of the Jesuits, not by attacking them but by pretending he was one writing. And I will give you one of these days some reading to do from the Provincial Letters. He was about a century after the time of the founding of the Jesuit Order, about 1650.
Now
we were speaking last time about the most effective instrument, probably, in
the history of the world; there has never been an organization which, over a
period of several centuries, has accomplished as much; and certainly not an
organization of its size—a comparatively few thousand men—which has
accomplished as much as has been accomplished by the Jesuit Order. They are and
were supremely devoted to an institution—to an organization, not their own, but
the organization of the hierarchy of the church—the organization of the R.C.
church. They are given the exercises which convince them that this is God's
appointed order for this world; and that they are to devote every bit of energy
and effort that they possibly can to its extension and its enlargement.
Occasionally, they've had defections; they've had men who fallen away, they've
had men who have gone into selfish personal activities, men who have fallen
into vices that have done harm to the
order; but the probabilities are that they have had less of this sort of
difficulty than almost any other organization. Because their men are trained to
utter devotion to the Order, and absolute obedience to it; and they are
selected—men of ability—and they are very, very highly trained; and their
thinking has been devoted not to decide what is the truth? How can we find out
what are the true things, about God, about Christ, about the world? What is
desirable in this field of thought? Their activities are devoted to considering
what the church says is right; how can we advance this and make it go? How can
we win people to absolute loyalty to the organization? And as a result of this,
there have been very great successes obtained by it; but there also have been
matters which have brought them severe criticism. Not only on the part of the
Protestants, but on the part of other Romanists; and at times there have been
certain teachers of theirs that have been condemned by various popes; and at
one time, as we mentioned, the Order was suppressed by the pope and ordered to
go out of existence completely forever; so great was its loyalty—not to any
individual pope, but to the organization—that it defied the organization.
j. Casuistry. Casuistry, originally, is just the study of causes; but as the term developed, it means the study of what decision to make, in the application of moral laws to particular cases. And some people became so clever, to define moral laws to get the result they wanted, that in certain circles the term casuistry has come to mean justifying whatever one does. Now originally of course the term doesn't have that harmful sense to it. I believe you have in the R.C. church today professors of casuistry, by which they would mean professors who are able to give a decision as to difficult moral problems; and there doubtless are sincere men who are sincerely trying to decide just what is right in very difficult situations; because often you do have moral situations in which it is very difficult to decide just what the right course should be; but as it was developed by some of the Jesuits, it became a system of justifying whatever they thought was for the advancement of the church; and so the principles that we've looked at under the heading of their influence through the confessional are related to this matter of casuistry. Probabilism would be a phase of casuistry—the determination of what to do. Now the other Orders would say, when faced with a moral problem: the question is what is right in it? And if you have a book written by a great Catholic moral theologian, and he discusses the matter and you have great confidence in him, read what he says; see if he lays down definite instructions for your guidance. But probabilism, we notice, was to take a lot of writings on moral cases; and if you find any one of them on which you can defend your position, why you say, "Well, he may be right, he may be wrong, but so long as he is a great authority in the field who says it, why we might as well follow him." And then if you take everyone where he is mild, and follow him, you can get rules that are pretty lenient; on the other hand, if you take the ones who are extremely strict with the man that you want to force to do your will in the confessional, then quote to him the terrible thing he has done, give him the strict interpretation.
Theoretically, in the Roman Church and among orthodox Jews, Scripture is the ultimate authority; but the orthodox Jews, while giving lip service to the O.T., give the greater part of their attention to the Talmud, being the study of the rabbis based upon the O.T., and upon their own ideas. Similarly the Romanists, while giving lip service to the Bible, find in most cases their real answers, not in quotations from the Bible, but in quotations from some man who studied the Bible. Now of course we have the same tendency ourselves; but among them, these men came to have very great authority; you would hear quotations from St. Thomas Aquinas, or any one of the other great doctors, in their discussions, oh, fifty times to every three quotations from the Bible. Now the claim would be that these men studied the Bible; but of course we know that in addition, at the Council of Trent they decided that they would admit to the Bible books that had not been considered part of it previously; and also that they would admit that there was such a thing as church tradition. And since nobody could prove what the tradition is or isn't, that gives an out in case the Bible doesn't say this; well it's in tradition.
But actually they do not base the greater part of their arguments on Scripture. If you look up in the Catholic Encyclopedia—which, after all, was written in English for use in English-speaking countries, where Protestantism is dominant, and where the Bible has a recognition it doesn't have in Roman countries—you will find that on almost every question that they take up of right and wrong, or of doctrine, they will start with scriptural evidence; and they'll have a paragraph or two on what verses in the Scripture prove something by it. But then after that paragraph or two on the Bible, they go on to have three or four columns of details from doctors of the church, their opinion or statements. So that while theoretically the Bible is back of it all, it's so far back that actually it is not a vital force. I mean when you take the many points of Romanist doctrine, you can find absolutely no warrant; or if you do, it is like they give the idea of communion—on Melchizedek bringing bread and wine to Abraham. Well who ever even dreamt that you could get that out of it? Melchizedek met Abraham and brought him bread and wine, but that's one of the big points of argument in connection with the communion: what kind of wine did Melchizedek bring to Abraham? Well, when you get into that sort of argument on scripture you very soon reach the point at which they take from their popular books; they say, the Constitution of the U. S., it's a law of the U.S., they'll even have pictures to show you, that show the constitution, then they'll show a couple of judges in black robes, and they'll say the Supreme Court decides what the constitution means; the common workers can't interpret the constitution, the Supreme Court does that; what the Supreme Court says decides it. Then they say, "Here's the Bible; that's the law in religion." But they say, "The hierarchy in turn interprets the Bible, so whatever the hierarchy says, that's the story." Of course, if the constitution of the U.S. says that the president of the U.S. cannot be under 35 years of age, and if the Supreme Court was going to interpret 35 as being 25, I think most people in the country would immediately pay no attention to them, because they would say, "It's what the constitution says that matters, and it's only in places where there is some uncertainty that we need a Supreme Court to explain it." Wherever you can clearly read it, that that is what you go by. So the analogy is false and the result is that the average Romanist has no interest in ever looking at the Bible, because it isn't what the Bible says but what the church says.
Well, the casuistry became highly developed for two reasons; one was for the use in the confessional, and the Jesuits exerted a great part of their influence through the confessional; and too most of the kings of Europe had Jesuits for confessors; and how they got to be that way, whether it was by skilful maneuvering, whether it was by getting people to favor them and to persuade the kings to take Jesuits for confessors; or whether it was because, to some extent, the kings found it easier to get absolution from the Jesuits than from others; you'd have to study each particular case; but the fact is that most of the Roman rulers of Europe had Jesuits for confessors, before the end of 16th century; and of course in the confessional they talked with all sorts of people, and while 95% of the confessional activity was done by other than Jesuits, because they certainly were not qualified to conduct the confessional, yet they did to some extent deal with all kinds of people.
In a way probabilism could be put under casuistry. Casuistry is the science of deciding what is right and wrong in moral problems; and probabilism is an attitude, an approach, which doesn't seek to decide what is right or wrong but if any writer of standing says it's all right, then it is somewhat probable that it is; and the rule which the Jesuits made was that we can take the somewhat probable, we don't have to take the most probable. A Dominican would say, "Well, yes, here is this writer who is very good on some things, but he is not so good on this particular phase; he mentions this, but others don't agree with him; it's very likely, probably, that he's not right; but here is a view which most of the doctors of the church take, and which seems much more of a reasonable view; that is certainly much more probable than the other." The Jesuits say, "It is not necessary that I take the most probable view; just so a view is somewhat probable, it is permissible for me to take it." It was a natural attitude to be taken by people who are not concerned to decide what is right, but to decide how you can advance the church by not going against what is proved to be wrong. That was their attitude. So probabilism, I don't like to say it is just under casuistry, because it might be applied to other things than moral issues; but all questions of moral issue would be casuistry. And probabilism would usually be on moral issues; but it is the attitude that we can take something that is probable, we don't have to try to find out what is right.
It is probable that the Jesuit under certain conditions would feel justified in concealing his identity; but that would probably be rare, if ever, nowadays; and there were definite cases, but just how many? There were enough of them that the story got around that you never knew whether the man next to you was a Jesuit in disguise; but how much truth there was to that, we don't know. Most of them certainly were clearly marked as Jesuits; but the Dominicans have a special robe, and the Franciscans and the Capuchins; and if you're in a R.C. country you can recognize the Capuchin 'way down the street, or a Dominican, or a Franciscan, or any other Order, after you get accustomed; but in this country I attended a chaplains conference in Washington and the men all had their little badges on, so you knew who they were; and they would have S.J. after their name if they were Jesuits; O.P., Order of Preachers, if they were Dominicans; or O.F.M., Order of Lesser Brothers, if they were Franciscans; one fellow there had C.P. after his name, so I said—I happened to sit next to him, I said—"What does C.P. mean?" Well, he said a lot of people say it means "can't preach," but he said actually it is Congregation of the Passion, so that was another Order that I didn't happen to be familiar with. But in this country, they're not apt to flaunt in public their particular type of Order, but the other Orders are all quite proud of wearing a uniform. Now we have nuns in this country—you see them on the street car all the time—who have special garb; and if you knew the kinds you'd know what order they belonged in many cases, I don't know them. But the Jesuits did not adopt any special garb; their rule is that, generally, in any country they will dress like the ordinary people in that country dress. So that it's usually thought that they are priests, not always. I ran onto a man walking in Yosemite National Park; we walked along for a while and chatted, quite an interesting chat, and after a time we came to the end of the line where I lost sight of him; and then we were taking a bus out to Los Angeles; we got into the bus; he got in, and I saw his face, and then I saw he was dressed up in a typical priestly garb; he looked so different, you'd never dream he was the fellow there hiking, coming down the trail. And he was a Jesuit, ordinarily wearing a gown that shows that he was a priest. So I say he doesn't have something that makes it clear to everyone that he is a Jesuit, because his interest is not in the advancement of the Jesuit Order, but in the advancement of the Roman church.
So this casuistry was important for their influence in the confessional, but it was also important for the individual; because these men were trained under the system which stressed greatly the terrible pains of hell; which stressed greatly the awful result of sin; or mortal sin, they call it, compared with venial sin; and they were supposed to smell the brimstone, to feel the heat of the flames; and if you go through a few days of that and the fact of punishment for sin becomes very, very real to them; and it becomes a vital thing to the Jesuit whether he is going to commit mortal sin himself in what he does, because every one of them has to confess briefly to another Jesuit; but casuistry was a means whereby the Jesuit could satisfy his own conscience that he was right in what he did; that he was perhaps breaking a law, but doing it in the interest of the preservation of a hierarchy. Now if you came with your car to a certain place and there was a red light, the law says you're not to go through it; of course you wouldn't go through it as a red light; but if you were there and you saw that, by shooting ahead through that red light, it was the only thing you could do to keep from running over and killing somebody, certainly the law of preserving the person's life would take precedence to the law of not going through the red light. And that's true in all of life. But they carried things to an extreme, to a point where they were able to justify whatever their actions might be.
And in the course of the next 150 years, whenever a ruler was assassinated, there were those who claimed that it was done by people trained or put up to it by the Jesuits; and in many of the cases, the men who did it had been trained in Jesuit schools; it was not taught in schools that the Jesuits had put them up to it—I don't know of any place where that is proven—but it was believed by great numbers of people, that they could; and certainly the pope issued a statement that anybody who killed Queen Elizabeth would be doing a good thing because he would be saving many souls from perdition by getting rid of that wicked woman, Queen Elizabeth; and that was in a statement given by the pope at the request of men who were undertaking to kill her but wanted first to be sure they wouldn't go to hell for it. So they got this specific statement from the pope. Well that was an application of casuistry. In any Jesuit school there would be books on moral ethics which they study very carefully; but the books in their more advanced study would all be in Latin. I imagine most of these books are available; there was quite an anti-Jesuit group 50 years ago in France; and there appeared what claimed to be translations to the French from Latin, and when I was a boy I saw a number of them.
I am going to have assignments in Pascal, starting with the Introduction to Pensées, and then the Provincial Letters. These have appeared in the Modem Library and other publications.
The
Penseés are
separate paragraphs; he never put them together in his life; and they were
published afterwards. But his Provincial
Letters are recognized as being the foundation of modern French Literature;
they have a great position in French literature and in the foundation of the
modern French language; they are recognized as classics. And Pascal is
recognized as one of the great scientists of the world's history, and any R.C.
books that want to tell what great work Roman Catholics have done always
mention Pascal as one of the great R. C. scientists; but in these letters which
he writes, pretending they are written by a Jesuit—of course everybody knew
they weren't—they were an ironical criticism of the Jesuits, but nobody knew
who wrote them. Pascal kept his authorship a secret for quite a time, but they
became—once they began to appear in Paris, everybody was reading them, they had
a tremendous sale; and the Jesuits of course would say that they misrepresent
Jesuits; but they give us what Pascal thought, and many others thought, to be
true about the Jesuits. Nobody questioned who wrote it. The first few were
anonymous, but then it was found out who the author was and he acknowledged it.
And you could find them in almost any bookstore in the U. S. today, You go into
a store where they have Modern Library editions and you ask for Pascal's Provincial Letters and they've got it
right on the shelf. They are real classics of literature but they are made up
of criticisms of the Jesuits. And you will learn a good bit more about the
Jesuits' attitude on these matters from it, but we'll have to move on and look
at
k. Missions. And this must
be said, that the Protestants during the century were so busy—and rightly
busy—in getting the truth to the people of Europe, and in telling people in
Europe how they could be saved, and defending themselves from attack, that we
find only a little evidence of interest among the Protestants in that century
to reach out beyond Europe with the Gospel. We find comparatively little,
though we do find some. But the Jesuits were not formed to combat
Protestantism; they were formed to advance and defend the Roman church; and
that being their objective, their first thoughts were missions; they were going
to go to the Holy Land to convert the infidel; that was Loyola's first thought.
Then he became aware of the terrible danger that the church faced from
Protestantism; and he and his men set themselves to push back Protestantism;
and as the pope said when he made Loyola a saint a century later, he has been
raised up of God to fight that vilest of all monsters, Martin Luther. But this
was not their original objective, you see; it's a vital objective, but it's a
secondary objective; the prime objective is advancement and defense of the R.
C. church; and from the very first their eyes were upon the extension of the
church throughout the world; and so we find that right from the start they were
determined to reach out and to carry the church just as far as they possibly
could.
(1) Francis Xavier. Of the first two men that Loyola won to his Order—of the very first two—one of them was named Francis Xavier. I've mentioned to you how Loyola came across him in a school in Paris—a man of noble blood, a man of great ambition, very scholarly, extremely able; and Loyola picked this man as one he wanted for his order; and Loyola set to work to cultivate him, and to work to secure Xavier's allegiance to the Order; and he had great difficulties in struggling to do it, but eventually he persuaded Xavier to let him give him the spiritual exercises. And he gave him the spiritual exercises; and Francis Xavier whose name is almost as well-known as Loyola is today—there are almost as many schools named after Francis Xavier as there are after Loyola—Francis Xavier became Loyola's right-hand man in the beginning of the Jesuit Order.
Well, Loyola sent Xavier and one other to Portugal; and Portugal is the country where the Jesuits first were able to make a real success; they had much more difficulty in Spain; the Dominicans were well entrenched in Spain, and the Jesuits had a long struggle for maybe 20 years before they really got accepted in Spain; but in Portugal, almost immediately the Jesuits became accepted; and the two who went there, the other one stayed and became a tremendous force there in Portugal; but Xavier asked the king of Portugal to give him authorization to go to the overseas Portuguese dominions. Portugal and Spain at this time divided all of the world between them, except—theoretically—except Europe. The Borgia pope, Alexander VI, had drawn a line on the map and everything on this side Spain could have, and that side Portugal could have. And this man said, "He meant to give America to Spain and the Far East to Portugal; but they didn't realize that South American stretched so far East; and the result was that a good bit of South America was given to Portugal, and so Brazil is Portuguese; but the greater part of the Portuguese overseas territory was over in the Indian Ocean, where they had colonies in India. They were the first ones to have sailed around the southern end of Africa, and in the East Indies they had very fine colonies from which they were getting a considerable amount of wealth for Portugal. Well, Xavier got the king of Portugal to give him letters to the leaders of the Portuguese territories in the East, to give him every possible help in missionary work there; and in fact, after he had been there a little—he sailed in May, 1542—in 1548 Xavier wrote a letter to King John of Portugal in which he asked him to give orders to all his soldiers that the native Christians be protected from persecution by their countrymen; and asked that every Governor should take such measures as would insure success to his preaching. Without such support, he said, the cause of the gospel in the Indies would be desperate. Few would come to baptism, and those who did come would not profit much in religion; therefore he urged that every governor under whose rule many natives were not converted should be deprived of his goods and imprisoned as soon as he returned to Portugal. And when the governors of the different Portuguese territories were told that would happen to them if there weren't a lot of converts in their area, Preserved Smith says, "What the measures applied by the Portuguese officers must have been, under such pressure, can easily be inferred from a slight knowledge of their savage rule." But Xavier was determined to extend the church and to win for it just as many people as possible; he was convinced that all that he did not win were headed for hell, and therefore anything he could do to win them was worthwhile.
The
pope made Xavier his vicar for all the lands touched by the Indian Ocean. He
found terrible immorality in the Portuguese ports and colonies, and he set to
work to address this; and he did preaching among them, trying to raise their
standards of life; but his great interest was in reaching the local people, the
people that had never heard of Christ or the Catholic church; and he soon went
on further, and further. In 1545 he went to Cochin, China, then to the
Moluccas, to Japan, preaching in every place, and baptizing by the thousands
and tens of thousands. He would learn six or eight sentences of the language of
a country; he would go out into the public square and ring a little bell; and
then he'd start to give these sentences, and then he'd motion for people to
come up and be baptized; and he was just baptizing as many as he could because
that they would certainly go to hell if they weren't baptized. It's even said
that he got to where he was sprinkling water on numbers of people in the hopes
of saving them from hell. But he was a very, very able man, and it's hard to
believe his work could have been so superficial as it
was alleged. But his work extended over a tremendous area, as we mentioned.
(2) Japan. He even went as far as Japan; and in Japan he had quite an influence, and made quite a start in Japan; and then he wanted to win the Chinese empire, but he was on his way to China when he died. But in the constant covering of territory and reaching thousands of people, there has been no more effective missionary than Francis Xavier; and you will find, even among Protestants, you will find many, many who tend to consider him as a very great missionary. He certainly was filled with zeal; there's no question of that. And of course he did not have an understanding of what the real God was, and consequently his work was very superficial. Of course he had tremendous zeal. He learned a few sentences of their language; every country he'd learn a few sentences and go out. But of course other Jesuits came after him, and they set to work to learn the language, and he left people in these particular countries.
I wanted to say, the study of the story of Jesuit Missions—which girdled the earth actually, which went to some extent to just about every section of the earth, they were very, very zealous people, and very active—to tell their story in full would take years, but we want to just look here at a few phases of it very quickly; because I want to get back to our development in Europe, as we are more directly affected by it. But Xavier certainly deserves a special heading because of his very great activity.
And Xavier, we noticed, got to Japan and started a work in Japan; he started from Portugal in 1542, but by 1587 the claim is made that there were 200,000 members of the Roman church in Japan. That is the claim that is made. They certainly had a great many in Japan. And when I was in college, I had a teacher—a very fine expert on California history—and he had made quite a study of the early connections of California with the Far East, in the story of the Spanish empire; and he told of an incident there—which I haven't checked up now again, though its results fit in exactly with what is told in all the books on the subject—he was a very careful man, I imagine he had true sources. What he said was, that toward the latter part of the 16th century, some Spanish officials were in Japan; and there they were entertained by the emperor and some of his leaders; Japan was very open to western things; adopting western things, and giving every opportunity for the spread of the Christian religion as they understood it, in Japan; but that these men got rather intoxicated after dinner and began boasting about Spain; and that one of them said that the Spanish emperor was the greatest ruler on earth; and that all the world was soon to be under his control; that the Jesuits and the other missionaries came and won the people to Christianity and loyalty to western religion; and then when enough of them were won, that the Spanish army would come in and the country would simply be taken over. The Spanish had taken over many other lands. And the Japanese leaders knew enough about it to know that the Spanish might make an attempt to take over Japan; and it was a fact that they were winning very large numbers of people in Japan to the Romanist church. And in 1587 the Japanese leaders said, "We must stop this danger before it reaches the point where our country is conquered." Now that point, that, as I told you, I recalled from this history which I read years ago; that statement—and I have no doubt that he based that upon solid evidence somewhere—though I have not found a reference to it in the books I've looked into recently for that. But the fact that persecution did begin in 1587 is unquestionable. In 1587 a great persecution burst out in Japan, and the Jesuits were driven from the country, though some of them stayed there in hiding. And then in 1596, when they were beginning to recover from the persecution of 1587, a great fresh persecution arose and many thousands of Japanese Christians and many of the Westerners who were there were killed; and from that time on, any Jesuit who landed in Japan was immediately executed. And in 1624, Christianity was forbidden in Japan; in 1638 all intercourse from the West was completely stopped; it had been very open for a century to the western influences, but the Japanese said now, "This has enough! Christianity has won great numbers of our people; it would take over our realm from us; we cannot face that; we will close ourselves completely from all relations with the western nations." And so in 1638 the Japanese Empire was completely closed to all relationships with Europe. It became known as the hermit kingdom. There was one small island on which the Dutch were allowed to trade, and there was a certain amount of trade between the Japanese mainland—the main Japanese island—and this one small island where the Dutch had a factory; and then the Dutch, of course, carried stuff back to Europe, but that was the only relationship that the Japanese had with Europe at all.
In
1858, Commodore Perry went into Japan with his ships and swords and established
friendly relations with Japan; and then the Japanese turned around and reopened
their country; but before this, for over 200 years, it was known as the hermit
kingdom—absolutely separate from all relations with the west. It's very
interesting, that before that time they should have been so open for the
imperialists. And there were claims that by the time of the final persecution
that there were nearly a million Japanese who were Christian—that is the claim
made—and they were tortured and killed and all missionaries forbidden to enter
the country—all westerners whatever—and it was made punishable by death to be a
Christian in Japan; and yet after 200 years, they claim that they found some
individuals who had kept the knowledge of what they had learned through all that time, passing it down
through all the centuries. So that when Japan was opened again after 200 years,
the Romanists had already something of a start for their new missionary program
in Japan. And today, of course, there is a very flourishing Romanist missionary
work in Japan. I think General MacArthur asked for a thousand missionaries to
come to Japan. It seems to me that there were 500 Romanists who came and only
200 or 300 Protestants. Of course they had the great advantage—from their
system—they could pick out ones and say, "You're going to this country. So
you get busy and study Japanese; you're going to Japan." Where with us,
individuals have to get a burden for it; and then have to get prepared for it,
and then have to find their support. So there is great advantage in the
monarchical form of government, which they have for taking advantage of special
situations. Well, so much for Japan.
(3) Paraguay and Lower California. Now Paraguay is mentioned in all the books on missions—all the books on Church History—Lower California in practically none of them. But the same thing happened in both, so I am going to mention them both here. In Paraguay, a country of South America between Brazil and Argentina—and also touching Uruguay—I believe. In Paraguay the Jesuits got special rights from the king, giving them complete jurisdiction over the country, so that even the representative of the king could not enter the country without their permission. Now I don't know so much about the missionary history of Paraguay, but Lower California is the extension of California to the south there—you know—that little Gulf peninsula that extends 300 or 400 miles south from California down along the Gulf of Mexico. I wrote a 20,000 word paper, when I was in college, on the history of the Jesuits in Lower California and it was very similar to the development in Paraguay; and it is most interesting to read about the zeal of those early Jesuits going into Lower California. But they got the same rights in Lower California that they got in Spain—that is, the Jesuits held Lower California. Now it was a very poor region, a very desolate region. I'm told there are not many resources there; and there were very, very backward Indians. I enjoyed reading some of the stories of the early Jesuit experiences there, just trying to reach these Indians. For instance, one time, they put up a picture which showed people burning for the pains of hell, a most terrible picture; they put that up to show these Indians, and then began to preach to them, in order to show them what the terrible results were if they didn't turn and join the Romanist church and be baptized; and they were showing them this, telling them about, picturing it, and the Jesuit priests noticed how the people were becoming so interested, much more—usually they were very apathetic, but this particular group of Indians was a very sluggish, backward sort—in fact all the Indians in California were; very different from the East here; they call them the digger Indians, because they largely lived on acorns that they dug up from the ground; but he says that these men burst out, "Oh, padre, padre, take us there; we're so cold, we're so cold." This shows something of the difficulties of getting ideas across to people in a language and with a background of culture very different from yours.
But
in a very difficult region of the world, Lower California, these Jesuits worked
for many years; they built missions there and did a very extensive work among
these Indians. One time an Indian came in to one of the posts, and he was much
interested in what they were doing, and everything; he seemed so interested
that they thought, "We ought to go to his village." They said,
"Where do you live?" And he said, "Vega." So he went off;
and a couple of days later they deputed a man to go to Vega. He started out,
and he asked somebody, "Where's Vega?" "Over here."
"Where's Vega?" "Over here." He spent two weeks hunting
before he found that Vega simply meant in the mountains. And every area where
he went, they pointed to a different mountain: "There it is, right
there." They had great prob1ems, but they worked and toiled and built up
quite a successful chain of missions in Lower California, but they had absolute
control over the area. Until finally, when the Jesuit Order was suppressed, one
day a shipment arrived, a Spanish ship that came across from Mexico; and
crossing that Gulf of California, a comparatively narrow body of water, but
they had big storms on it; and when they first went there, one of their ships
was cast about for months by the storms in that little Gulf, before it could
get over it. But now the ship suddenly appeared; it came, armed with soldiers,
and they had orders from the king of Spain, every Jesuit must leave instantly;
he could take just what he could carry in his hands; he would be taken off,
taken back to Spain. And the work there came to an end; it was turned over to
the Dominicans after that. But these are illustrations of the far-flung work
which they are carrying on to this day; and if you read about Romanist martyrs
or leaders in China, or in any of these lands, you are quite sure to find among
them some Jesuits; and there they are exerting an influence far out of
proportion to their number because of their great dedication and of their
system. The Jesuits worked in Lower California from around 1769, but I don't
remember the exact date.
(4) China. I was interested to pick up a book on education by a university professor of classics last fall in which he discussed education—many aspects of it—and he praises Jesuit schools very highly because of their technical skills in education, and the way in which they develop the ability of their students; and he told about the attempts of the Jesuits to win converts for the Roman church, and he thought it was an extremely able plan. Well, whether it is or not, it certainly is unique at least. There was a Jesuit leader named Matthew Ricci, who landed in China in 1582, and died there 1610; Ricci and other Jesuits saw that the way to get China is not to start in a little town, and get a few people, and then go on and get more and more, with constant difficulty; but to get the emperor; we must get the emperor; we must get the leaders of the country and then we can get the whole country. So they set to work to study China very thoroughly, and to find what elements of science would appeal to the Chinese. The Chinese were much more advanced than the western nations in certain areas, but in others the western nations were more advanced; and so they took in scientific things, that the western nations had that the Chinese didn't; and they got to the emperor's court, and won an entrance there to their knowledge of science. And they adopted the mandarin costume; and they set about to be known as scholars, scientists, scholars of Chinese studies, Chinese background, and to win a leadership in China; and for quite a time the Jesuits went on with this, and according to this book I have here, he says there were said to be 20,000 Christians in China by 1619.
They established a special seminary in Paris for training missionaries for China; and they endeavored by their scientific knowledge, and their knowledge of philosophy, of Chinese philosophy and western philosophy, to win an entrance into the court, and to get to the emperor. Well, they made very considerable headway. But then the work was stopped due to dissatisfaction in Europe with another phase of their work. This was the fact that they were so anxious to win the Chinese to their religion that they were taking over Chinese heathenism and simply giving Christian names to it. The Chinese were continuing to worship ancestors, only they were calling it the worship of saints. And another Order in Europe began to attack them for this, to such an extent, that the pope ordered that the Jesuits should cease calling God simply chief ruler—which they used there—which didn't give people an idea of what they were really talking about; and to cease mingling Christian with pagan usages. At this time, one of the Jesuit leaders from South America said that the people there were so backward that you couldn't expect them to understand Christianity; if you could just persuade them to be baptized, that would be sufficient. And if you could just persuade them to accept baptism, you shouldn't ask that they understand anything further. Now the attitude of the church as a whole demanded much more understanding than that.
Now yesterday we were speaking about the Counter-Reformation, the work of the Jesuits and were looking at their activities in China. We noticed how they tried to study Chinese philosophy, and to get a standing among the educated scholarly class in China, and to get a standing at the court of the emperor; and they made very great strides in this direction, and made a considerable start in the extension of their church in China; but they ran into severe difficulty because the other Orders, especially the Dominicans, strongly criticized them on account of the fact that they made it so easy for people to become R. C. All they had to do practically was to change their terminology; they could keep their ancestor worship, calling it worship of the saints; and they could keep most of their old customs; and the Jesuits were greatly criticized in Europe for this; and finally their enemies got an action of the pope—not specifically condemning the Jesuits—but ordering very strictly that all converts must depart from heathen practices; they must adopt Christian rites. Now of course, this was not able to be enforced fully, but it gave a tremendous blow to the Jesuit work in China. It interfered with their preparation for it, and it stopped the progress they were making of getting great numbers to become nominal Romans.
One
more thing about the Jesuit missions and that is
(5) The Malabar Ceremonies. The Malabar Ceremonies—this is the same problem we just looked at in China. The Jesuits were criticized in India on this point. Malabar was the one particular part of India where the Jesuits used the old customs, with just a few changes of terminology, and to such an extent that they were very strongly criticized; and the pope sent out a special representative to investigate what was being done there and in China; this man died on his way back—before he got back to Rome, died very suddenly—and the general rumor was that he died of poison, but there's no proof that he did; the Jesuits have often been suspected of poisoning or assassinating those who were against them, but those things are pretty hard to prove; there is no proof that the accusation was correct, but at any rate the new pope who came in shortly afterward gave the very strong regulation against using or allowing continuance of heathen customs. But I understand that in certain parts of South America, that practically the same old forms are observed as were before the Spanish Conquest, but giving the names of saints instead of the names of old Indian gods to them; and this has been a fault of certain aspects of Romanism—but particularly of the Jesuits—because the interest of the Jesuits was particularly in the extension of the church. They want their people to be absolutely loyal to the church, but their greatest interest is to have the church be as widely extended as possible; so they wanted to make it easy to get converts, and they received tremendous criticism from the other orders for it. Many of the other Orders had gone in because of their belief in their doctrine, and of their desire to extend that. And while they also had a loyalty to the organization, that is not stressed and made such a positive central feature as it was with the Jesuits.
There are doubtless situations where individual missionaries, finding people having a custom which was quite harmless—like if the people would get together for a festival once a year and in the course of this festival the people would acclaim their heathen gods and have a ceremony of worship for their heathen gods—a missionary might say the festival is a good thing; it gets them together, it gives them opportunity to reach great multitudes of them; and it gives them social contact and so on; let's not tell them to drop the festival, but to drop out all the heathen practices and heathen worship in connection with it; and instead of having that, you have a service of worship to God in the course of it. Now if this was not carefully explained and carried through properly, there might be ignorant people who would confuse it and who were simply carrying on the same custom.
You will find those today who say that Easter and Christmas are simply a survival of old heathen customs and we ought to do away with them. I've heard of people who enjoyed getting out and working on Christmas and Easter in order to show the world that they think these are heathen customs; but there is absolutely no proof of that. There were heathen groups which had festivals at these times of the year; and probably every group anywhere has had festivals at this time of year. To say that our Christian observances in which we remember the birth of Christ or in which we remember His resurrection are a continuance of heathen festivals simply because they happen to come at that time of year is quite without foundation—purely a guess.
I do not believe you can speak of the R. C. church as such before the Council of Trent; I don't think you can. I think that the bishops in some of the early days varied. Clement of Rome was a very godly man, a writer of one of the earliest Christian writings we have; a very, very fine writer. There were godly men among them; there were men who were not godly among the early bishops of Rome; but there was a real Christian church in Rome; and other churches recognized the church of Rome as a great Christian church; but not in any sense as their leader, or the head, or anything of the kind, in the early days. I don't believe you can properly speak of the Roman Catholic Church in those days, as a church going out and doing things. It was individual missionaries, individual bishops, because every minister was called a bishop in those days, and individual bishops would do what they thought was best for the advance of the gospel in their particular area. I doubt very much if prior to 400 A.D. you could—and certainly Easter was celebrated very fully long before 400 A.D.—I doubt very much if before 400 A.D. you could find any evidence of any heathen cult or festival or practice, or any heathen ceremony of this sort. Now after 400 A.D. there were great masses of Germanic peoples coming into the empire; many of them were converted in great mass movements, where they wanted to adopt the religion of the empire; and it was very easy to get them to; and under those circumstances it is probable that some of the missionaries did not make clear to them the distinction in every regard between their former beliefs and the new ones. But that there was any concerted action on the part of any organization prior to—let us say—at least 1200 or 1500 A.D., to take over heathen practices, I don't believe you can prove it.
But of course it is very easy for a writer, who may write a book that is excellent and has a great deal of stuff in it; but he can't know all the facts on everything he deals with, unless he spends years and years investigating; and it is very easy for him to take what he believes and sustain it and carry it on; like it is very easy for certain churches today to say we come from the days of the apostles and there have been groups that have held our beliefs right from the days of the apostles, separate from the established church. Now anybody can say that if he wants, and it would be very hard to prove it isn't true; but it would be absolutely impossible to prove it is true because there is absolutely no evidence for it. We have no evidence of any continuing group since the time of the apostles except the groups which centered on the great leaders of Europe during that time. We have individual sects, like the Novatians, which were a separate church from about 250 B.C., which continued for at least 400 or 500 years, but which probably died out after that. We have a few groups like that, but we have no evidence of any group which went through the ancient period and through the medieval period, and we have no evidence of any Christian group which was not part of the larger general church, which existed in the medieval period and into the modern except the Waldensians. They originated about 1200 A.D., continued their existence right into modern times, though they don't seem to have had any clear understanding of the gospel before the time of Luther; but they were people with very great desire to stand for what was right, and they recognized Luther's teaching and they got into fellowship with him immediately; and they have held it since that time. Mr. Myers? [student] No, this is a matter of terminology; if you want to speak of the church at Rome, in the sense of a group of Christians living at Rome having an organization, it probably began in the time of the apostle Paul. If you want to speak of the church at Rome as the organization which is devoted to the doctrines which are today characteristic of the Roman Church, it began at the Council of Trent about 1540. Now in between there were people—leaders in the church at Rome who being in the capital city of the world and also being asked by the people out in the backwoods for their opinion on things—who began to think that they had a superior authority over the other churches, and there were individuals who tried to exert such an authority. Pope Leo in 451 tried to claim that he was the head of the universal church, and exerted his authority to that extent; but Pope Gregory at 600 A.D. denounced the Bishop of Constantinople—not for not recognizing Gregory as superior, no—but for claiming any superiority himself.
Gregory said for any one bishop to claim he is bishop over the whole church or to call himself the Bishop of Bishops, he said is blasphemy; and he was one of the great bishops of Rome; he was 150 years after Leo. You cannot point to a particular point and say at this point the organization of Rome as it is today began; you can't do that. There are very unscholarly statements made in many books which try to say, "Up to this point there was no church of Rome; at this point it began," but if you read carefully you'll find you've misunderstood it, that's not what they meant. It's just not the source.
The Roman Catholic Church as an organization has many features, and those features have begun at different times. Many of those features became authoritative and official at the Council of Trent; none of them were originated at the time of the Council of Trent; but some of them were originated about the 12th century, some about the 15th, some the l3th, different times. None of them were held universally prior to the Council of Trent. But some of them would be held by a fourth of the people, some by a third, some by a sixth, some of them by half; different groups. There was no official position upon these matters.
There was a Bishop of Rome who tried to claim headship very early; but there were other bishops who did not take such a position; and the church as a whole never accepted it prior to the Council of Trent; in fact, at some meetings of the Council of Trent, many of the leading bishops there were convinced that the bishop of Rome was a sort of an executive officer subject to a General Council, with no particular authority except what the General Council chose to give him. It was not the official view of the church as a whole prior to the Council of Trent, though many bishops of Rome tried to make it such.
But
the Council of Constance 100 years before this had very definitely declared the
contrary; it had deposed 3 popes; although there were people in the Council of
Constance who wanted to say that the pope was the authority at the head of the
church, the majority did not hold it. It was not the official view of the
church. It was very easy to think of a church like that as an entity which has
held certain views on certain things; they've tried to do so over a period of a
thousand years. I think you can say that, since the rise of the Jesuits who
have kept on a definite line, and since the Council of Trent. But we must
proceed because we have much material to cover. This question about Easter;
perhaps I shouldn't take the time for it here, because while it's a very
foolish thing, it's one that's a little off our line of study; and puts us on
to a much wider area. But we want to speak about F:
F. The Progress
of the Counter-Reformation. And here we have the events, the progress of the
counter-Reformation, I'm speaking about the 16th century still; the preceding
events are very involved and extensive; there were millions of people involved
in them, and we cannot do more than touch a few high points; but I want you to
get a few of the most important high points, in the events in the last part of
the 16th century. So I'm going to list ten countries under F.
1. Italy. In Italy, the papal
power had proceeded to Rome with the Inquisition, prior to the real
establishment of the Counter-Reformation; and the result was that though the
Reformation made a good start in Italy—there were little groups of earnest
Christians in many parts of Italy—they were rooted out with fire and with sword
before the real force of the Counter-Reformation got underway. The people of Italy in general had become
very cynical and irreligious; and the Jesuits and others did much to arouse a
fervor and zeal in an Italy which had become quite indifferent in the early
part of the century. But Italy, by the end of the 16th century, was
completely under the control of the pope, to the extent that the only
Protestants remaining in Italy were the Waldensians up in the mountains where
they had settlements that would be very easy to defend, comparatively; that is
to say, a strong, well-equipped army could destroy them, but it would take
quite a force; they were not thought to be worth that much of an effort to
destroy, and so they continued. There were much larger groups in the plains and
other places, but the Waldensians were the only group of Protestants that
remained in Italy. There had been quite substantial groups in Venice; there had
not been much of a rise of Protestantism there, but there had been a very great
rise of opposition to the corruption of the church in Venice; and the result
was that after the Council of Trent, Venice made an ordinance forbidding the
Jesuits to come into Venice and expelling those who were there; and for 50
years they were kept out of Venice. But no real Protestants got started. So we
don't need to say much about Italy now; we can say a little more about Spain.
2. Spain. In Spain Protestantism did not get anything like as good a start as it did in Italy. And furthermore in Spain, a very harsh Spanish Inquisition had already been in operation for 40 years before the real beginning of the Reformation. They had been burning thousands of people at the stake for deviation from the established views of the church in Spain, particularly for political attitudes they were suspicious of. For instance, if a Jew had become a Christian and thus had all the rights in Spain of doing business as a Christian; and then they found that he didn't eat pork, or they caught him not working on Saturday, they would accuse him of being a hypocrite; and he might be in the dungeon 2 or 3 years. In the end, the Jews were driven from Spain completely in 1492. So the Inquisition had already been in effect in Spain. Nevertheless, Spanish soldiers from Germany brought back copies of Luther's works; little groups of Christians began to gather in Spain; Newman says it is probable that by 1556—which was just about the end of the life of Charles V—there were as many as 2000 Protestants in Spain, widely scattered and meeting secretly in small groups. Charles V was very much against any division in the church, but he was not devoted at all to the idea of the supreme authority of the pope; in fact, he felt the pope went beyond his authority constantly. And he often had wars with the pope. But Charles V was succeeded by his son Philip II in 1556, and Philip II was an extreme fanatic.
Philip II would rather rule over a wilderness than over a country in which the Roman church was not supreme. And Philip II extended the Inquisition by actively searching out of those who were not in sympathy with the established church. So by 1570—almost 14 years after Philip II became king—probably just about everybody who had any Protestant views had either been burned at the stake, or had abandoned his faith, or been driven from the country; and so in Spain the Roman church was absolutely dominant.
Now Spain was very different from Italy. In Italy the mass of the people were irreligious and cynical. In Spain the mass of people were deeply religious. There was a very deep religious fervor which has always been characteristic of Spain. This fervor is one reason why it was necessary to kill so many more people in order to maintain the absolute control in Spain.
But
a R. C. history, which I was looking at yesterday, said that Philip II, though
he was devoted to the absolute domination of the church, and determined that
there should be no heresy of any kind permitted in Spain, yet Philip II
insisted on ruling the church himself, every bit as strongly as Henry VIII did
in England; the only difference being he didn't interfere with doctrine. But
Philip II said who the bishops would be; determined that every high official in
the church had to be approved by him; generally nominated by him; and he
absolutely controlled the church in Spain, even though giving nominal
allegiance to the pope in Rome. Of course if he were to bring charges against
one of the top church leaders in Spain, he would send the man to Rome for trial;
but for anybody other than a top leader, Philip II would deal with as he
wanted. And, you remember, that we've already dealt with the fact that at this
time Spain held Burgundy; and so that in what we call Burgundy, which was north
of France, Philip II's men tried to destroy Protestantism. But there it had a
big start; and in addition to that, Burgundy was an area which had constant
commercial relations with other countries; and commerce was back and forth to
such an extent that Philip's commands were much harder to enforce. But even so,
tens of thousands of Dutch were killed before finally Philip found it
impossible to hold the Netherlands. It looked as if he was going to lose the
whole of the Netherlands; and then the Duke of Parma succeeded in holding the
southern part of the Netherlands, which we call Belgium. We will glance at
Belgium a little later, but we look now at
3. Austria. Now I don't know how many of you know anything about Austria, but the word Austria in English does not convey an idea of what it really is. Austria is the English confusion of the German word Österreich, which means "eastern realm"; in other words, the word Austria means the eastern part of Germany; and Austria and Germany are actually one country as far as language is concerned; as far as general customs are concerned; as far as general historical background is concerned, they are one country. Austria is the southeastern portion of what was the Germanic area of Europe through the centuries. And Austria today is a region—at least it was 30 years ago [1930]—a region in which you're struck with the general easy-going manner of the people. I think they are probably the nicest people in the world; that is to say, they are so easy-going that they never seem to have any difficulty; they don't accomplish much; they're not very effective people at most things; but they're very, very pleasant. And you have a general feeling that is quite different from most of Germany—very pleasant, easy-going people. But today in Austria, and 30 years ago in Bavaria, there in the southern part of Germany next to Austria, everywhere you went you found little shrines to the virgin, or to one of the saints; and you saw the evidence of great simple piety of a Romanist type; and you felt as if you were in a region in which Protestantism was just about as far removed as it could be from any part of the world, in Austria or in Bavaria. It is therefore extremely surprising to realize that in this country of Austria, which is a hereditary area of the Habsburgs—that is of Charles V's grandfather, the family to which Charles V belonged—that in Austria the teachings of Luther made such headway, that at the time of the death of Luther there was hardly anybody in Austria—at least among the nobility—hardly anybody who wasn't a follower of the Reformation. I told you already how the papal legate coming to one of the leading cities there, where the emperor Ferdinand, the brother of Charles, had a great palace; he wrote to the pope, that the emperor and himself were the only Roman Catholics left in the city.
That was the situation in Austria at the death of Luther; Austria and Bavaria, southern Germany, were just about 100% Protestant, at least as far as the nobility were concerned. And of course, according to decisions of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, the noble had the right to determine the religion in his area; and the people in the area could be either Lutheran or Roman, but whatever the noble was, that his people must be; and the noble had the right to order people who didn't hold his religion to leave the area, but not to injure them for their religion, but to order them to leave; in which case he must give them opportunity to sell their goods and to migrate peacefully; that was part of the Treaty of 1555. But the question comes who is the noble, who is the authority? Because you have the various nobles in the different areas; and then you have the emperor and this is his hereditary domain; and so the problem was, these nobles said, "This is my territory; I am the Count of this area; I strongly believe in the Bible, which is the religion we want to have," and the Archduke who was the emperor, and different sections were under different archdukes, mostly sons of the emperor, they said, "I am the archduke of this area; I am a Romanist and I want the Romanist religion."
Austria
and Bavaria were very thoroughly Protestant; and they would have remained so, I
think we can say, and would today unquestionably be Protestant areas if it were
not for two factors. One of these was the coming of the Jesuits; and the other
was that the supreme authority in these areas theoretically belonged to the
Hapsburgs; and the Hapsburgs had been devoted to the idea of one church; that
was Charles' idea, and Ferdinand was even more devoted to Papal authority than
Charles had been; but Ferdinand had sent to the 3rd session of the Council of
Trent, and demanded that they authorize in his area—everywhere in fact—that
they would have communion in both the bread and the wine; and that the priest could
marry; and quite a number of other things he demanded that they introduce,
which didn't affect the central gospel but which would deal with quite a number
of the obvious differences between the Romanists and the Protestants. Of course
the Council of Trent, as you remember, did the opposite of what the emperor
wanted in all these matters, largely through the work of the Jesuits. But in
Austria, the emperor Ferdinand wanted it to be a Romanist area, but he was
practically alone; and his son Maximilian, who was his heir, was strongly
affected by Protestant ideas and seriously thinking of becoming a Protestant;
so the Jesuits set to work to work on Maximilian—and Ferdinand gave them every
opportunity to—and they worked on Maximilian; they were highly trained men,
trained to be attractive pleasant gentlemen; and highly trained in their
knowledge of all sorts of subjects, in contrast with the situation when the
Reformation came into Denmark; or in Scotland when the Romanists had hardly a
debater to present their views. Here was a Jesuit highly trained in these
matters, who could make it very, very plausible; and
they were persuading Maximilian not to become a Protestant but to remain a
Romanist. However, Maximilian was emperor from 1564 to 1576—12 years that he was
emperor—he gave toleration in his area; he did not try to enforce Romanism. He
gave toleration in the areas over which he ruled, which included Austria and
Bohemia—quite a large section there—he gave toleration and did not interfere
with people's religious life; so did his son; but that son died without a son
to succeed him; and his brother—the Archduke of Austria—the Jesuits had been
working on very, very hard, and had made him into a rather fanatical Romanist,
they made him into an extremely fanatical Romanist. The result was that the
Jesuits worked on the Hapsburg family, and upon the leaders; they were also
establishing colleges and schools, in which they gave an excellent education in
many areas in which there had been little education before; they were trying to
advance the church as hard as they could in various ways, but their primary
attentions for a period of maybe 20 years were given to the Hapsburg family, to
the various dukes and leaders to make them fanatical Romanists. The result was
that the next generation was composed of men who were fanatically determined to
destroy Protestantism; the Archduke of Austria became emperor shortly after
1600; he had been so affected by the Jesuit teaching that he was determined
that he would rather destroy everybody in the realm he ruled over than to have
Protestantism tolerated in it; and the result is that Austria today is an
area—or at least it was 30 years ago—an area in which you could go through it
from one end to the other and find hardly a word of Protestant teaching; you
get the impression that here is an area that has just been solidly Roman
Catholic forever, and never had a chance to be anything else; but actually it
was almost solidly Protestant for a period of 40 or 50 years before the
Jesuits—with the help of the Hapsburgs—completely changed it into a solidly
Romanist area in which eventually Protestantism was persecuted to the extent
that none whatever remained in the area. Well, that is Austria. We could go
into detail about individual Hapsburgs; it's a very interesting history, once
you get into it; it did not affect one of the great nations of Europe, one of
the large areas; but it affected an area of a few million people, and it made
the area solidly Romanist. Then
4. Germany. And the Jesuits, very soon in their career, decided to make a great objective the reaching of the Germans for the Roman church. As early as 1552, Ignatius Loyola founded a college in Rome called the Collegia Germanica, the German College, a college for the education of missionaries to Germany and Austria. The reconversion of the Germanic peoples was very near Loyola's heart; that was where Luther had made his great successes, and he wanted to win them back to the Roman church; and the Jesuits proceeded to go into the Germanic areas and establish colleges; and they won back large areas with thousands of people, which had declared for the Reformation, but in which the teaching had not been solidly established. They were able in a comparatively short time to win back quite a number there. Now one great difficulty with the stopping of the Reformation had been this—that the families that were in control of Bavaria, who were the most ardent Romanists of families in Germany proper, and the family which was in control of adjoining Austria, the Hapsburgs, were hereditary enemies; they had always been trying, each to seize a little territory from the other, and always putting the worst interpretation—each of them—on what the other did. And so they had never been able to work together, but the Jesuits managed—both were positively Romanist, both families—and the Jesuits managed to become confessors to them and to get a strong control over these peoples in Bavaria as well as over the Hapsburg leaders, and to persuade them to forget their differences and work together for the extermination of Protestantism. Munich, the capital of Bavaria, was a city which had become almost solidly Protestant, but the Duke of Bavaria was always very solidly Romanist in his attitude; and the Jesuits with his support established a college in Munich, and established a center there which took over Bavaria—to the extent that Bavaria 30 years ago was solidly Romanist; and there were two things that Bavaria was noted for 30 years ago: one was for its solid Romanist situation with practically no Protestants; and the other was for the constant beer-drinking of its people. The price of beer, I heard 40 years ago, was once raised a tenth of a cent, and they almost had a revolution in Munich. But Bavaria was noted for these two features, and Bavaria today is quite different from what it was 30 years ago. [student: What is Hapsburg?] I haven't used the word Hapsburg before this time. But it is a word which occurs a great deal in history and would be well for you to have it in mind. Hapsburg: it is sometimes spelled Habsburg, so you'll find it under both. I looked up last night a genealogy of the Hapsburgs—which showed maybe 600 members of the family through the course of 4 or 5 centuries—in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The Count of Hapsburg was a petty German official—maybe around 800 A.D.—who gradually accumulated more and more territory in the section of Austria; and eventually they became rulers of Austria, and eventually were elected Holy Roman Emperors. Maximilian, the emperor when Luther posted his theses, was a Hapsburg; his grandson Charles V was a Hapsburg; and Charles V, you remember, was very much for unity of the church, but he wasn't for any papal supremacy at all. Well Charles V's brother, Ferdinand, who was a Hapsburg, was more or less the same as Charles. Charles ruled over Spain through his mother, and over Austria through his father; and his descendants, through his son Philip, ruled in Spain up until 50 years ago; while his descendants of his brother Ferdinand ruled in Austria up to 40 years ago; so the Hapsburgs were a tremendous force in Europe; and they were devoted more or less—and usually more—to the Roman church. Another Maximilian, I mentioned, the son of Ferdinand, almost became a Protestant but was stopped by the Jesuits. I'd like you to have in mind what the word Hapsburg means, because they are a great force from this time on in Europe.
Bavaria
became solidly Romanist too, and remained so until ten years ago. Today Bavaria
is different. The Bavarian people, like the Austrians, for the last hundred
years, have been just easy-going, lackadaisical, very much more given to
drunkenness than the Austrians. The area has been solidly Romanist. But after
the war, when large areas of Eastern Germany were given to Poland, thousands of
people whose ancestors had lived in that area for hundreds of years, were told they could get out if they wanted to,
they'd lose their property anyway. The result was that train after train was
filled with these people—these Germans—from east Prussia; and great multitudes
of them were dumped into Bavaria; so today in Munich and in Bavaria, which was
solidly Roman Catholic before the World War, today at least a third of the
people there are Protestants. And the Protestant people there are much more
earnest Protestants than the Protestants in the rest of Germany today. Somebody
said to me it was because the community is largely Romanist that they feel the
pressure; but I've gone into Germany, churches further north in Germany, a church
that would have ten thousand members and find 40 people there at the service.
But I went to church at Munich; I asked where there was a Protestant church;
there was one of the big churches with a sign; I went to it in 1957, part of it
had been bombed, and they were trying to do some building on the side; so I
came there; they told me the time wrong, so I got there half an hour late; but
that was the time I was told the service would start. I got there and
immediately looked at the wreckage on the side of the building where it had
been bombed, you'd think, "Well surely there is no service around
here," and I saw nobody going in, because it started half an hour ago; but
I thought I'd look around a little anyway, so I went in the yard and around the
side; and here I saw an entrance, so I stepped into the entrance and I found
myself in front of the church with a man preaching and 2000 people sitting,
listening to the sermon. Well, fortunately, about the 4th row there was an
empty seat; and he hadn't been preaching more than about ten minutes, so I sat
down there and heard a really quite evangelical sermon. Munich was Protestant
at the death of Luther, except for the ruler; and then between the ruler and
the Jesuits, came to be solidly Romanist, until at the time of the 2nd World
War there was hardly a Protestant in the whole area. Now in the rest of
Germany, the Jesuits pushed forward but in Northern Germany they were unable to
accomplish it. In northern Germany, the officials, the leaders, were strong
Protestants; the people were mostly Protestants; and northern Germany held; but
of this Germanic-speaking area, which had been Protestant at the death of
Luther, one-third of it was won back to solid Romanism by the
Counter-Reformation by 1590. And by the end of the century, southern Germany
was solidly in the control of the Romanists, with the Inquisition enforcing
Romanism there, except for occasional free cities which still had the rights of
the Protestants. So the Counter-Reformation immediately made tremendous strides
in south Germany, though they were unable to do much in north Germany. But it
was largely through the Jesuits' educational activities and through their
personal influence on those nobles who were strongly Romanist.
5. Sweden. You remember that in Sweden, Gustavus Vasa had made the country Protestant. There were ministers there who had been trained under Luther; he gave them a free rein, and he put them in important positions, and gradually he made it so that very few people wanted to become monks; and when two monasteries became only about half full he closed one and transferred them to the other; and thus gradually he did away with Romanism in the land. So when Gustavus Vasa died in 1560, Protestantism was in complete control in Sweden, and the teaching all the churches of Sweden was Protestant. The service was Lutheran, and Romanism had been completely removed from Sweden as a result of the activity of Gustavus. You remember that the Romanist leaders had made a big fuss about it; and he had resigned and said he would leave the country; but he was so necessary to the country that the people gave in and gave him complete control in religious matters. So Sweden had become completely Protestant. Now the Jesuits were anxious to win Sweden back for the church, but how could they do it? Well, he was succeeded by his son who reigned for 8 years. He is not particularly important in history; he was a pleasant fellow, but he was mentally rather unbalanced; and eventually he had to be put away after 8 years. And so his reign doesn't matter in our history particularly, but there were three sons of Gustavus. And the second son, John III, was a type of man who doesn't want to take anything because somebody tells him; and the fact that they tell you something he'd rather like to take the opposite; so John III, who became King of Sweden after his brother was put in an asylum in 1568—John III was quite a theologian and he was an ardent Protestant. People would talk a little strongly—extremely—he'd tend to move in the other direction. And he was now king of Sweden. He married the sister of a Polish noble, and she was a Roman Catholic; so he had a Roman Catholic wife and he was king of Sweden. And the word reached down to Rome that John III was likely to be willing to bring Sweden back to Rome; in fact, he did begin to introduce more ceremony into the church, but of course as he did it, he said, "Well now, these are indifferent matters, just a matter of ceremony. We like to use ceremony, use it just for form." He introduced these forms; but he not only introduced these, he ordered that they become universal, in the kingdom; and of course that gave the Romans the idea that he is definitely moving in their direction.
And so two Jesuits came up, without telling anyone they were Jesuits—simply came pretending to be laymen—came to Sweden; but they were secret representatives with authority from the pope to negotiate with John III; and John III said to them, "I will bring the country back to the Roman church; I believe that we should have one great church. There is no reason we should be separate and Sweden will come back to the Roman Church." But he said, "The people have made such changes that we couldn't just swing them completely back. You will have to give me the agreement from Rome that our people are to have the communion in both forms, and that the priests ought to be able to marry—two or three other things like that—you give me that definite agreement that those matters will not be interfered with in Sweden, and I will bring the Swedish church back to the Romanist church."
Well, this agreement was made; but the Jesuits misunderstood John, and he was so agreeable with them, they thought, "Oh well, these little matters, he'll give in on these, so the result was that in Rome they began to act as if Sweden was definitely coming back right away and they sent order to John to do it immediately," and John said, "You haven't given me my promise that I wanted," and they said, "Oh well, we're not going to fight about those little matters, after all, the pope is supreme and he'll work these things out as should be." And the result was that John then went violently in the other direction. And he swung violently against this, and he refused to allow the Romanist representatives to come into Sweden any more. However, the Jesuits who had come to Sweden had formed a close friendship with his wife, the Polish princess, who was an ardent Romanist; they had won her friendship and she was able to keep two of the Jesuits there in Sweden as her private chaplains; and as tutors for her son, and so her son Sigismund was brought up, not merely as a Romanist, but as a very ardent Romanist; as a man who was devoted, to what was instilled in him by the Jesuits. In Sigismund, devotion to the pope and to the Romanist church was supreme and must be maintained at all times; and so John's son, Sigismund, was raised with these ideas.
But things moved in Poland to such a point that, while John was still king of Sweden, his son was elected king of Poland; and so Sigismund went to Poland, and you have heard more about him there in Poland; but Sigismund went to Poland, and when he did so, there was an agreement made, between Sigismund who had become king of Poland and his father John which said that when John died, Sigismund was to succeed him as king of Sweden, and the two kingdoms would be in perpetual alliance but each of them would be governed separately. And also that Sweden was to enjoy her religion, was to continue to enjoy her Protestant religion, and during Sigismund's absence from Sweden, Sweden was to be ruled by seven Swedes, six chosen by the king and one by his uncle, the third son of Gustavus Vasa, who was the leader of the Polish Protestants.
Well, Sigismund became king of Poland and in 1587 this agreement was made, but before many years king John died. And when King John died Sigismund's uncle, Charles, the son of Gustavus Vasa, who was a very ardent Protestant, immediately called a general meeting of the synod of the church of Sweden at which they did away with the Romanizing forms that John had introduced; and in which they declared that the Swedish church was definitely and positively a Protestant church; and Sigismund was away in Poland, who was the son of the king and had the hereditary right to became the next king. So when Sigismund got there a little later, the thing was all done; that they were definitely and strongly Protestant.
Well, Sigismund was faced with a thing that had already been decided; if he'd been there he would have insisted on maintaining his father's forms; but they had established it that they did away with these forms and went back to the simple Protestant service which the grandfather had doubtless followed in his youth. And so Sigismund agreed they were to be allowed to continue as they were now, but they were to be subject to him, he was to be king. And incidentally this General Assembly of the nation had appointed Charles the uncle as Regent. Sigismund didn't want his uncle for Regent, but he couldn't help himself; he was already appointed, they insisted upon it, Charles continued as Regent; and pretty soon Sigismund, who had been filled by the Jesuits with such a strong determination to make everything he ruled Catholic, soon he began to come into such difficulty with the Protestants that it was evident that he would either come in and get rid of his uncle and make Sweden Romanist; or else the people would have to give up their allegiance to him; and so the Swedes declared his uncle king. So Charles IX became king of Sweden and Sweden continued strongly Protestant.
The Jesuits were able to convert—later on—Charles IX's granddaughter; but when they did she had to give up her throne; they never made much further progress in Sweden—until very recently—and very little then. Sweden remained a Protestant nation, but it came right close there; if Sigismund had become king of Sweden under the Jesuit direction, Sweden might easily have gone the way Austria did. And a girl in Austria told me once, she said, "My, I'd like to visit Sweden. My brother lives in Sweden; he is an engineer up there with a group working. Up there in Sweden, people can leave things lying around and they're safe. They don't pick up things and run off with them like they would in Austria if you left things lying around. What my brother says about the honesty of the people of Sweden, I'd just like to go up there and see it." Well the Swedish aren't naturally more honest than the Austrians are; but the Protestant teaching of 300 years in Sweden has established a country which—50 years ago—was noted as one of the most scrupulously honest and moral nations in this world. In the last 50 years, modernism has come in with a bang and made tremendous inroads, but that was the situation 50 years ago in Sweden. While in Austria the moral condition was like in Italy. In fact, in Austria there were almost more illegitimate children than there were legitimate.
We
were discussing under 5, Sweden. And we noticed how the Jesuits in disguise
came to Sweden as representatives of the pope, and talked with King John and
thought they had persuaded King John to change Sweden over into a Romanist
country after his father had made it so thoroughly Protestant. But that
actually they had misunderstood John. Instead, Sweden did away with the
Romanizing ceremonies his father had introduced. They wanted to be a thoroughly
Protestant nation. The next king was king of Poland also; and during his next
absence from Sweden, the people got so irritated with what he was doing that
they threw him out from being king and made his uncle Charles, the head of the
Protestant party in Sweden, to be king. You might say that this action of the
Swedes, and that this failure of the Jesuits to win Sweden back at this time
saved Europe from being completely conquered by the Counter-Reformation;
because humanly speaking if they had gotten Sweden at this time, the
Counter-Reformation within the next 70 years would have had absolutely every
bit of Europe within its sway; with the possible exception of England, and even
that it is hardly likely could have escaped. You will see why that was, when we
get on into the next century. But first we go on to
6. Poland. And you can readily see that I took Sweden first and Poland second, because Poland was greatly affected by the activities of the Jesuits in Sweden. Poland you remember was one of the first countries to be strongly affected by the Reformation. It's right next door to Germany; there are no big mountains separating them; there is no natural line of division between Poland and Germany; and there has always been constant movement back and forth. Even within the last 20 years, there has been a great change in the border between Poland and Germany. There is a town, for instance, called Stetin which is only a few miles northeast of Berlin; when I was there in 1959, I read in the paper, that 30 years ago, even 20 years ago, during the opera season, the concert season, in Berlin, hundreds of people from Stetin would take the train in the late afternoon, coming to Berlin; they would attend the musical events in the evening in Berlin, and take the evening train back to Stetin. It was in the closest relation to Berlin. Now since the war [World War II], Stetin has been given to the Poles; the German population of it, which perhaps was 100,000 before, has been cut down to maybe 10,000; and the Poles have swept into the city. Today there is no train transportation to speak of between Berlin and there at all, just a complete change in the line. It illustrates how easy it is to move the line back and forth there because there is no natural border. Of course, the Russians are building an iron curtain across there that makes it difficult to go back and forth, but that actually is in Germany, with a fourth of Germany on the east side of it.
Well, the Reformation speedily got into Poland, and the great bulk of the nobility in Poland had become Protestant. John Alasco from Poland was one of the men called to England in the reign of Edward VI to help the Reformation in England. He was a great Protestant leader. Poland, as you know, supplied Copernicus, the founder of the modern understanding of the relation of the sun and the planets. If people want to speak of a great change today in our whole outlook, they're apt to call it a Copernican revolution—the man who was responsible for this was a Pole. The Poles are a people of great artistic ability, great musical ability, and many of them of great intellectual ability. And the Reformation made very rapid strides in Poland. John Alasco became a leader of the Reformation and took an active part, not only in Poland, but actually in Germany, and in England, in the reign of Edward VI. John Alasco, is sometimes called Lasco, sometimes Laski. Well, he was a great man and a great leader, but there were so many greater leaders in this century, I haven't told you much about him; I have referred to him, but I'm reverting back to him, now, simply to point out the great contribution to Protestant life that Poland made during this century. And the fact is, that if it were not for the Counter-Reformation, Poland might have been making tremendous contributions to Protestant life and to missions all over the world, during the past 300 years. However, the Reformation spread and grew in Poland; most of the nobility were Protestants, when Henry III of France—he was not yet Henry III—his younger brother, king Charles IX was invited to become king of Poland. You remember, one condition they made was he must promise to do nothing whatever to interfere in any way with the rights of the Protestants. Well, then, when Henry III had been there a few months, he heard his brother had died. You remember we mentioned this in connection with the history of France, how when Henry III heard that, he picked up in the middle the night and left Warsaw and headed back for France without a word to anyone. He was much more interested in being king of France, his own native country, where he spoke the language and had lived all his life, than of being king of Poland. But it left a very bad taste in the mouths of the Poles, and so they proceeded to elect a Pole as king. And this time they didn't make specific conditions like they had with Henry; they were rather upset about the way Henry went off, they picked out this Pole and elected him, and until his death he reigned as King of Poland. During his reign the Jesuits began to come into Poland. Well, the Jesuits were very careful in what they did; they knew the great stand that Protestants had, so they came into Poland and founded schools. But the king allowed the Jesuits to come in; and of course that is something to which one would be apt to object, they were giving freedom for the people; but when the Jesuits came in and began to build schools and then to invite Protestant leaders to debates, and to hold public meetings at which the matters of religion were considered. Well, the Jesuits did this very ably; they were well-trained for the purpose, and the Protestants in Poland were at this time in a rather difficult situation; first, there were a large number of Lutherans who were there; then the Calvinist influence had begun to come in with great force; and then there were a number of Unitarians who had come—there was quite a Unitarian movement in Poland; and in the situation in Poland, the Protestants were now divided into different groups. When these groups faced the Jesuit arguments, they immediately united and worked together in order to hold their own against the very clever and able debating tactics of the Jesuits; and the Germans were very strong Lutherans over in Germany now—the Concordia Formula, you remember—how they were taking this strong stand against Calvinism; and they refused to take any interest in the situation in Poland because the Poles mostly were not accepting Luther's views of the Lord's Supper. If the Germans then had had more of a sense of the need of a stand for the great principles of Protestantism instead of the insistence on a particular Lutheran point, it might have been a real help; but it's hard to say, because there were other forces came in; but at least they did not give that help as they might have done. Well, the Jesuits kept building and digging, and arguing against this group and the other group; and then King died; and the young prince of Sweden became King of Poland—this man, Sigismund we have already mentioned in Sweden. And King Sigismund, the son of King John of Sweden, he is king of Poland for 3 or 4 years before he becomes nominal king of Sweden. But Sigismund was a very different man from Stephen, because Sigismund had been trained by the Jesuits in Sweden, as you remember. The Jesuits were unable to get Sweden, but they had gotten the young heir to the throne of Sweden.
Well, Sigismund lost out in Sweden, but in Poland he was able to succeed in everything that he desired. He immediately gave his support to the Jesuits—gave them financial help and backing—and the Jesuits began to be strong enough now that they did not have to continue to depend simply on arguments and public meetings. And so they began to organize riots; they organized groups of young Poles to attack the Protestant churches, to throw stones in the windows and burn them; and they attacked the Protestant ministers; these things were carried forward violently with no interference from Sigismund; in fact, Sigismund gave his support and help to it; and before long it reached the point where Sigismund was able to pass restrictive laws forbidding Protestants to hold important offices and making all sorts of restrictions upon them; and eventually Poland, which had been one of the most Protestant countries, turned Romanist; and the people, now being raised in a formal religion, in which performing ceremonies and being obedient to the church is what matters—and not the personal relationship to Christ that affects the heart and affects the life—showed itself in inevitable results.
The Poles had made kings by election. The family that had been ruling for many years began to die out, and the Poles made their kings elective. They continued that way for the next 200 years; and often they would elect a male, but they did not recognize that a man had a right to be king except by election, after the death of the previous king—election by the nobility. But this man from Sweden—he was the son of a sister of a former Polish king, her father had been king of Poland—and they had every reason to think they were getting somebody who would be a great help to the nation when they elected him.
I think you can safely say this, that when the gospel is preached in a land, the moral tone of the land is inevitably raised. It may not be raised immediately; Luther was very much distressed at the continuing immorality and wickedness of Wittenberg and the area; it does not immediately make a tremendous raise, but over a period of time it does. And if you will go to almost any part of Europe today, you will find a difference between the Protestant areas and the Romanist areas. Just take the countries that are solidly Protestant and the countries that are solidly Romanist, and you will find a level of morals which is far higher in the Protestant countries. It is a joke in Italy, about the priests performing their service with one eye on the people, to see that the kids aren't stealing something, or something like that happening. When I talked with a R. C. bishop a few years ago, we reminisced about our studies, our days in Europe. I studied in Germany, and he studied in Rome. He told me that in the summertime he'd take a trip up to Germany; he says, "Oh, everything was so neat and clean, and the people were so industrious," and all that. He said he almost felt as if he was going back to a desert when he went back to Italy. Actually Italy is just as fine a land as Germany in every way; it has many great advantages over it; the people are every bit as likable as the German people; but the result of the Counter-Reformation has been that Italy has slipped back in the last 300 years, while the results of the Reformation have been the development of moral character, and stability, and independence, that made Germany one of the strongest nations in the world.
Now, of course, during the last 50 years the higher criticism has come into most of the nations of Europe—the Protestant nations—and has tremendously changed them. Sweden 50 years ago was one of the most honest, most moral nations in the world; I don't think you could say that today. It's the result of the tremendous effectiveness of the higher criticism in cutting down faith, in cutting down the preaching of the gospel. But you take these nations about 1900 and the contrast is very shocking. I was impressed, when I was in England right after the war, in 1947, and in England which has a thoroughly Protestant background; I was impressed with this: that wherever you went, the people were neat. Now they might be poor; they might have very old clothes on; clothing was hard to get right after the war, but they were patched and neatly patched; and there was no evidence of rags; everybody was doing the best they could with what they had. And I stepped over into southern Ireland, and in southern Ireland you immediately saw a condition altogether different from England. For one thing you saw much more displayed wealth; they had things to eat that the British none of them had. There was a display of wealth in Ireland, on the main streets, you saw nothing like that in England. But you just had to step off the main street, and you saw people in rags, and you saw a condition that was altogether different. I've heard it said how in Italy, 40 years ago, sometimes people had a wire fixed, so they could reach into the side of a compartment of a train and pull out your suitcase, when the train stopped for a minute and you were looking the other way. The standard of honor was very, very low; while in Germany it was comparatively very high. And in Holland and Sweden and Denmark, it was particularly high, I was on my way over to Europe I think 6 or 7 years ago, and a man next to me had a travel book from somewhere, he was reading; and I happened to read a little of it. It was written by an American of the sort of standards that I wouldn't be particularly interested in reading what he said; but I read this paragraph of the book and he said there are some countries in Europe, he said, like Denmark and Switzerland, which are so disgustingly honest that he said if you leave a gold piece on the sidewalk in either of these countries, he said you'd come back five years later and nobody would have touched it. He said no attention would have been paid to it, unless it were that they stationed a guard there lest some foreigner pick it up and walk off with it. Now that may be rather extreme, of course; but it does show the standards which developed as a result of the gospel in northern Europe. Now this doesn't happen overnight. It takes time to develop these standards. And the sad thing is that in a nation, after the result of the gospel has been to raise high standards of morality, and decency and honesty, often Satan succeeds in getting modernistic and unbelieving teaching into the country to such an extent that the new generation loses faith; and the result is that things begin to move in the other direction; but it takes them a while to move in either direction. So you can have an unbelieving country which has very high moral standards, but they won't last; they are determined by the preaching of a generation or two generations before, to a very great extent.
What I meant to do was just to make a general comparison. I was comparing these countries—like northern Europe, Sweden, Denmark, England, say—these countries in which, say, in 1900, 90 or 95% of the churches would be Protestant rather than Romanist; comparing them with those countries—like Italy and Spain and Poland—where 95 or 98% of the churches would be Roman, just to make a general comparison. And Protestant not in the sense that everyone was a believer—there never was such a one. But as far as the influence being Protestant rather than Roman Catholic—any kind of Protestant—as far as its being Protestant rather than R. C is concerned; in these northern countries there is very little Romanism there; but they are trying to get in there, and they have increased greatly in the last 50 years. Now you take Saxony, the part of Germany around Leipzig, and Dresden and that area; you go in there 40 years ago and 98% of the churches would have been Protestant, Lutheran. Well, today that's under the Communists.
But in Poland, Protestantism has hardly been heard of for 300 years; in Poland, or in Spain, very, very little. Well, the Polish Counter-Reformation is an example of a most successful activity of the Counter-Reformation. The only other place I can point to that was as complete was Austria; and Austria—in fact, I have never realized until recently just how thoroughly the Reformation had won out in Austria—except for the power of the Hapsburgs. Bohemia, Poland, Austria, and Bavaria in southern Germany are three regions where the gospel was almost universally taught, and where in the last 300 years has not been taught at all, completely ruled out.
Well,
so much for Poland.
7. Bohemia. Now Bohemia is the old name for the land of the Czechs; Europeans have usually called it Bohemia; and they are a very sober earnest industrious people. John Huss took what he got from John Wyclif in England; he took over the gospel and preached it there with tremendous effectiveness; and in 1415 John Huss was burned at the stake by the Council of Constance. But the people of Bohemia stood behind John Huss; and some of the best armies of Europe in the next few years tried to conquer Czechia; but peasants armed with hoes and rakes drove back some of the best armies of Europe at that time, because of their great thorough-going zeal for the gospel, and their unwillingness to be coerced into giving it up. And in turn, just at that time, the story came into Paris about these peasants who drove back these fine armies of knights; and of course people in Paris hearing about it, saw them as crazy, fanatical people, to get out there and fight back the knights with hoes and such; and just at that time, a group of gypsies were starting from India and spread in small numbers to Europe and America; a group of gypsies entered Paris, and the French said, "Oh these must be the Bohemians we're hearing about," and so ever since the term Bohemian has come into our language for a sort of wild life; a Bohemian club is made of people none of whom are settled, who want to live a rather wild sort of a life; and they are proud of being called Bohemian clubs, though as far as the real Bohemians are concerned, nothing could be further. When Luther saw that Huss had after all preached the same gospel he had, the Hussites came in to association with the Lutherans, though they did not favor Luther's doctrine of the Lord's Supper—that actually the body and blood of Christ were in, with and under the elements—they didn't see the point of that, so their tendency was more toward the views of Calvin rather than those of Luther; but that's all the difference, with only very slight differences between the two.
Well,
Bohemia stood; but the Hapsburgs managed to get themselves kings of Bohemia,
and to get the kingship fairly well held in the Hapsburg family. The emperor
was king of Bohemia, but he was unable to interfere with the Protestant
teaching in Bohemia during this century. The Jesuits were determined to find
some way to put an end to the—I guess—95% Protestantism of Bohemia, but they
were unable in this century to find a way to do it. In the next century, the
17th, they succeeded in destroying Protestantism in Bohemia just as completely
as they had done in Poland. But that takes us into the next century. We go on
to
8. France. And in France, you remember, what an excellent start Protestantism had gained in France; a third to half of the people of France, that is of the people who were keenly interested in religion, were Protestants; and then the Guise family had made their attacks upon it, and there was a war against the Protestants; when these wars were about halfway through, the Jesuits began to come into France. And the parliament of Paris—a judicial body in Paris, not a parliament in the sense we use it—was very suspicious and hesitant about allowing them to come in. But they overcame this difficulty; they managed to get schools established, get a start in France; and I've mentioned to you before how they managed to stir up the people of Paris to such a frenzy of fanaticism, that as long as King Henry was a Protestant and not a Romanist he could not take Paris; the people just lived on grass and rats, but they would not surrender; he could not take Paris. When King Henry said, "Paris is worth a mass," he said why keep up this fighting forever; he said how can I be King of France and bring peace to the land if I don't have Paris? Paris is worth a mass, so he declared he was going to become a Romanist. Turning against the teaching of his godly mother and his godly grandmother—Margaret you remember was the sister of Francis I. Well, when Henry did that, many of the Romanist leaders were very suspicious; they said, "Why should we pay any attention to that, if he wants to become a Romanist just to be king?" One of the priests in Paris is said to have addressed his dog, he said, "Dog, did you go to mass last Sunday? All right, I'll make you king." And they were ridiculing his hypocrisy; but the Jesuits said, "No," they said, "we should take him at face value. He wants to become a Roman Catholic; we should give him a course of instruction and accept him; and they threw their influence toward accepting him, got the pope to give him absolution; he became king of France, and they became his counsellors and his confessors, and the tutors of his children. And Henry IV, from a secular viewpoint, is one of the finest kings that France ever had, because he was a man with a background of Christian teaching which had developed in him a kindliness, and a desire for the welfare of human beings; and he was anxious for the welfare of all Frenchmen. As far as actual gospel teaching is concerned, he had been affected more by the gospel morality and the general atmosphere, in all moral regards except one, that which we specifically refer to often as morality, in that regard he was unaffected. He was typically French in that regard; but in other regards, he became king; and he was a man who wanted to get all Frenchmen together, and to give them each a decent, wholesome peaceful life; and today he is remembered as—from a secular viewpoint—one of the best kings France ever had. Well, when he became king he made the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed the Protestants freedom to worship in their religion; he even gave them garrisons in certain cities, so that if any attack was made on their religion, they could hold these cities and protect them. The Edict of Nantes said they are not to be in any way discriminated against on account their religion; they are to rise just as high in the government, or in any line in France, as their abilities will warrant, This Edict of Nantes—which I believe was 1598, within a year of one way or the other of that—Henry instituted these rights to the Protestants, guaranteed for all time. They were to be free from interference in France; and a man named Sully who was a strong Protestant became his Prime Minister; and he was his assistant in doing everything he could for the welfare of France. But Henry's children were trained by the Jesuits; and he himself married a R.C, a princess from Italy. Now the Jesuits had gotten France united and subject to this king; and they have the king to some extent under their control; and they had the chance to bring up their children. He was only king six years when an attempt was made on his life; and the man who made the attempt was one who had been trained by the Jesuits; and the Parliament of Paris immediately said these Jesuits, we didn't want to let them into France in the first place; they said they are people who believe in assassination; they are people that nothing will stop from doing what they want. Someone [student in the class] asked here today about these six points that [the church historian] Newman had [regarding the Jesuits]; and I read five of them to you the other day; and the sixth one was they were credited with supporting assassination of rulers who were against them. Newman speaks rather strongly on it; you can't prove their teaching in this regard, except for a few statements in their books which sound in that direction. But there have been many cases where rulers have been killed, where people have suspected the Jesuits were back of it.
In
1604 an attempt was made on Henry's life. As a consequence, Parliament expelled
all Jesuits from France. But Henry said he didn't think the Jesuits had
anything to do with this; his confessors were Jesuits; he said it is
preposterous to think they'd do a thing like that; this man was not a Jesuit;
he had been trained by the Jesuits. But he was not a Jesuit, and Henry favored
letting the Jesuits back again; and they were allowed to come back. And in
1610, when a Romanist group in eastern Europe was planning to attempt by force
of arms to destroy Protestantism, Henry joined with those who were going to
establish peace throughout Europe; they had it in France; and just at that
time, he was killed by another attempt at assassination, by another man who had
been a student of the Jesuits. This man was executed a couple of weeks later
for having done it; the Jesuits claimed they had nothing to do with it; nobody
could prove they did. Henry IV was
assassinated by this man, who had been trained by the Jesuits; and the Jesuits
were able to work slowly in France, and eventually they accomplished their
design and got rid of Protestants in France; but it took them another 50 years.
9. Belgium. We won't take much time now on Belgium; we've already seen the events which resulted in the foundation of what later became the kingdom of Belgium. It is part of the old land of Burgundy, which had belonged to Emperor Charles; and it was Philip II who tried to completely root out Protestantism from the Netherlands—the Duke of Alba and others. The great center of Protestantism had been in Antwerp and Brussels. But in the course of the wars the Protestants—many of them—drifted north into what had been a much less Protestant area, what is now Holland; that was largely because the armies came from the south. There were thousands, tens of thousands of people massacred in these religious wars in the last part of this century, and in the end the Duke of Parma succeeded in getting control of the southern half of the Netherlands. But the northern half he did not get control of; he probably would have if it hadn't been for the fate of the Spanish Armada, which cut down the power of Spain; so he was unable to go further, and the northern half of the Netherlands became a separate nation which is today known as Holland or the Netherlands. The southern half of the Netherlands was under the Spanish power; and the Jesuits asked the king to let them come in to this area. So they came in to Belgium; and there in Belgium, in the last part of the 16th century, they established schools and got control of the nation to such an extent that every single Protestant in Belgium was either killed or forced to leave. There was a region which had been a great center of Protestantism; in which afterwards, for a period of 200 to 300 years, I believe you can safely say not a single Protestant sermon was given anywhere in Belgium.
The Belgium Gospel Mission went in there during the First World War and made a start on Protestant work in Belgium; but Belgium is to this day mainly Romanist. Prior to the First World War, in 1914 it was just about as completely Romanist, under strong Roman influence and strong Jesuit indoctrination. The head of the Jesuit Order, last time I heard, was a Belgian. [student] I think in general a comparison between the regions that are thoroughly Roman in character and those that are thoroughly Protestant in character; I have heard things said by people who have no religious interest, these things said about the honesty of Switzerland and of Denmark and Sweden. I have never heard any such statement about Belgium, Belgium and Bavaria. There is no doubt, at least for Bavaria, that the standard of honesty is much higher than it is for Poland, but I don't know much really about Belgium. [student: Poland under communism] Well, forceful elimination of religious teaching in all the countries has been raging for the last ten years.
Now
I want to give you these main features of these countries, and speak very
briefly of
10. England. In England, if Queen Mary Tudor had lived another 30 years, the chances are very good that England would be just like Poland is today. Mary was starting to stamp out Protestantism by force; she burned about 300 people at the stake in the five years of her reign. You say, that's nothing compared to the tens of thousands killed in all those other countries. Yes, it isn't; but it was a start; and if she had gone on for another 20 or 30 years, who knows what might have happened; but she died, and was succeeded by her sister Elizabeth. And Elizabeth took a Protestant position. And with Elizabeth taking a Protestant position, there were those who thought by force of arms to get rid of her; there were groups that were constantly conspiring to kill Elizabeth, and get Mary Queen of Scots to be Queen of England. That had been this Mary's ambition right along, even when she was a little girl and queen of France, you remember. The Ambassador from England went to dinner at the French royal palace, and found there was special china made showing Mary as Queen of England, France, and Scotland. Well, England was her great desire. She never succeeded, but she was the center of intrigue. And the result was that Elizabeth made very strict laws against anything which might lead to her own assassination or to the forceful overthrow of her government. By the law of England at this time, everyone was required, at least once a month, to go to the church services, including the opening of the church service. Now Elizabeth did not interfere if they had R. C services at their homes; but they had once a month to go to the service of the Church of England. That was the law. Well, then as the Catholic plots began to increase against her, and eventually, as the pope excommunicated her and declared that anyone who got rid of her was doing God a service, that and the fact that there were Romanists coming into the country in disguise, in order to bring the sacraments to the people, who could not have the sacraments without an ordained R. C. priest. Naturally there was great suspicion aroused that these people were planning to lead movements to overthrow the government.
Now if you read any R. C. history, they will tell you that in the reign of Elizabeth that hundreds of Romanists were killed for their religion, for nothing more than their unwillingness to become Protestants. Now if you read a Protestant history, or if you read a history that is Lutheran, or by a man who has no particular interest, I believe you'll find in almost any of them the statement that no one was killed for religion in Elizabeth's time, but that everyone who was killed, it was because of some proof of complicity with a plan to overthrow the government. Well, it's pretty hard to prove details of things like that. But there was a very strict force held in England, and the Jesuits were unable to make much progress then against it. Quite a few of them entered in disguise, and many of these were executed. And they would never execute a person though, for being a Jesuit or for being a Romanist, but they did go this far: They would say, "Do you believe that Elizabeth is the proper queen of England? And if you're of English blood, and going to be an English citizen, are you ready to give the oath of allegiance to her as a Queen?" Well, if they wouldn't do that, they were considered—having come in secret like that—to have come in to try to overthrow the government.
At
any rate, the Jesuit movement made no progress to speak of in England, though
they made tremendous effort during this 16th century. During the
next century they almost got England. They almost did. But that was a hundred
years later; we look at that further on. So much then for
this 16th century. And now let's step into the next century.
VII. Now in the next century it would be easy to spend all our time on England,
because there were tremendously important events in England in the 17th century
which affect all of us today very greatly. But there also were very important
events on the continent of Europe. And so I'm going to try to look at the main
developments on the continent of Europe during the first half of the century.
Then I will take England through the century, and then look at the continent of
Europe the latter half. So first we're going to take:
By
"continent" now I'm excluding the big islands near it, the British
Isles. Under this,
A. The French Reformed Church, in the first
half of the 17th century. And you remember that when King Henry became king,
the Protestants were a third to half of the people of France; they were a very
strong group in France, many of them distributed all over France, so
1. Its Strength. During the
first half of the 17th century, the French Reformed Church was a
church which was as large and influential, as zealous and as thoroughly
Christian, as any church in history. Sully, the Prime Minister, was a member of
it; its representatives were in every part of French life; and the honesty,
integrity, and industry of the people resulted in many of them becoming very
wealthy; and it became a proverbial statement in France of a man, "Oh, he
is as rich as a Huguenot"; that became the way they'd refer to a man,
because the Huguenots (the French Reformed Church) became wealthy and
prosperous. Of course, there is very apt to come laxity when people are blessed
in this world's goods; and probably many of the people of the church—not faced
with the opposition of the forceful attempts to destroy them—many of them
became easy-going; but among them there were many very, very earnest
Christians; and the southern part of France particularly was overwhelmingly
Protestant. They had great synodical assemblies, representing the Provinces of
France, and representing France as a whole. If you want to see Calvin's system
as he thought it ought to be, the place to look is not Switzerland but France;
because in Geneva, the town government always said, "We control the
church," and they would not permit the church to do anything beyond their
having oversight at every step. Now they might not interfere, but they claimed
the right to at any point; and they elected the elders—the government—rather
than let the church do it. But in France, the church was never connected with
the government; the church always elected its elders; and the elders elected
their representatives to the regional groups; and these elected their
representatives to the Provincial synods; and these to their synods that met
for the while country—every few years—and it was a very great and prosperous
church. Now
2. The Activities of the Jesuits. The Jesuits in France now were active, building churches building schools, trying to get control of the nation as a whole; and they were working in every possible way to cut down the influence of the Protestants; and the Jesuits had one very great advantage—they had the royal family. Henry IV had a great interest in the Huguenots; his family had been Huguenots; he had been until he became king. But his son, who was born after he became king, never knew anything but Romanism; and the Jesuits were his son's confessors. But his son was a lazy, easy-going sort of a fellow; and the government actually was ruled by the Cardinal, who however was not a Jesuit. So we'll mention him next meeting.
What a strong church the French Reformed Church was: a church with over a million and a half active members; a church which represented most of France; roughly a third perhaps of the French people giving their general adherence at least to this church; and a church that prospered tremendously. Because its people were moral, upright, law-abiding, and industrious, its individuals naturally came to be well off, until it came to be a by-word in France of a man, "He is as rich as a Huguenot." They were getting ahead of the more easy-going people that were not Protestants; and they had a guarantee that King Henry IV had given them in the Edict of Nantes. Not only that they should forever continue in their religion, not interfered with by the State; but that Protestants had just as much right of advance and progress in all positions of the state, as those who were Romanists; and so on. They had garrisons in some of their cities to protect them against any attack by the Romanists, who would attempt to destroy their freedom. They were put in a position in which Henry IV assured them that for all time they were safe in the continuance of their religion. And in order to give this security to fellow Protestants, Henry IV—remember, he became a Romanist. His children were trained by the Jesuits, which meant that in less than 100 years after that time, practically all the Protestants were killed or driven out of France—that was in the latter part of the century. We are now in the first part; the church is prosperous in every way.
Huguenot
is a word which came to be used for French Protestants; and of course, all the
French Protestants—practically all of them—were converted by people trained in
Calvin's schools, so the French Protestants were the French Reformed Church.
They were a very precise representation of the sort of church that Calvin felt
was the ideal. In Geneva Calvin was constantly hampered by the fact that the
government insisted on controlling the church; and Calvin was subject to the
government; although he constantly fought for freedom of the church on what
points he thought were vital; but in France the church—the state persecuted the
church of course; now it gave it toleration—but the church was absolutely
independent of the state and carried out in its government the system that
Calvin thought was best in line with Scripture. We also looked last week at 2, The activities of the Jesuits, and we saw the difficulties
the Jesuits had in getting into France; the opposition of the so-called
Parliament of Paris, a judicial body which had considerable control in Paris.
We saw how the Jesuits eventually got in there; got established; and how
powerful they became, and how active among the people. The bulk of the French
people had been very indifferent regarding religion; but the Jesuits went among
them and preached and performed their religious ceremonies and did everything
they could to stir them up; and to stir up a large number of them to greater
zeal for Romanism. And then you remember when Henry IV came a Romanist, the
Jesuits took his part; and he made them his confessors. They brought up his
children. In 1604 when there was an attempt on Henry IV's life, by a man
trained by the Jesuits; the Parliament of Paris expelled the Jesuits from
Paris, but Henry IV allowed them to return; and then in 1610 Henry was
assassinated by a man trained by the Jesuits, Again the Jesuits claimed they
had nothing to do with this; but many people questioned it because the man who
killed him was one of their students; and of course they profited greatly by
his death.
3. Cardinal Richelieu. The Jesuits were busy with arguments, with lectures, with training people; but Cardinal Richelieu ran the government. Henry IV was assassinated in 1610; and after his death, his son was nominally the ruler—Louis XIII—but Louis was an easy-going sort of a fellow; he never really took much part in the government. His advisors—some of them—were very bitterly against the Protestants, who did not have the same general favor that they had while Henry IV was king.
The Jesuits redoubled their efforts to stir up people against the Protestants; and they pointed out the fact that the Protestants had their own armies, their own protection, they had their own fortresses; they said it is a state within a state; this is ridiculous. So when Cardinal Richelieu became head of the French Government in 1624, one of the first problems to which he applied himself was this problem of their being a state within a state; and Cardinal Richelieu decided to end this situation. However, he did not make a frontal attack on the Protestants. He declared that the Edict of Nantes was a part of the law of France forever; that the Protestants were free in the carrying on of their religion and would never be interfered with. Of course, as you know, 50 years later—40 years later—there was complete denial, but this is what Richelieu said at this time. He said, "This is the law of the country; they will never be interfered with; there is no sense in their having these private armies—private garrisons in their cities—there's no reason for it; they can be subject to the law of France, the same as the rest of us are, and so he called upon the Protestants to show their loyalty and their patriotism by giving up their private armies; and some of them did; but most of them, well aware of what had happened in other countries where the Protestants had been rooted out by fire and sword, refused to do it; and the result was that Richelieu sent an army against these cities—one by one—and all of them were soon taken except one; and these cities, he took away their fortresses; he deprived them of their private armies; but he did not interfere with their religion; he allowed them to continue it, even sent messages of greeting to their synodic meetings, thanking them for their loyalty to the nation. There was one city which was a the seacoast, in which the people said, "No, we know what has happened in other nations where the Romanists have gotten control; we had better keep the protection we have; so the city of La Rochelle in southern France on the Atlantic coast, refused to give up its army; and Richelieu sent a considerable army against which besieged the city for over a year, and finally captured it. But again Richelieu showed his statesmanship. Instead of proceeding by force of arms to destroy Protestantism, he gave every assurance that he would protect them; that they had their rights; they would not be interfered with; all he wanted was to put an end to this condition of having a state within a state; and after another 40 years of weakening them and gradually attacking them here and there; then the great force came which utterly destroyed Protestantism in France. That comes in the last half of 17th century, so we look at that later on. Yes? [student] Oh my, no; he cannot be blamed for that; he cannot be blamed for that, but you might say they might be blamed for thinking that assurances that he gave them would be binding on his successors; you might say that. Well, nobody can say he was sincere, nobody can prove he wasn't; we can't blame him for it. We can say that this is the way the Roman organization operates; you cannot lay the blame at Richelieu's feet; but as to whether we can say what he would have done… [student] He did not do anything after his death; that is evident. This I think we can say; Richelieu—though he was a cardinal—was interested in the advancement of France more than he was in the advancement of the church; I think we can say that. Because in his policy—while in his domestic policy, he destroyed the power of the Huguenots to defend themselves—he was more interested in French international policy than he was in the local policy—it would seem—and in the international policy he took the attitude that a number of French kings had taken: that while they were devoted to the Romanist church, they were afraid of the Hapsburg emperor to such a point that they would not give him their support. You remember that the century before, at the outbreak of the Reformation, King Francis of France had vigorously persecuted the Protestants, burned many at the stake; but it was his constant attacks on the emperor that kept the emperor from destroying Luther; that is one of the factors—and a very important factor—and in the end, when the Protestants fina1ly gained their safety in Germany, it was partly through the negotiations with the king of France, with Henry II, the greatest persecutor (of Protestants of France) that ever sat on the throne of France. He made an agreement with the German Protestants, whereby in turn for their turning over Verdun and Metz and certain other important fortresses, and a good bit of Alsace-Lorraine to him, he made an attack on the emperor which gave them a chance to get religious freedom in Germany. In fact, this is an interesting thing all through this, that the Roman church in its desire to root out Protestantism—which was a single-minded desire on the part of the Jesuits—was constantly hampered by the fact that so many of its leaders let their own political desires become a greater factor in their minds. Thus we find the French king often opposing the emperor who was the greatest champion of Romanism—even the pope opposed him at times. And all because it was feared that the emperor would get too much power! Well, Cardinal Richelieu who reigned from 1624 to 1642, was absolute monarch of France; and he ruled the French church as completely as Henry VIII had ever ruled the English church. That is, he did not let the pope interfere in the least. He said the king of France controls the churches—which really meant Richelieu—but the church was thoroughly Romanist in its views. He was the King's chief advisor—Prime Minister—they had different titles; but everybody knew that what Richelieu said was law. If you went and got the king to give you a promise, if Richelieu liked it he would do it; if he didn't like it, he would speak to the king, and tell him, "You acted a little hastily here in promising that." The king would sometimes say, "All right." At other times he would sulk for a couple of days and then he'd say, "All right."
But
Richelieu ruled in France, 1624-42, and put down the power of the Protestants
to defend themselves; but in the international relations he was looking for
chances to get some more territory for France and to keep the emperor from
being too powerful. The result of it was that occasionally he sent an army into
Germany to help the German Protestants. The next item I will not more than
mention, but it should be mentioned.
4. Moses Amyrault. Moses Amyrault,
of the French Reformed Church, is the founder of the Amyraldian
theology; that is something you will hear a little about in Systematic
Theology, not a great deal. This was the time of the beginning of the Arminian
movement, and we looked at that under Arminius. And Moses Amyrault,
one of the leaders of the French Reformed Church, tried to make a compromise
between Arminianism and Calvinism; and the compromise which he attempted to
make didn't really please either side. But he did work out certain theories in
time, which are discussed in Systematic Theology; but neither side felt they
provided a safe standing point. We can't go into his details, because it would
take considerable time to do it, and we have much else we must look at, but he
was active in the French Reformed Church at this period. Now we take up
1. The Political Situation. You remember that Holland was simply originally part of Burgundy. Burgundy was the area which had been inherited by the emperor Charles V in the 17th century; and in his son, Philip II, King of Spain and ruler of Burgundy, attempted to enforce absolute control for the Romanist Church; he killed thousands of people; the result was that the whole Netherlands revolted, including Holland, Belgium and northern France; but in the end his armies subdued what is now northern France and Belgium; and the provinces of Burgundy, in the northern part of the area, made a confederation in 1579. By this confederation of 1579 they joined together in determination to resist the efforts of Philip II to compel them to be subject to his religious beliefs; and in fact they denounced his authority altogether. It was not until 75 years later that the Spanish king admitted their independence.
But they declared their independence in this confederation of 1579 and were never re-conquered by him. In 1609 the King of Spain made a 12-year truce with the state of Holland; now this truce being made for 12 years in 1609, most of you are good enough mathematicians, I imagine, to know when that truce would expire. And probably you have a good enough familiarity with American history to know what happened in this country in the year in which it expired; and therefore you will able to at once see one of the things that led the pilgrims to come to America. They knew that the truce with Spain would expire in 1621; they might be in the middle of war, in Holland; they had gone there for freedom to carry on their worship as they felt was true in line with the Bible. If Spain re-conquered that area, they would have no such freedom there; so that was one reason they tended to look for another place of safety; and thus they came to what is now the United States. But that we look at that under a later head. They were in Holland at that time you remember.
So in 1621 war again broke out; but in this war the Spanish were pretty busy with other things than fighting the Dutch. Because it was a war which spread all over Europe; and so Holland was able to maintain itself during this war; they were busy with certain battles and so on, but it was nothing like what they had had for previous centuries. And in 1648, at the end of the Thirty Years War, Spain was compelled to recognize the independence of Holland. Now those are just two or three main political developments there; they've been independent ever since.
We
mention at this point, for Church history; we are interested in this political
background, simply as making it possible for religious life to develop as it
did. But now in Holland, we look at a very important development.
2. The Rise of
Arminianism.
Under that
a. James Van Harmin. This really means James the son of Herman, because his father's first name was Herman; the son of a weaver, bright young fellow, he was educated in Holland and in Switzerland; his name was later Latinized into the form Arminius, so he was called Jacobus Arminius. Now this man was like a great many of the Dutch are: a very estimable people; a very industrious people; on the whole a very capable people; but characterized by one feature which has resulted for good and for harm; and that feature is a tremendous thoroughness, such a thoroughness that often leads them to go to great extremes in one direction or in the other direction.
I remember when I was a student in Germany, hearing an American student there say, "If you go into Poland or East Germany, everything is dirty; if you go into Germany, everything is clean; if you come further west and come into Holland, things are so spotlessly clean that you wonder how the people ever have time to do anything else." "Why," he said, "you could eat your breakfast off the floors of the cowshed, they keep everything so spotlessly clean." They tend to go to extremes.
Now as I say, this thoroughness has its very good points, and enables them to do excellent work in many different lines. But occasionally it leads to that which is very difficult for other people to do; often there is a tendency to fight over very minute points; to go to very great extremes on technicalities.
Well, the Calvin system of teaching had come up from France into Burgundy, and had become by the end of the century the leading religious influence in Holland; and the Dutch were following Calvin's teachings and were sending their leading scholars to Geneva or elsewhere to study. Now Calvin, in his teaching, had as his great central ambition the winning of people to the knowledge of Christ; that was his great central point, winning them to the knowledge of Christ, and to the putting of God first in everything in their lives. In his theology, he emphasized the centrality of God and the sovereignty of God very, very highly; but it was, to Calvin, it was important in our understanding how to be saved, and how to lead the Christian life. It was not the center to which everything else was related, but it was a most important fact in the winning of people to the Lord and in the carrying on of their Christian life.
Now after Calvin, some of the theologians who followed him tended to take certain features of his doctrine, and to give it either an emphasis beyond what he gave, or to carry certain aspects of them to a very great extreme. And this was particularly true among some of the Dutch theologians. One thing which is most praiseworthy about Calvin's system: Calvin insisted the Bible is our only source of knowledge in religious things. Now Calvin said if you find something clearly taught in the Bible you must stand upon it; it is God's Word; but he said, if you take what is taught in the Bible, take two truths clearly taught and put them together and draw an inference from them, you must not label this inference as having the same authority as that which is clearly taught in the Scriptures. Unless you find it elsewhere in Scripture as a clear teaching of this particular matter. To Calvin the authority in the Bible was final in all his theology. But among Calvin's followers there were many who, recognizing the great logical consistency of the system which Calvin showed to be in the Scripture, put their emphasis on details of the system which were not given in the Scriptures; and carrying certain forms of it beyond what was clearly taught in the Scripture; until there developed in the teaching of many, a philosophical system which claimed to be based on the Bible, and which was largely consonant with the Bible teaching, but which was actually built on human thought rather than on taking specific Biblical exegesis, to find the truth of each aspect of it.
Now this is a great danger, and a danger which good friends of mine have fallen into from time to time. But in Holland with this tendency to great thoroughness and to great carrying things to an extreme, by 1600 there had developed in Holland a tendency to put such a stress on predestination, such a stress on the sovereignty of God, that many of his points were carried to an extreme, that seemed almost to bring an end to all evangelistic effort. Well, now in this situation, this man Jacob Van Harmin—who had been trained in Switzerland, but who also had been trained at the University of Leiden, under men of very liberal views—Jacob Van Harmin became professor in Leiden; and he was selected to debate against some who, in reaction against the extreme Calvinism in church centers there, were going to an opposite extreme; and he who came to debate with them found himself in agreement with them. So he began to attack the extreme Calvinism; and, showing the natural Dutch tendency, went from one extreme over to the other extreme. And so Arminius (Van Harmin) presented a view which, instead of holding that God had marvelously saved those whom He elected through his wonderful sovereign grace, made a system which said that God looked forward and saw who would have faith and predestinated those people; in other words, reducing predestination to nothing, and making it entirely a matter of human distinction, as to who was saved and who was lost.
Well,
Arminius died, 1609 or 1610; but he died before the controversy was much under
way. And his followers continued the controversy and in 1610 they made what
they call the Remonstrance, This is
b. The
Remonstrance of 1610.
And this Remonstrance declared that a man, though he has once been saved, might
fall from grace and be lost. It declared that God's predestination consisted
only in the fact that He knew in advance what choice people were going to make.
It denied, not only the extreme Calvinistic attitude that some of the Dutch professors were taking, but it went pretty
much to an opposite extreme; and the discussion was so great in Holland over
this matter—and it really was Arminius' followers who developed it on decided
lines, rather than Arminius, but they gave his name to it—it developed such
discussion that it was decided to call a synod of all the Reformed churches to
consider the matter; and so important was this synod that, instead of calling
it small c, I'm going to call it
3. The Synod of Dort. It met in 1618-19 in Holland, and to this Synod all the Reformed churches—that is, the word Reformed, the Lutheran churches were now calling themselves by the name Lutheran—so the Reformation churches which were not following Luther's idea of the Lord's Supper, came generally to be called Reformed Churches.
So these were the churches which were following the theology of Calvin, they all were coming; they were invited to send representatives to the Synod of Dort. King James I of England appointed several representatives from the church of England to attend the Synod of Dort. There were representatives from France; representatives of the people of southwestern Germany; from various lands there were representatives sent; but the great bulk of the people were Dutch, who were present and voting at this Synod.
Now this Synod of Dort took an action absolutely opposite to the attitude of the Remonstrance. It declared that the teaching of the Remonstrance was unbiblical; that it was contrary to the teaching of the Scripture; that they should not be allowed to hold professorships and places as pastors of churches; and it took a definite stand and laid down certain propositions which are sometimes spoken of as the five points of Calvinism. Actually these not the central emphatic matters which Calvin stressed; these are the particular aspects of Calvinism which Arminianism attacked; and certain of them are carried to extremes by the statements of the Synod of Dort, beyond what has ever been adopted by any other important church anywhere. That is, it is a Dutch tendency sometimes to go to an extreme.
For instance, I think it is very unfortunate that they adopted the term limited atonement; I think it's very unfortunate because it gives an utterly false impression. The atonement, to say that it is limited, implies that the mercy of Christ is limited; and it always has been a vital point of the Calvinistic view that the sacrifice of Christ was sufficient for all; that nobody could say I can't be saved because Christ did not die for me; that anyone can be told, "Turn to Christ and you can be saved." The death of Christ is sufficient for all. But the death of Christ is efficient for those who believe on Christ. His death does not save those who do not believe on Him—the Universalist view—that in the end everyone will be saved, even the Devil. The Universalists claim that all will be saved; that Christ died for all, and therefore all will be saved whether they accept Him or not; but that is not Biblical teaching. And so the denial of that unbiblical teaching is a proper thing. If Jesus died in our stead—as a substitutionary atonement—then He bore on the cross the sins of all who believe on His name. Nobody knows who those are; nobody can say to anyone that the death of Christ is not sufficient for him; but in the end we will see that the death of Christ was efficient for all who believed on Him. So in that sense it is limited; but the term limited is an unfortunate expression; I don't like the term. It is certainly a definite atonement, and it is definitely for those who believe. But this terminology is not followed in the Westminster Confession, which was written about 30 years later; and the members who made the Confession were all thoroughly familiar with the attitude of the Synod of Dort. And while generally agreeing with the position, the decision of Dort takes a stand which goes a bit further than most other Reformed churches have ever taken.
However,
the Synod of Dort was very important synod in the development of these matters.
Now
4. Religious Toleration in Holland. It is a strange thing: what happened for six years after the Synod of Dort gets tremendous attention in practically every encyclopedia or history; and what happened from 1625 on is not mentioned at all in most of them. For a situation that lasted six years, they give it tremendous emphasis; and the situation that lasted for 300 years they hardly mention; it is certainly a disproportionate way to look at things.
In 1618, war with Spain was looming; it was apt to come in 3 years. The bulk of the churchmen believed in the Calvinistic teaching; the political leaders at the time were men who were tremendously interested in protecting the independence of Holland; they saw that if the nation was not to be overthrown by the Spanish, that it must stand united in relation to Spain. And therefore they felt—as was the general idea of the times—that you must have uniformity in religious things. Now that was felt by the political leaders at this particular time in Holland; it had not been the attitude in general of the leadership of Holland during the previous 20 years, when they had won their freedom from Spain. And it was not the attitude after 1625; but the political leader of Holland—the Prince of Orange—and his close associates felt at this time that unity was necessary; the Synod overwhelmingly decided this view, decided the Remonstrance was wrong; therefore the Remonstrance must have no opportunity to spread their argument in Holland; and so for the next 6 years there was a considerable persecution in Holland to the Remonstrance; some of them had to flee; some of them were imprisoned for a time; but after 6 years—when the Prince died—the government of Holland reverted to what had been its attitude before; and Holland became the first nation in the world to adopt the general policy of religious toleration. Holland went far beyond that of any nation in the world. The definite policy, from 1625 on—not fully implemented until 1630—was the policy of Religious Toleration. This policy then was that the people in the nation were to have absolute freedom as to their religious views; and the Arminian party, from 1630 on, had its own church, its own schools; they continued for 200 years to be a powerful force in Holland. But, as the Encyclopaedia Britannica points out, it says very naturally, more and more liberal ideas came into the church; more and more of a liberal attitude toward doctrine and toward Scripture; and in time it became a purely humanist organization, the Arminian church in Holland. It was a very brief period; it was part of the attitude of Prince Maurice and certain leaders, thinking it was protection from the Spanish; and it was done away with in principle in 1625 and absolutely by 1630. So Holland was the first nation in the world—and for a long time the only nation—to have absolute religious freedom for its people. There was no one year it started; it had been the general attitude in Holland; it was largely caused by the fact that when the king of Spain used such terrible persecuting measures against the Protestants, the way he did it hurt all the people; and the Romanists of Holland also had joined in the Revolution; and to this day about half the people of Holland are Roman Catholic. The Jesuits have been very active there, have developed the power of the Roman Catholics in Holland; they are a very earnest people—the Roman Catholics of Holland—but they were tolerated right through; while in Belgium, the half of the Netherlands that the King of Spain retained, Protestantism was so completely wiped out that for 200 years, there was not even one Protestant service given anywhere in Belgium; it was absolutely forbidden. But in Holland, they took an attitude of toleration right from the start, except for this brief period facing the war, the leaders did not continue to follow. But the books of present-day Church Histories and general histories and encyclopedias are largely written by haters of Christianity, and anything they can do to show that all Christians are persecutors they like to do; and so they make much of the fact that the Remonstrance leaders lost their positions in the church and their professorships, and some of them were imprisoned. Actually it only lasted for those six years, and then Holland reverted to religious toleration. No, this was a political matter. See, the church took the action in the Synod of Dort; but it was the state—the Dutch state—which put these people in prison; and the state, in 1625, after the death of Prince Maurice—who had been the principal supporter of the insistence on uniformity—at his death the state simply gave up all attempts to have any compulsion on religious matters.
Arminius
did not write a great deal. He wrote mostly small controversial articles on
various subjects; but it was his students, who had been very devoted to him,
who carried on the work afterwards. Actually it was a man named Episcopius who was the real leader of the Arminian
movement, but I haven't bothered you with his name because I'm not planning for
you to memorize it. then
C. The Thirty
Years War.
This is a name which is given to a series of wars, including different activities—but
there was continuous war in Europe, one part or another, from about 1618 right
up to 1648—and it was probably the most devastating, destructive time in the
history of the world, at least as far as Europe was concerned. There has never
been anything like it before or since, like the Thirty
Years War.
1. The Causes. We can't go
into the causes in detail; but we just want to sketch the general situation.
What is often called the cause of it,
a. Ecclesiastical Reservation, which gave the Protestants the right to exist in Germany. The Peace of Augsburg declared that any ruler of any section could say what the religion of his section would be—provided he picked one of two—Lutheranism or Roman Catholicism; and that he had a right to hold that religion and to enforce it in his domain. But if people in his domain did not wish to hold that religion, then he could allow them to emigrate. He could allow them to sell their properly and move elsewhere; but could not persecute them, as long as they moved out within a reasonable length of time. And that the free cities could carry on their religion as they chose—and there were many free cities—but that where there was a bishop or an archbishop who held large territories, if he became a Protestant, he must resign and turn over control to the Roman Church.
You
remember that in many sections of Germany where the people had given the money
to build the monasteries or build the churches and everything, and the bishop
became Protestant, they simply changed them into Protestant churches; now this
Peace of Augsburg said that that would not happen in the future. But it did
happen. And it happened from time to time, and the Romanists always say that is
the cause of the Thirty Years War. Well, it's one of the causes. But certainly
equally important with that was the activity of the Jesuits, leading the
various Romanist princes to use force in trying to spread Romanist control in
their area of Germany. But I'm not going to give another cause parallel with
Ecclesiastical Reservation; but instead I'm going to mention a situation which
had much to do with bringing on the war. So I will call
b. R.C. Aggression at Donauwörth. Those of you who know German would recognize the word Donau means Danube; and it is a city on the Danube, in Bavaria, southern Germany. This city was in southern Bavaria, but it was a free city of the empire. And therefore, Maximilian the Duke of Bavaria had no authority in this city whatever; it was a free city of the empire. But this city was one hundred percent Protestant. Now most of Bavaria was to some extent Protestant at this time, except for the rulers who were very ardent Romanists. Most of Austria across the river was 100% Catholic; but in this free city of Donauwörth, the people were 100% Protestant; all the churches were Protestant; all the teaching was Protestant, except for a large monastery in the city. And when the people, shortly after the peace of Augsburg, declared themselves 100% Protestant, the suggestion had been made that the monastery be moved and that they take it out from the city; but others of the people had said, "No, the monastery is here; the property belongs to them; let us permit them to continue this R. C. monastery in our free city, on the condition that they confine their activities to the inside of their own grounds. That they do not made processions through the city and all that sort of thing." So that condition was established; but in 1606 the people of the monastery decided—I don't know why they decided, whether the Jesuits induced them to it, whether Maximilian of Bavaria suggested it, whether it was the idea of some of them—but whatever happened, one day they had a great procession which went all through the streets of the town, carrying the images of the Virgin, and the images of the saints; and doing like you see in any South American city from time to time; practically never see in our United States here, very rarely; this had tremendous pomp and form and all this, the adoration of these images; and it was against the rule that had been agreed upon when they permitted the monastery to stay there; and the people of the town became very much excited; and there was a riot and the procession was attacked. And its people had to flee back into the monastery.
The
city was then laid under the ban of the empire; and Maximilian of Bavaria
attacked the city, took possession of it, and closed up all the churches of
Protestant worship; ordered there should never be any more Protestant worship
in the city; only Roman Catholic services to be held in this city of Donauwörth. Well, this aroused alarm all over Europe. Well,
whether the Jesuits were doing it, or whether it was people whom they had
stirred up, I mean whether the idea originated with them, we can't say; but
doubtless the impetus had originated with them, I think there is no question of
that. But all through Germany there was a fear on the part of the Protestants
that this meant a wholesale attempt to overthrow Protestantism in Germany. And
the Hapsburg leaders, many of the royalist leaders in different parts of
Germany, had been trained in Jesuit schools; and had instilled in them a hatred
of Protestantism; and their activities led the Protestants to wonder what might
come; and Henry IV of France organized a League for the maintenance of peace of
which he was the head; and the two forces would have faced each other, and
there would either have been war or they would have made an agreement to stop
aggression on both sides; but right at this point, Henry was killed—by this man
who had been trained by the Jesuits—and the result was that nothing further was
done right now but everybody was wondering just what is ahead.
2. The First
Phase 1618-29.
And under that
a. Bohemia. The country that you now know as
Czechoslovakia.
(1) The General
Situation.
You remember that John Huss preached Protestantism in Bohemia in 1400, and in
1415 he was burned at the stake, at Constance in southern Germany; but the
people of Bohemia stood by his views, and Bohemia was almost 100% Protestant;
and the Hapsburgs had secured the position as kings of Bohemia, but they had
been forced to agree not to interfere with the religion of the people of
Bohemia. This was the situation, in 1618.
(2) The Revolt
of 1618.
Now whether it was a revolt or not depends on how you look at it; but in 1618,
the Hapsburg emperor who was King of Bohemia died; and the man next in line was
Ferdinand, to be emperor and king of Bohemia, an Austrian who had been trained
by the Jesuits, and who was the most bitter hater of Protestantism that had yet
been seen in that day. Ferdinand had said that he would rather see his country
in southern Austria turn into a wilderness than see any Protestant worship
allowed to continue in it. He had been active for 20 years in rooting out Protestantism
from his duchy of Austria; now he was next in line to be Emperor of the Holy
Roman Empire, and king of Bohemia; so when his representatives came to Prague
and announced to the people that Ferdinand was next in line to be their
king—they had had Hapsburg rulers for over a century—they proceeded to follow
the old Czechish custom of throwing the
representatives out the window. The men were not hurt much; they got up, but
their dignity was wounded; and they returned to Austria and told Ferdinand that
the Czechs refused to receive them as representatives of their lawful king, but
threw them out the window.
(3) Frederick, the Winter King. Now the people of Bohemia proceeded to declare that the Hapsburg ruler, who they saw was trying to destroy Protestantism in their nation—who in fact 3 years later did absolutely destroy it; to this day 98% of the people of Bohemia are nominally Romanist, although at that time they were 98% Protestant—they refused to accept him, and they elected instead the head of the Protestant League of Germany, a man named Frederick, who was married to the daughter of King James of England, the ancestor of the present Queen. His name was Frederick and he was Elector Palatine; that is to say, he was the man who lived at Heidelberg in Germany, which was the center of the Calvinistic peoples of Germany. The Heidelberg Confession is one of the leading Calvinistic Confessions. And Frederick the elector of Heidelberg was elected King of Bohemia; he went to Bohemia and became king. He is called, historically, the Winter King, because after one winter the Hapsburg king succeeded in dethroning him and driving him away; he conquered Heidelberg, leaving the town in ruins and taking its great library of 3500 precious manuscripts to Rome, where they are today in the Vatican Library. But in 1885, the 500th anniversary of the University of Heidelberg, the pope sent a sign of his esteem and his friendship by sending a catalog of the Heidelberg Library up to the University.
Yesterday we began to look at C, The Thirty Years War, and under that we looked at 1, the causes; first the Ecclesiastical Reservation, and then saw the R. C. aggression in Donauwörth. Then, under 2, the First Phase, we looked at under that a, Bohemia, then under that (1) the General situation; (2) the Revolt of 1618; (3) Frederick the Winter King. And we mentioned yesterday that this Frederick was Elector of the Palatinate—that is a section of Germany which had Heidelberg for its capital. And that when Frederick was completely defeated in Czechoslovakia, that the troops also attacked the Palatinate; there they wrecked Heidelberg pretty well—wrecked his castle there, quite considerably—and from the University they took away the 3500 manuscripts which had been collected during the previous 200 years; and these were taken to the Vatican.
Now I was interested to notice that in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in one of the articles about this, they said that these manuscripts were returned to the library shortly after 1800, that wou1d be about 175 years later; but I looked in another article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, about the Vatican Library, and in that article it said that about 1800 the French had seized 500 manuscripts from the Vatican Library; that these 500 manuscripts after the defeat of Napoleon were supposed to come back to the Vatican, but actually most of them went to the Heidelberg Library; so the fact of the matter would seem to be that out of the 3500 manuscripts which were taken from the Heidelberg University Library, maybe 500 were returned; and the rest of them would still be one of the treasures of the Vatican collection in Rome. It was in a guide book that I had read on Heidelberg that on 1885, on the 500th anniversary of the founding of the University, that the pope as a sign of his friendship, sent them a catalog of the whole Heidelberg Library which was in the Vatican, which I suppose is still there.
However, that of course was something that the people at the time probably didn't feel extremely keenly on—because their very lives were in jeopardy—the matter of the manuscripts, most of them, would be rather secondary. We noticed though that Frederick was only a Winter King of Czechoslovakia. The armies of the Czechs had at first been victorious, came almost to Vienna; then they were driven back by the emperor's forces; and at the Battle of the White Mountain, in November 1620, just when the pilgrim fathers were almost getting to the United States, at the Battle of the White Mountains, they were completely defeated; and the emperor's troops now went into Bohemia and seized Prague; they took the nobles, the leaders of Czechoslovakia, brought them out into the public square and beheaded the 20 or so leaders of the nation; and then the whole nation was ordered to do away with Protestantism completely; and the Jesuits took over the re-education of the people. It was done so completely that within 20 years it was thought there wasn't a copy of the Bible left in the nation. All the people were attending services of the Romanist church, under pain of death if they did not. Protestant preaching was completely forbidden in the country; it was not allowed at all in the country for, oh, more than 200 years after that time. And yet 200 years later, when an Austrian emperor made an edict of religious toleration for the Austrian empire, there were some dozen Hussite Bibles brought out of hiding, which for over 200 years had been kept hidden, sometimes buried under a tree out in the garden, or hidden in a secret compartment of a desk or in a hole in the wall, or attic somewhere, but dozens of copies of it were kept this way through 200 years and the knowledge of it passed on from father to son.
Many of you recall a little more than ten years ago, when the communists took over Czechoslovakia; Jan Masaryk who was the foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, was thrown or jumped—you can't prove anything—out of the window, and was killed at this time. A higher window than the one we spoke of yesterday. But there was found on his desk after his death his father's old Hussite Bible that had been preserved these 200 years, which the people had read and studied it in secret, and then of course openly, for the last hundred years.
But
the third year, when freedom began in American in 1621—the coming of the
Pilgrim fathers—in that very year, it was snuffed out in Bohemia; and it
completely ended for a long period. They had a brief period of freedom between
the two world wars, but now are under the Communist yoke, under a situation as
bad, or worse, than that of the Hapsburgs at that time. So the beginning of the
Thirty Years War saw the beginning of Catholicism in Bohemia—a whole nation
which had been fully Protestant—in which for 200 years it was punishable by
death to have any Protestant worship whatever. And today it is at least 90%
Romanist. Frederick was only a Winter King—he had one winter as king—so he is
called the Winter King. That was (3) under a. Bohemia and
b. The
Palatinate.
The Palatinate, as you know, is the section around Heidelberg where the
Heidelberg Confession was written. It is the center of German Calvinism. And
after the Emperor's forces captured the Palatinate, they gave the northern half
of the Palatinate to the Duke of Bavaria; they made him an elector of the
Empire, taking the electorate away from Frederick, whose family for generations
had been electors. The Palatinate, then, was now taken over; but it was in a
different situation from Czechoslovakia, being further west, and right in the
middle of the war. You will see what happened to the Palatinate later. We go on
further to look at other things first.
c. The Edict of Restitution. Ferdinand the emperor and Maximilian the duke of Bavaria were joined in determination to put a complete end to Protestantism in Europe. They had succeeded in conquering Bohemia and driving Protestantism entirely out of it; they had taken all of the Palatinate; their armies were victorious; and in 1629, the emperor made an Edict of Restitution, which, he said, was simply an explanation of the Augsburg Peace of 1555; but by the provisions of this edict, all endowments of the Catholic Church confiscated in the last 80 years must be given to the R. C. church now; and Calvinists were to be excluded from the peace of religion. You remember, in the Augsburg Peace there were two permitted religions: Lutheranism and Romanism. Calvinism was not to be permitted to exist at all; and Catholic princes, were given freedom to convert their subjects in their own way, which meant by the way they were doing in Bohemia. Well, this Edict of Restitution, the provisions were that all endowments which had at any time belonged to the Romanist church in the past were to be given back to them, even though the people of the area who had built the church, having become Protestants, felt the property belonged to the Protestants rather than to the Romanists. They were to be given back now, all that had been transferred in the previous 80 years, and the Catholic princes were to be free to convert their subjects in any way they chose, which meant they could kill them if they did not become Romanists; torture, whatever they wanted. And the Calvinists were excluded from the peace, which though the Peace of Augsburg had permitted Lutherans to exist, it was still in effect, but Calvinism was not mentioned in the Peace of Augsburg. In 1555, it was excluded; all who were not Lutherans or Romanists were not allowed to exist.
So that the first phase, 1618-29, of the Thirty Years War is ended; it seemed with complete victory of the emperor. The northern German Lutheran section had taken no part in the war; they felt that, after all, these folks were Calvinists in Heidelberg, and the Bohemians did not accept the Lutheran view of the Lord's Supper; it was no concern of theirs. And so the north German Lutherans kept out of this war altogether up to this time.
But now I've used the term emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and Austrian Empire, so I should make that clear. The Holy Roman Emperor is a term given to the theoretical leadership of all Western Christendom. Theoretically, all of western Christendom is under the emperor, the descendant of the Roman Emperors. Not a direct descendant, but a continuation, theoretically. And theoretically, a certain homage to him was considered as coming even from England and France. Actually, all he ruled over were such parts of Germany and Italy as he could control; and actually, he had much greater control over his own personal territory than the rest. Now he is the Holy Roman Emperor; he is the only emperor that there was in those days—except of course in the far eastern area, way over in Constantinople—that empire had been destroyed by the Mohammedans. But in Christendom he was the only emperor at this time.
Now he comes to be called the Austrian Emperor because his own personal territory has as its nucleus Austria; but it's the same thing; you call him Austrian Emperor or the Holy Roman Emperor—that is until 1815, when the title Holy Roman Emperor was done away with. Ferdinand was the emperor, a man trained by the Jesuits, determined to utterly destroy Protestantism.
The First Phase of the Thirty Years War ends in complete victory for the emperor and for the Romanists. As a matter of fact, however, the word complete is too strong. If it was complete, he would have destroyed Lutheranism altogether. But we can say that it was complete victory in Bohemia, and complete victory over the Palatinate, and that it gave him sufficient strength and power that he felt safe in making rules which would eventually give him complete victory over all Protestant heretics and to make Bohemia Romanist; and he felt safe not to interfere with the parts of Europe that took no part in the war up to this time. He might have succeeded in it completely. But when he made these rules, they not only dealt with the Calvinists but they also meant that the Lutherans had to give up a lot of their property; and they meant that Lutherans in any territory in which a Catholic prince rules might be killed or tortured; so then the north Lutherans were involved.
So
he had a right—according to the Edict given—to march into the territory of the
north German Lutherans; to take away Protestantism from them; and to arrest and
torture such of their people as he might find in his own domain. And so they
were brought into the war now; and he felt that as a result of this, he would
completely destroy their Protestantism. And this meant that instead of his
having conquered a large part of Protestantism, and stopping there and
continuing from that point, he roused the western Protestants to the point of
feeling something had to be done about this; and the war continued. So
3. The Second Phase of the war, 1629-35. If no one outside had interfered, Germany would have been completely made Romanist, as it was in the southern third of it; and Austria which once was 90% Protestant, now became 90% Romanist as a result of the oppressive measures which the emperor and the Jesuits were able to exert in these times. But Ferdinand didn't want just that; he wanted all Germany; and all of Germany he would have taken, had it not been for the fact that now outside help was raised up against him. This came from two sides. Well, I won't mention the help of the Danes, because the small Danish army which came down (with a little help from England) was speedily driven back; we won't go into that. But the two sources from which help came that really amounted to something were first, some from Richelieu, the French Cardinal. He didn't want the emperor to get too strong. He didn't want that, so he sent a force in; he would just as soon that Protestantism would be destroyed, but he was afraid of the emperor getting too strong; and so he sent a French force to the help of the northern Protestants. Now this was not a great force—not a tremendous factor—but it was a definite factor, much more than the army the Danes had sent which had been driven back.
So the force which was sent in by Richelieu was of some importance; but more than that, Richelieu looked around for help and even talked to the pope; and he said to the pope, "The emperor is getting too strong here; we'd better do something to stop him a little bit." And the pope even gave a little help against the emperor at this time. Now this is the only time in the Thirty Years War that the pope did anything on the Protestant side; he did a little bit, at this time; but the main source from which help came was from Sweden.
I
told you when we looked at the Counter-Reformation in Sweden, that if the Jesuits had succeeded in winning
Sweden—as it looked for a time as if they would—humanly speaking it would have
meant the end of Protestantism in Europe and in the world. But in Sweden, you
remember, Sigismund lost his position as king because of his Polish connection
and determination to destroy Protestantism, and his uncle Charles took over.
Well, now, Charles was now dead and his son, Gustavus
Adolphus was king; and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden is
one of the great heroes of Christendom today. I wish we had two or three hours
to look at some of the details of the life of this great godly man, who saved
Protestantism from extinction.
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Now Gustavus had thought of entering the war earlier, but he was in difficulties with Poland; and also he didn't see any valid reason to enter it before—any excuse for entering—and he didn't feel ready; but he had been preparing his troops and getting ready in case it would be necessary for him to come in. Now, Richelieu sent word to Gustavus Adolphus, and Richelieu said to him—Richelieu of course wasn't his advisor but he wanted to get Gustavus Adolphus in to weaken the emperor—"Now look, your Protestant brethren are going to be wrecked by the emperor if you don't do something about it. But if you come with an army into Germany you can save Protestantism in Germany." And Gustavus Adolphus was ready by now to do it.
So Gustavus Adolphus, with a sizeable Swedish army, came into Germany; he proved more than a match for any force that the emperor could raise. The result was that northern Germany was saved from the emperor's attack; and not only that, but they marched clear south in Germany, even into some of the Austrian territory. And Gustavus Adolphus seemed to be going to win complete victory for Protestantism. However, the great victory which Gustavus won over the imperial forces, at the battle of Lützen—I don't know as you need to bother with the name of it, but the battle was important—because at this battle the complete victory was won but one very unfortunate thing happened. Gustavus Adolphus himself, in order to encourage his people, went into the battle unarmored; they sang hymns before the battle; they prayed the Lord would give the victory in this defense of the freedom of their religion and their trust in God; Gustavus, as he stepped forth, looked heavenward, saying, "Now in God's name, Jesus, give us today to fight for the honor of thy holy name." He waved to his army, he waved his sword, and gave the command, forward; and singing Luther's hymn "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," they rushed forward into the battle; and the Protestants completely won the battle, but Gustavus was killed. Now whether he would not have been killed if he had worn his armor, nobody could say; but at least he was killed in the battle; and the only man who had the personality, the leadership, the courage, the military ability, to completely defeat the emperor's forces, was killed in the battle.
So the battle was a great victory, but a terrible defeat by the loss of the one man whose leadership would have meant victory for the Protestants in the Thirty Years War. Yes? [student] No, this was in Germany. The armies, during these years, were marching back and forth; and most of them were living off the land, which meant that they were seizing all their food and equipment from the people of the region in which they fought; the armies on both sides were doing this. And after Gustavus' death, there were some lesser victories by the Protestant forces, but they were unable to win the victory in the war; in fact, the war swung back and forth now until 1635. And in 1635 people began to feel that, well neither side is going to win; so in 1635 the attempt was made to work out a peace, with the Protestants getting most of northern Germany and southern Germany mostly falling into the hands of the Romanists.
The
attempt was made to make this peace; and the northern Lutheran powers which had
been in for a short time tried to get out then. But neither side was satisfied
and the war continued; so we look at
4. The Third
Phase 1635-48.
So for another 13 years the war continued. Now during this war, the armies
often showed terrible cruelty; armies were staying for ten or more years in
arms; they continued to fight back and forth; and the whole war lasted for
nearly 30 years. They would live off the territory; they would take all the
foodstuffs there, everything that they could use; and then they would have to
move on to another territory to get more; the result was that the civilian
population suffered terribly. Millions of people were killed in the course of
these 30 years. Hundreds of thousands starved; the whole country was utterly
devastated; there probably had been no more devastating war in history than
this Thirty Years War. Business of all kinds was almost entirely destroyed;
livestock almost exterminated; there was desolation everywhere; people with
their lands plundered; the multitudes of women and children were left to die of
starvation or to follow along with the army, hoping to get enough to live.
Armies of 40,000 sometimes had a camp following of 140,000; the misery and
moral ruin of such a state of things was almost unimaginable; and by 1648 both
sides were utterly disgusted with war; anything for peace was the feeling of
both sides, and so
5. The Peace of Westphalia 1648. The war continued right up until this peace was made; but for 5 years before it, there had been attempts being made to make a peace that would stand, and do away with this constant fighting and destruction and misery. And the peace which was made in 1648 resulted in making conditions just about as they had been back in 1627. That year, 1627, was fixed upon as the date which would be taken as a norm. In other words, whatever ecclesiastical polity the Protestants had in 1627, that they would keep. All that had become Protestant between 1555 and 1627, which the emperor had been going to take back, he got none of it back. The northern part of Germany was definitely Protestant now. The Palatinate was divided into two parts; Frederick's son was given half of it and new electors made. One part was given to Bavaria and became a part of Bavaria, and the duke of Bavaria was made an elector. But the son of Frederick became an elector as his father had been, before the war started. He had Heidelberg and the region around there; and it was a great center of Calvinism for a long time after, until the last 50 years when modernism has completely taken over.
But the treaty was substantially a continuation of the conditions of the Peace of 1555—the Peace of Augsburg—except that now Calvinism was also recognized; and the princes were to give their people the right to peacefully withdraw if they didn't want to have the religion which was established in their particular area. As far as Germany was concerned, the Peace of Westphalia was a most disgusting peace; it resulted in practically ending even the nominal power of the emperor; he was no longer looked to as the real leader of the nation, as Luther had looked to Charles; instead each local section was almost independent, so that Germany was broken up into about 300 practically independent sections. And when Germans used to sing "Deutschland Über Alles," and people used it as propaganda in the First World War, Germany over the whole world, it meant nothing of the kind; it meant Germany rather than Bavaria, rather than Saxony, rather than Prussia, rather than any one of these 300 divisions into which it had been split; it meant a unity for the nation; and that unity was not realized until 1870. So for 200 or more years, the nation was divided up into all these little sections, each practically independent, which of course was a terrible bar to progress.
The emperor had all along only a nominal control; but yet there had been a great amount of loyalty to the emperor whom they thought of as their real leader; now after 30 years of having him trying to destroy them, nobody felt like continuing that anymore; and so there was a breaking up into parts inevitably. But the French had a big say in the peace treaty; they did their best to break Germany up into as many parts as possible so there would be no possible enemies for themselves; and it was broken up into all these little parts; but the northern half—the northern two-thirds of Germany proper; the northern half as Germany and Austria together—was Protestant, and definitely Protestant, while the southern half belonged to the emperor and the emperor declared that in his territory, he should have the right to make his religion supreme. And the result was that the Jesuits were given complete sway in the emperor's territory, which included all of Austria. And Maximilian in Bavaria enforced Romanism there; so Bavaria and Austria, which had been 90% Protestant, became 98% Romanist and continued so until—well, let's say almost to today—except for the refugees. They were completely taken over and the Counter-Reformation thus had won back nearly half. Today, in what part of south Germany? In Munich since the war, there have been hundreds of thousands of refugees from east Prussia. I don't think you'd find in Munich 30 years ago any Protestant church; I'd be very much surprised. And you certainly wouldn't have 100 years ago.
Well, the Peace of Westphalia put an end to this fighting; and this destruction and slaughter left central Europe a wilderness, a waste; but it left the religious situation almost as it had been before in Germany, except for the emperor's own territory, his personal territory. The peace however was not universally recognized. A communication came quickly, just before it was signed, from Rome. The pope said, "No such peace may be signed." In the first place, he said, "I have not been a party to the arrangements, and therefore it is invalid, it cannot be signed, it is invalid." Second place, "It is giving rights to heretics, and a peace which gives rights to heretics is no peace and anyone can break it at will, therefore, no Romanist must sign this peace of Westphalia." The pope denounced the treaty, declared it not to be valid, the war must continue until Protestantism is ended. But the people on both sides were too sick of it all to continue any longer, so they signed it anyway and gave strong guarantees that the terms of the treaty would be observed.
[student] No, the popes are usually—in modern times or in the last thousand years—they've mostly been along in years when they've been elected. Rarely does a pope last as long as 30 years; often 5 or 10 years, but they're usually quite elderly. But of course their claim is that their teaching is all one, one unchanging authority.
Well so much then for the Peace of Westphalia. The result we've already noted. At this time Spain recognized Holland's independence. Holland had been independent now for several years in all but name, but now they were recognized as independent; but the southern half, Belgium, was completely in the hands of the King of Spain, and the Jesuits had already rooted out Protestantism completely from the southern half of the Netherlands—from Belgium. But there had not been much fighting in Holland; it was in the war nominally, but it had been the great refuge for the oppressed from many lands, particularly from England. Yes? [student] The attitude of the Jesuits has always been an attitude of adapting themselves to conditions. You remember when Henry IV of France had been the great leader of the Protestants? When Henry said he wanted to become a Romanist, many of the Romanist leaders, said, "Oh, he's just doing this to become king." They said, "My dog went to mass this morning; let's make him king," and all that kind of talk; they thought it was ridiculous, Henry was the leader of the Protestants; he should be Protestant to the end. But the Jesuit attitude was, "No, if he wants to become a Romanist, let's receive him." And then they made it on such conditions that they became his confessors; and in the end, when they couldn't control him, he was assassinated; but his children were raised by them and under their direction; and in the end, it took them 100 years, but they got Protestantism completely out of France. But the Jesuits are always ready to go along with the inevitable. They never wasted a fight on something that may mean death. They fight to get an advantage; and then they fight to get another advantage; and over the course of years they get this advantage, and that one, and move forward. And that's always their policy. Now the Jesuits would never give any official utterance to that attitude; you could only tell their attitude from what individuals did, because theoretically the Jesuits are simply an arm of the church, completely subject to the pope. And anything the pope said they would say that is what we stand for; but if they didn't agree with it, they wouldn't do anything about it; they would say nothing to advance it. So that the attitude of the Jesuits—you'd have to get their secret records to know—but the attitude shown by their actions, you never find the Jesuits making a fight against something that can't be helped. They find some way to get around it, to hunt more ways of securing their end. And in the meantime they are always the most courteous friendly gentlemen you will ever meet anywhere. If the dirty work is to be done, it is some other order that does it. And they simply watch to be sure it's done. It's a very clever type of organization and has been extremely effective.
But
now we must jump across the Channel—I'm glad in these days of planes we can
jump across and don't have to ride across, because it's one of the roughest
stretches of water I've ever seen. But on to
Under
that
A. The Rise of Puritanism. We already looked at the rise of Puritanism briefly in the reign of Elizabeth; but I want to recapitulate a little bit here so you have it in mind, because it becomes extremely important during this half century. You remember that when Elizabeth became Queen, nobody was absolutely certain what stand she would take. Since her mother was Anne Boleyn, she had no right to be Queen from a Roman viewpoint; but actually Philip II of Spain asked her to marry him. He was the most bigoted Romanist of them all. The pope waited 20 years after she became Queen before he excommunicated her. They would have been ready enough to receive her if she would take her stand with the Romanists; and she kept Philip guessing for a dozen years before he finally knew she wouldn't marry him. So you see she was very far from taking a clear out-and-out position on religion. But she very soon gave evidence that her support was going to be on the Protestant side; and if she continued the policy of her sister Mary, Romanists would have become, very soon, completely dominant in England. But as it was, the exiles who had been living in Geneva and elsewhere on the continent came back; the Romanist bishops were given the opportunity to swear that they believed that Elizabeth was their lawful Queen, and that she was the head of the church; they couldn't say they thought she was the head of the church because they thought the pope was the head of the church; and so they lost their positions as bishops. None of them were killed; but they lost their positions. There are R. C. books written on the martyr bishops of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. She took a positively Protestant position. But in her own private chapel she had some ceremonies that had a lot more form and ceremony to them than there was in the churches outside; and in the churches, the people coming back from Geneva used to a very simple service, with no form, anything to speak of like that; they wanted to do away with the gowns and the special types of clothing and all these things; they wanted to do away with all that, and there is where Elizabeth put her determined foot down. She said these ceremonies must be observed; the church must continue to have these forms observed, wearing of outfits and all that; and so some of the people said, "Well, so long as we can preach the gospel there is no danger, there is nothing anti-Christian in these forms, so we'll permit and use them." But there were also those who did their best to get them changed, and they did not succeed in it. The Church of England to this day has far more form to it than any other Protestant church; and Elizabeth is responsible for it, because practically all the leaders of the church, when she became Queen, wanted to do away with it.
Now then the ministers began, all over England, having what they called prophesyings. I mentioned these to you already. The prophesyings were meetings which they had Saturday mornings from 9 to 11, at which the ministers of an area would all come together; and one of them would take a passage of Scripture and would give an exegesis and an exposition; and then the others would discuss it; and they would strengthen each other's understanding of the Scripture and understanding of various matters in this way; but Elizabeth didn't like them. Too much preaching anyway. She said, "If there are a couple of preachers in an area that's enough; let the rest of them carry out the ceremonies and so on, but that's enough." But the Archbishop argued with her about the preachers, and she agreed to have more preachers. But she didn't like these prophesyings. And so in the end, she forced the Archbishop to give an order that the prophesyings must cease.
Well now this Archbishop died, and an elderly friend of his, a very fine Christian man, was made archbishop. The Puritans wanted to do away with archbishops; they wanted to have church government like Calvin had. They were called Puritans because they wanted to purify the worship from form and ceremonies that are not required by the Scripture. They wanted to do away with these forms, but most of them submitted to that.
But in the prophesyings, naturally there would come to light some expression of dissatisfaction with the forms, and Elizabeth didn't like this. So when the new Archbishop told Elizabeth, "Your most loyal subjects are these Puritan ministers; they are devoted to the crown; devoted to the nation; they are getting together to discuss what the Word of God says; you should encourage them, rather than to stop them," Elizabeth gave an order that the Archbishop should be sequestered—in other words confined to his private home—and he was confined there for five years, until his death; and the work was carried on by others; he was not allowed to have correspondence with the various parts of the church; everything was done in his name, but he was sequestered, and then he died.
Then Elizabeth got a young man who was ready to do what she wanted. So for the rest of the reign, while the Romanists who were trying—some of them—to have her assassinated, they were being rigidly punished and stopped with that; the Protestants were being—those who wanted to make the church more vital—were constantly meeting with oppressive legislation from Elizabeth. And the prophesying was forced to stop; and the result was that some of these Protestants—some who felt keenly—left the established church and began holding separate meetings by themselves. Now these—the leader in this was a man named Robert Browne—and Browne wrote a little pamphlet which he called, Reformation without Tarrying for Any. And in this he said, "Let's do away with all these forms and ceremonies; let's do away with bishops and archbishops. A bishop is just a preacher; let's not have a bishop as administrator of a territory. Let's have separate churches which each one will preach the word of God as taught in the Scripture, and they will not be under any control of the state." So that they began to call anybody who held this sort of view a Brownist. But Browne himself was put out of his church for having presented this sort of stuff, and for a time he could get no position; he had no support; he lost hope; and he went and recanted everything; and went back into the established church, and for 30 years he was a faithful minister of the established church and forgot the ideas he had presented as a young man. But still others were being sent to prison for being Brownists during this time.
Disestablishmentarianism was the idea that the Church of England should not be the official church of the state; but these were individual congregations separate from the church of England; so you might say that was a later outgrowth of it. Well Brownism, then, was a movement which resulted in quite a number of individual congregations springing up in different parts of England; eventually these came to be called Congregational churches; that is, they were separate congregations; but they found it pretty hard sledding, because Elizabeth didn't favor having separate churches; she wanted people to be loyal to the church of which she was head; and many of the leaders of these movements were put in prison; others of them fled to Holland, and soon in Holland there were quite a number of small separate churches, congregations of English people who fled to Holland, the only place in the world where there was toleration of that sort. These are the movements of the reign of Elizabeth in this regard. If you want to know more about it, there is a very fine book called Tudor Puritanism, by Prof. M. M. Knappen, formerly of the U. of Chicago; he is now head of the Department of History, I believe, in Michigan State College; and this whole book of 500 pages on Tudor Puritanism; it discusses the individuals, the movements of the reign of Elizabeth, the last of the Tudors, in this regard.
But all of this is before our present century—the 17th century—or at its beginning, because Elizabeth died in 1604. And so in 1604, when Elizabeth was dying, people said to her, "Who should succeed you?" And Elizabeth, up till the last day of her life would not tell anybody who should succeed her; because she didn't want anybody wishing she was out of the way, so this other person would be in. She would never say, and there were various possibilities; but on her deathbed her last words were, "My throne has always been held by people of noble blood and standing. Who should succeed me but my cousin of Scotland?" And they followed what she said and called her cousin of Scotland to be king. Now her cousin of Scotland was James VI the king of Scotland. And his mother, you all know, was Mary Queen of Scots, whom Elizabeth had had beheaded about 20 years before.
Now James had become king of Scotland at the age of 1 year and he had reigned in Scotland; he had never seen his mother since before he was a year old; his mother was an ardent Romanist, but he was raised in a strictly Protestant environment; he knew theology well; he loved to argue theology. Macaulay says that if James had been a student in a university somewhere he might have become a researcher or a professor and left a worthwhile contribution to the world. But he says, the fine researcher, the careful student, in thought, when he went into things of action, he says, became a driveling idiot. That's what Macaulay said.
He was certainly not an effective king in any way. The one thing he found in the Bible, that he believed in most implicitly, was the divine right of kings. He wrote a book on the divine right of kings. Now when James was in Scotland he was the head of the Church of Scotland, which was a Presbyterian church. And James was familiar with Calvinistic theology; he could discuss it and defend its points very excellently; but James, when Elizabeth was getting old, people began to come to James, thinking he might become king of England; and everyone who came he left them thinking he was going to be on their side; and so when the Roman Catholics would come, they would think, "Well, James, after all, he is the son of Mary Queen of Scots; in his heart he really would favor us," When the people from the Church of England came and talked to him, and they said, "Now you don't have bishops here in Scotland; you have Presbyterian rule, but we have bishops in England." "Oh," he said, "I favor bishops; no bishop, no king, we have got to have bishops." And then when the Puritans would come and they would talk to him, he would say, "Look at our churches here; we don't have forms and ceremonies; here we just preach the Word; the Word of God is what matters." And the way he talked, the Puritans thought he was for them; the Church of England thought he was for them; even the Romanists sort of thought he would stand with them. And so when James was on his way to England, after he entered the country, was on his way to London, he was met by a procession of Puritans who presented him a petition they called the Millenary Petition. The word millenary means thousand; and this was supposed to be a petition signed by a thousand ministers, asking him, in the Church of England, to establish everything in accordance with the Word of God and to do away with un-Biblical ceremonies and forms and offices. And James received the petition most graciously and assured them he was going to do what was for the welfare of the entire nation and all the peop1e in it; and he went on and was crowned king of England. And then at Hamptons Court he held a conference, the Hampton Court Conference. At this Conference he had the leaders of the Puritans come; and the leaders of the other group come with the old bishop. There James showed his true colors; he told the Puritans that they must submit to the church and to the king as the head of the church as he felt it should be, or he says, "I'll harry you out of the nation." He says, "I'll harry you out of the land if you don't do as the king says; the king is the head of the church, and the church is established, and the Archbishops and bishops are the king's representatives to carry out the king's will; and I'll harry you out of the nation if you don't wear the gowns and do the forms and submit to what the king says." But one thing the Puritans said, "The common Bible, the bishop's Bible, in some places is not a correct translation; we ought to have a better translation," and James said "We will get you a better translation," so we have our King James Bible; we look at that next time.
The
last heading I gave you was A, Rise of Puritanism. Under this, we discussed the
situation under Elizabeth to some extent; we showed the rise of the Puritan
Movement was not a doctrinal issue; it was strictly an issue of church
ceremony. It was a matter of getting rid of the ceremonies which seemed to the
Puritans to detract from attention on the presentation of the pure gospel, and
on the emphasis of the relation of the believer with Christ. But that
Puritanism means an attempt to purify the church from ceremonies which the
Puritans considered to be papistic. That was the Rise
of Puritanism; and we noticed how there were some in the reign of Elizabeth who
separated from the church and started their little churches; but that most of
the Puritans were still in the church at the end of Elizabeth's reign. Then
B.
English Churches in the Reign of James. Did I give you
the date of James I of England? It began in 1603; under B, we will call:
1. The Millenary
Petition.
This had nothing to do with the Millennium, as I explained to you last time. It's
a thousand here; and the word millenary refers not to the number of years but
to the number of signers of the petition. And the petition was for reform of
the church. Now this was principally a matter of ceremony; but it also was for
more opportunity for people to study the Bible; more stress on personal lives
and the doing away with abuses.
2. The Hampton Court Conference 1604. We noticed that in this conference, which was held in 1604, King James gave the Puritans very little consideration; he treated them almost as malefactors; he told them that if they held to their views he'd harry them out of the land. He told them they must submit; the Bible teaches absolute rulership of kings—divine right of kings. At the same time, he argued with them and enjoyed them, because he was theologically trained. As I told you one historian, Macaulay, said James would have made a good teacher or research man; but as a doer he was terrible; and here he was discussing problems, and he was quite good at that. This Hampton Court Conference, which was James' answer to the Millenary Petition, they hoped would reform these abuses, but it did not. And the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England, said it seemed to him that James spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so ably did he answer the Puritans in their requests for reform of the Church, but… [student] The Puritans considered the ceremonies abuses because they distracted people's attention from the main purpose of the church, which was to lead people into personal relationship to Christ.
A friend of mine told of talking with an Episcopal woman. She went to the high service, the one with the most elaborate ceremony; and she said every movement of the man's hand; every place when he lifted this and when he moved that; and when he put on this gown and all that; she said, "It gave her the most exquisite pleasure to observe these things Sunday after Sunday." Well, there is no harm in that kind of pleasure; but there is harm in it if it means your attention is on that instead of on the Word of God. And the Episcopal service to this day has prayers which Cranmer wrote, which contain a most wonderful presentation of the teaching of Scripture; but if your attention is diverted from it by all these forms and ceremonies, they then become harmful. And the Puritans felt that the Church should be purified of everything that would distract from attention to the Word of God.
If you want to read the most fulsome declaration of recognizing what a wonderful man James was, and what a great blessing God has given the world in giving him to us, read the preface to the King James Bible, which is still printed in most of them; it tells what wonderful, great advance had been made by having such a grand fellow as king. Well, they had to write that to get his favor.
The Hampton Court Conference had one great result. And that was, that when they came into discussion, they found that there was considerable dispute about the English Bible; the Puritans were constantly quoting from the Geneva Bible; and the High Church men were quoting from the Bishop's Bible; and then when some of the Puritans began to point out some things in the Bishop's Bible that were not very good translations, some of the bishops present said, "Well now, there are very serious errors in the translations," and the Puritans said, "Well, why can't we have a better book than that?" and James said, "That's an excellent idea!" He said, "We will proceed to get one volume that people can agree on and use." So at the Hampton Court Conference, the one thing that came out of it that was worthwhile was that James proceeded to get a new version of the Bible. When they referred to the Geneva Bible, he said, "Of all Bibles that is the worst that has ever been published." And yet the King James Version is more like the Geneva than like any other. The men who worked on it were told to follow the Bishop's Bible; but the Geneva was so much better than the Bishop's that they followed it to a very large extent. Well, we'll take that up as a separate head.
3. The Decision
to Prepare a New English Bible. And here I'm going to interrupt the
English Churches in the Reign of James I, or rather,
perhaps we'll come back to that heading later.
C. English
Bibles to 1650.
Now this will be a summary.
1. The first
English Bible of importance was that of John Wyclif
(1382-95).
Now this we discussed last spring a year ago to some extent. From our viewpoint
now we could say the great disadvantage of the Wyclif
Bible was it was translated from the Latin instead of from the Greek; but more
than that, it was a manuscript rather than a printed book. If only Wyclif had gotten it printed; but he couldn't, because
nobody had invented printing yet. So that the best thing to do was to get it in
manuscript; and it had to be laboriously copied, and that was the great
disadvantage. It did not have so much influence, because it wasn't widely
circulated. On the other hand, it had the great advantage that it was a good
translation made by a man who was thoroughly evangelical—by Wyclif
and his associates. It brings out Christian doctrine very clearly. Wyclif made every attempt to get it circulated; so Wyclif had men go all over England, carrying copies of his
Bible and reading it; and the Bible was circulated remarkably widely,
considering the fact that it was only a manuscript, and he couldn't get copies.
But then the persecution came, and Wyclif's followers
were burned at the stake; and his Bible could not be publicly shown; but a few
people kept it and discussed it; and it had a real influence in England; but
the influence was not great, because of the lack of printing and the fact that
the movement died out under the tremendous persecution. So we get to
2. Tyndale (1530). As you know, his name is spelled in many different ways. Tyndale is one of the commonest. William Tyndale we have already looked at in connection with the beginning of the Reformation in England; he is important because he had a vision—he had almost an obsession—to get the Bible into English and into the hands of the people; and he devoted his life to this purpose. And he translated—not from Latin—but from Greek and Hebrew; he went right to the original sources. And in addition to that, he studied the matter of English style for translation; and he worked out a style which to this day is recognized as the finest style of English translation that has ever been used. The Tyndale tradition, as it is spoken of today. Now some people say, "Tyndale worked this up; it wasn't natural for him," and as proof of that they point to his other writings; and his other writings are well written, but they don't compare to the style of his Bible. Is that because the Bible itself is in the excellent style that he used for it, or is it because he deliberately set himself to use this particular style for the Bible? Well, these other controversial writings of his are good, but they don't compare with his Bible; his Bible is one of the great masterpieces of English literature, the translation that William Tyndale made.
Well,
you all know how William Tyndale was hunted down by the Inquisition; he was
finally seized and held in prison; and then he was killed. In a very few years
the English King Henry VIII authorized the publication of a Bible which
actually was in great measure Tyndale's Bible. The next Bible of England we
speak of is
3. Bible of
Coverdale.
Miles Coverdale was not a student of the Hebrew and Greek; but he studied Wyclif; he studied Tyndale's work very carefully; and he
knew German very well, and studied Luther's Bible very carefully. And Coverdale
got out a translation of the Bible which was to quite an extent modeled on
Tyndale's work. Coverdale, then, issued a translation of the Bible which was
permitted to be distributed in England; it was completed in 1535 at Antwerp,
and was distributed in England but it wasn't long before a fourth came out
4. The Matthew
Bible.
It was called that because it said it was by a man named Matthew; and nobody
has ever found such a man. We do not know any man named Matthew who was the
author of this Bible; but the Bible they call the Matthew Bible was a Bible
which was made up of Tyndale's work, and used Coverdale's work to fill in where
Tyndale hadn't yet translated. Tyndale had translated the N.T. first and then
started on the Old; and before his death the N.T. was published and about a
third of the Old. And a second third of the Old he left in manuscript form, and that too is included in the Matthew Bible. So the
Matthew Bible, which a man named John Rogers got out, was actually the Bible of
Tyndale as far as he had done; and this Bible with slight emendations, slight
changes, was published in England under the title of
5. The Great Bible. And the Great Bible was a very large book; they began to print it in Paris; and then the Inquisition objected, and started making trouble for the printer; so it was published in England; and Henry authorized that the Great Bible should be put in the churches; and it was fastened in the churches, so that it could not be taken from the church, but was to be read there in the church.
These translations are all very dependent on each other. You see, Tyndale's translation—he made first the N.T., then a third of the Old—then the Coverdale Bible included a great deal of Tyndale with Coverdale filling in what he didn't have from Tyndale, which was the last two-thirds of the O.T.
Now the Matthew Bible takes Tyndale for the N.T. and two-thirds of the Old, with certain changes, and takes Coverdale for the last third of the Old. Well, really, the changes are pretty much little improvements, little changes, but the great bulk of it is Tyndale in all of these. And the Great Bible was the one which was officially put in the churches all over England. Then people began to complain that they would go into the vestibule and everybody was so interested in reading the Great Bible, they didn't pay any attention to the service; so they began to complain and some wanted it taken out; but they managed to get the people quiet a little bit, and they kept it there and it remained through the reign of Henry VIII.
Now
there is another one to be mentioned at this time.
6. The Taverner Bible. The Taverner was different from the previous ones. Taverner was a very brilliant Greek student in England. And Taverner got out an edition of the Bible, which was not widely distributed but which is worth mentioning because of his excellent renderings. He did a very fine piece of work which had much influence on later Bibles.
Now
this takes us up to the end of the reign of King Henry. And then of course
after Edward, Mary became queen, and at that time the Bible was just about
impossible to get to in England, but the refugees who had fled to the continent
in Geneva worked over the Bible and we'll call
7. The Geneva Bible. And the Geneva Bible—of which the N.T. was published in 1557, and the O.T. a little later—the Geneva Bible was the Bible which had more influence than any other up through the Authorized Version; in fact, it was the Bible of the Pilgrims in America. The Geneva Bible, after the Authorized Version came out, was the Bible of most of the English people for nearly another 40 years. It was very popular; for one thing it was a smaller book, easier to handle; there were quite small editions of it. It was put into the language easily understood by the people, which was the language of the people much more than most of the previous editions. It kept the excellent renderings that Tyndale had given—the great bulk of it is still Tyndale's work—but it had a tremendous number of notes: geographical notes, historical notes, theological and even political. This is what King James hated about it; the notes said that no prelate had a right to interfere with people's own study of the Scripture; and that no one had a right to order anyone to do anything contrary to the clear teaching of the Scripture; and the notes were very strong and very clear in their statements; these were what James hated, said it was the worst Bible translation that ever was made. But from when it first came out until about 1640 or 1650 it was perhaps the most popular Bible ever. In fact, the Bishop's Bible was to quite an extent an attempt to displace the Geneva Bible.
The
Geneva Bible was prepared during Mary's reign. There were 40 different editions
came out of the Geneva Bible; it was tremendously reprinted, widely
distributed; it was the great Bible of the English people. It was made by
English students and clergymen who had fled from Queen Mary. It was used until
about 1640 or 1650; so it lasted for longer than any other version up to that
time. It was printed in Switzerland. [student] King James, 50 years later. Well
8. The Bishop's Bible. The Bishop's Bible was published in 1568. Now this was an official Bible prepared by the English bishops of Queen Elizabeth, early in Queen Elizabeth's reign. And this Bible—the Bishops' Bible—was not particularly well liked. An attempt was made to enforce its use in the church, but most of the people used the Geneva Bible at home; but the Bishop's Bible was the official English Bible for a period of 40 years. Once the King James Version came out, the Bishop's Bible ceased to be used; it disappeared; but it was the official Bible, sanctioned by the government during the rest of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Some of the people in the churches used the earlier Bibles, like the Great Bible, after that; but the Geneva Bible was what most of the people read if they read the Bible at all. That would be just about all who treasured the Bible; all the Puritans and some of the others.
The
Geneva Bible was the great Bible of the English-speaking people, but the
Bishop's Bible was the official work for about 40 years, and then
9. The Douai Bible. Now this Douai Bible you sometimes hear referred to—part of it—as the Rheims N.T. And at Rheims, on the continent, in Belgium, in 1582 there appeared a translation of the N.T. by English Roman Catholics. In 1610 the entire Bible came out; so you see that's getting about as late as the King James Bible—just a little before—but the Rheims N.T. was an attempt of the Roman Catholics to prepare a Bible so that English Roman Catholics would have a Bible they could use, especially in argument with the Protestants. It was made by English Roman Catholics in Rheims and made from the Vulgate, from the Latin. This Bible stuck to the old terminology even more than the Bishop's Bible; the Bishop's stuck to quite a bit of old terminology, but the Geneva was in the language of the people. But the Rheims Bible, for instance, where our King James says "He emptied himself," it says "He exinanited himself." And where in Matthew, the Lord's Prayer says, "Give us this day our daily bread," it says, "Give us our supersubstantial bread," referring to the bread of the mass, which is changed into the body of Christ. Now the Greek word here occurs only once in the N.T.—only twice, that would be two parallels here—it would be pretty hard to know what it does mean, so they say it's supersubstantial; but they didn't have the courage of their conviction, because in Luke in the same passage, they translate it "daily," like the other versions. But this is the version which is used to this day to some extent—30 years ago it was the standard still of English Roman Catholics. Today they have got out a number of other translations, but 30 years ago it was still their standard translation, the Douai Bible, or Rheims New Testament, which was part of the Douai version. And this was a great disadvantage of it for English people—the great amount of Latin terminology.
In the King James Version they did a very silly thing; they called Elijah "Elijah" in part of the New Testament and "Elias" in another part. I think it would be much more consistent to use either one or the other; whereas the Douai is more consistent, they call him "Elias" all the way through. But they do the same thing—like Hosea they would call "Osea" and they would use the Latinized form of all the names; that was a disadvantage for it to people who were accustomed to other names; but the Douai Bible was used by Roman Catholics; and we would not personally feel great interest in it perhaps if it were not for the fact that it had considerable influence on the Authorized Version.
These
were the important Bibles that occurred, and you notice, after 1. Wyclif, the rest of them were all within a period of about
50 years. There were other translations of smaller portions but these were the
main complete Bibles.
10. The King James Version. And the King James Version—which King James decided that he would get out—represented the carrying out of something which was very congenial to James; he was naturally a scholar rather than a king; he loved his authority and showed it in every possible way; but he was a very poor king. I think all historians recognize this; but he was determined to be the authority; but here he was not trying to enforce his authority, but trying to get a scholarly job done; and so he looked over the scholarship of England, and he selected men regardless of their church affiliation; I don't believe there were any Roman Catholics among them; but there were men who were high church; men who were low church; men who were in separatist groups; men who were in strong Puritan groups; he had quite a representative group as far as theological views were concerned. But all were men who held the great doctrines in Scripture; there were none who were men who would be considered anything but fundamentalists today; they held the Bible was God's Word; but on matters of church polity, on these things there was considerable difference among them; and he organized these men into various committees which met at the different universities and different sections of England; and he laid down rules for their work; and he organized the thing in a very reasonable way, such as resulted in getting the job done; getting it done in the course of 6 or 7 years, which is quite an achievement for a work like this; and getting it done quite thoroughly in the course of that time. It was a good plan which the king worked out; and it is one thing for which he deserves to be remembered with gratefulness, the way he worked this out; and he did not interfere with the work of the men, as far as we have any evidence.
One thing I think was unfortunate: that the work was divided up so that each committee had a section to do; and then while they'd all look it all over, they didn't interfere with each other's section; even to such an extent that, as I just mentioned, certain parts speak of Elias, certain parts speak of Elijah, and that certainly is confusing; they should have made an agreement on a matter like that. But they worked—they did a tremendous amount of work during the 6 or 7 years—on the project; and he had given them a set of detailed instructions as to what to do. And on the whole, the instructions were good and sound. There were 1 or 2 points in them which weren't good, and those points they rather ignored; thus he told them to take their Bishop's Bible as the source; and he said wherever the Bishop's Bible was absolutely in accord with the original, that it was to be followed; but that they were to consider all other versions; and to see what they found, and to make the best version they could. Well, actually they followed the Geneva Bible 3 or 4 times as often as they did the Bishop's Bible, though James had said the Geneva was probably the worst translation ever made. They didn't agree with that—because it certainly wasn't true—but James so hated the notes in the Geneva Bible, that in this Bible there were no notes of that kind put in; the notes were strictly pretty much geographical and historical matter. But he ordered them to go back to hold the old theological terms; the Geneva Bible had given up quite a few terms that were well-established in the English language; and so in general the King James Bible is about halfway between the Geneva Bible and the Douai Version in this regard. It keeps more of the old terms—by far—than the Geneva Bible, but far less than the Douai Version; but it was influenced by the Douai Version; there are renderings it took from it; and here is the great advantage of the King James Version; it was not that these men were the greatest scholars that have ever been of the Bible; they were good scholars; they knew the Latin commentaries; they knew the Hebrew commentaries; they were able to read the Rabbinic writings, as well as the Latin writings; they were well versed in the exegesis and scholarship of their day; but the great advantage of the King James Bible is that they had 70 years of Bible translation before them to look over; there had been a period in which many men had been actively working, trying to prepare the best English Bible they could; and the worst man can get a good rendering of some particular passage. You open up your Hebrew Bible or your Greek New Testament; you read a verse; you see immediately what the forms are; you know the precise meaning of those words in that language; but to put them into English is difficult; you might have to write 3 or 4 pages to tell what exactly those words mean; so if you don't think of an English word that gives it, or an English phrase that gives it, well, then you do the best you can; somebody else does the best he can; then you look these over, and pick out the best rendering; and that's the tremendous advantage that I think. In the last 20 years I've had person after person say to me, "Why doesn't a group of fundamentalists get together and prepare a Bible as good as the King James Version?" The answer is a group of men can't get together like that to prepare a version as good as the King James Version; it's impossible. The King James Version was the result of a process which lasted for 70 years: a process of Bible translation; a process of individuals and groups of men studying how to put the Bible into the language of their day. And one group thinks, "Well, where do you put this word? Another thinks, "Where do you put this word? Another, "Where do you put this word?" And while Tyndale did better than anybody else who ever worked on the English Bible; and more of his work is retained than of anybody else's; yet there were hundreds of case where someone else—even the Douai version—had occasionally hit upon a phrase which exactly got the flavor of the original into the language of their day. So the King James men could simply look over these different things and compare them and see which was the best way of expressing in English what they found in the original Greek and Hebrew.
In many cases the King James was almost too literal; they did almost word for word, and you just can't get any sense out it. But it gives you a basis to study yourself. They didn't do like the RSV: give you what they think it should be, even if there is no warrant in the original. They tried to give you an idea of what the original was; and if they could tell exactly what it meant, they would put it in the best way they found in any of their translations; sometimes, of course, they slipped up, but usually picked the best choice; and if they couldn't understand what it meant they tried to give you literally just about what those words were; and that gives you a basis at least. If you come to something you don't understand at all and you want to get sense out of it, you know here is a place to be sure and go to the Greek and Hebrew, and see what you can make out of it, rather than to take what somebody has made a poor guess about.
The Greek text which was used was what we call today the Textus Receptus. It was principally the New Testament of Erasmus. Erasmus had gotten out an edition of the Greek New Testament; he had a few manuscripts to use. Beza got out another edition of the New Testament with a few more manuscripts; the text was not a good critical text like we have today. In fact, the Alexandrinus manuscript reached England a few years after the KJV came out; they did not have access to any really old manuscript. So there are a few places where the text rests upon later sources that are not dependable. But after all, the Bible in the original has been remarkably well preserved. They had the advantage of Luther's excellent German translation and constantly compared with it. So there are many cases where the wording is remarkably like Luther's. So it's hard for us to be sure in what places these men got it from Luther; because all of them were comparing Luther, the whole process. Luther was a very remarkable translator and had an influence on Tyndale, and on all subsequent versions.
Well the KJV then was a tremendous monument to the fact that King James worked out an excellent plan of organization; and this king, who was determined that his High Church ideas—the power of the bishops, the divine right of kings—all these things must be effective in the church; he did not interfere with the committee. He let the committee, which included men who differed with him on these things, do the best job they could in making a translation. And he organized the work well.
Secondly, it had scholars such as you couldn't find today. You can find a few today, but you couldn't find as many men of that ability of scholarship today as were then, because they were trained in Latin and Hebrew from their childhood; by their early teens they knew these languages well; they had read great amounts of the commentaries in these languages; they were very adept at the understanding of these languages. So they were excellent scholars; all the first-class scholars in England in the Biblical field, were in it, except one man; and he was one of the best of all, a man named Crowley; he was a very excellent Greek scholar, recognized universally as a great Biblical scholar, but a man nobody could work with. If he was on any committee, the committee always broke up in a big fight, because they wouldn't take his view on every little point. So the result was they purposely left him off the committee. After the Bible came out, he wrote a long article saying what a terribly poor job they had done; and some of the criticisms he made were taken into account in later revisions of it; and his previous writings were taken into account in the original work, because they all recognized he was an excellent scholar; but they just couldn't put him on the committee because they wouldn't have gotten any work done, unless they let him do everything; so he is the one great scholar who was not included but he was not left out of account, they did consider his writings. And they even considered his later criticisms. The King James Version then was a great version because of King James' organizing of the work; because of the excellence of the scholarship of the men; but far more than these two, because it was the climax of a long period of Bible translation
I rejoice in any new translation that comes out. Of course I rejoice far more if it is made by Bible-believing men; but I deplore any attitude toward a present-day translation that takes it as authoritative, because we're not ready to have an authoritative Bible in our language. Every translation will have its good points and its bad points; and maybe if enough people keep at it, in the course of another 40 or 50 years, if the Lord tarries, we will who have enough people of ability who have struggled with the work of taking our language—which is different from the language of 300 years ago in many ways—and put the Bible into that language; and then we'll be able to do the same thing that the KJV did for its day. And of course if that is done then we can hope to have a Bible, that, if the Lord tarries, could even last another 300 years. The KJ Bible, I would say, for the first 200 years was a wonderful thing; after that, it was too archaic and should have been replaced; but unfortunately, it was so good that there never was felt the urge to do so until this century. And now people think we're just going to replace it with something just as good and we can't do it, but will just have to keep working on it.
As far as a new English translation is concerned, the first stage committee met in Chicago in 1954 [rcn: this is the New Scofield Bible committee, I believe]. I—with fear and trembling—made a suggestion to the committee. I said, "I'm afraid we'll put in years of work trying to make these notes, these headings, this arrangement the best that we can possibly do, and then it won't be ready for use because by that time, the use of the King James language will become so unfamiliar that the difficulty of the language will keep us from getting the value of the translation." Just to take archaic expressions, and modernize them, and keep the KJ translation in its wording, in its meaning, in its interpretation. We're not making translation, nothing of the kind; but where it says, "he that letteth will let," nobody who just is converted, even if he is highly educated in other fields, is going to have any idea what that means. Or when it says "I prevented the dawning of the morning with my prayers," and "I do you to wit of the grace of God." Or "God tempted Abraham," and of course it should be "tested." Where the language had become archaic. Well, to my surprise, one member of the committee with whom I had been corresponding in study for some years, on differing matters, backed me up on it. And to my further surprise, the whole committee at the suggestion decided to take certain steps in this direction. And the steps have not gone anywhere near as far as I wish they had gone, but a lot further than some others wish they had gone. In this regard I've been called the radical member of the committee. But the changes which are made in the text are definitely not supposed to be an improvement of translation; they are merely a modernizing. Now I wanted to do away with the "he doeth," and "thee," and those archaic expressions; and at one time the committee decided they'd do it, but then they backed away from it; so that was not done; maybe that will come later, I hope. But that is not where the words are simply archaic they are changed; and when you begin looking at those, you're surprised how many you find. The original idea was in every case to put the KJ rendering into modern English. That was our original idea; but just within the last week we have found that to do that will fill the margins too full, in the space for marginal notes and references that are needed. And consequently the present approach is, in every case where the KJV is changed there are two little very fine lines beside the words, so you can tell at a glance this is slightly changed from the KJV; so that if you're looking up in a concordance and you don't see those lines, you know this is the KJV exactly; if you see the lines, if it is something that occurs very rarely; there will be a note in the margin, "KJ" and telling what it is; if it is a case where a word is used quite a number of times, rather than put in all those marginal notes, we're going to put in the end a list of those words with the modern English.
Now we'd better not spend much time on this, because we have a lot of Church History to cover before the end of the semester; this is really Bible translation which enters into Church History. We don't dare take too much time on it. I do not believe there is any translation better, as a whole, than the KJV. But the KJV is at the end of a long series of work, and that's what produced it, I hope we can have a similar series now. But the KJV has so many words that mean nothing to a person today that I do hope that process will be done soon. There have been some fairly good ones that appeared in the last few years. We are not revising the thought of the KJ in any way, we are simply putting words that are definitely archaic into present English; we are trying to give the meaning that the King James people were giving in their day.
For instance, we read in the KJ Bible that "God is love." Nobody says that "God is charity." But there are many places where exactly the same word that is translated love here, is translated charity there. "Charity suffers long and is kind." Now our present word charity does not mean at all what the Greek word agape means. It is very misleading, and it was introduced through the KJ Bible and I think very unfortunately. And we have maybe 50 cases in the KJ Bible where the word charity is used and where it is completely misleading. The KJ Bible has a great deal to say about what we call charity today. But when it uses the word charity you don't know whether it's talking about what we call charity today, or whether it's talking about what we call love today. And that is, I think, a very great blemish on the KJ Bible. And there are cases like that. I'm not sure—if we had the KJ Bible and the Geneva Bible to pick from—I'm not sure that KJ Bible would be tremendously better than the Geneva. There doubtless are many places where it is, but there are many places where the Geneva is certainly superior to it. Of course, the Geneva also had many previous translations to make use of; it wasn't the first one, it was a part of the culmination. But the KJ Bible probably is a definite improvement over the Geneva; and certainly it is as fine a translation as has ever been made of any book into any language. I think there is no question of that. But it's made in the language of 300 years ago.
I
would feel that the great bulk of it still is very, very helpful; but we are
getting to the point where it is questionable whether the rank and file of
people understand that language well enough for it continue to be our main Bible.
If only a dozen others would get busy and work hard getting new translations
out, and then we could take all those and compare them and eventually get
something worthy to stand beside the KJ. King James was a man to whom we owe
great gratitude for the part that he played in securing for the
English-speaking world as fine a Bible as any language has ever had, one which
was so fine that for 300 years it was just no rival to it, it was so excellent.
We will today see how we also owe James I to quite an extent the fact that the
U.S. has been a strongly Christian and strongly Protestant nation, although I
don't think that quite as much approval would go to it in this regard as in the
other. Well, now
D. English
Churches in Reign of James I, 1604-25.
1. Attitude of
the Archbishops.
Now the titles of some of these headings are not particularly good, I fear.
They don't really tell you what was important; they're sort of headings to
string the material upon. Under that
a. Whitgift. And Whitgift
is not one of the characters whose name is tremendously important to us, but he
is typical of the attitude of the leadership which Elizabeth had brought into
the church. He had been the archbishop of Canterbury for many years under
Elizabeth; and he continued for a year after James became king; and I mentioned
to you at that time, how at the Hampton Court Conference, Archbishop Whitgift said that James spoke in such a way that it looked
as if he must be inspired of the Holy Spirit, in what he said in answering the
Puritans. Whitgift had for many years been active in
promoting Queen Elizabeth's ideas. These were that the church be a Protestant
church, but that it be one church using such
ordinances and such forms as the queen should favor; it should be absolutely
loyal to the queen as far as church organization was concerned; and therefore
he had rigidly enforced the prohibition against the holding of religious
meetings outside of the established church. We will, as we go on, glance at
some things that happened during his time, because of the results that had on
into the next period. So then
b. Bancroft. And again, in a
course with as little time as we have in this one, his name is not one of the
vital names of course; but what he did is vital for us to know. That is to say,
that Bancroft carries on the policies of Whitgift. In
fact, during the latter part of Whitgift's power as
archbishop, Bancroft—who was then a bishop—was the active one who was directing
the policy. And now as we come to 1604, he himself became archbishop; and as
archbishop he proceeded to enforce rigidly the laws that in the services, they
must follow the service exactly as laid down by the order of the government.
The king is head of the church; and the people in the church must follow such
order, such arrangement, such services as the king
directs. Bancroft proceeded under James' authority to have an ecclesiastical
court to try Puritan ministers if they did not seem to be thoroughly in accord
with the direction of the church as the king and as Archbishop Bancroft
desired. It was ordered by the king that all ministers of the church must take
an oath, saying that they subscribed to the Book of Common Prayer in its
entirety; that that they accept everything in it; and that they do so willingly
and from the heart; that they have no reservation on anything whatever in it.
The result was that a number of ministers who agreed with everything in the
book of prayer; but they felt there were certain statements in it which were
slightly in a Romanizing direction; which they could go along with, but they
could not subscribe to it from the heart; and they refused to take the oath;
and so they were put out of the ministry, out of the church. And Bancroft
proceeded to cut down others, whom he might suspect of not being fully in
accord, in their hearts, with the organization of the church as he conducted
it; he brought them before the ecclesiastical court, and there subjected them
to heavy fines and to imprisonment. The oppressive measures of this
ecclesiastical court became so extreme that finally, in July 1610, the
parliament of the realm began to object. And they began to vigorously declare
that the ecclesiastical court had no authority to interfere with the ministers
or with the churches, and to bring punishment against them, except in cases of
heresy. That is, if they were untrue to the doctrines of the Scripture, then of
course the ecclesiastical authority should interfere; but that on matters of
forms and ceremonies, minor matters, of slight minor divergences, that if there
was something which showed a disloyalty to the king they could be brought
before the civil court; but that the ecclesiastical court had no right to levy
punishment in such cases. Well, this did not get agreement from the king; the
king made a speech before the parliament, in which he presented his view on
these things very strongly; and the parliament listened in sullen silence to
what he said; and so the king felt that he'd better go a little bit easy. His
son Charles, who succeeded him 15 years later, had been raised as the son of
the King of England, with everybody saying the king rules by divine right; and
when Charles got into a position of authority, he was determined that everyone
should do what he said because he was the king by divine right. Now James
believed just as thoroughly in the divine right; but James had been king of a
little country of Scotland for 40 years, ever since he was a year old; but
during the years when he had been a mature young man over there, he'd been
finagling and fussing and arranging and trying to get himself to be king of
England; he'd been making friends with all the different parties of England,
and he wanted to stay as king of England; so when the policy of Bancroft
produced such a strong reaction, James did not in any way cut down on the
policies but he did cut down on its importance, and so we have
c. Abbott (1611-32). And Abbott was Archbishop. I am sorry we don't have ten years for C. H. instead of two; because if we did, I would take 2 or 3 days in going into the history of that godly man, Archbishop Abbott. As it is, I don't even expect you to remember his name. But remember the fact that the enforcement was somewhat lessened during the latter part of James' reign. But the fact is that Archbishop Abbott was an entirely different sort of man than Bancroft. Archbishop Abbott was a thoroughgoing Calvinist; a man whose devotion to the doctrine of the Scripture was a far greater part of his attitude than his loyalty to the king. He was not disloyal to the king, but his loyalty to the Scripture was the primary thing. And while he enforced to some extent the rules that the king had laid down—and some of his bishops enforced them very rigidly—yet he put no heart into the matter. He devoted his entire emphasis to advancing the word of God and its understanding. Now he was greatly hampered by the fact that the king appointed the bishops, too, who were theoretically under him. And the king selected bishops who would carry out the king's policy so far as they could. So Abbott was not able to make any great change in the situation; but as far as his own administration was concerned, it was an administration which was much easier on the Puritans than those that went before and those that went after; and except when the king interfered to try to push Abbott into enforcing the laws more rigidly against them, he tried to sidestep these matters and to put the stress on the advancement of the Word of God among the people. The King said, after his experience in Scotland, where the King said, "Every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks that he can interpret the Scripture for himself," and the king said "no bishop, no king." The king was determined that his rights as king should be thoroughly recognized by everyone. And of course it had been the attitude of the rulers, even in some of the Protestant countries, that if you are going to have a loyal country, you must have unity of religion. And the people must be in one church. Now in Scotland they had been in one church, but it was the Presbyterian Church; and the king was nominally head; but the ministers got together and their authority was the Bible rather than what the king said. Well, he had been in constant conflict with them in Scotland; so when he got to England where Elizabeth had always had her way. She was a very, very clever woman, and a very gracious woman; if somebody opposed her—if they were of considerable importance—she would win them by her gracious personality, to do what she wanted; and if she couldn't win them, then she would have their heads cut off. But she got her way, one way or the other. And she was always popular; even those heads she cut off usually died saying, "God save the Queen," and she was a very popular ruler, but a very absolute ruler.
But Elizabeth knew how to handle parliament too. She always, like her father Henry, assumed, "Well here's the parliament to represent the people; you're my loyal people of course; you want to do what's right; and if they didn't immediately vote what she wanted, she finagled things that so that eventually she'd get the vote through; she had learned to wait. But James didn't have the personality that she had; he didn't have the popularity Elizabeth had; he didn't have anything like the knowledge of how to handle people that she had; but he wanted to be just as absolute.
In the English arrangement the Archbishop of York is the Primate of England; and you'd think Primate of England meant he was the head of the English church; but the Archbishop of Canterbury is the Primate of All England; which means that he is the head of the English church, and the Archbishop of York is second. And that's the way the English church has been ever since its foundation, Canterbury being where the first big ecclesiastical headquarters was in England. But the English Church had gone to the opposite extreme, at this time; the Archbishop of Canterbury was trying to enforce his uniformity; today the English church had gone to the point where, a few years ago, the Bishop of Birmingham declared that this idea of God in the sky was all a myth and a legend, and the Bible was full of errors; and the Archbishop of Canterbury preached against him, declared he was utterly wrong, people shouldn't follow what he said; but he did nothing about it, because he now has very little power to interfere with anybody else. The English Church today has all the forms of absolutism and none of the power—form but not effectuality.
To be ordained you had to declare your acceptance of the Book of Common Prayer; well now, in our Presbyterian church, when you're ordained you declare your acceptance of the Westminster Confession. Now the Westminster Confession is from the Book of Common Prayer. I would not say that any book except the Bible I accept every word of; and certainly no one who believes in the Bible expects a person to accept every word of any book. I would say that basically and substantially I believe that the Westminster Confession presents a summary of the most prominent doctrines in the Scriptures, presented as godly men at the time of the Reformation worked out the presentation of them. Now these men were ready to say the same thing about the Book of Common Prayer; and I would say about the Book of Common Prayer, that it has some of the finest presentations of the gospel and of Scriptural teachings you'll find anywhere; but the Book of Common Prayer has been somewhat revised after Elizabeth became Queen, in order to conciliate some of her Roman Catholic subjects, and in order to continue her policy of keeping the pope and the Roman Catholic nations from making an attack on England, by making them think she wasn't too hostile to them; and so statements in it that the pope is the anti-Christ and all Christians must vigorously oppose him—statements like that were taken out—and there were statements put in it which can be interpreted somewhat in a Romanist direction. But there are plenty of statements which are strongly in the opposite direction. So that I would feel that any true Christian could accept the Book of Common Prayer in substance—in most of it—without any difficulty. But Bishop Bancroft made the order that anyone who says they accept the Book of Common Prayer must mean they accept every word of it; and some people could interpret certain phrases they didn't like and wish they weren't there, but they can interpret them in the light of the rest, and therefore these particular phases don't bother them; so he made his orders stronger; he said they must declare that they accept it, every word of it, every bit of the organization contained in it, of the regulations of the church; they accept it as true, and necessary for a Christian church; and they do this from the heart with no mental reservations whatever. Now of course to a person who was not a good Christian person, he could sign a statement like that. But when it comes to a real Christian like these Puritans were, they wouldn't say that, unless they meant it; and the result was that a lot of them were forced out of the church through forcing them to do that. Now I think that—as far as know—it was only one year that Bancroft made that particular rule: that all the churches, all the ministers must take this oath. Everyone when he was ordained declared his acceptance of the Book of Common Prayer. That would be reasonable if they're going to be ministers in that church; but which no intelligent person would take meaning every word. You couldn't do that with any book. But Bancroft then, against the others, he brought measures against people; and you would hear rumors that such-and-such a person was not in sympathy with the forms and ceremonies that they were enforcing in the church. Well, he would bring the person before the ecclesiastical court, and inquire as to their exact ideas; and when they would find that really they had severe questions about certain aspects of it, they would heavily fine them, or they might imprison them.
Now
the public courts said, "Fines and imprisonments cannot be given by an
ecclesiastical court, except for heresy." They said, "For other
causes, if they have a real cause of offense, bring it to the civil court and
let the civil court give them reasonable protection of the law. And the civil
courts went so far as to give writs of habeas
corpus, freeing from the court many ministers who were held by the
ecclesiastical court; and then parliament began objecting vigorously to this;
and when the king spoke to them and saw how they sat in sullen silence, King
James said, "I want to have my parliament." He said, "I want
still more to stay king," and so he said, "I'll quiet down a little
bit on this and I'll appoint a man as archbishop; Bancroft is ready to retire,
and I'll appoint a man whom everybody will recognize as a great Christian, and
with an interest in the advance of the Word of God." But he said, "As
new bishops are appointed, I'll appoint men who will support my policy."
So that was the attitude of the king. Now to go into the full details we could
take a month and it would be very interesting; but we have to get just the main
lines of it And so I want to go on to
2. Exile for Conscience Sake. In the reign of King James, there were people who left the established church and organized independent churches; you remember Robert Browne, I told you about, in Elizabeth's reign. Browne had written this book on Reformation without Tarrying for Any. So those who wanted independent churches were called Brownists; for 2 or 3 centuries after that, his name was connected with it.
Browne
was one of these men, whom you will find in every age, who take an extreme
position; and then when their extreme position doesn't work, they jump back to
the opposite extreme, instead of taking a reasonable position and carrying it
through. Browne took this extreme position; he was dropped from his position in
the church; he tried to organize an independent work, he didn't have quite the
personality to really make it go; he had difficulty with the authorities and
had to get out and get a job to support himself for a while; so when he came
back to the regular church, he said, "I was mistaken; I take it all
back," and he became for the rest of his life one of the most staunch
supporters of the old ecclesiastical organization; but his name had been given
to this extreme view. Now there were many others who did not take Browne's
extreme view, but who went quite a distance in the direction of his view; they
felt that it was much better, instead of being subject to the king's whims in
the church, to organize separate churches entirely apart from him. Now this
wasn't the king at this time; this was the queen, because all this happened in
Queen Elizabeth's reign; but in Queen Elizabeth's reign there were individual
churches in London and other places, which Elizabeth's officers proceeded
against; and the result was that they were torn down; and the people in them
either had to go back to the established church or to flee; and there were
groups of them that fled to Holland. And so these exiles for conscience sake,
starting in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, mostly went to Holland. Holland had
by this time gained its freedom from Spain to quite an extent; and in Holland
there was freedom of religion; these exiles could carry on their churches in
any way that they desired. But of course the truce with Spain would end in
1621, and the war would begin again; so there was a danger ahead, death and
destruction. But meantime they had a few years in which they could feel safe.
And so under this heading, exile for conscience sake, I'm going to mention two
as illustrations. The first of these is
a. Francis Johnson. Now he was a Puritan minister who had been exiled from the church about 1592. And he read a tract written by a man who was in prison—following Browne's ideas—but not going nearly as far as Browne. Johnson accepted this view, and he took a group of people to Amsterdam; he started quite a substantial church in Amsterdam. Before he started the church in Amsterdam, he succeeded in escaping from his own imprisonment by joining with a group to which Queen Elizabeth gave permission to go across the sea and establish a colony. In 1597 Queen Elizabeth gave permission to a group of merchant adventurers to start a colony across the Atlantic Ocean. Francis Johnson, his brother, an elder in their church, and two or three others, joined in with this, which went in 3 boats across the ocean, to start a colony where they hoped they would be able to worship God without interference from the king. This was before they went to Holland; this was from prison in England. They were released from prison—instead of lying there in prison—if they could be doing something to advance Queen Elizabeth's power, in establishing colonies across the seas; she was willing to give them that opportunity. So they departed in the ships; but off the coast of Newfoundland, one of the vessels went on the rocks. They were captured by the French and were pilloried; many of the people on the ships were killed; but Francis Johnson, and two or three others of the earnest Christians in the ship, managed after many difficulties to get back over to Amsterdam. So they got back over there; their attempt to make a colony in America had been an utter failure; but at least they had gotten out of prison. And back in Amsterdam, Francis Johnson became the pastor of quite a considerable church of exiles; there were 200 or 300 people in the church; but as Newman points out, there were a number of the members of the church who—in Amsterdam—left this church and joined with some of the local Anabaptist churches. And this led people in England to say Puritanism logically leads to separatism, and separatism had its legitimate issue in Anabaptism.
But
Francis Johnson continued in this church; and then he was able to get back to
England for a time, and to have an effective work there. He was the man who
stood strongly on the Scripture as he understood it; and he was quite a leader
in this work in Holland, but was unable to do any colonizing in America. In
fact, the utter failure of his attempt there made people fear any such thing
was just about an impossibility. Well, b is a somewhat
different sort of man.
b. John Smyth. Newman in his Church History tells us a bit about John Smyth. He was a Cambridge graduate, and he gathered a group of people out of the established church at a place in northern England called Gainsborough. I don't know as you need to remember the name of Gainsborough; but a few miles from Gainsborough, there was a town called Scrooby; and in Scrooby there were a number of people who took an active interest in the church in Gainsborough, and eventually they established another right in Scrooby; we will look at them a little later. But John Smyth, who had had this church in Gainsborough, found it necessary to flee from the persecution, and he went over to Amsterdam.
Smyth, together with a few of his associates, thinking of the persecution they'd been subject to in England; and forgetting the fact that along with the persecution to enforce uniformity in the church, there had been no heretical teaching; the great doctrines of the Scripture had been held to in the church, and the prayer book of Cranmer was strictly Biblical on the big essentials; nevertheless, they got such a feeling of distaste for the order, what they had gone through with the English church, that they reached the conclusion that their baptism, church order, the ordination of their ministers, having been received in an apostate church, were invalid. Well, I don't think they were right in calling it an apostate church; there was not any denial of the Trinity, nor of the actual authority of the Word of God in the church at this time. But they decided that was so; and accordingly this group in Johnson's church, led by Smyth and some of his associates; repudiated the church organization, baptism and ordination and led a group out of Johnson's church at Amsterdam and established a new church; and in establishing this new church, they said, "We will start; we will be re-baptized, re-ordained, and establish a new church organization apart from that of the English church in Amsterdam," in which the people were continuing the teaching that they had in England. And so this group got together and Smyth started in by pouring water over his own head in order to re-baptize himself; and then pouring it over the rest of the congregation. And thus they introduced the custom of adult baptism, instead of infant baptism. And so, this first Baptist Church, Newman tells us, was started in Amsterdam. Newman says immersion seems not to have attracted them. It was either pouring or sprinkling, but the church in Holland had split into two. Well, now there is another step.
Smyth and a number of the members of his church soon decided they had made a mistake in starting afresh this way. They said, "There is a church in Amsterdam—not an English church but there are the churches of the Mennonites in Amsterdam—which have carried on adult baptism for a long time, and some of which claim that they had carried it on since the days of the apostles." Now they said, "We must have an apostolic succession of baptism," so Smyth led a group out of this church and started a third church—or they didn't start a third—they joined with the Mennonites. But the Mennonites, knowing that they had split two churches already, hesitated about receiving them; and so they postponed their admission for three years while they investigated fully. And by that time Smyth had died. So Smyth was not received into the Mennonite church, but about half, or a little more than half, of the group that he led out of Francis Johnson's church were received into the Mennonite church.
You thus had, from this time on, in Amsterdam, quite a number of English who had left the Church of England, but who held in general to the order of the Church of England, with independent churches. And then you had these other anti-establishment churches in Amsterdam. And Newman says that investigation has shown there may have been two very small Anabaptist churches in Amsterdam as much as ten years earlier. That is not absolutely certain, but there is strong reason to think that even ten years earlier there had been a start which didn't continue; but now there were ones which were substantial of size even after Smyth and a number left them; and so that continued, a church opposing infant baptism, but not practicing immersion, which led to the introduction eventually into England of this sort of church order.
Well I just wanted to point out the movement to Amsterdam and the fact that people even thought of going across the sea. But that Francis Johnson tried it and it proved to be a failure; his boats were shipwrecked, and the French seized some of them, and they had great difficulty and nothing was accomplished by it.
In
1618, another attempt was made by some of these Amsterdam exiles to start a
colony across the sea, where they thought that they might be safe from
interference by the King of England. This was because the King of England's
representative even interfered with these Amsterdam churches. That is to say,
if they published literature that got back to England or something like that;
he would seek to interfere with them. So in 1618, there was a group which left
Amsterdam; a group of 180 people which left Amsterdam with the support of the
Virginia Company, to establish a colony in America. And this group which left
Amsterdam—but with the permission of the king—under the Virginia Company, left
in 1618; 180 people, stowed away in a vessel much too small for their number,
the people complained; they came from
Amsterdam to England, where they were permitted to make this start; and they
complained about the miserable arrangements on shipboard. Northwest winds drove
them out of their course to the south; their fresh water failed; crowded
unhealthily together, disease broke out among them, carrying off the captain
and six of the group. But it was March 1619 before they reached Virginia; and
when they arrived, their leader Francis Blackwell, who had been an elder in the
Amsterdam church, was dead as well as the captain; and out of 180 who started,
130 had died on the way over to Virginia. So this attempt to start a colony in
the New World, which would be free from the king's restrictions, completely
failed. Well, now there was an attempt, however, which did not fail. We want to
go on, and I'm going to make that a larger unit,
E. Beginning of
Puritan Colonization in America. It is very interesting that the first
Puritan colonization which succeeded in making a colony in America—that it was
described in early books of American history—and these early books of American
history quoted from the History of the
Plymouth Plantation written by its governor, William Bradford. We find it
quoted in a book published in 1669 about New England; in a book in 1736; and in
a History of Massachusetts in 1767,
there are quotations from the Governor Bradford's History of the Plymouth Plantation. Some of you may recognize 1767
as a few years before 1776; but after 1776 nobody saw the book again for a
hundred years. And so the history of the Plymouth Plantation was clouded in
darkness except for the quotations from Governor Bradford's history, which
occurred in these other books written before the Revolutionary War. Then in
1845 the Bishop of Oxford wrote a history of the Protestant Episcopal church in
Maryland; and ten years after he wrote it, an American who was writing a new
history of Massachusetts, went to this book by the Bishop of Oxford in England;
and he found in it quotations from a manuscript in the Library of the Bishop of
London; they were word for word like some of the quotations in the histories of
Massachusetts written a hundred years before, quoting from Governor Bradford's
history. So he went over to England and got permission from the Bishop of
London to look into the manuscripts there; he found that it was Governor
Bradford's actual history. Evidently, it was in Boston, during the
Revolutionary War—when the British held Boston—that some British general picked
it up, carried it off, and put it in the Bishop of London's Library. And it
remained there for 80 years. During that time people, weren't even sure what
part of England the Pilgrim Fathers had come from; most of the details by this
time had been forgotten; but now in 1855 they got ahold of Bradford's original History of the Plymouth Plantation,
which gives us the details; so we are as well fitted to know the precise
details of the history of the colonization of Plymouth, as of any movement of
comparable influence in history. So under E, and in view of the great
importance later of this group, we will call
1. The Scooby Congregation. Scrooby is a town in northern England, in the section of England in which Roman Catholicism had lingered longest; the section from which the rising had come against Henry VIII, when he tried to do away with Roman Catholicism. In this section of northern England, we noticed that Smyth had had a church at Gainsborough; and people from Scrooby had walked—some of them—had walked ten miles to church, and ten miles back, to get to the church; and then the Postmaster in Scrooby, a man who had, as a young man, been at the court of Queen Elizabeth—William Brewster, postmaster of Scrooby—he assisted others who were interested in forming an independent church in Scrooby; they had a man named John Robinson for their pastor; and this church in Scrooby, carried on, at the beginning of King James' reign; and soon they found themselves interfered with by the government officers; their leaders would be arrested and put in jail for six months; and difficulties came and obstacles; and they decided to move to Holland; then they had tremendous difficulties in getting to Holland. One time they made arrangements with a Dutch captain to take them to Holland; they put the women on a barge in the river in Scrooby; they were very poor people, most of them. But William Brewster, the postmaster, was a well-educated man, of fair means; but most of them were very, very poor people. They put their women on a barge to go down the river. It would take them nearly a day going down the river—that is, overnight—to get to the coast, but to the shore; and there, where the river came out, the boats from Holland were supposed to pick them up. And so the men walked overland; the women got to the end of the river, at the shore; they got to that point and there were a couple of men there taking care of the barge; and they started on a boat out some distance, but didn't see the men; and then the men arrived, and they signaled to the boat, and the boat came in, but by this time the barge was stuck because the tide had gone down; and so they had to take a little boat to get the people off the barge and get them out to the ship to go to Holland.
When
they got to Boston, they saw a company of soldiers; as the men were walking
there, people had seen groups of them going, and had reported them. So the
soldiers came and, of course, the ship's captain, from Holland, had no
permission to take English away out of England. He was afraid of being
captured, so he pulled up his anchor and started off; and they arrested the men
and put them in jail in Boston, where they remained in jail for some months;
but the people of Boston were very kind to them and did everything they could
to make it easier for them. But they were there in jail; the women, most of
them, were on the boat which had gone off to Holland; they got to Holland, but
they had no means of support or anything; and their men were back in England in
jail, and it was quite a time before they could get over there too. So they had
a tough time in getting out of England, but they succeeded, and so
2. A Dozen Years in Holland. Now in Holland for about a dozen years, the congregation started in joining Francis Johnson's church, in Amsterdam; but after a time in Amsterdam, they found that life was not particularly satisfactory there; it was hard to make a living there; they had disagreements on certain points with the leaders in the church there; they had their units with John Robinson as their pastor; and they found another town of Holland, called Leyden. This town is a few miles away from Amsterdam; and in this town of Leyden, they found that the authorities were willing to allow them to come and live there, and establish their church.
So the Scrooby congregation left Amsterdam and moved to Leyden—this was within a couple of years after they had reached Holland. In Leyden their pastor, John Robinson, who was a well-educated and very godly man, expounded the Word of God to them; they tried to carry on their church as Robinson felt the Bible taught; and elder Brewster took an interest in preparing printed things that would be sent back to England; and one time the King of England, or one of his emissaries, decided that these pamphlets that came from Brewster were dangerous; and they went to the Dutch authorities and got permission to seize Brewster and bring him back to England. But it just so happened that Brewster at that time had gone in secrecy to England to make some arrangements about some business affairs he had in England; and so when the king's representatives were in Holland, he was actually in England. So they failed to get him in Holland; they couldn't find him; so they went off and gave it up; and he got safely back to Holland.
The congregation carried on in Holland, but they weren't altogether happy there. This was partly because of the fact that the war might break out again in 1621; the truce would only run till that year; if the war broke out again, it would be difficult then to carry on; they might lose their lives; the purpose in coming would be destroyed. For another thing, they were English, and they wanted to continue to be; all the people around them were Dutch; and their children were naturally getting more and more to speak Dutch; getting Dutch viewpoints; and they thought they'd just be swallowed up by Dutch. Still more important, in order to make a living, these men—who were unskilled laborers mostly—had to work 12-14 hours a day; the work was very, very hard, very poorly paid; they had little time with their families; little time to inculcate their ideas in their children; and they had very strict ideas about Sabbath life, about the keeping of the Sabbath. King James had sent orders which he required to be read at every church in England, telling people that it would be an excellent thing on Sunday afternoon to have cockfighting, wrestling and other sports. He forced every minister to read this; and this was one thing that many of the Puritans objected to most strongly; who felt that Sunday was not a day for games and festivities.
Well, in Holland there was no keeping of the Sabbath like they were used to; and it was very hard to get their children to observe the Sabbath the way they thought it should be, with this around them. The result of all this was that they began to wonder: can we get a way to continue our life and still be English? And can we get a way of doing things where we'll be far enough away from the King of England—where we will not be in danger of the king making new laws which just do away with our religious freedom? The suggestion was made—maybe they can make an arrangement to go to Virginia. Well, they had a bit of prejudice against going to Virginia, because of the fact that Francis Blackwell had tried to go to Virginia, and had such a difficult time with 130 out of 180 dying; but more than that, they found out what the laws of Virginia were; and according to the laws of the colony of Virginia, where Jamestown had been established and named after the king, every colony in Virginia was required every Sabbath Day—and at certain other services—to be present in the church. One was required to attend the Church of England services; and if he missed it once he would have a mild punishment—I forget whether it was 25 dollar fine or a day in jail. If he missed it a second time, there might be 3 months in jail; but if he missed it a third time, he might be beheaded. And the law was so stern in Virginia that they were afraid of getting near Jamestown, where the King's authority was enforcing these strict regulations about the church. Now the church in Virginia was presenting the Word of God; they were holding to the great essential doctrines; but on these matters of the forms and ceremonies, they were doing what the Puritans thought was utterly wrong; they were not requiring Sabbath observances such as the Puritans thought was right; and they were enforcing this uniformity. And the Pilgrims said, "What's the use of leaving England if we get into that sort of thing over in America?" And they knew about these two expeditions to America which had come to grief.
But meantime in Holland they were having an effective work. The synod of Dort was about this time, you remember; and John Robinson in Leyden was active in the university there, and one of the leaders in the Calvinistic argument against the Arminians in the controversy; and he was taking a vital part in the church life of Holland. But he fully sympathized with these people in their desire to establish a home for themselves, where they could still be Englishmen, but where they would be free from the ecclesiastical restrictions which the king of England made. Now knowing what had happened to these two previous expeditions which had come utterly to grief; knowing what the difficulties are; and themselves having no money at all; no means to carry proper equipment with them, or anything; it was only a divine miracle that they succeeded in establishing a colony in America. Actually there are so many points along the way at which the divine providence worked in an amazing way, that it is remarkable how God established the Pilgrim Fathers, in America. Now the Pilgrim Fathers, when they were established in America, they were a little group of a little over a hundred people; later a couple of hundred more came and joined them. They carried on their church, trying to carry on the ideas of John Robinson, right to the letter as he held them.
John Robinson died in Holland in 1625, before he could get over; he had stayed with the majority of the congregation, which hadn't been able to come at the start, but hoped to come later, and he died before he could come; and they had great difficulty getting pastors who held exactly their view. They got one or two pastors who proved to be scamps, and they had to get rid of them. They had great difficulty as far as carrying on their religious views exactly as they held them; so in the end they joined with the Boston colony and lost their separate independence.
So you might say, "What is the importance of this little group of a couple of hundred people who came over here and established the colony of Plymouth?" Well, when you see the way the Lord providentially worked and enabled them to do it—it is fantastic how it worked out—you see that God had a purpose. But was the purpose just to bring these 200 people? Well, the fact of the matter is that this group—these 200 people—was a tremendously effective thing in American history. Because in England, there were thousands of people who held Puritan views and who were educated people—people of standing in the community, people of wealth, people who had all the different skills—but the thought of going way across the Sea to live in the wild wilderness —it just scared them—they couldn't think of it. And so there they were—under the king—and they would have eventually been crushed by his laws of uniformity, had it not been that they heard that a little group of poor people, with no special skills, succeeded in coming over to America; after 9 weeks crossing the ocean; and sustaining themselves and establishing a colony that was solidly effective; and once that word got back to England—about 7 or 8 years after the colony had started—when it was clear what they had done, then the others began to come. And then within a few years you had thirty or forty thousand people coming over—whole towns in England, picked up and came over—bringing all the different skills, and bringing their equipment and everything. And highly educated people, who were successful in their communities; and within a few years you had the establishment in New England, of many towns of people determined to stand by the Word of God; to be loyal to the king politically, but to stand by the Word of God; and to have their churches in which the Word of God would be proclaimed as it stood; and humanly speaking, this never would have happened if this little group of pilgrims had not shown the way, and proven it was possible; and they could not have come, possibly, if it were not for the marvelous providence of God, which led in the most amazing way. I wish we had about 2 or 3 hours to give to it, but we'll take about half an hour next week, Monday, on trying to show some of the ways in which the Lord marvelously protected this little band, in order to make it possible that the great numbers could follow.
At
our last meeting we began E, Beginning of Puritan settlement in America. And
under that we looked at 1, The Scrooby Congregation,
and 2. a dozen years in Holland. And just at the end
of the hour I mentioned a little bit of the difficulties of this group in
Holland in planning a migration to America, and then I glanced forward briefly
to see what the ultimate result of their coming was.
3. Difficulties
in Undertaking the Trip to America. Today if you have a couple of hundred
dollars and you're in England, all you have to do is to step into an air office
and pay it, and in a few hours you're in America. But in those days it was 9
weeks in a small sailboat, many of which failed to make the trip at all; there
were all sorts of dangers and difficulties on the way, and no settled establishment
over in this country. And so under 3,
a. Previous
Unsuccessful Attempts of Puritans to Settle in America. I mentioned to
you how, about 1600, a few Puritans had come on a ship which had been wrecked;
they had been captured by the French, had escaped with great difficulty and
finally gotten back home, with absolutely nothing coming of their attempt to
found a colony in America. And then I mentioned to you how in 1618, just before
the Pilgrims started to come, how a boat had come over to make a colonization;
and of the people in this boat, two-thirds of them had died of scurvy before
they ever reached America; and they knew about these great difficulties of the
voyage; so that to get a group of people to decide to leave their homes and
start a trip like that, there must be a tremendous motivation. Then
b. Fear of the
Indians.
They had heard wild stories about the Indians. Just before they landed in
America one of the pilgrims was overheard to ask another one, "is it true
that the Indians seize white people and roast them alive whenever they can get
ahold of them?" And the one asked said, "I don't know, I'm sure; it
may be; all we can do is trust the Lord and go forward." They didn't know
much about the Indians; but if the Pilgrims, instead of going to Holland had
come to America in 1608, humanly speaking the chances are 999 out of 1000 that
every one of them would have been killed by the Indians within a very brief
time. In 1622—a little over a year after the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts—in
Virginia, a very small colony at that time with only a few hundred people in
it, there was an Indian uprising which resulted in killing 350 of the people—of
the few that were there. And even 30 years later, there was an Indian attack on
the settlement of New England; that resulted—out of the 90 towns they had
had—in utterly destroying 12 of them. The Indians were a very real danger.
Coming to a land which was inhabited by thousands of wild Indians—and Indians
who on the Atlantic Seacoast were very warlike and very active, quite different
from the lazy indolent Indians of the California coast—it was—of course they
knew nothing about them, but the Spaniards knew about them—it was a real
deterrent to leaving the peaceful, happy Holland; or not going back to England
where they would have had—if they would conform in going to the established
churches and not holding their private meetings—they could have lived, in what
for those days was very great comfort, far superior to anything they could get in
a distant land. Of course, the comforts that the comparatively wealthy people
had then would seem like utter poverty today; but to them it was a tremendous
difference between that and what they could expect on a distant shore with none
of the amenities of civilization. Then,
c. Difficulties in Establishing a Colony. I don't know how much they thought about this phase of it, but I'm sure the leaders must have. The average person thinks of the immediate things: the difficulties of the ocean voyage; the difficulty of meeting the Indians; but the leaders would think of the questions: after you get there, how are you going to get homes built? How are you going to get food ready? How are you going to get a settlement where you can survive and where you can possibly live? How are you going to control the colonies, so that they won't fly apart and come to fighting among themselves and just end? Or that sanitary conditions won't become such that very few people will be left in a short time? I don't suppose they knew much about the colony that had already been established in America by the English, but between 1555 and 58—already 50 years earlier—Sir Walter Raleigh had made several efforts to establish an English colony in what was then called Virginia, but is what we now call North Carolina, but had failed. He had been unable to get a colony started at all, with several efforts. All that it resulted in was naming the whole area after Queen Elizabeth, the virgin queen, so that the whole area from New York clear down to Georgia became known as Virginia, and eventually the name was centralized on the place where the successful colony finally was established.
But in 1607 a group of colonists came to Virginia and named the new town after the king who was then in power, King James—they called it Jamestown. The best they could do—this group sent out with royal approval by a company of fairly wealthy people in England, who put up the money for it—the best they were able to do in picking a place for their colony, was to pick the place, Jamestown. It was so marshy and low and extremely unhealthy that numerous people died time after time; and eventually the sea dug away on the shores of it; until the town within less than century disappeared, and people moved inland to Williamsburg. The men they sent over to establish the colony got in difficulties among themselves. A year later they selected one of their number, John Smith, a man who had already had adventures in Turkey, which was the most wild sort of romantic life he had; but he learned a tremendous lot about how to get on in unusual circumstances; John Smith became captain—director of the colony—and he established a control and made it last longer than it might have otherwise. But by 1610, 3 years after it was established, the people were so utterly discouraged with the number who had died and the difficulties of facing the Indians; and the impossibility of getting a decent livelihood from land that was different from what they knew in England; how to grow what they would need to live on, and so on; that in 1610, they all packed up and got into a boat, and started—that is, the ones who were left, less than half of those who had come—back for England; and just as they were heading out, they met some boats from England coming with Lord Delaware, the new Governor-General, with a couple of hundred new colonists; and they were ordered by him to turn back and re-establish the colony. And then, as I mentioned in 1622, there was a great Indian uprising which killed 350 of them, which was a tremendous portion of the people in the colony.
Well,
most of the Pilgrims didn't know about this, but I'm sure their leaders could
visualize the difficulties of establishing a settlement in a new area where the
conditions would be entirely different from anything they had been accustomed
to before, and then
d. The Problem
of Financing It.
How would a group of poor people who were having to work 14 or 15 hours a day
in Holland, in order to get enough money to support their families, how were
they going to live on a coast where there are no settlements at all? Where
there is no sort of knowledge of how to carry on? And how are they going to
have any equipment for it? How are they going to pay their fares across the
Ocean? Well, their representatives went to England, in disguise; they got in
touch with certain Englishmen who had some money they'd like to gamble on; and
they asked these people to pay their way over and give them equipment to start
with. And these men agreed to do it, provided that for the first 7 years, four
days out of every week, everything they do is for the people who have given the
money for the trip over; and at the end of 7 years, everything in the colony is
to be divided equally, half to them and half to the people who gave. And then,
just as they were ready to start, the company changed its mind; it decided that
everything they produced must belong to the company except the bare subsistence
during the 7 years; and they made conditions which they absolutely could not
agree to; they said, "If we're going to be made slaves, we might as well
stay over here; and they had constant difficulty with these ungodly men whom
they persuaded to put up the money for the trip over, and for the necessary
supplies that went with them, in order to live for the first few months and in
order to get established, And then
e. The Lack of
Capital and Trained Men. The Pilgrims were in a different situation from the
Jamestown Colony; they did not have the royal support; the king had given his
permission, but they did not have his support; they didn't have money of their
own, they were poor people; and they were people who were accustomed to doing
unskilled labor in the cities of England and of Holland. They had no training
for this sort of life whatever. Humanly speaking, the whole thing seemed almost
absolutely certain to fail. And as they started it seemed still more so; we'll
put this under
4. The Voyage. [student] They agreed to stick to the 4-day week plan, but there were several changes made from time to time. Eventually, they were able to make a reasonable agreement with them. After all, when you think of it, these men—with all the failures of colonization—these men might be just putting their money down a rat hole; the chances of even getting their money back at all, humanly speaking, would seem to be very slight; and people don't give money for that sort of a gamble, unless they're sure that if they do get it back they get enough back to make it worthwhile. But when the Pilgrims began to make a real success of it, then it was possible to negotiate and to get something of an improvement in the terms, although, at the very last, as they were just ready to sail, their sailing was delayed 2 or 3 weeks, while they negotiated with them, because of their insistence on the 6-day week proposition, until they got them to go back to the original terms.
And here difficulties continued. The English sent a small boat called the Speedwell over to Holland. And they got into the Speedwell—by this time in Holland there were 33 who had decided to make the trip—these 33 people were less than half of the Holland congregation. And therefore, John Robinson—their pastor who was so anxious to go with them—decided it was his duty to stay with the majority of the congregation in Holland; but he was expecting that soon, when they got established, more would come and he could go with them as a group. So he stayed in Holland; and he died in Holland in 1625. He was a devoted student of the Scripture, a very godly man, a man who had been constantly engaged in debates and discussion against the rise of Arminianism in Holland at that time; and as the Pilgrims left he gave them a stirring message, that he believed God had yet more truth to break forth from His Word; and he invoked them to stand by the Word of God, to follow it and make it primary and central in all that they undertook.
In England, there was a larger boat, the Mayflower. Today we think of it as a very small boat, but it was much larger than the Speedwell; and it was ready to leave England and equipped; and there were 67 more people from England of like views to their own, but who had not been in Holland, who were ready to go with them. And now the trip was delayed because of the arguing with the adventurers who were supplying the money. And then after that was settled, they made a start, but the Speedwell began to leak; so they put back and spent a couple of weeks repairing the Speedwell and then they started out again; and this time they had gone a couple of days, when they found the Speedwell was leaking so badly it could never get across the ocean; so they turned around and went back again; and this time they left the Speedwell and crowded the passengers from the Speedwell onto the Mayflower; so it was quite overcrowded; and the starting had been made so late that, instead of arriving in America in the beginning of summer or spring—the only sensible time to come, when you could look forward to a period of good weather—they would be getting here in the late fall. But they came on the Mayflower. The Mayflower had a crew of experienced British sailors, who were about the most filthy, loose and disgusting sort of people on the face of the earth; and there's nothing they enjoyed more than ragging the Pilgrims, calling them Psalm singers; and criticizing them for their religion and making fun of them, and reviling them; and it made life very miserable for them for about a third of the way over. But then one of the sailors who was the most ungodly of the whole lot—who made life so utterly disagreeable for the Pilgrims, was washed overboard—it was the only death in the crossing of the Atlantic; and the fact that it was this man who had been the ringleader of all the opposition and reviling and ridiculing of the Puritans, toned down the rest of them somewhat—though not completely—for the rest of the trip. There was one other man washed overboard; one time they were in a big storm and the captain gave orders, everybody must stay below deck; but one of the young Pilgrim men stepped up onto the deck, stuck his head up and enjoyed the feeling of the wind blowing and the waves and all that; he stepped out onto the deck, and he had hardly stepped on it before a wave went over the ship and swept him overboard; as he dropped into the water, he reached out his hand, and there was a rope hanging down from the side of the ship; he hung to the rope and they were able to come to his assistance and to get him back into the boat. The thing was practically unheard of: that a man would be washed overboard and nevertheless should be rescued, especially in the middle of a big storm. But after 9 weeks in cramped quarters on the Mayflower, they finally arrived in America. Now before they left Holland, the Dutch had offered them to let them settle in Manhattan which the Dutch claimed possession of; they said they would give them each a bit of land and a cow, if they would come to Manhattan and settle in the Dutch settlement; but the Pilgrims wanted to be English citizens, and so they turned down the kind offer of the Dutch government and made the best arrangement with the adventurers as they could.
Well,
they came to America; they wanted to get as far away from the Virginia Colony
as they could; because if they were anywhere near it, who knows but what King
James or some successor of his might simply extend the laws of the Virginia
colony to them; then they would be required to attend Church of England
services and forbidden to hold their own services. So they decided to head for
New England. John Smith had already charted New England, when he was over here;
he had gone along the coast; made charts of it; written a book on it; and when
he heard the Pilgrims were coming, he had written and offered his services to
them; but they didn't think he was the sort of man they wanted for their
direction; so they got Miles Standish, a man who had had experience in the
Dutch wars, and who would be their captain and help them with plans for
protection; and they did not avail themselves of John Smith's services. They
reached Cape Cod in November. Then John Kennedy wasn't there to greet them.
5. The Difficulties of the First Winter. Well the first problem was to find a place to settle; so they landed on Cape Cod, and the group of men got to shore; there was a little boat, which they brought along with them to get to shore with, as there was naturally no established harbor for a ship to come in; so they came to shore in boats, but they found the boats leaked so badly that they had to put back before they got very far, and it took them two weeks to get the boats fixed up to where they could safely use them. Then they took the little boats and got to shore and started walking up Cape Cod, and looking around to see if they could find a decent place to stay; and pretty soon they saw Indians some distance ahead of them. But when they came near, the Indians disappeared; and they didn't know whether they were hiding behind the trees, ready to ambush them, or to shoot them, or what might happen to them. And they hunted around there on Cape Cod for a while; and they came onto a supply of Indian Corn which was buried—quite a large supply of Indian corn, evidently grown the year before—which had been buried as a cache by the Indians; and they picked up this supply, which was a tremendous help to the colonists; they took it back to the Mayflower; Elder Brewster didn't think they should take it; it didn't belong to them, it belonged to the Indians; but he decided in their desperate situation they would keep track of how much it was and pay the Indians for it once they could get in touch with them and find some way of communicating with them.
Well, after hunting around there, they decided that the place that they wanted to settle was not in Cape Cod, but at the place which they named Plymouth; so the ship moved over to there, and the famous landing at Plymouth Rock occurred; after all, it was not their first landing in America, but the place where they decided to make their settlement; and they landed there and began to build a community building, sort of a central headquarters, before they would be ready to build any home for themselves. William Bradford, who wrote the diary, was ashore making plans for this; and when he went back to the ship, he found his wife had fallen overboard, and been drowned.
And
now their troubles began; they began to get sickness and fever, both on the
Mayflower there, and sometimes in the common house they had built ashore. It
got burned down before the winter was over, but between that and the Mayflower
they spent the winter; and soon they were taken with sickness; and at one time
all but 6 or 7 were sick. Miles Standish seems to have been immune to the
sickness; and the rough soldier, they say, showed a kindness and a courtesy in
taking care of the sick and of helping that was certainly not to be expected
from any man of his background. And during February 2 or 3 died every day; it
began to look as if there'd be nobody left for the establishment of the colony
when summer came. As a matter of fact, out of the hundred that started, there
were only 51 left when spring came. Practically half of them died in that first
winter. And when March came there were only 21 men able to work—and 6
boys—left. Only about half of those left were women. So it was a very, very
disagreeable winter which is told about in the stories of the Pilgrims. But
people don't realize that during the next 6 or 7 years there were hardly any
deaths in the colony. Those who survived were hardy and were in unusually
healthy condition for the succeeding years, and now
6. The coming of Samoset. In March they succeeded in rebuilding the Community building—which would be just a little shack actually—and had started building other buildings and getting settled onto the land; on March 26, 1621, an Indian walked in, and said in broken English, "Me Samoset, Me want Beer." And incidentally it's interesting that the Pilgrims, when they were in England, like everybody in England at the time, their drink was mostly fermented grain, in other words, beer. The aristocratic people, of course used wine; but for the ordinary people, their drink was beer; they hardly ever touched wine. And of course there was no proper sanitary arrangement to be sure of having decent water; but the Pilgrims brought a supply of beer with them to America. But landing there, the first time, at Cape Cod, when they had gone for hours through the woods, hunting game and fearing the Indians; and it was 2 or 3 days before they could get back to the ship again; they got lost and had to go along the seashore; they came to a little stream; and Bradford wrote in his diary, "We all knelt down and drank from the stream," and he said, "We enjoyed that drink better than ever any drink we had had in England." And so when the beer they brought got all used up, and they had no more, they had to drink water; and they got to like it; so that a couple of years later when another bunch of Pilgrims came, they had a good supply of beer along, but they were afraid if they divided it up with the Pilgrims already there, it wouldn't last long; and they found the Pilgrims there didn't want it anymore; they liked the water better now. So the new ones used up their beer, and then had to drink water after a while, and found they liked it better too, so the shift from beer-drinking to water drinking was made as a result of necessity; and then they found they liked it after they got used to it.
But
Samoset—they immediately gave him a drink of brandy and some things to eat—and
he in his broken English tried to talk to them, and here I will move on to
7. The Lord's
Providential Arrangement. The first close contact with Indians was not with
groups of them, or warriors trying to destroy them, but it was this man walking
into their camp, who knew a little bit of English. So in the Lord's
providential arrangement, we've noticed about their coming over, but
particularly there were two extremely unusual events,
a. The Epidemic. Within the 3 years prior to the Pilgrims' coming, an epidemic swept that whole region; and towns which had had ten thousand Indians in them would now have 20; and towns which had 2000 Indians in them would have none at all. Thousands of Indians had been wiped out in the epidemic in the previous 3 years.
Now epidemics come to areas from time to time; all through history it has been found, that epidemics break out. Even in our country in 1918, the flu epidemic swept off thousands of people despite all the medical advances they had then; and during the middle ages, the Black Plague of Europe sometimes would take half the population of places; but the Lord knew that the time when this epidemic came to the Indians in New England was just during the 3 years before the Pilgrims came. Or you can say it another way: if in the Lord's providence, the Pilgrims should have become dissatisfied in Holland and reached the point of sufficient motivation to make the trip over 3 years earlier to New England with its great hordes of wild Indians, humanly speaking it is absolutely impossible that the colony would have lasted 5 years, with these Indians attacking and doing away with them suddenly when they weren't expecting it.
Miles
Standish and others showed a very clever strategy: resorting sometimes to the most fine methods of conciliation; using other methods at
other times, in dealing with individuals who provoked these sudden attacks, but
this was now a little group of Indians. The fact that the Pilgrims' coming was
just after the epidemic rather than before was something no human being could
have foreseen. No human being could possibly have known about it in order to
make a plan, in any such way as this. And then a second, small b, a most
remarkable example of the Lord's providence in this case,
b. The Sending of Squanto. A few years before the Pilgrims came—at this very spot where they founded their town of Plymouth—there was a flourishing Indian colony. And in this large Indian village at this place, where they picked the site for Plymouth, at this place in this large village—one of many villages, spread through that whole area—there was a young Indian of unusual ability; one who was certainly headed for real leadership in his tribe; engaged to be married in just a brief time; everything looked very hopeful for his life; when an English ship came to the settlement; and this English ship under a sea captain named Hunt, began to trade with the Indians; the Indians were very curious about the white men and what they had; the white men began to give them trinkets and beads and different things, and to get furs and other things from them, to sell in England; and then when they had gathered quite a supply of these together on the shore, they asked a group of Indians to bring these things into the ship; and Squanto was one of maybe a dozen who carried these things out onto the boat and transported them to the ship and brought them into the ship; looking forward with interest to see what the inside of a ship looked like. But no sooner had they gotten into the ship than they were seized by the brutal sailors and tied up, the ship lifted its anchor and started off, and went away. And they never again saw their friends. In fact, as far as we know, of the dozen Squanto is the only one who ever saw America again. They were transported to Spain by this English ship, and there sold as slaves.
And there in Spain, Squanto in some way got away from Spain; just how he did it, we don't have much way of knowing; but he got away from Spain, evidently some people there took an interest in him and befriended him. He managed to escape from Spain; and he got to England, where he became the friend of an English merchant; and he lived with this English merchant, and this English merchant took quite an interest in Squanto; and Squanto learned to speak English quite well; and he was very well treated by this English merchant. But one day the merchant said to Squanto, "You don't seem very happy; is there anything I could do to make you happier?" And Squanto said "I keep thinking of my fiancée in America, and of my own people, and the life I lived there." And the merchant said to him, "I have a ship which I own which is going to America, I will send you over in it, if that will make you happy." And Squanto was so grateful to him, he said, "If I ever get a chance—I'm glad I met you to find that all Englishmen aren't like those brutal sailors that kidnapped me and sold me as a slave to Spain; but in view of what you have done, if I ever meet a group of decent Englishmen in America I will try to do everything I can to help them." So Squanto came in this ship and they let him off up in Maine; and he landed there and met a local chieftain, a young fellow named Samoset; and he told Samoset about his experiences in England and on his trip; and Samoset became greatly interested, and when he heard him tell about the beer he had drunk in England, Samoset said he'd like to taste that too. And in the end Samoset made the trip down with him overland to Massachusetts, and when they got there they found that Squanto's village had completely disappeared; everybody had died in the plague; there was not a person left of his relatives or his friends in the village, which was completely gone. And of all the other villages around, many had completely disappeared and few people were left. But they got in touch with the other Indians of the area, and Samoset stayed with him; and then they heard about this group of English who had landed; and a few Indians had seen them from time to time; and they didn't seem to them to be like the ones who had kidnapped them and taken them off. And Samoset said, "Maybe I can take get a taste of this beer you were telling about; I'm going to go to their colony and see if they will give me any." So Samoset walked into the colony and the people treated him in friendly fashion and gave him something to eat and brandy to drink; and after a little he went away; and a little later he came back and brought Squanto. And Squanto was anxious to do what he could to help the Pilgrims. So he showed them how to plant the things that would grow in that kind of soil, and in that kind of climate, showed them when to plant; showed them how to get things from the sea that they could use to eat, which they had never heard of before in England or in Holland.
He taught them the ways of the Indians. In addition to that, he was their interpreter, because he knew English well. Squanto knew much more about London than the Pilgrims knew. He knew the streets of London in detail; some of them had been to London once or twice, but he had lived there for a long time; he knew much more about many parts of England than the Pilgrims did. But he was their interpreter and enabled them to make friendship with the other Indians. One time a group of Indians said, "If we destroy their mouth, they won't be able to get along any longer." So they seized Squanto, tied him up, and they were going to kill him; but word of it got to the colony, and Miles Standish and a few men with guns came and made a sudden attack and rescued Squanto from them. Squanto had been coming in helping them for a time; then the Pilgrims asked Squanto if he wouldn't live with them. He hesitated about doing it; he didn't want to leave his own people; but then he remembered his gratitude to the merchant; he said, "Yes, I will do it," and Squanto lived with them for about two years. It is just about impossible, humanly speaking, that the Pilgrim colony could have lasted—could have avoided getting into such arguments and misunderstandings with the Indians—that they would have been completely wiped out; or could have gotten enough food to survive; if it had not been for the help that Squanto gave.
It was a most extremely unusual, providential occurrence; and we cannot but see the hand of God in preparing the way to help this little group of poor unskilled people to manage to make a colony that would last in America; a colony of men who had come here—not for commercial purposes, not with the hopes of finding gold—but because of their desire to have a place where they could follow the teaching of Scripture as they understood it, and could establish a place where the Bible would be at the center of their lives. They'd work all week in the fields and forests; Sunday they'd come together for two Services; they never were satisfied if the minister preached less than two hours, because they wanted to really learn to understand Scripture; but they found sometimes they'd be so sleepy after the hard work in the fields, they just couldn't keep awake; so they were glad when the usher would come up with his long stick that had a little feather on the end, and tickle their ear a little bit and make it easier for them to keep awake.
In
Old English the word "corn" means any kind of grain; but its
particular use in the O.T., I believe, was for barley; so while the Bible says
corn, it just means barley; or in some cases it might mean wheat. But what we
call corn in America was at that time, when the Pilgrims came, called
"Indian corn," in other words "Indian grain." It was never
known until they came to America; but of course in England, I think to this day
if they say corn I believe they mean wheat or barley, and they say maize for
what we call corn. But it was this Indian corn which they found; and how to
plant it; how to grow it; how to take care of it; they wouldn't know anything
about it without Squanto's aid; of course people with plenty of money can
experiment; you have plenty of money to support yourself with other things,
then you can experiment with one thing; but they had no means of livelihood;
they had to grow something speedily to live through the next winter; and the
fact of the matter was that the next year they had this crop; but they had
enough to get through the winter and in the spring until the crops could be
planted; and then they had some weeks in which their food was practically all
gone, and they had to live off what they could get out of the sea; and the
berries they could pick and things like that; they nearly starved their first 2
and 3 years, in that period between the end of the production from the year
before, and the time when the new harvest came. They had a very, very tough
time of it—very, very hard sledding—but they managed to survive. Now
8. The Abandonment of the Communist System. If a system of communism could ever work, the ideal time would be a time when people are thoroughly Christian, determined to work together for the glory of God and for the success of their community; and here you have exactly that sort of community. There never was a finer group of Christians who got together than this group of Christians. They were devoted to the Word of God and anxious to follow it more than anything else in life; and coming over like this, with an arrangement that the colony had made with the adventurers, and having to pay them back as a unit, the logical thing to do seemed to be what they did the first two years. They apportioned out the land in the area, near their village, to different families, and they said, "Now you take this land, produce enough for yourself, and as much more as you can, and bring that into the common store." And then you place everything that is produced by everybody according to their ability, and give back to everybody according to his need. They didn't use those words: those are Marxian words; but that is what they did. In the first year everybody produced—Governor Bradford tells us in his diary which was found again, as I told you, in England about 1860—they produced their crops, and everything; the workers in the fields, they put in good normal work and turned in their crops; they paid what was necessary to the adventurers; they hadn't been here 8 months, and were almost starving, when a ship came from England with a letter from the adventurers: "what's the matter with you? We haven't gotten any stuff from you yet to sell over here, and get back our money on our investment. But the first year they got along fairly well until just about the time they planted and then they had a frightful struggle to get along until the crops began to come in, and the second year the same way, they had a frightful struggle,
And then somebody decided, "Let's change our system. Instead of saying here is where you work; you work on this field, and you produce all you can and you turn it into the common treasury and then we supply you with food for the winter and help you to get to next summer," instead of that they said, "Here is land which we are giving to this family." Well, they didn't promise for how many years; but it was understood at least for some years this land belonged to that family. This is your land, you produce the best you can, and you turn in a certain proportion, a certain percentage, or a certain set rate, I'm not sure which it was, but anyway it was so fixed that by working hard, they would get more for themselves; and of all the surprises you ever heard of, this group of thoroughly Christian people, as Christian as any who ever lived, were not yet fully sanctified. There was sufficient of the selfish nature left in them, as there is in every human being, that once they knew the land was theirs and that what they got would be theirs, they didn't simply put in good and hard work like they had before; they worked extra hard! And the father and mother and the little children were out in the fields there, working and planting; and at the end of the third year, they had a good amount available from the percentage to pay the adventurers; and they had enough to take them to the next summer. They were far better off than they had ever been before.
So
Bradford describes in his diary how there in 1622, on the basis simply of
experience, the Pilgrim Fathers found that the communist system—that marvelous
discovery that Marx was to make 200 years later, how the world could be made
perfect—that that system did not work but that the free enterprise system was
far more successful, and far more satisfactory. I think that is a thing we
ought to be aware of, and it is here recorded in Bradford's Diary.
9. The Success of the Colony. Well, within a few years there was no question but what Plymouth was a going concern. The colony was standing on its own feet; they paid off the adventurers; made a fair deal with them where they got a reasonable return on their investment; and the colony was able to survive and continue. Barring a great Indian uprising, there was no question of the continuance of the colony. This was plain perhaps within 7 years; certainly within ten, it was plain to everyone that this colony had made a success—far superior to the success, the relative success that had been enjoyed by Jamestown—to which many aristocrats had come with ample means, and which was backed by the support of the government. This colony was of poor humble Christian people, coming simply for conscience sake, had succeeded in making a possibility of continued livelihood. Now from the viewpoint of their religion, it would have been a great disappointment to Robinson and to the early members of the Pilgrim group—there were others of them coming over later—it would have been a great disappointment if they could have known what would happen. Because while they held onto all the great fundamentals, to the clear teaching of the Scripture; and they held very strongly to the basic principles of Calvinism, yet on certain particular matters of form and ceremony, certain particular matters of doctrine, they had their own special views which were very strikingly different from those of other Puritans; these they expected to maintain in their colony, and they found it impossible.
There
was one doctor among them; and Brewster, of course, had been a courtier at the
court of Queen Elizabeth as a young man; but they were the only men of much
education among the group; and they found that when they tried to get a
minister to preach their teaching, they got one from England who claimed to
follow the teaching they had had, and he proved to be a scoundrel and they had
to get rid of him. And they had great difficulty finding a trained man who held
precisely their views on minor matters; and in the end eventually they united with
the larger Massachusetts colony and lost their existence as far as any
distinctive features were concerned; they became a part of the congregational
churches of New England, which for a century or more were exactly like
Presbyterian churches, with the one difference in form of government, that
their individual churches had more of an autonomy than the Presbyterian
churches; but as far as doctrine was concerned, it was absolutely identical;
but they simply became part of the big Puritan migration and lost their
identity. So we speak of
10. The Future
of Plymouth.
The future was that it became a part of the large group—that it lost its
separate identity. That the people whom they in England had considered as not
quite of their fellowship, eventually became the majority and they were just
swallowed up in them. So we look at these other people now,
11. The Results of the Coming of the Pilgrims, the Great Puritan Migration. We have noticed in the Church of England, there were thousands of people who wanted to follow the Bible, and not to have ceremonies imposed by the king. For them, the Bible was primary; being subject to the king, loyal to him, was secondary. The Mayflower Compact is the first democratically-made charter in America. But there is very little detail; from political view it would be of tremendous importance; from the viewpoint of Church History it is rather incidental. There were these thousands of people in England who were disgusted with the way the king and the archbishop were interfering in their local churches; but they would have done like so many thousands of people do today; they would have put up with it; they would have endured it; and eventually their children would have been trained in another system and lost interest in what the parents had believed and held. They would have simply been swallowed up by the royal establishment, as most of English Puritanism was then.
If
it were not for the coming of the Pilgrims—because the Pilgrims who had little
to lose, instead of losing that little, were successful—and these other Puritan
people were industrious, law-abiding Christian people; they were quite
prosperous. To give up good homes, great establishments, every prospect of
successful human life; and to go off and live in a rocky wilderness with the
chance of being killed by wild Indians; they probably just never would have
made the step if the Pilgrims hadn't taken the chance; but learning of the
success of the Pilgrims, by the end of that decade, the others were beginning
to come; the first group came to Salem; as they left England, they looked back
toward the shores of England and they said, "Farewell, England! We do not
leave you as others have, calling you Babylon; we are separating not from the
Church of England, but from the abuses and from the errors of the Church of
England." And they came over here to establish homes here which would be
free from the power of the archbishop in England; and whether they would follow
the Bible as they understood it; it was very close to the way the Pilgrims did,
but not identical; and within the course of a few years, whole villages in
England, whole towns picked up and came; they brought their blacksmiths, their
shoemakers, and their textile workers, people with every kind of skill you
could want—their iron-mongers—all these trained people from England came over
and established their towns in America. It was
a tough job to settle so far away from home on a land where they had no
backing, none of the things of civilization they had there; but compared to
what the Pilgrims faced, it was an easy task; because they had plenty of
capital; plenty of skilled workers; they had plenty of knowledge of the best
that civilization had produced at that time.
12. The Founding of Harvard University. Within 6 years after their coming, they started a university, where men could be trained to understand the Bible and go out preaching it, and to win souls for the Lord; and they put the whole taxation of the Massachusetts Colony into the college; and that wasn't enough, so an Englishman named Harvard gave them twice as much more toward it, so they named the school after him.
But they started Christian education in America, and established a settlement which set a tone to the whole of English-speaking America; but it was the Pilgrims who set the example, showed them it could be done, and led the way; and without their leading the way, humanly speaking, it never would have occurred.
We are still on E, beginning of Puritan Colonization in America, and we looked at 11, the result of the coming of the Pilgrims, the Great Puritan Migration, and noticed the great numbers of Puritans who moved to America. Of course they were a small portion of the Puritans in England, but they were a large group to come into any one section of a land so distant, and it was the first large inrush of population in the United States. There had been a few settlers here and there before; there had been the small colony down in Virginia; but now there was this tremendous inrush of people who were determined as to what they wanted; and their idea was a commonwealth where the Word of God would be supreme; and where the efforts of everyone was toward making a land in which God would be supreme; His Word would be constantly emphasized, and Christ would be honored in everything.
We noticed that these people were not in America very long before they started a college; it was a college to train ministers. The Pilgrims were not in a position to start an endeavor like that; they did not have the men to teach; they didn't have the resources; in fact, the Puritans in New England didn't have the resources; they had the whole taxation for one year, and it was not enough to more than make a bare start; but it did make a start; it became known; and then a graduate of Cambridge named John Harvard left a sum of money amounting to 2 or 3 times what had been given to it by the Puritans in America; he did this in order to put the college on its feet, so they gratefully gave it his name; so Harvard College became the first school in America, a school which for 150 years trained men to stand by the Word of God and to take the teachings of the Scripture and to make them central in their lives.
Now of course the basis of the University has completely departed from its foundation; but it remained true for a long time, longer probably than any school in existence today has remained true, to the Word of God. [student: When was Harvard founded?] Now I don't recall; I think it's 1636, but it's within a couple of years of that, one way or the other.
The thing that precipitated discontent with Harvard, was the appointment of a Unitarian as Professor of Theology; and that was just about 1800; and when that happened, Andover Theological Seminary was founded which stood absolutely true to the Word of God for 60 or 70 years; it did a tremendous work; and then the Unitarians managed to infiltrate, to get control; and when they got control about 1880, they held a great celebration and they held a mock trial of one of their men, accusing him of being a fundamentalist; so Andover was taken over that way; and what had been one of the biggest theological seminaries in the country—which had missionaries in every land, and tremendous outreach—within a period of ten years dropped to a fourth of its size and eventually was united with Harvard, which it had been formed to fight against. But it had a period of about 70 years of tremendous witness; but Harvard had around 150 before it went down.
Andover
was one of the great seminaries of the world before this, one of tremendous
witness. But we'll hope to look at that yet—if time doesn't go too fast—from
now till the end of the year. This is briefly anticipated, but I think at this
point it is very much in order to do that. Now I want to mention a man who was one of the early settlers in New England,
13. Roger Williams. Roger Williams was a university graduate in England, one who was a minister of the Word, one who was very much of an individual thinker. He graduated from Cambridge in 1627, and in order to escape the increased persecution of Puritanism in England, he came to New England very early in the 1630's. He was then quite earnest in the establishment of the churches in New England.
Knowing of his strong stand against the persecuting efforts of the archbishop and the attempts to make uniformity in the Church of England, the Puritans welcomed him; and he became the pastor of the church at Salem, which had been their first town. He was pastor there from 1634 to 1635; but they soon found that though he was a very godly man—a man who spent some time trying to convert the Indians, and was a real spiritual influence among the people—they found that people, the great bulk of people simply take over what they're given, and swallow it and go on, and will follow without much thought in whatever is given to them; the bulk of people are that way.
Now there are a few people who go to the opposite extreme. On everything they've got to work out their own peculiar view on it; and these people are a great stimulus in our civilization, because they lead people to think things through and to find many things that have been established and carried on without thought for a long period, things which don't deserve to be carried on; and they arouse consideration of these matters; but they usually are not stable leaders because they are always taking new views on just about everything that comes along; then there is a group which is very much larger than this second group—but far smaller than the ultra-conservatives—a group that takes things that are a definite step forward, and moves on them and stands on them, and takes a positive stand like the great bulk of the Puritans of New England. They at this time were standing on the Word of God, facing the difficulties; they had come over to America in order to establish here a place where their children could grow up in an environment that was conducive to Christian life and Christian testimony; they wanted a place where the whole atmosphere would be in line with what they consider the Word of God to teach. Now that was the ideal of the Puritans. They could have gone to Holland, and they could have been absolutely free in their churches in Holland; and there were many congregations in Holland at this time, from England, as the Pilgrims were. In Holland, they were free to hold any doctrinal view whatever they wanted, and have any ceremonies they wanted in their churches; but once they got outside of their church, their children were under the predominant influence of the community there, an influence which did not make for Sabbath keeping, which to the Puritans was very important. There were all sorts of things presented to them, and the general ideas and atmosphere which they wanted their children to have a chance to be brought up without being subjected to. So they made a trip across the ocean in order to establish communities where they could make their beliefs dominant,
Now they were not saying by any means that the world should be forced to accept our views; but they were saying, "We are establishing in this great wilderness a new community, a community in which the Word of God and the understanding of the Word of God, which we believe is the true understanding of it, shall be dominant." So when they would find people coming into the community who were beginning to deny the Word of God, who were beginning to introduce Unitarianism, or skepticism, they would say to these people, "Now you don't belong in our community; go back to England, or go to some other land, you don't belong here." And if the people did stay, they would put them in jail or they would fine them; they would give them to understand that this was the attitude which was to be inculcated in our community. Now that was the attitude of the Puritan settlement in New England; that was why they had come across the ocean, not simply to have freedom to believe what they wanted, but to have freedom to build a community in which these ideas would be dominant; and of course in England, with the great power of the king pushing against their ideas, they had felt so much compulsion that way that the tendency was to go a bit to the other direction.
Now Roger Williams was immediately recognized as a very fine spiritual man, and people were very grateful for his teaching; but they found that very soon he began objecting to this attitude of the community. He said, "People should be free to think what they want and to teach what they want." And of course, if you're speaking of the world in general he certainly is right. Now we've had a big discussion in this country about academic freedom. It was about 20 or 30 years ago, you would find that in a Christian college there would come a professor who began teaching that the Bible was false; that Christ was not God; undermining the basis of Christian faith. And if the college would fire him, he would raise a tremendous storm all over the country that there was no freedom of thought in that college. And to this day you will find a certain amount of pressure brought by secular agencies against Christian institutions with this sort of thing: "Suppose that one of your professors, as a result of his scholarly research, comes to the conclusion that what you believe about the Bible is not true, is he to be hampered in his opportunity to teach it?" And so it has been difficult to raise Christian institutions in this country, because of that pressure of what they call academic freedom. However, it is coming more and more to be recognized now that there are two kinds of institutions; that there is the institution which is an open forum, in which anybody can present anything that he believes to be true, provided that he has had sufficient academic training to have a right to talk in that area. That is the theory of our great universities; but if somebody in one of those schools decides the Bible is true and evolution is false, he's apt to run into some pretty severe persecution if he is in an important teaching position.
But that is theoretically, at least, the attitude of Harvard University today. A man is selected because of his brains; because of his training; because of his general knowledge; he is given a field to work in; supposed to get to work doing research; and then whatever he finds the facts point to, he is to teach; and nobody is to interfere with anything he says. But it is coming more and more to be recognized—and perhaps the Roman Catholic pressure is one of the reasons for it—but it is coming more and more to be recognized, that people have a right to form organizations to advance their views; and that people have a right to build schools and colleges in which the purpose is not simply that of being an open forum for people to study and give whatever they think is the facts; but in which there can be a stated purpose of the institution; and the desire is to train people in line with that purpose; and to get teachers who hold that stated purpose; and who work in that direction. That is coming more and more to be recognized; but as I say, I think it is probably becoming so recognized more because of the Roman Catholic pressure than any other; because if the idea of academic freedom, is as it has been so commonly held, no Roman Catholic school could be recognized at all; and some of them are recognized on the very highest level. And now if a general educational agency examines the school, they immediately ask the school this question, "What is your purpose? What are you doing to fulfill this purpose? They recognize that an institution can have its own particular purpose,
I think it was 15 years ago that I heard something which surprised me; when Dr. [J. Oliver] Buswell had been President of Wheaton College, he had had a very difficult time in getting Wheaton College recognized by the accrediting agencies of that region of the United States. When the accreditors came, they thought any place that held these old-fashioned ideas about the Bible being true can't be a scholarly place; and he had a tremendous task to persuade them that the college had high academic standards, and to get them to agree to its accreditation.
There was a case of a professor who taught things that were very blatantly opposed to the standards of the college; and he was fired by the college; and then this man went to the University of Chicago, to one of the leaders in the accrediting organization, and he said "I'm going to make a complaint to the American Association of University Professors, that there is not academic freedom in Wheaton College. I have been giving what I believe and I've been fired for it." And the man answered him, "You knew the standard of the college before you went there, didn't you? You knew what they believed and what they taught; you didn't have to teach there; you didn't have to, but going there knowing and then turning against them, you have no case at all."
So that it is coming to be recognized; it's not fully recognized yet, but in theory; and in practice it's far from being recognized; but it is coming to be recognized that people have the right to form an institution in which it is their purpose to have the teachings fit together in promoting a viewpoint, rather than simply to hire scholars to study matters and teach anything they think is right. I've had very little contact with Wheaton College in recent years; I know nothing except by hearsay. I know they have some very godly men there, and there are many men about whom I know nothing. The belief in the authority of the Bible would—according to secular educators 30 years ago—have made the institution a closed institution which could not be recognized as a scholarly place; but today they're not taking that attitude, at least not theoretically. Today, theoretically, a school has a right to adopt a standard and to put its teaching within the area of that standard; and that is a different attitude; as I say, I think that's enforced now by the fact that they had to either say all the Roman Catholic schoo1s are unscholarly or else they had to make a standard by which they could be examined and many of them approved. [student] No, before Communism came to be much of a vital problem—I mean, it was working underground, but before most people knew anything about it—academic freedom was a very live issue in America. The term academic freedom was used; and of course the idea that a man of intellectual ability is hired and then given exactly what to teach, and they say, "Here's this book; you teach exactly what is in this book; that's it"—that reduced him from being a scholar to a kindergarten teacher. That has its place for training small children; but if a man is going to be a good teacher, he has to have freedom to use his mind, to study details and to find what he thinks to be true; and so absolute denial of academic freedom is inconsistent with any tolerance; but the other extreme—of insistence that academic freedom means that everyone can teach anything they want to—which the evolutionists were insisting on 30 years ago, in an effort to infiltrate all our Christian schools, is unworkable. And the point is somewhere in between.
Now 30 years ago it was the evolutionists who were talking about academic freedom. The Communists have seized upon it as a good thing to help them win America. But we can't deny academic freedom; that would destroy institutions. A man must have a right to think things through, to teach what he finds to be true, but there should be a general area of agreement within the institution. And he should be convinced, before he comes, that he is in that general area; and if he finds that his thinking takes him outside of that general area, then it is proper for him to leave and look for an institution where he fits. I don't think so, because it's a term we had long before the Communists ever began using it. I don't think every time we have a good term, and some wicked people come along and take it, that we should give it up. I think we should explain what it really means. But I don't think they have a right to change the meaning, I think we should stick to the established meaning and say they are misinterpreting it. Now, of course, that's just a matter of value; how you're going to use words. But academic freedom is a word which has had a good history long before Communists. The fact that they begin to latch onto it doesn't mean we give it up. They latch onto the word democracy constantly. They claim they are the people who have real democracy. That's no reason why we should give up the word democracy. But we should show they don't really have it. Sometimes you have to, but I think we shouldn't give up too quickly on it, like if you pick up a good book about Christ being God written a hundred years ago, it will speak of the Divinity of Christ. Everybody then who thought that Jesus was God called it the Divinity of Christ. Then the modernists began telling us that every man has a spark of divinity in him and, "Christ was divine, just as we all are." And when they did that, the Christians stopped talking about the divinity of Christ, and any book you read on it today calls it the Deity of Christ. Well, these are simply two different words which mean exactly the same thing; but when the modernists used one a lot, we gave it up; but there's no reason we should give up all of our theological terms like that. Sometimes it is necessary to give them up; ordinarily I believe it's better to point out that people are misusing them. The modernistic Barthians believe in the resurrection; they believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ; but what became of those physical elements nobody knows. In other words, they don't believe in it at all, but they talk as if they did; now that's no reason we should give up the term, but rather to point out they are wrong in using it. But now we're getting away from our material, and we have much ground yet to cover.
In fact, I was not talking here about academic freedom and institutions, but using it as an illustration of the ideal which the Puritans had in founding their colonies in New England. Their ideal was a community which had a basis in the Bible as they understood it. And that did not mean that they regimented every aspect of life, but they did carry it to a greater proportion of life than most people do today. And Roger Williams had not been there very long before he began violently to oppose their whole approach in this regard. And he said, "You have no right to interfere with people's beliefs in any way. You have no right to insist that the people in this community shall hold the attitude which you and I believe to be the true one. But they should have complete freedom in religious matters." Well, this was a complete break from the purpose of the Puritan commonwealth. They never would have come clear across the ocean with all this expense and difficulty and loss, in order simply to establish another community in which, if ten thousand Roman Catholics should decide to come in next year, they could take it over and make it a Roman Catholic society; or if a lot of atheists were to come in next year, you could have the whole dominant atmosphere of the place be atheistic. That was not their purpose. And so he soon came into considerable unpopularity because of this view which he was advancing in opposition to any attempt to enforce any degree of uniformity of religious activity in the community.
And then Roger Williams advanced another idea; he said, "You are holding this land by charter from the crown, but the crown has no right to give you this land; this land belongs to the Indians." So he said, "You should go to the Indians now, and you should ask the Indians how much you should pay them for this land." Well, when the Pilgrims had first landed, if they had been able to talk to the Indians at all, and had talked to them and asked them to sell them the land just like—was it the Dutch who bought Manhattan Island for about $24? They probably for a few beads could have bought most of New England from the Indians then. But now they had established towns on it; they had taken over the land by charter from the king; there were comparatively few Indians there when they came; how long before them the Indians got there, they didn't know; there's no evidence the Indians bought it from anybody before them; they just took it; there was plenty of land for both of them. The value of the land had tremendously increased over what it was when they first came, due to the effort they had put into it; now to say, "Well, you've got to go and talk to the Indians and arrange with them as to how much you should pay them for the land." It struck people as nonsensical, and so they were quite irritated at him; but he kept agitating points like this. So when Roger Williams kept on agitating these points, the community passed an edict of banishment. In 1636, in July, they passed an edict giving Roger Williams 6 weeks in which to leave the Massachusetts colony. Roger Williams ignored the edict and went on with his agitation that they should start negotiations with the Indians to see what they were to pay them for the places they were living, and that they should stop their insistence on having their religious ideas dominate the community. He continued the agitation for another six months. The verdict of banishment said he should go in 6 weeks; but 6 months afterward he was as active as ever, had made no steps toward leaving; and so they decided to seize him and ship him back to England. And a friend told him of what had been decided upon; maybe they let the word leak out, because they weren't particularly anxious to do anything to hurt him, but they did want his agitation to stop in their colony. So in December he headed out of the colony secretly and went southward, down into what is now Rhode Island. Coming down into that area in the dead of winter is difficult, very difficult; and he found a place where he could get some shelter—he and a few friends—and so they called it Providence. They called it Providence Plantation at first; and there in Providence he established a community which would carry out his ideas. Well in the first place he proceeded to buy the land from the Indians; now this was not difficult because there were very few Indians there, the land was not settled at all, nothing had been done to improve its value as up in New England; so for a comparatively few beads they were able to buy the land; but they went through the form of buying the land and paying for it, from the Indians. And then they proceeded to make rules that in this area there shall be absolute freedom of religion; that people can hold any religion they want. And it was a fine thing to start a community on that basis; and if Roger Williams had been able to persuade people in England to come over here with him and start a community in America on that basis, it would be a fine thing; but he had come to one that had been started on a different basis; and these thousands of people who had been so happy to sacrifice so much, to start a community in which their ideas of Christianity would be the dominant influence, would never consent in an effort to start one on an entirely different basis; they might as well have gone to Holland in the first place, where they already had that.
Roger Williams decided—as he thought back on his difficulties with the people of Massachusetts, and his difficulties with the people of England, and thought back on how he had been baptized as a child and brought up in the Church of England—that baptism didn't mean anything and that he ought to be baptized over again; and so he got a group of 7 or 8 other people whom he explained his views to; and then he poured water on their heads, and one of them poured water on his head; and they started a new church on this basis: the people joined in the church to then be baptized regardless of whether they had been before or not. And so that was the first Baptist church in America. After a few months in it, Roger William's thought went on to other things; and he came to disagreement with the members of it, and he left it. So he was only a member of it for a few months; but the godly people who were associated with him in it continued in a church there, which developed into a founder of many Baptist churches in America. I personally question whether it is right to consider him as the founder of the Baptist movement in America, because this is just one of the many lines in which his fertile original mind kept moving in different directions; he only stayed with them a few months. But it did result in the starting of a church which was a good Christian church and did a good work there for a long time, just as the congregational churches did in the Massachusetts area. After some time, he went back to England, and he got a charter for this as a separate colony—Rhode Island—between Massachusetts and Connecticut, which had been founded by settlers from Massachusetts. So Roger Williams is one of those very original sorts of characters, who have an impetus in various directions. He was quite a nuisance to the people of Massachusetts—as long as he was there—but once he withdrew he did an excellent work in another area. I think it was just 20 years ago that the Massachusetts legislature revoked the banishment against him, so he is now free to return. But the governor of Rhode Island said they were not going to send his body back; it would stay in Rhode Island.
Yes? [student] On the matter of witchcraft: through the Middle Ages the belief was common in Europe that people could get into league with demonic supernatural forces, and by means of this could bring severe injury to other people. And all through the Middle Ages, you find great numbers of people in Europe killed for this, with this claim being made against them. Now of course, if the claim was true, they would deserve it; but we do not believe that people can do that sort of thing; we think it's all fake. That is our belief today. In the early days of the Reformation, just as people still believed that the world was flat and various other ideas from the Middle Ages, one idea that was still held was this ability of individuals to get into alliance with demonic powers, and bring great harm to others. And in New England there were certain number—not a great number, I don't think the Pilgrims, as far as I know, there were any, if any, very few—but in Massachusetts, there was a certain number of accusations of witchcraft and the usual punishment for it was to put one in a ducking tool and duck them into the water, but there were some cases where, I believe, where the life was taken on account of it. It wasn't long before the divines came to the conclusion that no one in this age can come to such a relation with demons and the matter was completely given up. So that there is some of that which continued in this country, but there was far more—at the same time—in every country of Europe, as there'd been for centuries before. I think the thing—instead of its being a criticism of the early Christians in America—that this thing was continued, I think it's to their credit that they didn't continue it long; that they soon saw that there was no foundation for it, and gave it up. But they were not interested in continuing a thing which had been carried on, and was up to that time in just about every country in Europe, and particularly in the Romanist countries, but also in the Protestant countries.
[student: What about baptism by immersion?] I think it was
about 1640 in England that the idea of the immersion originated; I don't know
how soon it got to the United States. But it's difficult to prove, because
there were little groups that came to that conclusion; but the idea of
immersion, and the idea of not baptizing infants, were originally two entirely
separate ideas; and most of the group that did not baptize infants did not use
immersion; and to this day the Greek Orthodox Church which does baptize infants
does use immersion. So the two are distinct things which came to be united in
one movement, but which were not originally. But now we must move along. We
have much ground to cover here. But I do want to say something about
14. John Eliot. John Eliot was
one of the Puritan ministers in Massachusetts who received a great burden for
the reaching of the Indians. Now there were others who had done some work in
reaching the Indians, but Eliot devoted his life to it. And in that 17th
century—that is, starting about 1640—Eliot worked very energetically in his
endeavor to reach the Indians for Christ. He went among the Indians and learned
their languages; he preached the gospel to them; founded churches, got
organizations, and trained Indians. He trained 24 Indian preachers. His
enthusiasm touched the hearts of many in England, and led to the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel in New England which sent him funds. He
translated the Bible into one of the Indian languages, and this was the first
Bible printed in America. In 1661 the N.T.; in 1663 the O.T.
He wrote various other books in the Indian languages. Edward Everett—the great
American orator, a century later—said of him, "The history of the
Christian church has not contained an example of resolute, untiring, successful
labor superior to that of John Eliot." Many of you are familiar with the
writings of Richard Baxter—whom we will mention later on—a great English Divine
of the last part of that century. Richard Baxter said of John Eliot,
"There's no man m earth, whom I honor above him; he had a long life and
continued his missionary work with great courage and labored until his death in
1690."
F. England and
Scotland 1625-49.
And under this
1. The Policy of Charles I. We've been dealing with James I; and James had tried to marry his son Charles to the daughter of the king of Spain sometime before this. The Spanish court was rather in favor of the wedding; there was only one real obstacle to it, and that was that the girl didn't like Charles. But they made the negotiations for it; and the Spanish ruler said, "Well now, Queen Elizabeth destroyed our Armada in our attempt to bring the true faith into England; Roman Catholics do not have freedom of religion in England; they can't hold the mass in England; how should our king's daughter go and be queen in a land that takes an attitude like that?" And of course the answer of Charles and of James should have been, "We stand on the Bible's truth and of course we couldn't have a queen who doesn't believe what the Bible teaches." But instead of that, the answer of King James was to tell them that they would change the laws of England so that there would be opportunity for Roman Catholic practice and Roman Catholic missionary work in England. And they made certain promises like that; and Charles was so anxious for the wedding that he made still further promises.
But the Spaniards were still feeling bad about their of defeat the Armada in 1588, only 30 years before; and so they demanded something more than words; they said to Charles, "You go back to England and put through these laws; establish a change in the situation of Roman Catholicism in England, and then we will consider marrying our king's daughter to you." And he came back and found that the English parliament, which had fought to keep Spanish control out of England, was not going to just turn around now and invite them in. And the result was that the Spanish marriage was given up. And so James married his son to the daughter of King Henry IV of France. Of course Henry IV had been a Protestant, but had become Romanist, saying "Paris is worth a mass," and his children were raised by the Jesuits—Jesuit tutors, Jesuit trainers, Jesuit confessors. So when Charles married the daughter of the King of France, this introduced an element into England that made people suspicious of what the real purpose was. His son was to marry the daughter of one of the leading Romanists; and King James was very much criticized in England because when the winter came, Frederick of the Palatinate—who was king of Czechoslovakia for one winter, you remember—when he was attacked by the Romanists and his force was destroyed, James did practically nothing to help him. But James was more interested in the advancement of his family, it would seem, than whether it was Protestant or Romanist.
James himself, by the way, had married the daughter of the king of Denmark. There were Denmark and Sweden and various other Protestant countries—there were plenty of Protestant princesses he could have gotten. But Charles was married to the daughter of the King of France; and it is said of Charles in every history book, that he was always true to his wife, that his family life was excellent. You might say that among the kings—the historic kings of England—he is almost unique in his high moral character in having been loyal to his wife throughout his life. But Charles was as determined as his father had been on increasing the power of the king. And so he set to work tenaciously to make the king absolutely solid in England; and for many years he called no parliament at all. The fact of his trying to rule without a parliament, the people put up with pretty well; but it had become established practice through the centuries that the king had no right to levy taxes except with an action by parliament first. And Charles soon got into the position where he did not have the money to carry out what he wanted to do; and so eventually he was forced to summon parliament in order to get a tax levied.
But
once parliament was gathered, people there began criticizing what the king was
doing: that he would dissolve parliament if he could, providing he could get
the money some other way. So he had a struggle for 4 years over this; this
belongs to secular history rather than religious history, but it's the
background of the situation in religious history. Well, the religious policy of Charles is
perhaps best discussed under
2. Archbishop Laud. Now I am stretching a little bit when I call him archbishop; because you remember that Abbot had become Archbishop of Canterbury in 1610, and remained so till his death in 1633, when Laud took over; but Laud was already a force in the English church long before Charles became king. Laud was a man of poor background, but of great ability, great sincerity of purpose—a man who had been trained in the high Anglican viewpoint and was thoroughly convinced of it. In other words—to his view—the Anglican church and the Roman church are two branches of the true church; and this true church has a great deal of ceremony and ritual it should perform; and the Anglican church is absolutely subject to the king. The king is the supreme head of the church. These were Laud's views and he was a man of great ability; and soon he got the attention of King James; So Laud in James' reign had come to be a great force in the church. He had been promoted to position after position of importance; and after Charles became king, he made him bishop of London and eventually, when Abbot died, he became Archbishop of Canterbury.
Now Abbot, you noticed, was a strong Calvinist, a great lover of the Word, whom one would say personally liked to give people freedom to study the Word, and to spread its teaching; while he was in his sympathies very close to the Puritans. But while Abbot was head of the church, the king put men in the next positions that held the other view—like Abbot's predecessor had held. And so Laud, who became archbishop in 1633, is the dominant force in the Church of England from a time during the reign of James even, and all through the reign of Charles—that is, up to Laud's death—even though he was not archbishop of Canterbury until the last ten years of his life.
Now Archbishop Laud was convinced of the divine right of kings, and convinced of the importance of making the church like the Church of Rome, except that the king was the head of it. And he began enacting very strong measures for this purpose. For instance, they were accustomed to have services in the afternoon, at which the ministers would preach on doctrinal points. Laud gave an order that the ministers should give their Sunday afternoon teaching to teaching the little children the catechism; and they should devote themselves strictly to that; in other words, they weren't to preach. And he said that during the day they were to have the full service; they must not shorten the service of the Prayer Book in any way. That meant that it lasted so long there wasn't much time left for a sermon. And then he issued orders that (with the king's authority) the sermons were not to enter upon the great difficult mysteries of the divine Being which cannot be understood, but were to deal with the matters that are clearly set forth in the Ten Commandments and in the Apostle's Creed.
Laud found that the Calvinists' teaching in the church led people to feel that, though the king is the head of the church, God is the real head, and the Bible is the real constitution; and this is what we should follow; and Laud began opposing the Calvinist teaching. He did this to such an extent that he tried to get men out of positions and put others in; so one day somebody asked another, "What do the Arminians hold?" And the answer given was, "Most of the high positions in the Church of England." And that was what had been accomplished by Laud; the Church of England in 1610 was a thoroughly Calvinistic church. The ministers who were active and earnest were devoted Calvinists, and the ministers who were not active and earnest, who were more or less place-fillers, were all nominal Protestants.
James had sent representatives to the synod of Dort in 1618; but by 1635, while the bulk of the church was still Calvinist, the leaders of it were strongly Arminian. In fact, Newman in his Church History says that actually the view of the leaders of the Church of England under Laud was not so much Arminian, as semi-Pelaglian—similar to that widely held in the Roman Catholic Church. At any rate there was a complete change in that regard. Now of course the Church of England had the 39 Articles, and one of these Articles is a straightforward though moderate Calvinistic utterance; and so they certainly all had to subscribe to the Articles; they had a right to preach what was in the Articles. So in 1628 a declaration was made by the king, a declaration that they might take these Articles in their grammatical sense; they must not take them in the Calvinistic sense, but purely in a grammatical sense. A High Church writer can hardly conceal his contempt for this way of interpreting. He says about the royal declaration about the 39 Articles—still appended to our Prayer Book—was the decisive step taken with respect to the doctrinal question at issue: the meaning of the Articles was sought for, the declaration rescued them by force from the Calvinistic sense; and said positively they are not Calvinistic; they shall not be Calvinistic; we forbid you drawing any inference of your own summoning. You shall take the words—the words as they stand—as many of the words as you please but not one iota of meaning shall you give them. Well of course that's nonsense. Here is this Calvinistic statement; we believe it, but we don't believe Calvinism; and so we must interpret the words in a non-Calvinistic way. Well, it's pretty hard to do, but of course the same thing has been done in the Roman Catholic Church many times; there have been official declarations about doctrine which deny what the plain sense of the Word gives. But Archbishop Laud proceeded to order that the communion table should be moved in the churches to a place at the eastern end of the church, where the altar is in the Roman Catholic Church. The altar had been done away with in the English church; all they had was a table on which they could put the articles of communion; and this table would have the communion articles on it when communion was served. Often people didn't pay much attention to the table and they'd throw their hats and coats on it, and other things; and Laud thought this was heresy because the table was the thing on which the communion elements were placed; so he gave the order that the table must be put at the east end of the church—in the most conspicuous place in the church—and he began calling it an altar instead of a communion table. Of course that's what the Roman church did. One book even said that the Roman Church offered Laud a Cardinal's hat. Now I didn't have time to hunt to see if I could find any evidence on that; it is hard for me to see how they could, with their relation with the English church; but it said that he answered them, saying that much as he appreciated the honor of the offer, that while the Church Rome was as it was, he could not become a part of it. He never said anything to give the impression that he wanted the English church united with the Roman church, but he explicitly declared they were two sister churches; and he was forcing the Puritans back in this way: stopping them preaching; changing the order of the service; changing the arrangement of the churches; and the people were becoming more and more irritated.
These Articles were issued by the king's authority; but Laud was very close friends with the king; and in fact, when Archbishop Abbot interfered once or twice with things that Laud did, the king ordered the archbishop confined to his home for a week, or something like that; so that the archbishop learned that he could hold his position and his honor as long as he didn't interfere with the real control being in the hands of Laud. Laud, I would say, practically controlled the English church—under the king of course—from about 1618 on.
[student on immersion] What I meant to say was that immersion in England did not start until 1641. There is no evidence of immersion ever having been used in England before 1641. Previous to that time, various methods of baptism had been used from the very earliest times, including immersion. The Greek Catholic church immerses infants to this day. Immersion is a method that has been used from very early times—and also sprinkling and pouring—no one can probe which started first; but they all were in existence at a very early time. But in England immersion was not used, as far as we know, before 1641. The churches on the continent which made a point of not baptizing infants, very few of them used immersion during the years between 1500 and 1650, very few. And in England the groups which began to turn against infant baptism, which began about 1600 or 1610—very small groups—they did not adopt immersion before 1641 as far as any historical evidence goes. Now of course we'll have more to say about that later on, but I just wanted to correct any false impression which I might have given last time.
Now
we were speaking about F, England and Scotland, 1625-49, and under that we
spoke of 1, the policy of Charles I, 1625-49. We noticed his wife was a Roman
Catholic and Charles' great interest seems to have been his kingly power—like
his father—his own supreme power. But his father was theologically educated;
Charles was not. James had an interest in Biblical doctrine, and also a great
interest in being supreme ruler. Charles' main interest was in being a supreme
ruler. And 2, Archbishop Laud. He was only archbishop
after 1633, but he was a power in the Church of England long before that time.
He was a close friend of King James before Charles became king. He had a
tremendous influence; Laud, as most writers feel, was sincere in his thoroughly
High Church views—that the English church was an independent church, not subject
to the Church of Rome; he did not believe in the primacy of the pope, but he
believed the two were sister churches; and as far as ceremonies were concerned,
that the two should have very much in common; and he did not like the tendency
toward doing away with medieval ceremonies. He was tremendously interested in
the power of the archbishop, the power of the king over all, and insisted upon
it. Mr. Welch? But Laud was a friend of King James before Charles became king.
Now he may have been of Charles too, I don't know.
3. Scotland. In Scotland, you remember, under John Knox the Reformation had won out in Scotland; in the Church of Scotland, the old bishops were allowed to hold their titles, but they had no power. The church assemblies in England were made up exclusively of clergy, but in Scotland the church assemblies were made up of representatives of the people along with the ministers. The system that Calvin had proposed was carried out in the government of the Church of Scotland; and the local groups—the ministers together with the representatives of the laity—met in their presbyteries; they met in larger areas in synods; and then their representatives met in the general assemblies for the whole country; these decided what was for the welfare of the church.
Now James as a young man came into conflict with the church. As James said, "Presbytery and divine right of kings, presbytery and monarchy, agree just as well together as God and the devil." He said, "When you have presbyteries, every Tom, Dick and Harry gets there and starts discussing and criticizing me and my decisions." He didn't like the Scots organization; and when he got to England, with the bishop organization, he said, "No bishops, no king." And so he was determined to extend the system of the Church of England to Scotland. He came into great conflict, before he came to England and shortly after, with an outstanding Scotch minister named Andrew Melville. And this Melville represented the determination of the Scots that the church would follow the Bible as its supreme authority; and that the king would not interfere in what the members of the church found taught in the Bible. So James had a series of conflicts with Andrew Melville; and eventually he got him to come down from Scotland to England to have a conference with him; and then he didn't allow him to go back to Scotland; and eventually he was exiled.
But this comes before the beginning of our present situation. Now Laud decided to go further than James had in the changing of the Church of Scotland. So in 1636, King Charles sent over to Scotland a set of Chronicles and Constitutions which he declared must be accepted by the Church of Scotland. He said the presbyteries and the general assemblies must cease to meet; that the bishops must have the control of the church; the king must be recognized as supreme head of the church of Scotland; there must be no extempore prayer; and they must only use the form in the new liturgy sent over, which was modeled after the liturgy of the Church of England. But the Communion Table must be placed at upper end of the church, and treated more like an altar. So he sent these over and ordered that they be introduced into the Church of Scotland. There was objection and resistance by the Church; but on Sunday, July 23, 1638, the liturgy was introduced in the leading church of Scotland, St. John's Cathedral, Edinburgh. The Bishop of Edinburgh was the preacher; several other bishops, lords of the Privy Council, and magistrates attended in their official robes. The Dean didn't wear the usual preacher's gown, with which the people were familiar, but the surplice such as the Church of England ministers use; and he arose to read the new book the king had sent over. And immediately you heard a murmur among the people which grew louder and louder; then an old woman stood up, she picked up the stool she'd been sitting on, sent it whizzing through the air at the head of the Dean, with the cry, "Out, thou false prophet!" And when Jenny Dean did that, other women followed her example, and there was quite a disturbance in the church; they called the police to clear the church of rioters. Soon there was the attempt by force to introduce the control of the churches that King Charles wanted; but the people of Scotland gathered together and they made a National Covenant, in 1538, that they would stand together for the Bible as the authority in the church; that in matters of government and doctrine of the church, that the Bible should be followed; that the church should be cleansed of whatever was contrary to the Bible. Thousands of people signed the covenant, including many of the leaders of the nation. Some of them—after their names—they put the words, "till death." Some drew their blood and used it as ink, to sign this covenant. They said that they would not allow the king of England to subvert the order of the Church of Scotland; and they declared that they would continue to do everything they could to make Biblical order in the church supreme, not only in Scotland, but in the other countries that were united with Scotland.
[student: when did Scotland come under England's rule?] Yes, that's a very good question, I wish everybody would have this thoroughly in mind. Scotland and England were bitter enemies all through the Middle Ages; consequently Scotland was closely tied up with France, until the time when the Reformation came into Scotland; and at that time, the French group tried to keep it out, to support the widow of the king; and it was then that Queen Elizabeth sent the English army up simply to drive the French out; and she very wisely—or her counselors, did not interfere with Scotland at all—but said we insist that the French don't interfere; and the result was that Scotland did not feel that the English had interfered, but they had kept the French from interfering; so the result is that from about 1565 or 1570 on, the Scots were enemies of their old friends the French, because the French were trying to destroy the Reformation; so gradually a more friendly feeling for the English came. Well, then the young king of Scotland—who became King James VI of Scotland, when he was less than a year old—when his mother fled to England, he was next in line for the rule of England; and in 1603 he became King of England. Now when he became King of England, Scotland and England both had the same king; but the two were divided in the sense that their governments were distinct; the two were united in that the one king was the head of both. He felt that he was the supreme monarch of course, but it was another hundred years before the two were united into one nation. They continued two nations but with the one king. They worked very closely together during this time. Now that is material which we have touched upon as we've gone along, but I can easily understand that many of you may not have had it clearly in mind, so I'm glad of the question which led me to summarize. I hope you will keep this in mind, because it's quite important to the understanding of subsequent events. James VI was king of Scotland for 40 years before he became King James I of England. England and Scotland, from that time on had one ruler, one king, though there was occasionally war between the two, but not for long periods. And it was a hundred years later when they were united into one nation; but even to this day there is very strong feeling between them; even to this day, the Scotch are terribly insulted if you call them Englishmen, and vice versa. Well, the result of this was that King Charles in England was faced with a real rebellion in the Church of Scotland. And so you have Scotland refusing to allow the king to control the church; and the result is that we have the king, who is king of England, anxious to put down the Scottish opposition by force.
And for nearly 11 years he had been ruling England without a parliament. He had been using all kinds of excuses to raise money; like, it was customary through the Middle Ages that the people get together and give the government a ship. "Well, now," he said, "you must give me ships; only instead of giving me a ship, you give me the money and I'll build the ship." So he insisted that they all give money for ships; this was really taxation, but parliament hadn't acted on it, and it had been understood for a long time that taxation in England required action of Parliament. King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth—absolute tyrants as they were—always persuaded the Parliament to vote their taxes; they never made a tax without Parliament voting on it. And so Charles succeeded by various excuses in getting considerable taxation, but not enough to carry on a war.
So
when he was faced with the Scotch uprising, he had to call a Parliament. So in
1640 he called a Parliament; and this Parliament met, and immediately the
members of the Parliament began criticizing the king for having moved so long
without a Parliament; and they began criticizing the fact that he had been
collecting taxes which Parliament hadn't passed; they began passing a very
strong denunciation of him for that sort of thing. So the result was that he
dismissed the Parliament quite soon; so they called this the Short Parliament.
But the Short Parliament being dismissed, Charles didn't have money to put down
the Scots; so he thought it necessary in order to put down the Scotch rebellion
to have a new Parliament. So he called for a new Parliament to be selected,
with the hope that this one would be more favorable to himself; and this one is
called the Long Parliament. You see, the Short Parliament met just a brief time
and he dismissed it; the Long Parliament theoretically was in power for 20
years, so it is called the Long Parliament. But he found the Long Parliament no
more willing to do whatever he said than the Short Parliament. The Long
Parliament said, "We don't vote you any money until we're sure the money
is going to be used for proper purposes; and we want to have abuses limited.
And the leading secular official—who had been helping the King in his attempts
to get absolute power—the Parliament accused of high treason for interfering
with the rights of Englishmen; they brought him before the Parliament,
convicted him, sentenced him to death, and had him beheaded. To do this to the
King's leading minister was not a very friendly way to treat the King; at least
so the King thought. And within the next four years, they did the same thing to
Archbishop Laud; they accused him of high treason for interfering with the
rights of Englishmen—as he had been doing—brought him before the Parliament,
sentenced him to death, and had him beheaded; and so the Long Parliament will
be our next heading,
4. The Long Parliament. The Long Parliament theoretically was in power for 20 years. But actually it lost most of its power after 8 years; and then it was called again 12 years later. [student] Charles was simply carrying on James' policy; but carrying it further than James carried it; much further. People put up with what James did; but Charles carried it so much further; they couldn't put up with it; but in addition to that, of course, James was a Scotsman, brought up in Scotland; had lived there for years. He knew a little more about how to deal with the people than Charles; who had always lived in England, knew nothing about Scotland; hadn't always lived in England, but most of his adult life.
Well, the Long Parliament—the civil affairs of this time, the secular situation—if we went into that at length it would take us weeks; it was a very involved long-continued situation, extremely important in the history of English liberty. We are interested in this course in its relation to the history of the church; and consequently we have to get its main facts, but we cannot take the time to go into details; and it's sometimes hard to get the main facts clear without going into details somewhat. But this is important about this Parliament: this Parliament represented the feelings of the more progressive and advanced, educated and well-to-do English people of the day; and these people were—most of them—very loyal to the king. The King had a sort of a divinity to him; he was their king, they had a loyalty to him and he had to go pretty far before he would make them really oppose; but he had gone very far; and these people, while they had this great loyalty to the king, the bulk of them were people who were attending churches where the preaching was Puritan preaching. The bulk of them were people who believed thoroughly that the Bible should be the foundation of the church; and who believed that papistical ceremonies—ceremonies similar to those of the Popish churches—should not be used in the English church. They want to have the church in line with the Bible; and have it clearly evident that it was not a Romanist church; that was what these people wanted; they wanted to have the historic liberties of Englishmen, which weren't nearly as great as they are today. But these had developed very considerably through the centuries; maintained and observed, and so the Parliament proceeded to have the principal advisers of King Charles beheaded; and they interfered with him to such an extent that one day King Charles decided that five of the leaders of Parliament were rebels against him, guilty of treason; and he told some officers to come with him, walked into the Parliament and there he was going to arrest these 5 men and put them in prison; but word had slipped out of what he was going to do, and the 5 men had escaped from Parliament and were in hiding. And the result of this attempt of the King to seize leaders of Parliament—simply on his own authority—while actually from his viewpoint it wasn't anywhere nearly as bad as the Parliament on its authority taking his leading officers and beheading them. Yet it brought the two authorities into sharp clash and it began civil war in England.
So now you have a period of time in which the Parliament was sitting in London and ruling the country; but in which there were times of fighting between the King's troops, whom they called the Cavaliers, and the Parliament troops whom they called the Roundheads. Because they didn't wear the long curls that the King's men—that the nobility wore, the long curls and all the stylish properties that they wore—the others didn't wear, so they called them Roundheads.
And the details of the war we can't go into, though we'll look at one or two of the more important ones later on. But right now, from our viewpoint in Church History, we are very interested in one thing that the Long Parliament did. Now the Long Parliament said Laud has disrupted the situation of the church; he has made changes that are contrary to the Word of God. They said, "We should change this so that the church of England is in line with the Word of God." And therefore they said, "We will proceed to change the church, to bring it in line with the Word of God." But they said, "We are secular men, we don't know what the Word of God means on all these points, so we will call a church council, which will decide this."
And
they proceeded to invite the leading divines of England to meet in a council in
Westminster Abbey to make the decisions; then Parliament could consider the
action of this council, and could act upon it. And it was their hope they would
be able to approve everything that the council did. And they proceeded to
invite leaders in the Church of England: the leading bishops, the leading
authorities in doctrine; but also the Presbyterian-minded people of England,
the Puritans who were in the Church of England, but who felt that it should be
run by presbyteries rather than by orders of bishops. And they invited leaders
of independent churches, most of which were in exile in Holland; these men came
back from Holland—these leaders from independent churches—and so they had
representatives of just about every sort of Christian church that was among the
English people at the time, meeting in this attempt. The representatives of the
high church party—some of them were not invited and some of them refused to
go—and some of the bishops refused to participate who were invited; and in
fact, Charles gave an order: he said no bishops may have anything to do with
this assembly. They were forbidden to participate in it; but the attempt of the
Parliament was to get an assembly which would be representative of English
theological training, and which would consider how the Church of England ought to
be changed to be entirely in line with the Scripture. And so we will consider
this assembly under separate head which we will call
G. The
Westminster Assembly.
Now Westminster, by the way, is a section of London; it is a part of the city
of London which is called Westminster—one of the most central parts of the
city. It used to be a separate town, before different towns grew together in
London. And the church of this section, parts of which were built as early as
the 11th century, which was added to from time to time, is called Westminster
Abbey; and in this Westminster Abbey, there are some fine rooms for meetings;
and they picked what they call the Jerusalem chamber as the place where this
group was to meet. And since the group met at that place in Westminster Abbey,
it is called the Westminster Assembly, so
1. Its Calling and Purpose. We noticed that it was called by the Parliament, which summoned it in 1641. The Parliament selected the people who would participate. But as we have praised King James for the selection of men he made to take part in the King James Bible—men representing venous points of view, selected on the basis of their ability—the same thing was done by the Parliament; it was a very representative group of English, of different theological groups. There was not much representation of Arminians in the assembly, but there was very little Arminianism in England at the time. The leading bishops were Arminian; Laud had gotten Arminians into positions of authority, but the Methodist Church History makes the statement that the Arminianism of that day was really not Arminianism but was rather more like the semi-Pelagians; so that there was not much representation of Arminianism in the assembly; but as far as church government was concerned, there was a wide variety of representation.
In 1643, the first meeting was held. This Assembly was called for the purpose of considering what should be done in order to bring the Church of England in line with the teaching of the Scripture; the Assembly had no final authority on anything, they were to make suggestions to Parliament; but the Parliament was anxious to have the support of the Scots; the whole matter had begun because of the Scots rebellion against Charles' interference with the Church of Scotland. And so the Scots had no vote in the assembly—it was an English Assembly—but the Scots sent a group of representatives to the Assembly; these representatives sat up at the front of the room—off to one side—and they participated in the deliberations; they gave their opinions on matters, but they had no vote.
The man who presided at the assembly was selected by the Parliament; the purpose of the Parliament was to get all these things worked up quickly; give us a decision and we hope we'll like it, and immediately adopt it. But the assembly disgusted the Parliament, because they would not vote for anything unless they were absolutely sure it was right; and the result was that before they would cross a t or dot an i they would discuss it in full detail and be absolutely sure that they were doing what they felt was right. Parliament kept saying, "Hurry up, give us more, give us more, give us more." And they would give them something when they got it done, but it would take weeks and months because they were so very careful. That's one reason why—while it did not serve the purpose Parliament had, to give immediate help in legislation—it did succeed in working out certain things which have been recognized ever since as having great value for the whole church—some things of very great importance.
2. Its Membership. That I have already mentioned. I should mention one man who was invited to participate; and he did go to one or two meetings, but that was all. He refused to participate and yet he had a tremendous influence in it through his previous writings. This was a man named James Ussher. I thought of giving him as heading under the previous section, but decided not to; I do want you to be familiar with him.
Ussher was born in Dublin in 1581, so you see he was in his 60's at this time. He died in England in 1650. James Ussher's father wanted him to be a lawyer, but he preferred divinity; and after his father's death when he was 15, there was no interference further with his following his own desires; he lived in Ireland and was in the Protestant Church of Ireland; he was active in the university and eventually came to be Archbishop of Armagh, which was recognized as the head of the Church of Ireland; so he was a man who had great influence in the Irish Church. In 1615 the Irish Protestant Church decided to adopt a statement of doctrine; and someone said, "Let's take the 39 Articles of the Church of England." Others said, "No, we don't want to take what England has; we want our own." So Ussher drew up 104 Articles for them, the 104 Articles of the Irish Church. These are strongly anti-Roman Catholic, and strongly Calvinist.
Ussher was a great student of the Scripture, a thorough-going Calvinist and a man whose scholarship was recognized throughout the British Isles. He was also very loyal to the king. It's interesting that in the Westminster Assembly, Ussher's writings had tremendous influence; his Irish Articles were followed almost word for word in section after section of the Confession that the Westminster Assembly adopted; he had tremendous influence over it. One of the least of the many scholarly things that Ussher did was to attempt to figure out the chronology of the Bible; he figures up a chronology, doing the best that he could with the dates available—the material available in the Bible—to figure when things might have occurred, acting on the idea that he'd like to work it out in such a way that Adam would have been created exactly 4000 years before Christ; so he managed, by making guesses in places where the Scripture doesn't give a date, to get the date 4004 B.C. for the birth of Adam, and about 50 years after his death, somebody thought that people would be helped by having dates in the Bible; so they went to Ussher's little book on chronology, and took the dates he had worked out and put them in the margin of the KJV.
So Ussher today is known for his chronology more than anything else, though it's one of the least important of his many activities, and of the many things that he executed. Yes? Yes, he knew that; he tried to keep the figure at exactly 4000 B.C. [student] The northern fourth of Ireland is largely made up of Scots people who migrated to Ireland during the later Middle Ages, so they're often called Scotch-Irish; and that area is thoroughly Protestant. The southern three-fourths of Ireland is today about a hundred percent Roman Catholic. But during the time of the English occupation, English officials were settled more and more in Ireland; and English people were settled over there to such an extent that there was quite a population of English people in Ireland. Now there may have been some Irish also who were Protestant with them; I don't know. 100 years ago the Protestant Church of Ireland was a very fine church. Today it is largely disappearing, since the Irish Free State has brought pretty heavy pressure against it. But this wasn't a great church, because the Romanists held the southern part of Ireland pretty thoroughly. And it wasn't the northern part; this was the southern part of Ireland. Dean Swift—you're all probably familiar with Jonathan Swift who wrote Gulliver's Travels—he was in the Protestant Church in Ireland, in Dublin.
Well
now we go on. We are speaking now about membership, and I mentioned that Ussher
was invited to be a member, but not really participating. There were quite a
number of other leaders in the Church of England who had been invited to
come—bishops and people like that; but the King forbade them to attend, so they
refused to attend. Now
3. The Procedure
of the Assembly. They
met 5 days in the week; they met for 5 years, 6 months, and 22 days; they had a
total of 1163 sessions. They would meet from 9 in the morning until 1 or 2 in
the afternoon. There would be a brief prayer, and then the scribe would read
the proposition, and the Scriptures that were to be read. And then someone
would stand up to speak, and would speak as long as he felt like; sometimes
that was 2 or 3 hours. And if two or three stood up, the people would call out
the name of the one they wanted to hear from first; and the one that was the
most called for spoke first, and the others took their turns. And everything
they discussed they had to go into very, very thoroughly. Nobody there was
willing to vote for
anything until he was convinced it had been thoroughly examined, from every
possible position. So the Parliament was very much irked at the slowness of its
work; but its work was done carefully and solidly. Oh, yes, we should mention
also that every now and then they had special dates for devotions on which they
would have number of sermons and long periods of prayer. And they had quite a
good many special devotional days interspersed among the days of work.
4. First
Doctrinal Task.
Its first doctrinal task was to revise the 39 Articles of Religion. The Church
of England had 39 Articles of Religion, and some of these articles were rather
ambiguous because Queen Elizabeth had been anxious to have an arrangement that
the Romanists wouldn't be too much displeased with. Some of them were very
clearly and strongly Calvinistic; others of them were rather ambiguous. Laud
ordered that no sermons were to be preached on the sovereignty of God, on
predestination, election, and he named various subjects; and he said these
articles are to be held to, but you are to hold to the words of them and not to
find any of these ideas in them. That's what he said. Now Parliament said,
"Well, we read these words and they sound to us like this; but the king
says they don't mean this; now we want the divines to investigate and revise
them so that they will mean whatever the Scripture teaches." So the first
doctrinal task was to revise these; and they took the first 15 of them and
revised them into 19 new articles. But the Parliament interfered then and
said—instead of saying they were going too slow on it—"We wish you would
interrupt this work to take up matters of discipline in the church; examine
this matter."
5. Its Work on Discipline and Liturgy. And they worked out a directory of Church Government and Discipline, and a Directory for Worship.
Parliament
adopted a Directory for Worship in 1645. It was a Directory which provided a
service without those forms and ceremonies Queen Elizabeth had insisted on; and
it gave many directions for orderly and solemn celebration of divine worship.
In 1645 Parliament adopted this, and it passed an ordinance saying that use of
the Prayer Book either in public or private worship would cost the offender
five pounds for the first offense, ten pounds for the second offense, and for
the third he would be imprisoned for one year. So Parliament was going to
reform the Church of England overnight and substitute their simple system of
worship for the other. Well, that didn't win friends at all, especially as the
bulk of the people in England were used to the forms of worship and didn't see
any reason to change. The Book of Church Government and Discipline which they
recommended organized the Church of England into churches, with elders in the
churches who would have a vote in the decisions of the church—along with the
minister—in the presbyteries, in the synods, and in the General Assembly, along
the line of the Church of Scotland. This was adopted by Parliament in 1648, but
by that time Parliament was just about near the end of its time of having any
authority. So its adoption didn't mean anything. It did away with the Prayer
Book entirely; it substituted a simple worship consisting of reading of
Scripture and prayer and so on. But this simple worship was laid out to be in a
dignified sort of service. They didn't introduce choruses and that sort of
thing. In fact, nobody ever heard of them at that time. But I mean it was quite
dignified. Now
6. The
Westminster Confession. From August 1644 to April 1647, they set to work to
write a new confession of faith. They had nearly three years. They decided, you
see, they were revising the Articles of the Church of England; then Parliament
stopped them doing that, to get decisions on discipline and worship. Then after
they did this, the Assembly reached the conclusion that, instead of revising
the Articles, it would be better to start afresh and make a new confession of
faith. So they made this new confession of faith; and they tried in this
confession to give a statement of the teaching of the Bible—a statement which
would give a well-balanced picture of it—and they had the benefit of being
familiar with the statement of the synod of Dort; with the Heidelberg
confession; with the Belgian Confession—with these other confessions of faith
of various Calvinistic groups prior to that time—and they had various
confessions that had been made in England. And 150 years ago most anybody would
have said, "Well they just followed the Dutch confession, the Dutch
Calvinistic confession. But during the last century scholars made a very
careful study of that; they came to the conclusion that it has far more
similarity to Archbishop Ussher's Irish Articles than it does to the Dutch
Confession with which they were familiar; and they worked out a statement which
did not take the rather extreme attitudes which were taken in certain of the
previous confessions. They tried to give a balanced faith, balancing the
Scriptural teaching of the Sovereignty of God in His power with the equally
Scriptural teaching of the responsibility of man, and the fact that the choices
he makes are real choices and that he is responsible for what he decides. They
balanced these various matters, and they considered every word with extreme
care. One of their great difficulties was to decide how to define God. After
they had discussed this for quite a while, they called on one of the Scotch
commissioners to lead in prayer. He got up, and they said, "We are just at
an impasse; we don't know what to do now. Let's have a period of prayer."
So they called on this Scotch commissioner to lead in prayer, and he began his
prayer, "O God, Thou are a Spirit, infinite, eterna1 and unchangeable in
Thy majesty, goodness," and so on. Afterward somebody remembered exactly
the words he had used and wrote them in the Confession. The thing was that what
he used in his prayer was his unconscious gathering together of the results of
the long discussion, putting it into a very well expressed statement; he just
gave a summary of the conclusion they were coming to. So they prepared the
Westminster Confession which was presented to the Parliament. And Parliament
made certain changes; it left out the section on church censures, on citizens
and councils, and on Christian living—certain sections—they made certain
changes and they adopted it in 1648. But as we said, that was about the end of
when this Parliament had any power, so that Parliament's adoption didn't
mean anything. But the Westminster Confession was one of the great products of
this assembly, and one which had great influence all over the world,
subsequently—more in other countries than in England. It was adopted
immediately by the Scotch church, and has been the confession of the Church of
Scotland ever since; many Baptist groups have adopted it, either with a slight
addition or very slight changes; it has been used by the Congregational
Churches of the United States until Modernism came into them during the last
century; they largely followed the Westminster Confession, with a few changes.
It's been very widely used, and it reflects the great amount of work that went
into it on the part of these highly trained, godly men; they were unwilling to
be rushed, but insisted on taking the time to do the thing very, very carefully
and thoroughly.
7. The Larger and Shorter Catechism. While they were working on the Confession, they—at the same time—worked on making some catechisms, in order to present the teaching of the confession in question and answer form, for children to learn and for older people also. They originally thought they would make one catechism, but one of the Scots Commissioners named Rutherford said, "It's pretty hard to dress up meat and milk in the same dish; let's make two catechisms, one which will give a rather full statement and the other one which will give simple brief statements for children." But Schaff says, "The impression still prevails that the assembly succeeded in putting a good bit of strong meat in both of them." It is interesting to read first the Methodist Church History, what he says about the catechism: he says, "The Shorter Catechism is perhaps on the whole the noblest literary product of Protestantism, as wide circulation throughout all branches of the evangelical church has done more to popularize divine truth and leaven the world for Christianity than any other single document. It stands with Luther's Catechism, and the Heidelberg Catechism as one of the three chief and immortal products of the revised Christian conferences which came with the Reformation." But he says, continuing, "The Shorter and Larger Catechisms are of course Calvinistic; but the Calvinism is at a minimum, while the strong, unadulterated, living evangelism which has been the spring and life of modern English Christianity is at a maximum." That is this Methodist scholar's evaluation of it.
Now the fact of it is that it does not take an extreme Calvinistic position, that is to say the position of the Westminster Confession and of the Catechism is not a position of taking certain Calvinistic doctrines and making them the main thing. It puts the Calvinistic emphases in their proper places in relation to other things, and gives a balanced picture of the teaching of the Word of God, with these in their proper place, Now the Synod of Dort, for instance, was dealing with Arminianism, and was directly answering the Arminian attitude, and it took a strong position on those points which were attacked. Now that wasn't the idea of the Westminster Confession at all. It was to give a balanced picture of Christian truth; and it was a picture, not a cold theological picture, but as this scholar says, "a picture in which the strong unadulterated living evangelicalism which has been the spring and life of modern English Christianity is at a maximum." But it is a very carefully worked out and systematic presentation, a balanced picture which avoids the extremes and guards its statements; so there is a very fair and careful picture on most of the subjects with which it deals.
The Synod of Dort was 1618; and the Thirty Nine Articles were adopted soon after Queen Elizabeth became queen, I forget the exact date.
I believe the last item we spoke on was G, the Westminster Assembly, wasn't it? And I told you about the activities of the Westminster Assembly: about its calling, its purpose, what it did, what the products were which it made; and most of these products, one after the other, were adopted by the Protestants, and they were intended to be established as part of the law of England. Now as things worked out, they never became—for any period of time—a part of the law of England. It had been made by Englishmen—the Westminster Confession—representatives of different viewpoints in England had worked together in making the Confession. You remember that the Parliament had constantly been impatient. They wanted something right away to adopt; they wanted to order the Church of England in line with the Word of God; and they said, "Give us a statement of faith; give us a book of discipline." And the Westminster divines would say, "Yes, we're doing it as fast as we can." And then they would come up with a question on a particular word or a particular section; and they would argue through the day on that word; they were determined that whatever they did, they would do well. And the result was that, though what they made was not established as the law of England, through circumstances over which they had no control, what they did was so well done that it is probably the finest of all the Reformed Confessions. It strikes a careful balance; it is not an extreme confession in any way; it is not a confession which takes a few points of doctrine and rides them as a hobby horse; it is a confession which seeks to give a well-balanced presentation.
Now the Synod of Dort, you remember—one of the other creed-making bodies that we've discussed this semester—the Synod of Dort met in answer to certain points which had been raised; and what they did was to categorically answer these particular points. So some people think that Calvinism is properly expressed by the statements of the Synod of Dort; and the conclusions of the Synod of Dort are expressed in 5 points, and sometimes they're summarized by the word TULIP, the letters of which stand for each of these 5 points of the Synod of Dort; and sometimes people think that's what Calvinism is—it is the 5 points of the Synod of Dort. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Synod of Dort was answering particular attacks made at the time; and they answered them in a head-on direct way, and consequently as an answer to those particular attacks, it did a great work; but that's not a presentation of Calvinism; that is a defense of Calvinism against an attack from a certain side. The Westminster Confession is entirely different; the Westminster Confession seeks to give a presentation of the teaching of the Bible regarding man's salvation, and to give this teaching in systematic, orderly, well balanced fashion, avoiding extremes in one direction or the other, and the result is that the Westminster Confession is a creed which, though made by Englishmen—Scotsmen were present as advisers, but with no voting power—was immediately adopted by the Church of Scotland and has been the confession of the churches of Scotland ever since. It was adopted by various groups in this country—in fact by most Presbyterian groups throughout the world—adopted as their confession; many Baptist groups have adopted it with certain slight modifications here and there, as the presentation of their system of doctrine; it is accepted by the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers; and the early leaders of the Congregationalists in New England mostly followed the Westminster Confession. It has thus been accepted in many different denominations and many different groups, because it is a careful well-balanced presentation.
Some people think the Heidelberg Confession has more warmth to it, and it may be that it does. It starts more directly with man's needs. The Westminster Confession starts more directly with a scientific examination of what the teaching of Scripture is on these points; but the viewpoint of the Heidelberg Confession is just about as interesting, and the Westminster Confession is a later confession, and has perhaps gone further in making a clear, careful, sound presentation. And this is true of the Westminster Confession and also of the Larger and Shorter Catechisms which accompany it. It is a strange thing that they use two terms which are not strictly parallel to describe the Shorter and the Larger Catechisms. And, of course, many people have memorized the Shorter Catechism. It is unfortunate that the Larger Catechism is neglected to quite an extent, because there are many points at which it is much fuller and clearer than the Shorter Catechism, but the Westminster Confession did a tremendous task for the whole Christian world in presenting this balanced presentation of Biblical teaching on so many points.
We often hear of the five points of Calvinism; but in so calling them, it sounds as if these are the five things that are vital in Calvinism. But this is certainly not so, because there are many other points which are equally important with these. I don't like the terminology—the word TULIP—the least bit. For instance, in the word TULIP the L stands for Limited Atonement. Properly understood, that is a clear Scriptural doctrine; but the word gives an impression of something which is quite different from what the real teaching is. Because all Calvinists believe that the atonement is sufficient for all; and that all men, if they would accept Christ, would be saved. All Calvinists believe that; and so the Limited Atonement does not mean that there is a limitation on who is permitted to accept. Everyone is given the offer—and it is a sincere offer—and everyone has the opportunity to accept. What it does mean is that there is a substitutionary atonement. In other words, the Scripture clearly teaches that Jesus died, not in just a general way, but specifically for the sins of those who believe on His name; that He bore our penalty on the cross. And so while His death is sufficient for all, as all Calvinists believe, it is effective only for the elect. Well I don't know anybody who thinks that the Atonement of Christ is effective for those who don't believe; consequently, the word "limited atonement" gives an utterly false impression. And of course it's very nice to have a little word like TULIP to make it easy to remember those five points; but if it gives a terminology which leads people astray and confuses them and gives them a wrong idea of what is meant by it, personally, I think it's very unfortunate.
But the Westminster Confession, at a number of places, avoided the strong terminology of the Confession of Dort and gave a clear, balanced presentation of what the Word of God says. You might say, in a way, it's like Paul says, "man is saved by faith without any works of the law," and James said, "man is not saved by faith alone; faith without works is dead." And each of them, in denying an attack, expressed the correct truth in such strong way in denying the attack, that if you take their statement alone, you can be led into a misunderstanding on the other side. The statements of the Synod of Dort are susceptible of that danger. But very seldom do you find such a danger in the Westminster Confession.
It states the Biblical teaching in a balanced way to avoid the extreme misinterpretations in one direction or the other. In controversy you can't always help doing that. Paul and James didn't help doing it. If we didn't have both of them, we could be misled by the one alone. You take them both together and you have a clear teaching of what the Bible teaches. Yes? [student] The Universal Atonement, that the Atonement saves every individual; but I wasn't referring to that, I was referring to people who believe in the evangelical doctrines; of people who do, I don't know anyone who says that everybody is saved whether he believes or not. [student] I would say the two are identical. If Jesus atoned for us, we're saved. Nobody could be sent to hell who has been atoned for. That would be utterly unjust. You come up to the court and they say you're fined a hundred dollars for this. You say, "Yes, but my fine has been paid." They say, "Oh yes, your fine has been paid, but still we are going to punish you." Well, that would be ridiculous. If we are atoned for, we are saved. The two are identical. [student: "Well, that's not according to what I read; Dr. Chafer said that we have all been atoned for, and yet those who do not believe will go to hell"] I'd want to look into the statement. I think you would find that in that particular passage—it might be clear from the context—his use of the term, in a little different sense, like perhaps, like Paul and James, they used the term faith in slightly different senses; but I am sure that you will find that Dr. Chafer believes—as all Calvinists do—that the Atonement is sufficient for all; but also he believes that as a substitutionary atonement it is actually effective for those who believe, but not effective for those who do not. But that is getting into theology; I am merely in this class presenting the history of the Westminster Confession. It's not at all strange to get these confused, but we want to try to get them so we have them definitely distinguished. One thing that helps in that is, that some who had been present at the Synod of Dort were members of the Westminster Assembly. Another thing that helps is that the Synod of Dort was in the reign of James I, in 1618; he sent representatives; while the Westminster Assembly was made during the reign of his son, Charles I, at the end of his reign. [student] The Formula of Concord was worked out by a committee of scholars appointed by the king, and the Book of Concord includes the Augsburg Confession, the Formula of Concord, and so on; but there was no council or creed-making body that made that. That is very important in our history of the Lutheran Church. There is a Celtic Confession made by the French of northern France, and the Heidelberg Confession somewhat earlier made by the Germans around Heidelberg, and then of course the Council of Dort and the Westminster Confession.
Well,
now, the Westminster Assembly came to an end without any great immediate
effects. It had tremendous effects over a long period of time; but the
immediate effect was not great because of political developments in England;
and so we want to go on to
8. Oliver Cromwell. So under 8, I'm going to give a brief resumé of political events at this time in England. It will have to be very brief, because we haven't time to go into political events much; we have so much of religious significance to deal with, so we have to very sketchily glance; but from a political viewpoint it is tremendously important and its effects on religious events were tremendously important. I'm looking at the events now, rather than so much at the man; but it is good to title it by the man, because he is one of the great figures in English history; and he is certainly one of the greatest men in all history, but a man who was to some extent a leader and to some extent the result of forces of his time. Oliver Cromwell was an English country gentleman. He was an earnest sincere Christian, but a man who probably—if it were not for striking events which came to pass—would never have had any name in history or any special importance as far as historical writings are concerned.
But Oliver Cromwell went as a representative to Parliament; and he was there in Parliament when Charles I tried to run England without the concurrence of the parliament, who tried in fact to change the Church of England in a Romanist direction; and Charles introduced these strong changes, which many thought were a very definite step in the direction of the Romanizing of the church. And Cromwell rose in Parliament—while he had never done any public speaking before—he rose in Parliament and expressed his views in favor of the attitude of the great majority of the people in Parliament, that the freedom of the English people should be maintained, and that the Word of God should be at the center of the English Church rather than particular forms and ceremonies which appealed to Charles I and to Bishop Laud. Well, you remember that the Long Parliament executed Archbishop Laud, and they executed Strafford, the political leader—you don't need to bother with his name, it's not important from a religious viewpoint—but he was the political leader under Charles I; he was executed. And that's going pretty far against the king, to take his two leading favorites—his two leading instruments for what he wants to do—and execute them. Well, it wasn't so long then before King Charles I decided something vital must be done; and Charles went to Parliament to arrest five of the leaders of the Parliament; but when he came to do that, they had gotten word of what he was going to do, and the five men had fled. So Charles came onto the floor of Parliament, he gave an order to arrest these men, but couldn't find the men; but naturally Parliament felt that all its rights were now strongly attacked, and to this day a king would not be allowed without an invitation from Parliament to walk onto the floor of the British Parliament, because it became part of British law that kings cannot interfere with Parliament. But at that time, Charles I felt that he was the king and Parliament should do what he wanted; and many of the nobility, particularly the cavaliers, the leaders in the High Church of England felt he was right. And the attacks on their part against the leaders of Parliament resulted in fighting back and forth, and the well-trained soldiers of the king seemed sure to completely destroy the parliamentary forces, and it was that which led the Parliament to look to Scotland for assistance; and the Scots agreed to assist, provided they would bring the English Church in line with the teaching of the Scripture; and that's how they came to organize the Westminster Assembly; to have an assembly of Englishmen who would study the matter and see what should be done to bring the English Church in line, in every regard, with the teaching of the Scriptures.
But while the Westminster Assembly was meeting, there was the whole complicated history of attacking and fighting between the forces of the king and the forces of the Parliament; and the chances are that, even with the help of the Scots, the Parliamentary forces would have been utterly defeated, if it had not worked out that this member of Parliament, this able, country gentleman, Oliver Cromwell, had not proven to have a remarkable ability. He was over 40 before he ever did anything in a military way. And this is something that is almost unparalleled in history.
In the American Civil War, the South began the war with men who were trained in West Point and who were leading generals and these generals continued through the war, there was not a single man who came to the front in the South as a leading general, at the end of the war, who was not already in a similar position at the beginning of the war. In the Northern Army they did not have many trained men at the beginning of the war. Lincoln offered the position of Commander-in-Chief to Robert E. Lee, but he declined and went to the South. And the Northern generals, they naturally had to get different men, many of them politicians and individuals here and there, to be their leaders; and the big struggle in the North was to get worthwhile generals; and one after another failed; and it was after years of struggle that finally two men came to the front who had been—one of them a major, and one of them a captain—at the beginning of the war; and the major proved to be the second leading officer on the Northern side and the captain proved to be the Commander-in-Chief, but both of them were West-Point trained; and while in the North it was necessary with great struggle through the years, to find the men who were capable of serving as generals, and most of those who tried, failed, and wonderful armies lost thousands of unnecessary lives because they did not have satisfactory officers, but when the officers gradually were discovered, who were able to lead them satisfactorily, every single one of them was a West-Point trained man. There was not a man in the North who developed into a great general who did not have professional military training before that. And so, Oliver Cromwell is almost unique in history, in that, without military training, without any military experience before the age of 40, he was able to organize men into cavalry units and to plan tactics with them in such a way that groups of men that he trained were able to meet larger numbers of trained soldiers and defeat them. So from a military viewpoint, he is rare in history, certainly in the history of the English people, and almost unparalleled in any history for this particular ability.
Now Oliver Cromwell then began to come to the fore early in the war between the king and the Parliament because of his unique military ability; and in two or three grave battles he managed to work out tactics which resulted in smaller armies defeating far greater armies; and naturally as Oliver Cromwell's military tactics proved so successful, he himself, as a leader, came to the fore; and that meant that the army leaders who were associated around him began to have a dominant position in the control of the nation. Now when Strafford had been beheaded and Laud had been beheaded, and the main leaders under Charles I had been done away with, they found Charles I very difficult to deal with; and he was—as far as the books say—he was unusual among kings in that he had good moral character. He was absolutely true to his wife—very rare among kings—at least it was at that period. He was a man whose good qualities are extolled by his admirers; but one quality he lacked, that is, telling the truth; he would make promises and would go back on them. He was the king, nobody was against him; all they wanted was to run the government in line with the Bible, in line with the rights of Englishmen; but they wanted him as king, and he wanted to be king; but he wanted to be supreme; so he would promise everything and then once he began to get a little freedom of action he would turn against his promises. And they found him very difficult to deal with; and some of the army began to say, "If we behead Strafford for what he has done; if we beheaded Laud for what he has done; Charles I has done far worse, and Charles I ought to suffer for his evil doings." But in the end, Parliament as a whole did not feel it would be right to behead a king. After all, do not kings reign by divine right? Had not James I written a book to prove that? What right did they have to kill a king, or even to try him? And so there came about in 1648—I don't have the exact date here—what is called Pride's Purge. Now this is a political development. To how great an extent Cromwell was responsible for it, I don't know as it is known. But an officer named Pride—I believe he was Colonel Pride—one day stood at the door of the House of Parliament, and stopped two-thirds of the members from coming in. He picked out, with his soldiers, the ones he wanted to stop and he said, "You cannot enter into Parliament." And the result was that only one-third entered and they were the people who were in favor of treating the king as they would treat a nobleman or an important officer in the ranks. And so the Parliament from that time on is called the Rump Parliament, because it was about a third of the whole Parliament. Pride's Purge cut down the Parliament, and what the Parliament had done, including the calling of the Westminster Assembly, and all that, sort of disappeared. The Westminster Assembly soon discontinued meeting. Pride was, I believe, a colonel, an officer in the army, of no special importance except for the fact that he was the man that stood by the door and said to the soldiers, "Let this man in, keep this man out, set that man out..." It cut down the Parliament to about a third of what it was and then they voted to proceed. Yes? He was for giving the king a trial like they would an ordinary Englishman, to see whether he was guilty of breaking the laws of England; and so the majority of the Parliament was thrown bodily out, and the Rump remained. The Rump voted to order that the king who was now being held prisoner—his son had escaped to the Continent, he had been seized and been held prisoner—to order that the king be put to trial. So a group of distinguished jurists was selected, men well-known for their high character and for their definite views; they were chosen to be the judges to try the king for misdemeanors against the laws of England. But of course they didn't know now what was going to happen.
It was years after their appointments before they tried the king and convicted him of his lying; of his making promises and then not abiding by them; of his raising taxes which the king had no right to raise without parliamentary action; of his interfering with the rights of Englishmen and with the rights of Parliament; and sentenced him to be beheaded. I believe it was in 1649—I don't have the exact date here—that in London, a very prominent place in London, the king was brought there before the executioners and publicly beheaded. And so King Charles I was beheaded. And then the Parliament, the Rump that remained, got into arguments about how to run the government, and things didn't seem to work out; and so some of the generals said, "What's the use of this? It's just confusion and misery, let's get rid of the rest of Parliament." So they came in and said, "Get out of here; you're just a waste of time." So from then on there was no Parliament and Oliver Cromwell ruled and reigned.
To reign you had to have a title, and he had no title; but he ruled, and for the next nearly ten years, Oliver Cromwell ruled in England. And England, from being a power looked down upon throughout Europe, considered to be of secondary importance, became a power of first magnitude, occupying a greater position in the world than she had ever occupied before, or that she came to occupy for two centuries later. And while Oliver Cromwell ruled, the power of England was tremendous. He would hear that the Pope's people were killing the Waldensians in the mountains of Northern Italy—there was a terrible persecution up there—and Cromwell sent a note to the Pope, said, "Stop this killing of Christians up there, or we'll do something about it if you don't," and the Pope stopped it. And he was recognized as a force to be reckoned with; which they had never recognized Charles I as such, nor did they recognize Charles II, afterward. And somebody said to Louis XIV, the absolute, autocratic king of France; they said, "Louis, how can you address this upstart, not even of noble blood, as 'my cousin,' the way kings write to one another, as my cousin?" Louis said, "With the power he has got, if he said call him, 'my father,' I'd call him 'my father.'"
So in foreign relations, England took a tremendous jump because of the power of Cromwell's army, and of his ability as a soldier and a military man. But England was a harder proposition. Some of his soldiers said, "Let's make Oliver Cromwell king." Well, it's very hard to tell whether that would have been a good thing or a bad thing. In one way, one wished he might have been made king. Certainly, he was infinitely superior to the degenerates who occupied the position of King of England in the years before and in the years after. And if he had been called King, maybe some of the diehards would have thought, "Well, it would be a great honor to be at the court of the king," and maybe a dynasty could have been established, and would have lasted, and would have given the English people freedom. It's hard to say. But anyway, Cromwell didn't want to be king; he didn't go in there with any personal ambition. They called him simply "Lord Protector," and he never would have tried to get political power except that—under the circumstances—he saw great injustices which must be righted; and he had the power to right them, and he proceeded to do it. So they called him Lord Protector. He had a very lonely life. It was hard to know whom to trust; for people in whom he had utmost confidence, their opinions would differ radically; and one would think the other was no good, and the other would think this one was no good; so he had to make up his own mind; but he did a very good job of it, And the English people had the greatest freedom of religion in his reign that they had ever had before; and they never had such freedom of religion for at least 200 years after. Even as recently as 1880, two students were expelled from Oxford University for being Methodists. But in his rule there was freedom of religion—while he was ruling—throughout England.
But the high-handed ones didn't like it, because they wanted to have their positions guaranteed by the state, and people required to come to their churches; and he didn't require anybody to go to any services; they could choose what services they wanted to go to. And there was a large dissatisfied group in England that felt terrible that their king was gone; and worse still, that he was beheaded. There was a very large dissatisfied group, but Oliver Cromwell had his Major-Generals with their large armies in different parts of England. The core of Cromwell's army was what was called the New Model Army and there has probably never been an army like it in history. It was an army composed of earnest Christians; John Bunyan, for instance, was a member of the guard. In this army there was no swearing; there was no telling of licentious stories; they went into battle singing songs; there was no mistreatment of civilians. And what Macaulay said was the greatest wonder of all—almost unique in world history—when in the end the English people turned against them, and Charles called back their enemies. Charles ordered them to be dismissed and dispersed; they went back into civilian life without any uprising, any protest, any difficulty whatever. There were no riots; there was no trouble; they were obedient, quiet, well-behaved, earnest Christian people. When they would come into a town, they would go about preaching in the streets, presenting the Word of God. The New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell was one of the models. But Oliver Cromwell, with his personal ability and his strong army, ruled England and gave people religious freedom. But the people were dissatisfied because they had no king; their king was beheaded, and the king's sons were in exile. And the people were unhappy.
I
don't know how many of you have read about Richard Baxter; it was while Oliver
Cromwell was ruling, that Richard Baxter went to a town called Kidderminster.
And in this English town there was a Church of England Rector who spent his
time fox-hunting and amusing himself, and going around with the local squires;
he didn't bother much about preaching, or holding services; and he received the
income from the church—the taxation—and Baxter let the Rector still receive the
income; but he went in there and took over; the church was hardly being used,
and he started preaching. And he preached and did a work in Kidderminster that
is hard to equal in history; in reaching people for the Lord; building them up
in the faith; the work of Richard Baxter for about ten years in Kidderminster
is remarkable. And he wrote his book The
Reformed Pastor, which to this day is a model for the ministry. Baxter was
an indefatigable writer; you just wonder how a man could write all those books
he was writing on all kinds of religious subjects; and many of his books are
classics today. He organized all the evangelical ministers in the area into a
presbytery, which would meet every so often; and at their meetings they would
discuss theological questions; they would discuss methods of advancing the
faith; and they all grew in grace constantly as a result of these meetings—not
so much of the meetings, as of Baxter's influence in connection with the
carrying on of the meetings. Baxter's work at Kidderminster is a model of
religious work. There was a novel published by the Moody Press, about five
years ago, called No Darker Room; and
it is a crazy thing about the titles of the books now—you'd never dream from No Darker Room that it's the book about
the work of Baxter in Kidderminster. I think that maybe a few people who like
the name No Darker Room would want to
read it, but if the word Baxter was in it, I'm sure thousands of people would
be interested in a fictional but yet doubtless true-to-life picture of the
activities of Baxter in Kidderminster. But you get a feeling from the book, not
only of the way in which Baxter did this wonderful Christian work in
Kidderminster, but also of the fact that Baxter was not satisfied with
Cromwell's being Lord Protector. After all, England was a kingdom; how can you
have a kingdom without a king? And Charles' son was in exile in France; and if
only the son Charles would just promise that he would reign as a real Christian
king; why wouldn't it be better to have him back than to have an upstart like
Cromwell? So Baxter's influence went for bringing Charles back, but that comes into
our next half-century. At this point we're only interesting in noticing the
fine work of Baxter in Kidderminster. There was probably nothing else quite as
good anywhere in England, but there were other works that were perhaps
nine-tenths as good; and they were not interfered with by the government, but
rather assisted in every way possible by the government under Cromwell. I'm
going to end Great Britain in the first half of the 17th Century, section VIII,
with Cromwell and his power and his success, and with Baxter carrying on his
work excellently there. Because before I tell about Great Britain in the last
half of the 17th century, I would like to look at the Continent of Europe in
the last half of the 17th century. So we will make
We
ran a little bit past the middle of the century because Oliver Cromwell's power
really came between 1650 and 58, but we stop there with that section and go on.
A. The Reformed Church in France. You remember that Continental Europe in the first half of the 16th century had gone through the terrors of the Thirty Years War. This ended in 1648 with Germany split into 300 little principalities, divided up into little sections in such a way that was economically practically impossible. Half the people had been killed in the war. Germany was reduced to such a state that German history was of little importance in the last half of this century. They were barely managing to make an existence. But our greatest interest in the last half of this century is in France. And France had profited by the Thirty Years War, because none of France was ravaged by it. And you remember that Cardinal Richelieu sent his armies to help the Protestants in Germany because he thought he could advance France better that way. While in the meantime he cut down the powers of Protestants in France by taking away their garrisons and destroying their fortifications. And he said, "Of course you've got the Edict of Nantes; you're perfectly safe in your religion; nobody is going to interfere with your religion; we wouldn't think of interfering with your religion; but all we're interested in doing is not having France divided into two parts with an army and garrison held by one section of the nation; that's not fair, as patriotic Frenchmen you should do away with that." And most of the Protestants voluntarily did away with it; and those who didn't, Richelieu forced to; so in the end of Richelieu's rule the Protestants of France had no physical means of defending themselves. They were given absolute equality with the Romanists as far as positions in the government, and the right to carry on their religion without let or hindrance. That's what was given them in the Edict of Nantes; but they were also in that given garrisons and fortifications, and power to resist any attack. Now Richelieu got rid of these. Richelieu died and was succeeded by Mazarin, the Italian cardinal, who carried on the work for two years; very important in political history, but not particularly in religious history.
Mazarin was the cardinal while Louis XIV, the grandson of Henry IV, was just a boy, because when his father died he was just a very small boy; but Mazarin died when Louis XIV was about 20; and Louis XIV had all of his grandfather's ability without any of his grandfather's goodness.
His grandfather, Henry IV, you remember, was the leader of the Protestants before he said, "Paris is worth a mass," and became a Romanist, as the best way of giving the Protestants safety and freedom. Well, now Louis XIII, Henry IV's son, was a lazy, indolent, good-for-nothing fellow; but when Cardinal Mazarin died, and Louis XIV became king, they came to Louis XIV and said, "Whom shall we go to see as Chief Minister, now that Cardinal Mazarin is dead?" And Louis XIV said, "Come to me." And somebody said, "Where is the headquarters of the French State?" And Louis XIV said "The state, that's me", a historic statement. "The State, I am the State."
So Louis XIV reigned with an iron hand, as the supreme dictator of France, for the next 50 years. I told you what Louis XIV said about Cromwell. He recognized Cromwell as his cousin, and he was willing to call Cromwell cousin; he said I'd call him Father if he insisted. But fortunately for Louis XIV's desires, Cromwell died about 1658, so Louis XIV didn't have to worry any more about Cromwell. [student] Henry IV's son was Louis XIII. Louis XIII had Richelieu as his minister. Louis XIII died when Louis XIV was a small boy. Richelieu was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, an Italian cardinal. He ruled while Louis XIV was a boy. When he died Louis XIV had just come to manhood; and then Louis XIV didn't appoint anybody to succeed him, but took over the direction himself. He was an active fellow; he really governed France himself. He selected the men; he was like Kennedy in his cabinet; he took an interest in every detail. During his term of office, which in his case lasted for 50 years, he really ran the government. And he got France into war after war, in some of which they profited; they got Alsace-Lorraine, for instance, away from Germany. They got some territory from Spain; they had some glory and an awful lot of loss; he made some bad mistakes in the wars; and along with it all, he had time to live about as immoral and indecent a life as any king in the world's history has ever lived—a terribly licentious wicked life. He got into such a wicked life that his Jesuit preachers in the court would preach in the court—and they were very shrewd men—immediately on hell. They preached on the terrors of hell; they vividly described the fires of hell, and showed the terrible torments of the damned. And Louis XIV said When he heard them preach, it was as if he could smell the brimstone and feel the flames of what he knew was ahead for him—for eternity—because of his terribly wicked life. And one of his mistresses—a very able woman—was a woman who had been from a Protestant family, but had given it up and hated the Protestants. And Louis XIV went to his Jesuit confessors and said, "What am I going to do?" he said, "I know hell is ahead for me; is there any way I can possibly escape?" He was willing to do anything to escape hell except to give up his terribly immoral licentious life; and the Jesuits said to him, "Sire, you don't have to worry about hell." He says "I don't? But the way you preach about it, then anybody who lives the way I do, how can they help it?" Oh, they said, "All you have to do is to build up merit to offset the evil you have done." Well, he says, "How could I build up merit, possibly, to offset all this?" Oh, they said, "You have one of the greatest opportunities any king ever had. The southern third of France is almost solidly made up of people who do not recognize the power of the pope or the rights of his holy church and all you have to do is to put an end to that situation. And you will have God's favor to such an extent that you can live any way you want, and have no fear of hell." And Louis XIV set to work to win the salvation that his Jesuit confessors promised. Now Cardinal Mazarin, like Cardinal Richelieu, when the Reformed Assembly would meet, had sent some letters praising them for their loyalty to France, and giving them every wish for goodness and for effectiveness in their meetings and all that. Louis XIV followed their example and sent a real nice letter to their Assembly Meeting; but he ended the letter by saying, "I hope that everything goes fine with you in this meeting because it's the last meeting of this kind I'm going to permit you to have." So he never let them have another national meeting. Well, that stopped them from working together. Then he proceeded to send armies down to southern France. He said, "We must be on our guard against Spain." Eventually he had a big war with Spain. Therefore, he said "We will have to have these big armies down there all ready." And these armies were typical standing armies, licentious soldiers, following the king's example as well as they could, in their lives. And he had their officers primed to pick out the leading Protestant citizens or Protestant ministers, and quarter these soldiers in their homes. So they had these soldiers in drunkenness and debauchery in their homes and they couldn't touch them or interfere with whatever they felt like doing; and they made life perfectly miserable for them; and it soon became apparent that if one of them would turn Romanist, they'd immediately take the soldiers out of the home and he wouldn't have this nuisance any longer; so some of the people turned Romanist. And he began to cut out the Protestants from positions of any importance in the government; he cut them out from leadership of every kind, and made life difficult for them; and as soon as a man would give up being a Protestant and become a Romanist, then he would be given special favor; So Louis used this sort of method for about ten years, and he cut down the Protestant Church greatly. Then he proceeded to much harsher methods until in the end he cut Protestantism down to less than 2% of France, as it has remained to this day, after having been almost a majority.
We began to look at A, the Reformed Church in France. We noted that this church in France was as late as 1650 a large church comprising the majority of the people in a very large portion of France, a church whose members included many of the leading officials of the realm. The Minister of Finance, while Louis XIV was a young man, was a Huguenot; many of the most wealthy people in the realm were Huguenots; leaders in every profession were Huguenots; and in 1659 when Huguenots held their last general assembly, Cardinal Mazarin sent them greetings, thanked them for their loyalty to the State, and signed the letter, Your most obedient and loving servant. Of course that was just a formality, but still you wouldn't expect a Roman Catholic Cardinal to use that form to a Protestant Church unless they were so well established and so strong that there would be no question of any possibility of change. And yet within a comparatively few years, this tremendous large church, this very, very able church, was reduced to practically nothing. It began, not on the ground of being Huguenots, but on the grounds of alleged disloyalty to the state; or alleged actions toward the Roman Catholic church which were said to be interfering with the life of the Roman Catholic Church. They were always making charges against individuals; one thing after another, making it difficult for people; until in 1685 many of the people—those who were weak in the faith in any way, those who were timid—had been led to give up their faith and to join the Roman Catholic Church. It still remained however, a very large church, with many wealthy people, with the most able people in France in it; with a tremendous influence in the community; but in 1685, Louis XIV issued what he entitled a perpetual and irrevocable edict, which declared that it suppressed and revoked the Edict of Nantes, together with all subsequent laws in favor of the Protestants. He ordered the immediate tearing down of all Protestant churches within his dominion; forbade all gatherings for religious services on the part of the Protestants. Noblemen were specially forbidden to hold religious services in their houses or on their lands. Protestant ministers were ordered to leave France within 15 days, and meantime to neither preach nor perform any ministerial function. If they did they were to be made galley slaves. On the other hand, if they would become Catholics they would enjoy all the privileges and immunities they had hitherto enjoyed, and have a third added to their salary, one-half of which would be continued to their widows in case of death. All Protestant private schools were to be abolished; children born of Protestant parents are to be baptized by the Parish Priest and brought up as Catholics. All other than ministers are strictly forbidden to leave the country or to take any property whatever out of the country. Any trying to do so, any men are to be made galley slaves; any women are to have confiscation of their goods and themselves to be slaves. So the Edict of Nantes was revoked and this terrible series of orders given as the treatment of Protestants; galleys were filled with Huguenot slaves, many of them educated ministers; prisons were filled to overflowing; large numbers tortured and put to death. And despite the command that no one was to be allowed to leave the country, between 300,000 and 400,000 Huguenots left France, either shortly before or shortly after the revocation. About 100,000 of these found homes in Holland; about 100,000 in England, Ireland and America; 25,000 in Switzerland, and about 75,000 in Germany. There in Germany they continued to hold services; in Berlin a Huguenot Church continued holding its services in French for the next 250 years. All through World War I, when France and Germany were engaged in a death struggle, the French Huguenot Church in Berlin were holding services in French. I don't know what happened since—just never happened to hear—but I know that was the case between 1914 and 1918. The French nation lost many of its very finest citizens; and very great increase was given to the strength of many of these other nations by the high class of people who came in with the Huguenot immigration at this time. But this is the last great nation in which Protestantism had been a great force, but in which up to the present time a great Protestant group has been completely destroyed by the efforts of the Jesuits.
We noticed how Austria was almost entirely Protestant at one time, and then it became so there was hardly a Protestant in the nation; the same was true of Bavaria, the southern portion of Germany; Poland was more than a third Protestant, and Protestantism was completely destroyed in Poland. Czechoslovakia, up until 1621, was almost entirely Protestant; and then Protestantism was completely rooted out of the nation, except for a few people who kept their Bibles hidden; it was not permitted again until comparatively recent times. But France continues as a great and strong Protestant power—a large portion of the nation up until 1685—and at that time, by these extreme measures, Louis XIV, together with the constant propaganda and efforts of the Jesuits before, Protestantism was so wiped out of France that Macaulay, writing his history in about 1850, remarked that during the previous hundred and fifty years, whole sections of France would become practically atheistic; so that no one was attending any Romanist church whatever; and then there would sweep over the area a burst of interest in religion so that the Roman churches would be filled for a decade or two; and then for two or three decades they would be empty again. But Protestantism has never again gotten a foothold of any importance in France. There was a certain number of the Huguenots who fled into the mountains; and there in the mountains some of them managed to survive in caves, hiding and carrying on services; a comparatively small number managed to survive that way; and after the French Revolution when there was some freedom of religion, they were able to reestablish a very, very small Protestant church in Southern France. But it was an indication of what the Romanists would do if they got the opportunity. And the reason that I switched in the middle of the century back to the Continent, instead of continuing in Great Britain straight through, was because in the last half of the century, they came very near being able to do the same thing in Great Britain. And I wanted you to have before your eyes what happened in France at that very time, as we study what happened in England. The Jesuits have time; they have never had the attitude, "We've got to conquer the world today." It may take 500 years. They're patient, willing to work slowly, carefully, tolerantly. They always have their eye on the ultimate goal. It is interesting in Formosa [Taiwan], to notice certain strategic sections of the country, where large number of Jesuits have quite recently come in, and have established churches and are trying to become the dominant influence in those strategic centers of the country. You'll find them all over the world today, using the greatest of intelligent, careful planning, and making their efforts felt in key places where they could reach out and extend to other areas eventually; and you will find them watching to control the activities of the church, but seeing to it that the disagreeable things are mostly done by other people. Their own members are trained to be very, very pleasant, very kind and very easy to get along with. And you rarely find a Jesuit who will impress you as an unpleasant person. They are trained to be pleasant, and they are careful to plan what they do and to work steadily and constantly, looking for the ultimate goal; and in France there, Henry IV had established the Protestant church so solidly, with its own armies, its own fortifications, and everything, that during 50 years there was no direct attack made upon it; but the talk was, "Well you're all French citizens and we have freedom of religion here, it's perfectly silly for you to be afraid of what might happen. Why of course nobody will interfere with your freedom, the only thing is this nation within a nation, a power within a power; get rid of these garrisons, all rest on the common law that is equal to everybody," and that was done until they got rid of the garrisons. And then in 1659, though Mazarin addressed to them a very friendly letter, Louis XIV notified them that this was their last general assembly of the whole nation they would ever be permitted to hold. Well, then, you see, it was 26 years after that that it was announced that the king revoked the Edict; but during this 26 years they were picking individuals to accuse of treason; to accuse in some way of interference to the rights of the Roman Church; the rights of the king; and gradually attacking this side and that side and the other side; and then, when the head-on attack came, the forces were defeated. But it took a tremendous effort; and I'm sure they never dreamed of losing nearly half a million people, of their very finest people, who migrated to other countries. But in the succeeding centuries, if you look at the great leaders of France in most any line, it's amazing how many of them you will find mentioning in their biographies, came of Huguenot stock. Their parents had been Huguenots. Not only did the higher criticism of the O.T., which began in France, come of Huguenot stock. Men who had renounced their faith through fear and torture, but whose conscience probably bothered them and they tried, there was a sub-conscious defense of themselves, by trying to show the Bible was all a fake anyway.
Well,
there was one other thing in France at this time that we must look at, a very
interesting movement, which we will unfortunately have to only a little more
than glance at. But this was called Jansenism.
B. Jansenism. Jansenism is a movement named after a man who died before the movement became a vital force. The man was not even a Frenchman, this man named Jansen, but the movement was named after him. He was a Dutchman, lived in Holland. How much he may have been affected by the Reformed Church in Holland is hard to say. But he certainly never declared himself in any way a Protestant. This is strictly a movement within the Roman Church. But it is a movement which was willing to recognize the supremacy of the Pope; willing to go through all the services of the Roman Church; willing to admit everything that the Roman church claimed; and yet putting its emphasis on something else—upon the great Scriptural doctrine of salvation through faith, as a result of the election of God—that was where the emphasis was put. No declarations were made such as John Knox made—that the mass was a terrible thing and it must be opposed directly. There was no expressed opposition to any established practice of the Roman Church; but there was an emphasis on the Biblical teachings which are at the center of Protestant life.
This Cornelius Jansen was a Bishop in Holland, of the Romanist Church, a serious student of St. Augustine. He was constantly reading and studying the writings of St. Augustine; it is said that he read St. Augustine's Anti-Pelagian writings 30 times, and the rest of his works ten times; and Augustine, as you know, was a very voluminous writer. Jansen wrote a book which he called Augustinus which was not published until after his death. And in this book he arranged the teachings of Augustine bearing on the original state of man; the fallen state of man; and the regenerated state of man; and he described the development of semi-Pelagianism in the Roman Church. After his death, this book was published by a friend; and the book came to have a great influence in Holland; and his friends, followers of the teachings of this book, spread it into France. And early in the 17th century—that is by the 1640's—well, in fact, it was 1638 when he died, during the next ten years, his book came to have a great influence in France. And the Jesuits began to attack the book. They began strongly to attack the book and they secured a condemnation by the Pope of the teaching of the book. That is to say, the Pope denounced five propositions which they said were in this book. The followers of Jansen declared that these propositions which the Pope had denounced were indeed erroneous, but that they were not in the book; that the Pope had been misinformed as to what was in the book. And therefore they went on following Jansen without declaring themselves in any way in opposition to the papal condemnation. They said, the Pope had condemned a view which they didn't hold anyway.
But near Paris there was a famous nunnery called Port-Royal. This had been founded in 1204, and had received from the Pope many privileges and immunities. And in 1602 a woman became Abbess of it who was a very religious woman; six years after she became Abbess she had a deep religious experience; and the place became a center, in that neighborhood of France, of people with a very great interest of the cultivation of the spiritual life, and of a personal relation to Christ. It was in 1653 that the papal decision was given, condemning five propositions which they said—the Jesuits said—were in this book; the Jansenists declared that these propositions actually were not held by Jansen. One of the Jansenists—who was very ardent—was a man named Blaise Pascal; he was one of the greatest scientists in the world's history, a founder of mathematical probability, a founder of mechanics, a man with a great scientific mind; and any Romanist book trying to show the superiority of Romanism, naming the great men who have been Romanists, will be sure to name Pascal; even if they name, say, the five great scientists who have been Catholics, one of their names is sure to be Pascal. He is one of the great scientists of the world's history, and he was a Roman Catholic. He never declared himself as in opposition to the church, but he supported the teachings of Jansen; and if you follow these teachings out logically, the paraphernalia and the organization of the church become to a great extent more or less of an accidental side line; the emphasis is on the personal relation to the Lord; and then on all that Christ has done for us; and how we can be saved through Him directly; and the organization of the church had become more or less an extra unnecessary thing. Now, Pascal never said that; the Jansenists never said it; but the Jesuits opposed Jansenism just as strongly as they opposed Protestantism—though they had, to some extent, use other methods—but the Jansenists were leaders of the Port-Royalists as they came to be called; the Jansenists there in France centered their headquarters largely around this nunnery of Port-Royal. In fact, the man, Arnauld, of whom you have read in Pascal's writing—it was his sister who was the Abbess of Port-Royal; and so when the Jesuits began attacking them strongly, Pascal wrote an answer to them anonymously, which was called, Letters to a Provincial. And in these—these letters which were anonymously published—the letters held up the Jesuits' attitudes and actions to ridicule; and while there were very few people who would dare to attack the Jesuits, there were many people who had suffered from them; and many people who were very tickled to read something that criticized them and pointed out their weaknesses; and this was done in a satirical fashion by pretending to be letters to a Jesuit leader from another man who was friendly to them but trying to show their views and their attitudes; and Pascal wrote them in such wonderful French that, to this day, they are considered as one of the models of the French language. Wherever French literature is studied, or French language is studied, Pascal's Provincial Letters and his other writings, religious writings, his "Thoughts" or Penseés, are studied for their marvelous French style. And that's a remarkable thing, for Pascal who has such a tremendous reputation in science, also in the field of French writing and French style has an equally great standing; and people who have no interest whatever in the controversy—or in these teachings—study his writings for their style. But the Jansenist teachings are a treatment of the matter of man's lost condition and how he can be saved from it, and what his regenerated condition is. First his original state, then his lost state, and then his regenerated state. Illustrated with many quotations from Augustine, and showing the history in the Roman church of the semi-Pelagian movement—the movement which denied, while still giving lip-service to Augustine—who is considered one of the very greatest of the early fathers, by all. Yet Rome actually gave up his teaching as opposed to—well, it does not adopt the extreme Pelagian view—but it takes a view in between and on the Pelagian side. This has been the attitude of the Roman Church through the ages, and Jansen demonstrated that by picking out individuals and showing the view at that time.
There
are people today who say the World Council of Churches is wicked; it is denying
Christianity and destroying it, and we should oppose it. There are other people
who say the World Council of Churches is wicked and wrong; but we are
interested in saving souls and in spreading the truth; and we can simply ignore
them, give a certain amount of money to them, a token gift so that they won't
take our churches away from us; we can have a certain amount of loyalty to
them, but give most of our attention to the clear teachings of the Scripture.
Now there are those two attitudes. Now the Jansenists
are typical of an attitude which tried to put their great stress on the gospel,
and on the great teachings of the Word, but they simply didn't let themselves
be bothered by other matters. Of course, you must realize too that in those
days, with the pressure coming more and more from Louis XIV and the general
attitude toward the Protestants, that most of these men had been raised with
the idea that they were just simply horrible—these heretics outside the
church—and it would take a tremendous thing to bring them to the point of
actually considering Protestantism; and I think a great many didn't realize how
much. But they did not raise opposition to the church and they didn't attack
the Jesuits; until the Jesuits singled them out for attack. But the Jesuits
singled them out because the Jesuits saw clearly that the ultimate effect of
their teaching would be to destroy the power of the church. So the Jesuits
attacked them; and they fought back to some extent. But they did not fight back
to a great extent. Probably Pascal more than anybody else.
And so, if it would be possible to have a great spiritual movement which put
its stress on the great teachings of the Word of God, and would give people the
spiritual blessings of the Word, but avoiding any collision with the
established ecclesiastical order, if that would be possible, you would think
that Jansenism would prove it possible; because that is what they undertook to
do. And for a time they seemed to be succeeding. Port-Royal became a center
which had an influence all over Paris, and reaching out beyond into France; and
people looked to it as a great center of spiritual life; and I have no doubt
that many people were truly won to a knowledge of Christ, and were truly saved,
and grew in their spiritual life and in their understanding, as a result of the
activities of the Port-Royalists.
But the Jesuits continued their efforts to put an end to this, as they are bound to do. They continued working against it; until eventually, they got a new statement from the Pope which didn't merely condemn certain propositions, but he condemned the book itself—of Jansen—and declared that these views as taught by the Jansenists, and made it such that they were put in a position where it was impossible to stand by what they believed and at the same time seem to be loyal to the pope; and early in the following century—one day, suddenly—the royal soldiers descended upon Port-Royal and seized the nuns and the godly men who were living there and took them away to various other convents. Many different convents and scattered them around so they could no longer have any unified influence; and Port-Royal, this old convent which had been there since 1200, they tore down and completely put an end to the place; and then at the cemetery where some of the Jansenists were buried—so great was the veneration which people at large had come to hold for the Jansenists, that one of them went to the cemetery to show his reverence to some of these godly men who were buried there, and he had a bad eye affliction and it suddenly left him—and crowds began to come to the cemetery to see if they could get recovery from their diseases at this cemetery where Jansenists were buried; so the king had a big fence put around, nobody allowed to enter the cemetery. So one morning they found a sign up there some Frenchman had put up during the night, said, "By authority of the King, nobody is permitted to perform any miracles at this place." So Jansenism was completely wiped out, and did not exist anymore, either in the Romanist church or in France. But in Holland, a group of Jansenists who were forced out of the church have continued a separate existence to this day, as a separate church. But the group outside the church would have had a chance to have its freedom from the Roman Catholic force in 1700; but Henry would have lost Paris; he could have had most of the rest of France as a kingdom, in which the Protestants would be in a majority; but he said, "What is France without Paris? Paris is worth a mass." He made a compromise. The result was that within a hundred years, Protestantism was completely destroyed in France; Jansenism, which tried to maintain the faith within the church, and not come into any head-on collision with it, it also was wiped out. And both of them disappeared as far as France was concerned, though they continued in other countries.
Well,
there are many other interesting developments on the Continent at this time,
but these are the outstanding ones. We'll have to look at Great Britain, which
is very important at this time; because an effort was made to do the same thing
in Great Britain, that was done in France; and humanly
speaking, it came within an ace of succeeding. And so,
And
I will call
A. The Accession of Charles II. You remember that we looked into this half century—the beginning of it—already. We noticed that in January 1649 Charles I was beheaded; and the army declared—or the little Rump Parliament perhaps declared—that there was a Commonwealth now; England was no longer a monarchy, it was a commonwealth; but then the army dismissed the Rump Parliament and the army ruled; which meant that Cromwell ruled, and he was perhaps the wisest and most able ruler who ever ruled in England. He was a very godly man and a very able man; and we notice how for a few years, England's standing, the standing of Great Britain was higher than it had ever been before. You notice how even the Pope trembled before a letter from Cromwell. And how Louis XIV didn't hesitate to call him "my cousin."
The power of Cromwell was very great throughout Europe—that is, his power to scare people out of any strong persecution of Protestantism—and his control in England was absolute, though the great bulk of the people were not particularly friendly to him; he died in 1658, and when Cromwell died, his son, Richard Cromwell, was made Protector. Richard Cromwell was a very estimable man, but not a man of his father's ability at all; and he soon found that he did not have the ability to rule as a Protector, nor did he have great interest in it, and he resigned. And then the leaders of the army tried to rule for a little bit, and they didn't find it very satisfactory; and so one of the generals, sensing the feeling of the great overwhelming majority of the English people that their king was in exile—Charles I was dead, Charles II was living at the court of Louis XIV, who was related to his mother—and he was their king. "Oh, if anything was wrong in the country, it would just be different if only our king was back; if only we had the king back." So this general entered into negotiations; Richard Baxter gave his approving voice to it; most of the Scots were in favor—after all, the Stuarts were Scots rulers, had come from Scotland—and in 1660, Charles II came to England as king; son of Charles I, Charles II had lived for the previous ten years at the French Court; and he was fairly in touch with French ways and attitudes, in every way you can think of; and after his death, it was shown that secretly, when he was on his deathbed, he had a Roman Catholic priest come in and give him the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. He was a secret Romanist all the time. But he came back as head of the Church of England; and he was head of the Church of England, but secretly a Romanist, and determined to work in the direction of getting Roman Catholic supremacy in England. But most of all, Charles II's greatest interest in life was, as he said, "I don't want to start on my travels again." In other words, he didn't want to do anything that would result in his being thrown out. His first desire in life was to hold his power. His second desire in life was to satisfy his passions. He was utterly given over to the pleasures of the world in every form. And he was a very pleasant fellow, very likable chap. And his third desire in life was to restore the power of the Roman Church in England. And the British people were just filled with joy when he came back. The Parliament, the Long Parliament, was reconvened; they invited him back, those who remained of it; when he came they all knelt before him; he gave them his blessing; and the joy was universal in England that the king was back. Cromwell's new model army was disbanded; and Macaulay said it was one of the largest in history; that a great army like that, that had the power to hold all England in subjection simply was disbanded and the men—without any rioting or any difficulty—simply went back to their homes and submitted themselves to an administration which was quite unfriendly to them. No persecuting acts were taken against individual members of the army, or against people because they had been leaders in Cromwell's regime; but the men who had been in the court that had condemned Charles I, they were hunted down, terribly tortured and killed, everyone in the court; they were called regicides, or king-killers. Those who were in power were those who were most strongly for Charles; but whether he personally favored it, I couldn't say. The body of Oliver Cromwell was dug up from the grave; his head was placed on a big spike in one of the main halls in London; his body was placed up on a gallows in a public street in London and left there; and his name was execrated and condemned universally, until 150 years later, when Macaulay dared to write an essay in praise of him. Since that time his deeds have been investigated and he has been in general restored to a place of great honor in England's history.
In 1885, or 90, the Parliament was asked to erect a monument to Cromwell and it was voted down; but five years later it was voted to erect one and there is a monument to him right by the house of Parliament today. He is undoubtedly one of the great figures and one of the finest men in English history.
But
the feeling is, you might say, that this is the end of Puritanism. You see,
Puritanism was in the ascendency during Oliver Cromwell's time, but now the
pendulum swung completely in the opposite direction,
B. The Reign of Charles II. Charles' reign was 25 years, from 1660-85; and during this time the Puritans were in general derided, looked down upon and disdained. When Charles came back, he gave everybody the impression that he would be kindly and loving, interested in everybody. But the new Parliament elected in 1660, everywhere people elected those who had been most loyal to the king, so it was an extremely monarchial Parliament; and they proceeded at once to try to put an end to everything that had been in any way against the king. For instance, they got the original copies of the covenant which the Scots had made—the Covenanters—to stand loyally against Charles I's efforts to change the Church of Scotland into an Episcopal type of church, and they were publicly burned by the hangman in the streets. And laws were passed that everyone must attend the established church, of which Charles II was the head. And it was forbidden to hold any other service anywhere. And any minister who had been minister of an independent church, not a part of the Church of England, was forbidden to come within 5 miles of any city. No group of people was allowed to assemble for religious service, except the established services of the established churches.
Now in these established churches they read from Cranmer's Book of Prayer, and there was a great deal of solid Christian teaching in these services; but there were many people who were utterly dissatisfied with this, and who wanted more freedom in studying the Word. One of these was Baxter. He you remember had favored bringing back the king, not satisfied with Cromwell; he wanted the king back and he favored him and supported him, and when Charles came back, they brought Baxter up to London, gave him great honor, and he preached before King Charles. Charles wasn't particularly pleased with him. And when Baxter wanted to go back to Kidderminster, he found they wouldn't let him go; that the proper Rector is again holding the services at Kidderminster; and you would find difficulty there, you shouldn't go back there. So he was not permitted to go back. And then his services were in great demand in London, people asked him to preach; he began preaching, but soon the laws began interfering with Baxter's preaching; and the last years of his life he was under constant persecution, in prison several times; he was fined when he would have a meeting somewhere; people would come to hear him, he was fined; and eventually he devoted himself just to the writing, with no effort to speak. Once he was compelled to walk through the streets of London with a sign held up declaring him to have been one of treasonable attitude toward the king because of his preaching. But when Cromwell lost out, Baxter lost out with him. That is so often the way. Those who do not join the opposition against tyranny and un-Christian teaching find that they also suffer just as much as those who have opposed it when these movements become established. Baxter was a great and godly man, but he certainly made a great error at this point in his life.
Well,
the reign of Charles I was a period of 25 years in which not only was it
difficult to hold services, there was active persecution, and so
1. The Persecution in Scotland. This is the period in Scotland of the great persecution, a period of 28 years—the reign of Charles II and the succeeding period of the brief reign of his brother, James. This is the period when the Scots Covenanters had to hold their services off in the woods and the mountains, always in danger of being attacked by the royal army. Thousands of Scots were killed for their faith at this time, many of them with terrible tortures and sufferings; individuals were taken and fastened to stakes by the shore when the tide was out, and told to renounce their faith; and when they wouldn't do it, they were left tied until the water would come in and cover them; then they would be pulled up and brought to consciousness, and asked if they would abjure their faith; and if they wouldn't, they would be left again, made unconscious by the water. Most ingenious tortures were used these 28 years in order to destroy Presbyterianism in Scotland.
During Charles' reign, there was such a reaction against Puritanism that Macaulay said the theatricals of the day, the plays of the day, are different from any before or since. Macaulay says plays at other times had shown vice as attractive; but these didn't merely show vice as attractive; they held up to ridicule any kind of worship constantly; and glorified those who were given over completely to vice. The so-called Restoration drama in English literature was the very lowest ebb morally that English literature had ever reached. In the plays of the time, any husband it represented who wanted his wife to be true to him, was represented as a fool and a fop; and any man who seduced other men's wives was represented as a great hero. It was an attitude which continued for about 30 to 35 years. Yes? [student question] Queen Elizabeth had been queen of England and Mary Queen of Scots' son James was James VI of Scotland. When Elizabeth was dying, she said her cousin in Scotland should succeed her, so James VI of Scotland became James I of England. Then Charles I (James' son) was king of both England and Scotland, and now Charles II (his son) was king of both England and Scotland; the two nations were separate kingdoms with one king, till 50 years after this time when they were united into one country. In Scotland, the Covenanters suffered and in England the Puritans suffered. But England was a large country—not in size, but in population. Scotland, while fairly large in size is small in population. Scotland contains many rugged hills and areas which it is very difficult to completely wipe a people out. If people are willing to live in conditions of practical starvation, it would take a tremendous army to put an end to them. So in Scotland, there could be tremendous torture and suffering and yet groups would continue to meet in the mountains and in the woods; while in England, there would be the same amount of torture, the same number of people, but it would be a much smaller percentage of the population. And it was easy to wipe out, and the mass of the population in England was subdued.
Well,
the persecution then in Scotland was very intense.
2. Persecution
in England.
In England, there was probably as much persecution; but in a much larger country,
proportionately much smaller. It was at this time that John Bunyan lived.
3. John Bunyan. He was one of Cromwell's soldiers. He had been a member of Cromwell's army; but when it was disbanded he went back to his profession of tinker—that was his vocation. But Bunyan, not a particularly educated man, proved to be one of the greatest geniuses in English literary history; and he wrote a number—oh he wrote a great number—of religious works. He went about from place to place, preaching when he could get an opportunity; he spent many years in jail because of persecution, and it was in jail that he wrote many of his greatest works. He has written—out of maybe 30 works—there are maybe four which are outstanding; and one of those four is so outstanding that the other three are almost forgotten. It has been said that if he had never written Pilgrim's Progress, the other three would be the greatest works of the type that had ever been written. But Pilgrim's Progress overshadows them to the point where the others are forgotten. It is the greatest allegory that ever has been written; it has gone through edition after edition. Up to about 40 years ago, practically everybody in the English-speaking world was familiar with Pilgrim's Progress. It is just within the last 40 years that it has disappeared. But before that, it was next to the Bible as the most popular book in the English language. [student: what are the other outstanding works?] Well, one is The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680); another The Holy War: The Losing and Taking Again of the Town of Mansoul (1682), and Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1680). [Note dcb: Pilgrim's Progress was written in 1678] Those are the three. And they say that one of those three, if not all three, would be the greatest allegories, religious allegories, ever written if it weren't that Pilgrim's Progress has overshadowed them. Well, we continue there next time.
We were speaking of X, Great Britain in the Last Half of the 17th Century; and under that we were at B, The Reign of Charles II. We noticed 1, The Persecution in Scotland; and we noticed that for 28 years there continued a most cruel persecution in Scotland of those who would not attend the services that were conducted according to the king's orders—services which quite turned their back on the Presbyterian tradition of Scotland and followed the Anglican service and cut down many of the things that had been dear to the Scots—and hundreds of people were chased and tortured, and many were killed; there was an occasional uprising, but these were sporadic small groups; there was no uprising to amount to anything during this time; but there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people killed, some of them by most ingenious tortures.
A few of them escaped due to the ignorance of the soldiers. For instance, they say that a soldier caught a man praying out in the hills and he grabbed him and he said, "You must repudiate the covenant or I'll have to kill you," and the man said, "Which covenant is it you want me to repudiate?" Well the soldier said, "Well how many covenants are there?" Well, he said, "There are two: the covenant of works and the covenant of grace." Well, he said, "Repudiate one of them." So he said, "All right, I'll repudiate the covenant of works." So in that particular case the man escaped. I'm afraid there weren't many cases like that. I mentioned last time how there were cases where young women were ordered to repudiate their faith; and when they refused to do it, they were taken down to the shore at low tide and tied to stakes; and the water would come in and cover them, and they'd begin to drown; and they'd take them up out of it, would ask them to repudiate and if they didn't, they would tie them there again. Sometimes it would take them up two or three times, till they finally were left to drown. The stories of the tortures of the period are almost unbelievable. That was 1. I mentioned also 2, the Persecution in England. And the persecution in England was perhaps not as severe as that in Scotland, but it was very severe. The ministers who were not members of the established church were forbidden to come within 5 miles of any town where they had previously had churches. There was a very strict law against conventicles, that is to say, against gatherings of people for a religious meeting other than under the auspices of the Church of England. And there was the Test Act, whereby any official of the government had to take communion according to the customs of the Church of England. If he did not, he could not hold his position in the government. There were very strict laws and many were tortured, executed (not such a great number executed), but many were tortured and many were in prison for a long period.
Then I mentioned John Bunyan. We didn't go much into John Bunyan's life; you have read about him, he was a man without much education, but a man of great native genius, one of the great writers of the English language. His works are not much read nowadays, so far as I know, but a hundred and fifty years ago, there were very, very few English-speaking Christians that were not raised on the writings of John Bunyan. His Pilgrim's Progress was, next the Bible, the most popular writing in the English language, It was translated into language after language. His literary art and ability in many of his works, of which the most outstanding of course was Pilgrim's Progress, was universally recognized; and the fine Christian teaching in it, and the wonderful allegorical presentation of Christian truth was universally recognized. It was loved by all branches of the English-speaking Christian church; and it was admired for its literary value by those who were not Christians. But Bunyan, out of his whole life, probably spent at least 20 years in jail for preaching, when he would be caught preaching other than in the established church. He was not ordained in the established church, and was considered to have no right to preach; he was put in jail time after time, sometimes for as many as ten years at a stretch, and it was while he was in jail that he did a great part of his writing.
Bunyan
belonged to a church that was called the Baptist church, but it really was an
independent church in which the people were permitted to follow whatever practice
was desired as far as baptism was concerned. The records show that Bunyan had
his own children baptized, so that it was not a Baptist church in the strict
sense; but Bunyan is usually spoken of as a member of the Baptist church, and
he rejoiced in the fine evangelical testimony which was at the center of the
congregation to which he belonged. We would say much more about Bunyan but
we've already studied about him for one of the assignments. I'll spend a little
more time with one that I have not assigned:
4. The Quakers. Perhaps we
should call them the Friends, because that is their own name. This was first
the name by which they called themselves and call themselves to this day;
however, they have so generally been designated as Quakers that I think there
is no harm for the title. Under the Quakers we have two heads,
a. George Fox. He was born in 1624, came from a very pious Puritan family; he had a Christian upbringing, but was never satisfied. He loved the teaching of the Bible, but felt that he needed a closer relation to the Lord, a closer walk with Christ; and when he was 25 years of age, he felt that he received an inner light, which he felt was a direct knowledge of Christ, a direct communion relationship to Christ; and then in 1649 he began to go out and preach extensively. And he converted a great many people to his views. Now the general attitude of most of the Quakers today is that whatever comes into your mind, that's what matters, rather than what the Bible says; there is an inner teaching that comes to you. But that was not George Fox's view. Fox held that the Bible was God's Word; that the Biblical truth was what was important; and he was always telling his opponents to defend their views by the Scriptures. His great stress was on the fact that doctrine, if it is not related to the life, is of no value; that doctrine must find expression in life. And the Bible clearly teaches that we do have direct access to Christ, a direct relationship to Him; that it is not merely a matter of knowing certain doctrines, but a matter of a personal relation to Christ. Fox's emphasis was on making the Biblical teaching live through a personal relationship to Christ; but many of his expressions were such as to lead some of his followers to think that there was in this age a direct personal revelation to the individual which was more important than the Biblical teaching. Now this was probably not characteristic of most of the Friends until within the last 40 or 50 years. During these last 40 or 50 years, most of their group have become shot through with modernism and have become—many of them—simply groups that get together to discuss their ideas and all sorts of things; and there is within the last few years a great departure from Fox's emphasis on the Word of God. But Fox did not try to put any personal illumination ahead of the Word of God; he held it to be subsidiary to and an assistance to the Word of God; but he was emphasizing a true feature of Scriptural teaching, that we must have personal relation to Christ; that it is not enough to believe any doctrine, but the doctrine must be right. [student] I have not come across the mention of Fox having claimed to do miracles. I know that the succeeding Quakers did make such claims. I don't know. Mr. Myers [student] No, the Shakers are a different group, a much smaller group. Yes, the Shakers are so-called because they would shake; but the Quakers were called such because they bade the people they preached to, to fear and quake before the wrath of God. They haven't done this in recent centuries, but they did in their early preaching. I believe there is a group of Friends in Indiana today that is quite orthodox. I know there was about 30 years ago; but in Pennsylvania, they divided—60 years ago—into two groups, one of which became quite modernistic, but this was just sixty years ago. The other stayed conservative until quite a bit later, but both groups are just about the same as ordinary modernist churches today, except that their polity, their church order, and all that, is different, Of course, the Quakers in recent years have put great stress on philanthropy; there was a stress on that right from the start; and there was a stress on non-violence right from the start. Fox believed that the Christian should not take part in war, and the Quakers have taken that quite literally. And he believed that they should be simple folk, not putting themselves up and glorifying themselves; and consequently he didn't want to use any honorary titles like reverend, or mister. We had a Quaker student many years ago; and he said a lovely old Quaker gentleman came to see him and told him it was fleshly pride; he wouldn't let people call him mister. They are very much against tiles like that; and against the use of terms that imply honor like calling a person "you," as if they were several persons. They just use the simple ordinary "thou" that you use for the single person, ordinary person, or even animals, or in speaking to one another. Yes? [student] I don't know. That's an old English habit—to call the teacher master—and I guess they followed that. But Fox was a man who was very diligent and had tremendous success. By 1680, 31 years after he began the preaching of the inner light, they claim that he had 66,000 followers. In a very few years he had many Christians following him; and he had followers among the wealthy as well as among the poor. He had a great many followers in England and Scotland, in Ireland, and in other countries of Europe. He had a very active life.
The Quakers were persecuted, but not persecuted to the same extent that the Presbyterians and Baptists and the others were. And many of their ministers died in prison, but very few of them were executed, very few of them were tortured; but they were often jailed, and they did have riots occasionally, when the people rose against them with their fiery preaching of their early days against sin, and calling upon people to fear and to quake.
In recent centuries they don't seem to have much of this zeal for preaching to others; they seem to have very soon settled down into a group that was satisfied with keeping alive their teaching within their own group. They believed you shouldn't ever take an oath because everything you said was true; and that in the Constitution, the president of the U.S. need not swear that he will uphold the law; he can affirm it, which to a Quaker would be the same thing. Everything he says is supposed to be true, so he affirms it. But no President has ever taken advantage of that term. Their order of service is very, very informal. A good fine Christian man who belonged to a Quaker group took me once to a service; and he said, "Now if the Spirit moves you, you get up and talk." And different people got up and talked about various subjects; and then all of a sudden, I found this man on one side, his wife on the other, and his daughter behind me, all whispering, "Now, Dr. MacRae, you get up; now you say something." They said I should get up as the Spirit moves, but the Spirit didn't move on that particular morning. I would have to feel a bit more at home, or else be officially asked, but I didn't feel like that. But that is their custom; anybody there gets up and says what the Spirit moves him to say. And they don't take votes; they see what is the sense of the meeting; and they're supposed to reach a unanimity; and if they don't, they get most of them taking a certain view. Yes [student: are they like the Plymouth Brethren?] It's quite different; there are points of similarity, but I think there are more points of difference. The Brethren are a movement which started 200 years later.
Well,
George Fox, then was a godly man and a very successful
man in reaching many people in an age of darkness. It was the lowest ebb to
which England's religious life ever fell since the Reformation—the time of
Charles II. Now of course there were godly men here and there; there were godly
groups of people; but the general atmosphere of the English government, and the
nation as a whole, was one which had sunk very low. The literature then was at a very low ebb, and the people of the lowest type were
idealized in plays, perhaps because one of the most licentious men in the whole
kingdom was the king, Charles II. And if somebody wants to write a book
nowadays which they think will appeal to everybody's lower nature, they call it
a life of one of Charles II's mistresses. There have been two or three of them
as best-sellers in the last 15 years. When you strike a book of that type, it's
apt to be from this particular period. And the literature of this time was
constantly ridiculing the Puritans, and representing them as the very lowest of
the low. Now there were some groups that survived, but as a force in society
they pretty well died out in this period. But the Quakers—compared to the whole
nation—their effect was very slight; yet it was a comparatively large group of
people that were affected by their teaching, and the group has continued to the
present day.
b. William Penn. Penn was born 20 years after George Fox was born. His father was an admiral at that time. His father was a leader in the British navy, and for his great service he was given large estates in Ireland. He was a very wealthy man, a very good friend of the king; but when the parliamentary powers came into control, he served under Cromwell. He was occasionally suspected of loyalty to the king and of treasonable correspondence, but there never was anything proven against him. So he remained in good standing in the navy during Cromwell's time; but when measures were taken to bring back the king, he was one of the leaders in it. And so he was a good friend of Charles II. He does not seem to have partaken of Charles II's licentiousness or his wicked life; he was strictly a military man, but a man of great wealth and of great standing; so much so that Charles II borrowed a lot of money from him, which he was unable to repay him. He borrowed nearly a hundred thousand dollars and was unable to repay him. [student: his relationship with Cromwell and Charles II] When he was head of the British navy under Cromwell, he was suspected of wanting to bring back the king, Charles II, but they couldn't prove that he had done anything; actually he probably didn't do anything that was disloyal, but that's where his sympathies were. So when Charles II came back, he was a monarchist and rejoiced to have him; and he was in high favor with him, and was an able military man. It was a great shame to him that his son—to whom he gave the best possible education, and sent to Oxford to study—his son went off after this itinerant evangelist, George Fox, and became a great follower of George Fox.
So all through his life William Penn, the younger, had the support of his father's influence to quite an extent, but he had his father very much ashamed, of him. And Penn would go out with Fox, and go through Europe holding evangelistic campaigns in different countries of Europe; and then he'd come back and preach in England and be seized and put in prison; and young William Penn might be in prison for a year; and his father would intervene and get him out of prison; he'd promise to be a good boy and go off and live on one of their big estates in Ireland for a little while; then pretty soon he'd disappear from the estate and you'd find he was preaching somewhere in England.
So William Penn was a man who thus had all these advantages from his father, and had opportunity that an ordinary person wouldn't have, and was a very ardent follower of the teaching of George Fox. At one time, when William Penn, the younger, was given an audience with the king, he told one of his friends, "I'm not going to treat the king as if he was some kind of a god, I'm going to treat him just like an ordinary human being as he is, I'm going to keep my hat on in his presence, I'm going to sit down in front of him, and I'm going to call him thou just like an ordinary person, not call him you as if he was several people, or has some honor more than ordinary human beings have." But while Penn talked this way, he was a courteous gentleman and wasn't rude, or anything, to arouse the king's dislike; in fact, the king rather liked the young man; and the time came when the king wanted to clear off this debt; and he agreed in order to clear off the debt to the father, who was now old and not taking an active part in things, he offered to give the young man a section of land in America, that he had asked for. William Penn already owned extensive lands in New Jersey; he had had a large interest in the colony of New Jersey, and had made it possible for many Quakers to migrate to N. J. and live there without being interfered with by the law. But now he wanted a larger territory for them; so the king agreed to give him an area about 300 miles wide and about 150 miles from north to south, west of the Delaware River and north of Maryland; and this area here the king gave to William Penn in order to pay off the debt that he owed his father. And William Penn said let's call this "Sylvania," Latin for woodland. But when they made up the charter for it, they had put his name before Sylvania and they called Penn's Sylvania; Penn objected to that; after all, his life was dedicated to lack of all worldly glory and worldly pride and here they were naming a whole colony after him; so he objected to it, but the King said, "The charter's already made; there's nothing we can do about it."
So the area came to be called Pennsylvania. So he got a hundred people in England and started across to establish this colony; one-third of them died of smallpox on the way over. But the rest of them landed here, and he established a colony to be a Christian colony along Quaker lines, but with toleration for all who believed in the Trinity; and so the colony was established, the colony of Pennsylvania, in 1682. And it became a refuge not only for the Quakers, but for all who were oppressed in Europe.
William
Penn was very active in writing also, in defending the Quaker views. He had
quite an extensive controversy with Richard Baxter, with each of them claiming
he won the victory in their writing; but he gave a tremendous help to the
establishment of the Quakers. I fear, however, that before many decades the
Quakers settled down to be a group that passed on their teachings from father
to son, and were not the group reaching out as they had been under Fox, and
bringing their teachings to others. But they always put great stress on
philanthropy and great stress on their opposition to war, and until
comparatively recently they put great stress on the Bible as the final word as
to what the truth was.
C. The Glorious
Revolution of 1688.
And I fear most Americans have never heard of this, but in English history the
Glorious Revolution of 1688 is a thing of tremendous importance. This is three
years after Charles II died, so
1. James II 1685-1688. Now James II was the younger brother of Charles II. Soon after Charles became king, his brother James who was the Duke of York, was nominal head of the British navy. Soon after Charles became king, the British navy sailed to Manhattan Island and seized from the Dutch their colony of New Amsterdam; and so they named it after the Duke of York, who was the head of the force that took it—the nominal head; they named it New York. But this man after whom they named New York was the next in line to be king after Charles II, because Charles II's wife did not have any children. His mistresses had many children; he had many illegitimate children, but no child who was entitled by English law to succeed him as king, so the next in line was James.
Charles and James had lived for many years in France, at the court of Louis XIV; and about midway in Charles II's reign, James announced himself as a Roman Catholic. Charles was a secret Roman Catholic—all this time he was reigning—but James became publicly a Roman Catholic. And the English people knew what happened to the Huguenots of France, how they were utterly destroyed—many driven out of the country, others tortured and killed—at this time; and they did not want to have a Roman Catholic king of England. And the brother of Charles II, James was a fanatic, a very enthusiastic Roman Catholic; and so they tried to get a law through to change the succession, so that in case of Charles' death his brother would not succeed him; but they failed to get this law enacted. And the result was that when Charles died, his brother James, the Roman Catholic, became king of England, and then James immediately boasted of the fact that when Charles was dying, he had everybody out of the room, and he secretly brought a Roman Catholic priest in to give him the last rites of the Roman Catholic church; and he brought out a paper that Charles II had secretly written, declaring that Roman Catholicism was the only true religion. And of course Charles had been the king, supreme head of the Church of England, but he was a secret Roman Catholic. And now James was an outspoken Roman Catholic; and he immediately began putting Romanists into the high positions in the government, putting them into the places of leadership and doing everything he could to advance them; and people became terrified whether Protestantism in England would soon have the same fate as it had in France.
James was lacking in patience; he wanted to do a thing right away. And so he began to move rather hurriedly; and this hurried move aroused many people against him, so that there was a rebellion in northern England against him to try to put one of Charles' illegitimate sons on the throne, a young man called the Duke of Monmouth. The rebels were people that didn't have military training at all, and the established soldiers had little difficulty in overcoming it. But when they did overcome them, James gave his nephew the Duke of Monmouth a good severe scolding for getting mixed up in a thing like that; but the people who had taken part in it were hung. Thousands of them were hung, till the English got disgusted with so many being hung, and they began to send the rest into slavery—off to Jamaica and to the colonies in America. Maybe some of you have read the novel Captain Blood. The hero is supposed to have been one of those at this time, who was sent off into slavery, having been falsely accused of involvement in Monmouth's rebellion.
As James proceeded rapidly to give over control of things into the hands of Roman Catholics, he tried to win support for his measures; so he issued an edict of toleration. Previously there had been strong measures against Roman Catholics, although so long as they carried on their religion quietly they were not interfered with; but according to the law, they were supposed to attend the Episcopal church at least once a month, and they could not have ministers from the continent, who would tell them that the king of England was excommunicated, and that anyone would be blessed of God who would kill him; and so there were strong repressive measures against Roman Catholics. Now James withdrew the measures against Roman Catholics and against Protestant sectarians. But the Protestant sectarians felt that, bad as the Episcopal persecution was, the Roman Catholic would be much worse, judging by what they had done in France; and so they did not accept the toleration he gave them or approve them, so long as the Roman Catholics were included in it.
That is all except William Penn; Penn gave a public address of thanks to King James for having extended this toleration. But James proceeded to put Roman Catholics into positions of such importance, and to bring such measures against the Episcopalians that all of the Episcopal bishops proceeded to make a protest. And then James accused the bishops of treason and had them brought to trial for this. Macaulay said, "It shows how people take for granted everybody else will be consistent." He said that James thought the Episcopal leaders were all sworn by their oath to be loyal to him as head of the church. Therefore, he thought he could destroy their church and turn it over to another church, and they would all be loyal to him because they had sworn to be loyal to him as the head of the church. But Macaulay said, "You can't expect people to be consistent that way." James should have noticed himself, as a very ardent Roman Catholic. His Church forbids adultery, and yet James was living much the same sort of life as his brother Charles had been living. He certainly was breaking the laws of his church; why should he expect the Episcopal bishops to be so loyal to their oath that they would see their church wrecked for the sake of being true to their oath?
The
leading bishops were all put on trial, but the court acquitted them. And then
the king proceeded to use strong measures against them. So right at this time,
you have a union of all the forces in England, practically, against the king.
You have all the Episcopal leaders united against the king; and you have the
various denominations all united against him, because they didn't want the
Roman Catholic control; and the number of Roman Catholics in England at this
time was comparatively small. The result was that an army was raised against
the king, with most of England joining in. And if James had been a man of
courage, the chances are that he would have won out; he had the established
army on his side; and people thought, after all, he is our king; they would be
loyal to the king. But James lost his head and fled to the continent; and when
he fled they immediately said, "The king has forfeited the crown; he has
left the country." They sent an invitation to his daughter—born while he
was a Protestant, his daughter Mary, who was the wife of the Dutch William of
Orange; so they sent an invitation to them, to come over and become king and
queen of England; and William came and his wife Mary, who was James' daughter,
and so they began to reign in England.
2. The Events of
1688.
So you have this 3-year reign of James II; and then, as a result of his not
having patience to go slowly—Louis XIV took 25 years in getting rid of the
Huguenots, until he reached the point where he destroyed them all—James tried
to do it in 3 years, and he failed; so James was driven out of England—rather
he fled—and his daughter Mary became queen, and William her husband, who was
the Prince of Orange, became king.
3. William and Mary. And when William and Mary began to rule you had a condition in England now where all the different forces in England had united to get rid of James—the different non-Romanist forces—and so immediately there was passed an edict of Toleration; and from this time on, any non-Romanist Christian was eligible for office in the British government. He could not attend Oxford University, unless he was a member of the Episcopal Church, not for another 180 years; but he could take a position in the government; he could hold services without being interfered with. The Edict of Toleration now was passed, and from this time on, we do not have religious persecution in England. Roman Catholics were—theoretically—not allowed to carry on their religion at all; actually, they were not interfered with; but they were not allowed to give loyalty to a foreign power—to the pope—and the pope was not allowed to send representatives. And if they were implicated in any plot for the murder of the king, they were very severely punished. This is the Revolution of 1688, the foundation of modern English religious freedom.
The Edict of Toleration was passed, then. Two other matters I'm going to mention in connection with William and Mary, but am not going to give them numbers. The Roman Catholics did not have freedom for another 150 years. But Protestants, all Protestants, had freedom of worship after the edict. The English people realized how near they had been to what the French had gone through. England would be atheistic today—as France is—if James II had succeeded. It would be nominally Romanist, and actually atheistic. Now it is nominally Protestant, and largely atheistic. But it had a long period of very noble religious history, which could not have been if James II had succeeded.
Now
under William and Mary there are 3 things I just want to mention.
a. Toleration. This was the
beginning of religious toleration in England. Before that whatever the ruler's
religion was, that was supposed to be the religion of the people, except of
course during the period of Cromwell when there was no ruler. But this was the
beginning of real toleration in England. There were—among the Episcopal clergy
a number of these ministers who were entirely sincere in their loyalty to King
James—and these refused to take the oath of loyalty to William, they said,
"James is our king; we can't turn against our king," so they called
them
b. Nonjurors, that is, they refused to take any legal
relation—any juridical relations—to William and Mary. They said, "Our king
is James; he has been falsely driven out," so there were a lot of Episcopal
ministers who gave up their living, gave up their positions, and showed in this
way their loyalty to King James. Nonjurors they were
called. And then the beginning of
c. Reformation
of Morals.
We noticed that morals sank in England under Charles II to the lowest ebb that
perhaps it has ever had. Well, one of these Nonjuror
ministers who was loyal to the king, was disgusted at the extremely low level
of literary and moral life; and he began writing and speaking extensively
against it; and there was a beginning of a move away from the moral depth to
which the land had sunk under Charles II. But religiously England was in 1700
at about as low an ebb as it ever reached. We go on then to the next century.
And
under this I mention
A. Pietism. Pietism was a
movement in Germany—among Lutherans in Germany—who reacted against a certain
amount of dead orthodoxy, and who began to put more stress on the need of conversion
and of a personal relationship to Christ. The two outstanding names among them
are Spener and Francke.
These were two men in north Germany—very outstanding men—who led a great
movement in Germany with stress on the personal relationship to Christ. You
have already studied something of the life of Spener
as part of our assignment on Pietism. And Francke
followed pretty much in his footsteps. They built large followings and had a
very great influence within the Lutheran church in Germany. I'm not going to
take time for details of their lives, especially as you've already read some
about Spener. But I want to go to
B. Zinzendorf. Count Zinzendorf was born in northeastern Germany in 1700, and he was born to a noble family; he went to Holland, where Spener and Francke had lived; he was under the direct influence of Francke for a number of years; he became very zealously devoted to Christian activity and Christian life. Count Zinzendorf has written many hymns which are today found in the German hymnbooks—many beautiful hymns of loyalty to Christ and of personal love to Him and desire for His service. Some of them are very lovely hymns. But Zinzendorf had a large estate in northeastern Germany; and the time came when a group of refugees from Czechoslovakia came into Germany, and they tried to get a place where they could stay, where they would be safe. These were people who upheld the Protestant teaching, which nearly a century before had been wiped out of Czechoslovakia by the emperor's army; but they had kept alive their Protestant teaching in the woods, in the mountains—little groups living here and there—and now the persecutors were hunting them out; and they were having to flee the country. And some of these—from a section of Czechoslovakia known as Moravia—had been hiding their Bibles in hollow trees; the head of the family knowing where it was hidden and keeping it even from his children till his deathbed; thus keeping alive a precarious knowledge of Christ amid the Roman Catholic dictatorship which was ruling in Czechoslovakia; some of these now found it necessary to flee the country altogether; and they came into this section of Germany and asked Zinzendorf for permission to settle on his estate; and they settled at a place called Herrnhut. When they came there, Zinzendorf was still in the early 20's, but he mixed among these people and was greatly impressed with their loyalty to Christ and with what they had suffered for Him; so he proceeded to give them privileges on his estate, and to try to help them in getting education, getting established; and eventually he became the leader of this group of people. They established the denomination known as the Moravians, from the part of Czechoslovakia from which they had come. And they proceeded to become very much interested in foreign missionary work; they wanted to go to areas where no one else was working; they wanted to carry the gospel into altogether new sections; and as soon as other groups would come in, they would move off into still further remote sections. They became a very earnest, ardent group of Christian workers; and some of them soon came over to Pennsylvania, and they established towns in Pennsylvania with Biblical names, like Bethlehem, Emmaus, Nazareth—names like that. And Zinzendorf came over here, and here in Pennsylvania he tried to unite the various groups of German sects that were already over here; he didn't have much success in that, but he succeeded in establishing quite a thriving Moravian work with his headquarters at Bethlehem, a work which remained very true to Biblical teaching until within the last thirty or forty years.
Forty
years ago, a Moravian college and seminary were one of the two or three
seminaries that stood out strongly against the modernists; now they have had
World Council speakers in their chapels and so on; and as far as I know, they
are just going along with the tide; but 40 years ago they were standing out
against them, standing very loyally for the Word of God; and after all, that is
200 years, which is a long time; it was not a large group; but though a small
group, a very effective witness that they carried on for these 2 centuries.
C. France. Now in France we noticed how, in the previous century, Protestantism was rooted out of France, so that a comparatively few people living in the mountains, in hiding, was all that was left of Protestantism in France. We noticed that Louis XIV didn't stop at getting rid of Protestantism; he got rid of Jansenism, a movement within the Roman Catholic church which stressed Bible reading, Bible study, personal relation to Christ; while not denying any of the Roman Catholic doctrines, forms or ceremonies, it was putting its stress on the central things of the gospel; and Jansenism was eradicated from France just as completely as Protestantism had been; the result was that during this next century France was a country in which the Roman Catholic leaders had absolute control, but the people as a whole lost interest in religion altogether; and atheism spread very widely in France, as it is to this day. They say today France is the hardest field in the world in which to work, either to reach people or to get much real interest. I heard a French official say—30 years ago—he said, "In France if you're going to move ahead in politics at all, you have to be known as one who is against the church," but he said, "If you get high enough in politics; if they send you as an ambassador, or a representative to another country; then you have to be known as the protector of the Roman Catholic Church," because that is the attitude that France is taking for the last two centuries in international politics, as the great protector and defender of the Roman Catholic church. But in France there is a small group of very loyal, ardent Roman Catholics, but the mass of the people are indifferent, nominally Romanist, but actually indifferent. No religion.
In France then, during that century, the leading thinkers of France—Protestantism having been wiped out, Jansenism having been destroyed, no one could be like Pascal—the leading thinkers put their energy into anti-religious attitudes. And we have the great writer of the latter part of the century, Voltaire. This is under France. Voltaire, the man who devoted his life to attacking not merely the Roman Catholic Church but Christianity in general. And he is one of the cleverest and most able writers the world has ever seen; next to Erasmus perhaps the most famous writer; the most popular in his own day perhaps, as has ever been; one who was constantly writing biting satires against Christianity, doing everything he can to end it. And when he read that Isaac Newton, the great English Physicist, said that the book of Daniel says many will travel to and fro in the last day—so Newton said the time will come when people will travel as fast as 60 miles an hour—Voltaire said, "That shows you how even a great thinker like Newton, if he follows the Bible, can be led into utter and absurd nonsense." Voltaire said once his books had been distributed and widely read, Christianity would utterly disappear. And of course the natural end of it all was the French Revolution; France was filled with blood, and the church which had had everything her own way in France ended; most of its leaders driven out of the country, though many of them joined the Revolutionists; the Revolutionists proceeded to do away with God; changed the week into ten days instead of seven; and briefly got rid of Christianity, as they thought. [student] There are stories like that; whether it is true would be hard to prove; we'd have to look into the evidence very carefully, because such stories are common in the case of a man like that. It may be true, but I just don't know for sure. Voltaire was a master of irony, a master of poetic language; and he had a great ability to write in an extremely interesting way, and his writings were avidly read all through the world. Well, we continue there next time.
Yesterday we looked at the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and saw how near James II came to getting control of England in such a way that Protestantism would have been wiped out in England; and the effect on the whole world would have been tremendous if that had occurred. But instead of that, he went too fast and overreached himself. Others have learned since to go slowly; better to succeed in a thing, and take 300 years at it, than to try to do it in 30 years and fail, and get your cause set back, as theirs was in England. But James II was driven out of England, and there was toleration established in England; but the religious life of England had fallen to a very, very low ebb, the great Puritan movement, which had had such tremendous effects for a time, was during the reign of Charles II constantly ridiculed and made fun of; and people with any Puritan ideas were made to look like simply clowns and fools; and the general mass of the people got that attitude toward everything connected with Puritanism.
Then, we looked quite briefly at the 18th century on the European continent. The subject of Pietism was one which would be interesting to study fully, because it had great effects in Germany and reached out to other parts of the world; and then we mentioned Count Zinzendorf; and Zinzendorf was in a way a product of Pietism. It was Spener and Francke affected Zinzendorf, but Zinzendorf in turn had a great effect upon the continent in Germany and in many lands; it is safe to say that the whole English speaking world was entirely different than it would have been if it were not for Zinzendorf; but the reason for that is something that I'm sure Zinzendorf never suspected. His great work came over here to America, doing missionary work all over the eastern seaboard, training his Moravian missionaries to go out, and leaving a Moravian work; it accomplished a very sizeable amount and has until within the last twenty years.
But one offshoot of this work, which he probably never realized its importance at all—as far as numbers are concerned—accomplished ten times as much as all the rest of his work put together; and that's what we are coming to today; then we mentioned C, France, and we noticed how in France the Counter-Reformation had succeeded; Protestantism had been completely rooted out of France, though it had had a better start there than it had ever had in England. It was rooted out of France completely; they took their time; acted patiently; gradually got into a position where they could destroy it; and then they destroyed it. And then when true Christianity reared its head again in the form of Jansenism in France, that was rooted out too; so during the century we're speaking of now—the 18th century—France was a land which prided itself on what it called its enlightenment. This was actually an enlightenment to the condition of believing in no God, no supreme being, but only the satisfaction of one's passions and the development of one's intellect.
And France was rapidly on the downslide during this century; Louis XV as he gave himself to sensual abandonment and luxury in Versailles, said, "After us the deluge," looking forward to the French Revolution; which in the end of the century swept over France; and of course it swept away much that was evil, but it introduced in bits of itself a great deal more that was evil. And we mentioned in connection with France during this century, Voltaire, one of the most effective writers in all history. Someone has said that Erasmus and Voltaire are two men who purely because of literary ability, with no other reason—that is, they were not conquerors, they were not statesmen, nothing of the kind, the only thing they had to commend them was their literary ability, but because of their literary ability—got a fame of worldwide standing, such as no other literary men have ever had in history.
But Erasmus and Voltaire were utterly different men. Erasmus was always anxious to do good and advance the cause of righteousness, as long as he didn't hurt his own income by doing so. And consequently he did a good deal that was helpful to the world, though he was always looking out for his own interests; and this cut down his effectiveness at many points, But Voltaire was a man who was educated by the Jesuits; he had received value from Jesuit training, but had not accepted their views at all; he hated all Christianity—particularly the system of the Roman church—but he did not distinguish any other from it; and he devoted his life to writing plays and novels which were ridiculing Christianity.
Macaulay says in one of his essays about Lord Clive, the English conqueror of India; he said that he had heard that Voltaire once thought of writing a novel based on the life of Clive. He said, "If Voltaire did, you could have been sure that the book would have been filled with sneers at Christianity, but also filled with very beautiful statements stolen from the New Testament, and put into the mouths of Indian gods." That was his summary of Voltaire's general attitude. I was reading last night the article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica about Voltaire, and it ended with a statement something like this: "the longest, most elaborate thing that Voltaire ever wrote would hardly be read for the material which it contained, because the actual teaching or philosophy or thought content of his writing is very flat; but the smallest, most insignificant thing he ever wrote is worth careful study for its wonderful style and its unparalleled understanding of literary form." That was the Encyclopaedia Britannica's summary of Voltaire. But his influence in the world was far greater than many a man who had far more intellect and far more understanding of material, because most people are moved by style and manner, rather than by content. [student] Well, now the word "Christian" is used in many different senses. The word "Christian," in the sense of one who takes the name of Christ, certainly applies to all groups which use the name of Christ; and in that sense the Roman Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox, or any Protestant group would be Christian. The word "Christian," in the sense of one who trusts in Christ for salvation and who is truly related to Him, is something that none of us can tell with certainty about anyone else; because only the individual knows whether he truly believes in Christ and is truly related to Christ; and in that sense there are a great many Protestants who certainly are not Christian; but in that sense, I have no doubt that there are many Roman Catholics who are real Christians.
In the liturgies, in the forms they use, in the things they say about Christ and about the doctrines of the Bible, there is nothing of Christian teaching left out, and it may lead individuals to be true Christians. But I fear that those who rise to be teachers and leaders have their stress put upon aspects which are anti-Christian rather than Christian. And so the tendency of the organization was anti-Christian rather than Christian. But I'm sure that there are many humble Roman Catholics who are real Christians.
I was much interested, crossing the ocean on two trips, to run onto to two different Roman Catholic priests with whom I had considerable conversation, and to note the difference between them. There was one man I ran onto when I was studying in Germany in order to refute the higher criticism and to defend the Bible, and the great doctrines of Christianity, I ran onto this man who was to study in Rome; and as I talked with him, I found that his great interest and emphasis was very similar to mine, even though he certainly was off on various points. I felt a real bond of union with him in his opposition to modernism and unbelief and the desire to defend the great doctrines of Scripture. And having had that, he told me how he would like to come and hear me preach on the boat, on which we were returning; and he said he would have done it, except for the fact that he had his clerical costume on, and there were a number of Irish people on the boat; and if they saw him in the service they would have thought it was all right for them to be there too. That's why he didn't come. But then having had that very pleasant meeting with him, the next time I was on a boat crossing the ocean, I saw another Roman priest who stood outside the door when I began the service—when everybody stands—but when they sat down he became conspicuous; he immediately disappeared. And I got to talk with him, and found that his attitude was highly different. His whole emphasis was on the point at which we feel that the Roman Catholics are wrong, and I believe that is the emphasis of the system.
But Satan has learned that it is much easier to accomplish things by taking quite a bit of truth and mixing some falsehood with it, than it is by taking something that is entirely wrong; and very often the Holy Spirit uses the truth in the system to reach individuals. Well the attitude in France at this time was pretty much generally getting more and more against the church, so Voltaire was right in line with the general feeling. I don't think he showed any great backbone in that, but I quite agree that when it comes to individuals, most individuals are to be pitied for the wrong use of things that come into their lives; and yet there is no individual who has gone wrong, but who at crucial points has voluntarily made decisions for evil against what is right.
I certainly would see no point in hating anyone who is dead and gone. We cannot be hating Voltaire. But I would think his works are something which is best left buried. Today they are very subtle, and it's the sort of irony that is very clever. It can do much more harm to people's Christian faith than good solid anti-Christian arguments. He was a very, very clever man and his cleverness, his views are against the Bible; and, like all other men, he was a combination of his own wicked choices and the unfortunate influences on him.
I
just wanted to mention
D. The Suppression of the Jesuits. This is coming clear to the end of the century. Pietism was at the very beginning of the century; but now toward the end, the Jesuits began to become unpopular in the very nation where they had been strongest. The Protestants had been very suspicious of the Jesuits and bitterly hostile to them for a long time. But the opposition to the Jesuits now began to come from the very nation where they had been most successful.
In France, for instance, their ruthless suppression of Jansenism raised a great many enemies to them; these felt that here was a movement that had something real in it, not just forms and ceremonies; they had been greatly attracted by Jansenism; and even those who hadn't accepted it, came to look askance at the Jesuits; and they said, "Well, if the Jesuits destroy these pious noble people the Jansenists, what kind of people are the Jesuits?" And they began to find that the Jesuits were now going into commercial enterprises and making great sums of money; and on the other hand, when they would make a mistake and one of them would go bankrupt, why he was an individual and the order didn't stand behind him. So that anything that they won came to the order; but if an individual lost, he was just an individual; and there were all sorts of subterfuges like that which made people very indignant at them.
Then there were a number of cases where rulers in Europe were killed—assassinated—and while there never was a proven case where a Jesuit assassinated or murdered anybody, yet in most of these cases they found that the men who did it were men who had been in Jesuit schools; and while you never could prove the Jesuits had anything to do with these assassinations, there was something pointing toward them in most cases; and this aroused dislike of the Jesuits. We won't take time to go into the various charges against them; but we will note that in 1759, Portugal ordered them expelled from all its dominions. In 1764 France expelled them from all its dominions. Spain and Sicily expelled them in 1767; and they say that in Spain when the king announced that the Jesuits were to be immediately expelled from all Spanish dominions, the Dominicans and the Franciscans in the audience clapped their hands. And all through the Spanish dominions in the New World, before any word of this actually could come, Spanish officers arrived with orders to seize them suddenly, lest there be any uprising; they could take with them their prayer book and one other book; they were rushed back to Spain, and most of them were dumped into Italy, into the papal dominion. The pope objected very vigorously to this; but then when he died and the new pope was elected, there was great pressure by the monarchs of France and of Spain and of Portugal, that a man be elected who was not under the influence of the Jesuits. And the man who was elected pope proceeded in 1773 to issue an infallible order declaring that the Jesuit order is now immediately and forever suppressed, done away with, and ended; there are no longer to be any Jesuit schools, Jesuit churches, Jesuit convents, nothing. The order comes to a complete end. All Jesuits are to be out of the order; if they are men who have been ordained priests, they may join some other order, if the other order will receive them; or they can become secular priests—that is, a secular priest is one who is not in an order but who acts as a priest—they can become secular priests; but the Jesuit Order is now and forever done away with. But when the pope signed the order, he said, "I have signed my death warrant." And when the pope died within the year, the story went around that the Jesuits had poisoned him; but there was no proof whatever of that. That is the story that was all around. But when this order was issued and the Jesuit Order was done away with in all the Roman Catholic countries, Frederic the Great of Prussia—a friend of Voltaire, the great atheist that he was—he said he was a heretic and the pope's order had nothing to do with him, so the Jesuit schools they were running in his domain could continue. So he said; and the Jesuits said, "Well the order hasn't been published in Frederic's domain, therefore we have no official knowledge," so they kept right on, for just a few years. Then Frederic changed his mind and they were done away with in Prussia too. But in Russia, which had a Russian Orthodox state church, naturally the order was not officially published there because the Roman Catholics had no authority there. Therefore the Jesuits in Russia said, "We have no official knowledge of the order," and though they all had taken very strict vows to be obedient to the pope—the center of the Jesuit Order, as you know, is the support of the papacy—yet in Russia for the next 20 years the Order continued; and they had schools and churches in Russia, so that 20 years later, when another pope reestablished the Order, they were ready to spread back through Europe again and to continue as they had been before.
Well,
now this is at the very end of the century, the suppression of the Jesuits. We
want to go back to the beginning of it again and to look at
This
is the most important event in Christian history since the Reformation. And it
has affected all the history of the English-speaking world, and to a great
extent of the rest of the world, since that time. So it is very important that
we be familiar with the events of the 18th century in the English-speaking
world, particularly. Though we have used this title—sometimes in America it is
particularly called The Great Awakening—in England it is more generally called
the Evangelical Movement. But it was the great movement which came to pass then
which changed the whole situation in the English-speaking world, and through it
affected most of the rest of the world, And so we will
call
A. The Condition of England at the beginning of the Century. And since we looked so recently at the end of the previous century, we won't need to spend much time on A. But we will note that at the beginning of this century the Puritan movement was just about completely dead. That is, there were individual churches carrying on the Puritan position but they were very few and far between. The attitude of England was not as low morally as it had been 20 years before. There had been a slight improvement, but it was very, very low; and in about 1720, Blackstone went to most of the great churches of London, in order to see what was being preached. And he reported that he found that in the churches of London, about 1720, there were humanitarian and social sermons preached, in practically every one. But as far as religion was concerned there was hardly a church in which he could tell from the sermon whether a minister was a follower of Confucius, of Buddha, of Mohammed, or of Christ. That was Blackstone's report on the religious condition of the great churches of London, in 1720.
Now that was not true of every one in England by any means. There were small churches which were holding to the truth, but they were few and far between. Newman in the standard Baptist Church History, which I have quoted to you occasionally before, says in it that the Baptist movement in England had begun with various churches about 1620, which had turned against infant baptism. About 20 year later these churches began to practice immersion. Immersion had been practiced off and on for many centuries in different places, but in the English-speaking world it had been comparatively unknown and was not used in the Baptist churches for about 20 years after they turned against infant baptism. But then they began to introduce immersion. But Newman said that in the l7th Century the Baptist churches of England were divided into two groups—the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists. And the General Baptists were the very strong Arminian Baptists; and the Particular Baptists were those who believed particular individuals were saved, that is—they were the Calvinistic Baptists; and he said that they all considered the question of Arminianism and Calvinism much more important than they considered the question of Baptism; and consequently that the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists had no use for each other and no connection. But there were groups of both that organized into fellowships early in the 17th century. However, he says that by the end of 17th century, the General Baptists had practically all become Unitarians, with no Christian teaching in them; while the Particular Baptists—many of them—had taken such an extreme attitude in their stress on the certain distinctive points of Calvinism, that they had forgotten the rest of the gospel and were just stressing those. So that at the beginning of this century the Baptist churches, which had had much life and vitality 80 years before, were pretty largely dead and without influence in English life. That was true of most of the other dissenting groups at this time. Of course, Blackstone was speaking mainly of the Church of England in what he said but he probably visited some of the dissenting churches too. It was about as low an ebb as religion has ever reached in the English-speaking world.
But
then God brought a change, a change which affected not one denomination, but
all denominations. A change which changed the face of England
and which has affected the whole English-speaking world. And we want to
look at some of the details of this change now. So I won't spend more time on
A, the condition of England at the beginning of the century, but we look at
B. The
Background of the Evangelical Revival. And the Evangelical Revival was,
humanly speaking, the work of three men—John and Charles Wesley and George
Whitefield. We might say that the most prominent of these three (John Wesley)
is the only man since Luther and Calvin who deserves to be put in a class with
Luther and Calvin, as one who has tremendously affected the whole world—in the
religious area, I mean—from a Christian viewpoint. But the three are so
interrelated in their affect one upon the other, that humanly speaking it is
hard to see how any one of them would have accomplished a fraction of what he
did if it were not for the other two, men who were so vital in the beginning of
this evangelical movement. Under this, we will call
1. The Wesley Family. The parents of John and Charles Wesley were staunch Anglicans, their father being rector at Epworth. But the strange thing is that their grandfathers on both sides were dissenters. The grandfather on the Wesley side was strong against the established church. The grandfather on the mother's side was also strong against the standard church. The two children—the father and mother of John and Charles—had reacted against the teaching of their parents, so their father had gone into the established church and was very, very loyal to it. In his rectory at Epworth, he carried on in a quiet way a strong rigid discipline that was very good. But he was very loyal to the established church. John and Charles' mother was the daughter of a dissenting clergyman, and she had turned on this point against her parents. And both the Wesley's parents were influenced by the arguments given by the established church in England, as a church to which everyone should be loyal. Yet John and Charles Wesley were their sons. Without their energies, the largest separation from the Church of England would never have occurred.
Their father was rector of this church, and he had 17 children of whom John was the 14th and Charles the 17th. Different books give different numbers for both of these, but Charles was youngest and John was older. A great many of the children died young. John was the second of the sons. His older brother was always loyal to the Church of England.
When John was a little boy six years old, his father had been preaching against sin very strongly; some of the people addicted to the particular type he was preaching against—cock fighting—were quite incensed; they came and set fire to the house. As the rectory was burning up, Mrs. Wesley grabbed the children and rushed downstairs; they got out of the house—got burned a little getting out—and they counted the children and found one missing, little John. He was fast asleep in the upper room where flames were shooting up. Someone managed to get up into the place, got ahold of him and got to the window. They jumped out, and just as they did, the roof caved in. So it was that, from then on, his mother always said he was a brand plucked from the burning. And this made quite an impression on the boy.
John
went to Oxford, and his brother Charles did too. They got a scholarship there,
so they didn't have to work to support themselves.
2. The Holy
Club. They
were very earnest fellows. They spent a substantial amount of time in Christian
service, and John and Charles and the fellows with them, which came to be as
many as 25 in the group, began simply, methodically, carrying out the
regulations of the university. But so low had religion sunk in England that it
was a very strange thing for them to do this, and the other students began to
laugh and jeer at them and make fun of them and ridicule them. And the Holy
Club did this so methodically that the other students began to call them
Methodists, because they were methodical in their carrying out of the
regulations of the university: giving a certain amount of time for Bible study;
a certain amount of time for regular prayer; going to services regularly on
Sunday; having communion once a week; and then they began going to the jail and
speaking; and going to hospitals and speaking with the people there; and they
were very methodical in their religious life; and the other students called
them Methodists.
3. George Whitefield's Conversion. Now the third man of the three who was used to shape England and to shape the world, as no one else—from a Christian viewpoint, except Luther and Calvin, have ever been—was a young man named George Whitefield; and George Whitefield did not come from a family of the ministry as John and Charles had. John and Charles' family did not have much money, but they had a fellowship—they had their tuition paid, they had support for studies. While Whitefield's father had run an inn in Gloucester, England, his father had died and his mother had little to support them; and he had to work his way through school, and it was very hard in those days to work your way through school; they called him a servant, he waited on tables at one of the colleges, and was rather looked upon as a menial; but he was studying hard and trying to make progress at his lessons. And he heard of the Holy Club, and he liked what he heard about it, but he didn't quite have the nerve to go and try to become acquainted with it. But George Whitefield, in an accidental way, was brought in connection with Charles Wesley; and Charles invited him to have breakfast with him; and Whitefield was overjoyed that Charles would be friendly with him; but also he found that when the other fellows in the place where he worked knew that he was with these holy fellows, they made it hard for him; they threw things at him, and were very disagreeable; so he had a tough struggle, wanting to be with these fellows and yet finding it very difficult because of the persecution he got for being with them. And he asked John Wesley for some help in his spiritual life, but John was very busy; and John would like to have helped him but he was very busy with his Greek teaching and his regular work; so he picked up a book that looked to him as if it would be a helpful book—I forget the name of the book; it was written by a Presbyterian pastor in Scotland—it was a book on salvation and what it means—salvation through faith alone. And he gave Whitefield this book to read; and through this book Whitefield was converted, and he was the first of the three to be converted. And the benefits that Whitefield got from this book, that John Wesley gave him, John Wesley himself didn't get till four years later, after a very severe struggle. So it is very interesting that John Wesley was the means of giving Whitefield this book from this Presbyterian pastor in Scotland, which made the way of salvation so clear that George Whitefield became a strong evangelist. Almost immediately after reading the book, Whitefield had a serious sickness for seven months when he was home ill; but he said what a blessed period it was, because he thought through the teaching he had learned from this book; and he studied the Scripture, and found more and more in it; and he came out into the light of clear understanding of the real meaning of salvation by faith. And then when Whitefield was ordained, the bishop of Gloucester was very friendly to him and liked the sermon he gave; but somebody complained, "It made some of our folks pretty mad to hear that sermon; it upset them," and the bishop said, "Let those folks stay upset till next Sunday, when they can hear another of the same kind." The bishop of Gloucester backed up Whitefield in this. But John and Charles Wesley didn't know anything about it, because they had both gone to America; so they came to America now for three years. And Whitefield in England began preaching his new understanding of Salvation; and Whitefield proved to have a gift such as no one else of his generation had—he had a natural gift as a preacher. Everybody who heard him wanted to hear him again. Somebody said later on in his life, "If he would say the word 'Mesopotamia' people would weep." He had tremendous ability as a speaker. Lord Chesterfield, the hard, courtly, dignified, head of English society, once heard Whitefield preaching; and Whitefield described a blind man going toward the edge of a precipice; he described how with his cane he stepped nearer and nearer and as Whitefield described it, Lord Chesterfield cried out, "He's going over, he's going over." Once when Whitefield was preaching here in Philadelphia, and raising money for his orphanage in Georgia, Benjamin Franklin was quite irritated at him. He said, "Why does he take all this money from Philadelphia and take it down to Georgia, to build an orphanage? We have orphans here in Philadelphia, why doesn't he do something here?" And Franklin reached his hand in his pocket—Franklin tells about this in his Autobiography—and felt he had some coppers, he had some silver and he had some gold; and Franklin said, "I'm not going to put a cent in that col1ection." And Whitefield went on preaching; and Franklin says as he went on, "Well, I'll put the copper in." Then he says Whitefield went on a little more, and Franklin says, "I guess I'll put the silver in." But he says when the collection came round, he put everything in his pocket in it!
Whitefield
was as able a preacher, perhaps, as anyone who ever lived. When he went into
the coal fields and began preaching to a group of 200 people, the crowd began
gathering, and pretty soon he had 20,000 listening to him. He just had a
remarkable ability as a preacher; and the wonderful thing is that this man who
had this natural ability, had read this book that John Wesley gave him, and had
received such ahold on the gospel of salvation by faith, that his whole life
was devoted to winning people to the Lord; yet his influence was not as deep or
as extensive as that of John Wesley, but his influence was very, very great in
Europe and in America; but I'm getting ahead of the story. At this point I was simply
stressing the ability of Whitefield as a preacher.
4. The Wesleys in Georgia. I did not mention, on account of scarcity of time, in connection with the continent at the beginning of this century, the renewed persecution which had broken out in Austria against Protestants. But at the beginning of this century, they had found that there were Protestants secretly living in Austria. If you remember, a century before, Austria was Protestant; but the Jesuits had done away with it to such an extent that they thought there were none left; and now they found some Protestants living in Austria. So the Jesuits sent a man to them to say, "Well now, the bishop will probably treat you kindly if you will just tell him the whole facts; how many of you are there, and so on." And the people trusted him and gave their names; so the bishop had the names of 20,000 Protestants, in the Salzburg area of Austria; he got the names, got the whole information; then he gave the order these people must leave Austria within two months or they are to be imprisoned; and it was in the dead of winter, and they had no time to sell their property; they were largely well-to-do people, but they couldn't take anything with them, except what they could carry; and this renewed persecution made quite a stir all over Europe. The Protestant countries were trying to help them, and others who were subject to persecution. In England there was a man named Oglethorpe, who was stirred by the persecution of the Protestants in Austria and these other countries; he also was stirred by the condition of debtors in England who had got themselves financially entangled and couldn't get out, but were good honest people; there was no future for them in England, and he wanted to help these two classes of people. Oglethorpe was a man of standing in England and he persuaded the government to give him a section of America, which was named Georgia after the king, George II. Oglethorpe was going to start in this area a refuge for the honest debtors of England and the oppressed Protestants of Europe; so he brought these people over to America to settle the new colony of Georgia. John Wesley heard of the establishment of Georgia; and soon after it was established, he came over to do Christian work in Georgia; and his brother Charles came over as Oglethorpe's secretary.
So they came over on the boat with Oglethorpe to Georgia; and when they had been here a little less than two years, Charles went back to England to try to get more recruits to help them, John stayed here about four years, and it was the most miserable four years of his life. People turned against him, they said, "We don't know what he really believes; we don't know whether he is a Protestant or a Catholic." He was very, very loyal to the forms of the Church of England and insisted on them; he was very insistent on a number of the forms, which irritated people; and he became very much interested in a young woman, and he paid great attention to her for a time, and didn't know whether he ought to marry her or not. And then he decided he didn't know what the mind of the Lord was, so he cast a lot to decide whether he should ask her to marry him or not. And the lot came out against it; so he decided it was the Lord's will he should not ask her to marry him. And then he quit paying attention to her; she was rather piqued about it, and almost immediately she married someone else on the rebound; and then with this person, she got into rather worldly activities; and John felt it was his duty as the rector of the church to discipline her; and in view of his previous attitude toward her, people began criticizing him very strongly. This was just one of many things which made him very, very unpopular in Georgia. As John was on his way back to England, the ship got into a terrible storm; people thought the ship was going to be wrecked, and John was trembling with terrible fear, as were most of the English people on the boat. But he noticed some Germans on board who were standing quite undisturbed; they didn't look the least bit worried, and John had become interested in these Germans. As soon as they had gotten on the boat, they seemed to him like people who had a calmness about them, something he didn't have. He wanted to know them; so he immediately set to work to learn German so he could talk to them. As the trip was several weeks crossing the ocean, he was able to learn enough German to be able to converse very nicely with them. And when they got in the storm he went over to the Germans and said, "Aren't you frightened?" They said, "No." Well he said, "What is the matter; why aren't you upset?" Well they said, "We know that whatever God's will is, it will be done. If it's God's will we should die now, we're not afraid to die." Well he said, "Aren't you worried about the women and children?" Well, they said, "They're not afraid to die, if it is the Lord's will to take them now." And John was impressed with these Germans; they were Moravians, they were the followers of Zinzendorf. And John was greatly impressed by these men; and he talked with them, and one of them said to him, "Do you know Christ personally as your Saviour?" Well he said, "I know Christ as the Saviour of the world." But he said, "Is he your Saviour?" Well he said, "I hope He is my Saviour." Well he said, "What are you looking to for salvation?" Well he said, "I'm trying to do the best I can; I read the Bible every day; I preach and try to serve the Lord. I'm doing the best I can." Well this man said, "That's not the way to be saved." Well, Wesley said, "That's the only thing I've ever heard." So Wesley felt that these Germans had something—these followers of Zinzendorf—that he didn't have. And when he got to Georgia occasionally, he had contact with these Germans in Georgia; and he admired them and wondered about what it was that they had that he didn't have.
Now meanwhile in England, Whitefield went to London and preached in most of the big churches in London. Everybody liked to hear Whitefield preach; he was such a wonderful speaker that all of the churches in London were open to him. And he preached, and people just came by the hundreds to hear him preach. But Whitefield got a letter from John Wesley and Wesley said, "The need in Georgia here is tremendous; we need good workers here; we need people to go among the Indians, and bring them the Word of God; and we need people to deal with these settlers here in Georgia; would you come over and help us?" And Whitefield said, "I think the Lord wants me to go to Georgia. So Whitefield gave up all these opportunities for advancement in England, great opportunities of going forward in the church, and planned to go over to Georgia and help John Wesley there. So Whitefield got passage in a boat; he was in the boat, ready to sail, when John Wesley's boat arrived in England, coming back from Georgia. And Wesley immediately sent a letter to Whitefield and said, "Don't go to Georgia; it is a hopeless place; you just can't do anything there; you'll just hit your head against a stone wall, like I did; and it is foolish to waste your life over there."
But
when Whitefield got the letter, he was already on the boat ready to start for
Georgia; so he stayed in the boat and went on. Well,
5. Whitefield's
Voyage.
His voyage is something that is almost unparalleled. He was in the boat and he
asked if he could hold services, and they said, "No, we have a man here
who reads the services on Sunday, that's all; we don't want preaching on the
boat." So he started then trying to talk to people and doing personal
work. And he went around the boat talking to individuals about their souls. He
had a real knowledge of salvation, brought to him through this book that John
Wesley had given him. And he talked to people about their souls and soon he was
having a tremendous influence and getting little groups together for prayer
meetings and Bible study. And then the time came when finally, after they had
been going quite a little ways, they let him hold a meeting. So he held a
meeting and began to preach; and immediately they were so impressed with his sermon,
that for the rest of the trip he was not only preaching on the boat every day,
but there were two other boats going at the same time; and they would stop the
boats and have a little boat take him from one to the other, so he could hold
the service there. And he had a revival in each of the three boats. And the
effects of his preaching were just tremendous there. But he made a mistake; he
kept a journal, and in this journal he described what happened every day; he
told how the people were crying unto the Lord for mercy for their sins, and how
could they be saved. He described the effects of the preaching; and when he got
to Georgia, he mailed his journal back to a friend in England. And the friend
took the journal, which he only mailed to the friend to read, and the friend
published it. And when it was published, the pastors of the churches where
Whitefield had preached were shocked. They said, "This young fellow is an
enthusiast. He is like the Puritans of the last century, people who get all
excited about religion. They were so upset that a few months later, when
Whitefield came back to England, every single church in London was closed to
him. No place would allow him to preach; they didn't want that kind of
enthusiast in their churches. They had all been open to him before; he had
preached in many of them; now nobody wanted him because of the result of his
journal. Now,
6. Wesley's
Conversion, 1738.
When Wesley was going back to England, there were Moravians on the boat; and
they talked with him; and as he talked with them, he admired their lives; he
admired what he could see in them that he didn't have. He couldn't understand
their viewpoint. He just didn't see it at all. He landed in England, and in
England he kept up his relationship with the Moravians; he went to their little
chapel in London, and heard their preaching in German; and one evening as John
Wesley sat in this little chapel of the Moravians, one of the Moravians read
out Martin Luther's Preface to his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, in
which Martin Luther had made the gospel so clear in this preface. And when John
Wesley heard this, he wrote in his diary that as he heard this read "he
felt his heart strangely warmed." His heart strangely warmed; he felt that
he had an insight into God's method of salvation that he never had before. And
he counted his conversion from that minute when he heard Martin Luther's
Preface to the Epistle to the Romans read. Wesley said that was when he was
converted, which greatly irritated his father and his relatives, for they said
he had been a good Christian all his life, and certainly he had lived as
exemplary a life as any young man you'd ever find anywhere, and was anxious to
do what he thought would be right. But now he felt his whole life was changed.
7. Wesley's Trip
to Germany.
He asked the Germans; he said, "I want to go and see this man Zinzendorf,
I want to talk with him." So he went over to Germany; and when he came
there Zinzendorf saw this Oxford Don, a teacher of Greek in Oxford—this dignified,
English gentleman—Wesley
to the end of his life never preached without having a long black gown and a
white tie around him; he was very formal always. And when he came over there,
Zinzendorf said, "This man needs to learn a little humility," so as
soon as he met Wesley he said, "Well now, I'm very busy right now; I can
see you in a couple of hours. Suppose you go out and spade up my garden."
So he set to work to teach Wesley humility; and Wesley took it all; whatever he
set him to do, he did. So Zinzendorf the German nobleman took that way of these
menial tasks for a while; and in between he'd take Wesley off to see some
spiritual leader, and they'd have an hour or two of conversation; and then he'd
bring Wesley back and put him to work again in his garden or in his yard; and
the result of all this was that when Wesley came back to England, he said his
life had been deepened; his spiritual understanding had been greatly helped by
his visit to Germany; he felt that it had an effect on his life that he never
got over. But at the same time, I think underneath there was a little bit of
resentment; because before long he broke with the Moravians, and he did not
continue the rest of his life working with the Moravians. But he always gave
them credit for being the group through which the gospel had come to him.
8. The Beginning of Field Preaching. Benjamin Franklin calculated that there were 20,000 people able to hear every word that Whitefield spoke. He had a very clear voice, a very strong voice; but he also had very clear enunciation, which is perhaps almost as important as the size of the voice; you could get every single sound that he said. Some people have very strong voices, but you have difficulty understanding them just a little ways away.
We were speaking yesterday about the background of the Evangelical Revival and we noticed 6, Wesley's Conversion; then I described 7, Wesley's Trip to Germany. Then 8, The Beginning of Field Preaching This illustrates the ways in which God used the three different men to influence one another. Wesley was converted; he was ardently on fire for the Lord; and he might have found it hard to find a Church of England where he could preach; or he might have had a little church somewhere, like his father had up in Epworth, and done good work there for the rest of his life; but Whitefield who had been converted some years before, through a book Wesley gave him—though Wesley himself was not yet converted—Whitefield now had a tremendous influence on Wesley's life in a very strange way. We noticed how Whitefield had on his way to America these tremendous revivals on the boats. And how he had written a journal in which he told of these events, and told of the changes in the lives of individuals, and of their calling out to God for mercy on their sins, and described what had happened, giving praise to God all through; that God permitted him to be his instrument in having this effect on people's lives. And we mentioned that Whitefield had sent this document back to England to a friend, and the friend had had it published—something Whitefield never dreamed of—and once it was published, all the Church of England churches were closed to Whitefield.
So now, after a few months in Georgia, Whitefield came back to England, anxious to get support and help for further work in America; and over there in England he found that all the churches in London where he had preached before he went to Georgia—with such great acclaim that hundreds came together to hear him, sometimes thousands—they were closed to him; and the ministers all said that a man with this enthusiasm, this great excitement, we don't want that in our dignified churches and they refused to permit him to preach in any of the churches.
Whitefield was a very different sort of man from Wesley. Wesley was a very dignified sort of man—a man with great reverence for all the institutions of the Church of England. To the day of his death, he never would preach without his clerical gown and white collar; he always dressed up in this elaborate way for the preaching, and he felt a great deal about the dignity of the deliverance of a sermon. Whitefield, we noticed, had been a student at Oxford when Wesley had been one who had a fellowship, and rather an honored position there. Whitefield had had to make his own way quite a bit, and Whitefield was used to seeking means to do what was needed. You notice on the boat, when he couldn't preach, couldn't hold services, he started doing personal work. And then he organized little prayer meetings, Bible classes, and eventually got the chance to preach. Now Whitefield was back in England, and he got in touch with Wesley; and he was praising the Lord for the change in Wesley's life. Wesley now had a full understanding of what Whitefield himself had gotten years before from a book Wesley had given him and urged him to read. And now Whitefield, finding the churches closed to him, went out into the fields and began preaching—a thing which horrified Wesley. And Whitefield went a certain distance north of London, to a place where there was a group of people who were interested in hearing about the gospel but no church available; he went out preaching in the fields, and began preaching to a group of 200 people. And others heard him preaching and began coming together, and soon they had thousands of them listening to Whitefield preach.
Whitefield carried on a series of sermons with great effect upon the people there; and there was great interest, but then the time came when Whitefield had to go to other appointments. And Wesley was visiting Whitefield; and Whitefield said, "John, I have to leave; I can't continue here now. These people are hungry for the gospel. You have got to carry on, and preach to them." Well, Wesley said, "This is not a church—not an established church—how could I preach here? You can't just give a sermon except in a church." Well Whitefield said, "I've been giving them here, and you can see for yourself the effect it had on people's lives." Wesley says, "That's wonderful; the Lord is certainly using you in a strange way, but I can't imagine myself doing anything like that." Well, Whitefield said, "Here is the situation, John. These people are here, and they need the gospel; they want it; they have already had a taste of it; they want more, and I can't stay here any longer; I have appointments elsewhere; I have to go." And he said, "You have no appointments right now; you are free now; you could take over and help. It's the Lord's call to you; you must do it." Wesley said, "Well, I'll get my gown out and put on my tie; and I'll get one of my carefully prepared sermons, and I'll try it." And Wesley preached to these people in the field, a thing he never would have done, if it wasn't for Whitefield. But the strange thing was that though Wesley was not the preacher that Whitefield was—not the great dramatic speaker, he did not draw a great multitude as Whitefield did—yet there was something in Wesley's preaching that Whitefield didn't have; and his influence on people, though perhaps not as wide as Whitefield's, proved to be deeper than Whitefield's. And there were changes made in people's lives with Wesley's preaching—as with Whitefield's—but in many cases they seemed to be a deeper change and a more lasting change, that made these people ready not merely to support the preaching and to favor it and go to services, but to want to become active instruments themselves in the spreading of the Word of the Lord.
So
Wesley is considered the great leader of the Evangelical Revival and he was.
But the powers that he had, humanly speaking, would never had had a chance to
show themselves, if Whitefield hadn't pushed him into it; and Wesley now began
a course of preaching which he continued for the next 53 years. For 53 years he
travelled back and forth through England—10,000 miles a year in a wagon. After
a while he fixed the wagon up, so he had bookshelves on the side; he had a man
driving the wagon; he had a chair in there; he'd sit and study and write, and
the wagon carried him. Sometimes he'd go on horseback but he went back and
forth through England preaching everywhere. And Wesley proved to have great
ability in organizing. At the end of his life Wesley said, "I think the
greatest gift God gave me—the way he used me more than any other—was in the ability
he gave me as an organizer." That is to say, he took the converts and
formed them into what he called classes, with a class leader. The class leader
had a responsibility for the work of the individuals, and for their lives, for
overseeing them; and then Wesley would meet with the class leaders; and he
worked up many very clever details of organization; we'll look at all that
later. At the present point I'm simply showing the beginning of Field Preaching
in England; and how Wesley's great work was a result—under God—of the great
work that Whitefield was doing, and of Whitefield's influence on Wesley. Now I
haven't said so much about Charles Wesley—we'll say more about him later.
Charles was very definitely a second to John, in his influence and his position;
but he was a tremendous help in the whole work. It was Charles, you remember,
who organized The Holy Club. John was simply a teacher of Greek in Oxford; John
was a godly man, anxious to serve the Lord; but it was Charles who gathered the
fellows around him, even when John was home helping his father; and when John
came back to Oxford he found that Charles had organized the Holy Club; and John
joined in, and John became a sort of a natural leader of the Club; he was
older, more serious, had more understanding, and so on, but John never would
have gotten the fellows around him, if it wasn't for Charles. Charles built the
club; Charles drew the fellows; John was the great influence upon the fellows
in The Holy Club. And through their lives Charles was a secondary figure, but a
very important figure. And Charles eventually showed his ability as a hymn
writer; he wrote more hymns than anyone in the English language, even more than
Isaac Watts. He wrote thousands of hymns and some of them are among the finest
hymns in our language. And these hymns were a tremendous help in the whole
movement. But we'll look at that later on. Now I want to leave the English
Movement, the Evangelical Revival at this point; in order to keep the
chronology more or less together, instead of going too far in one nation and
then coming back to the other, I want to move over to America here.
C. The Great
Awakening in America.
Under that
1. The Beginning of American Presbyterianism. The men who had come to America in the first place, had been men who were greatly influenced by John Calvin's teaching. They were strong Calvinists—the Pilgrims and the Puritans; but they did not organize their churches on a Presbyterianism model—the churches up there in New England—the Pilgrims up there considered their churches entirely independent. The Puritans who came considered themselves as still members of the Church of England; but they were too far away to have any actual connection with the Church of England, so gradually they drifted out; and they developed a system which was sort of a compromise between the pure independence of the Pilgrims and the theoretical allegiance to the Church of England of the Puritans who founded Boston and the other cities up there. So in the end each church in New England was independent as far as control from others was concerned; but they associated together in associations which were for the maintenance of purity of doctrine. In other words, the Presbyterian ideal was pretty much what they were using; and the teaching was just the same as Presbyterian teaching, but they did not have the Presbyterial organization, in its detail; and consequently they came to be called Congregationalists. Now the people who established what went by the name of Reformed—already we had in this country the German Reformed, the German immigrants, including many of the Reformed, and they had established Reformed Churches, especially in Pennsylvania, But the people who brought Presbyterianism were people from the North of Ireland, known as the Scotch-Irish. They were Scots people who had migrated to Ireland and who had lived in Ireland for centuries; and they were called Scotch-Irish; and they came to this country, and there began to be little settlements of them here and there; and then there was a man named Francis Makemie.
This
Francis Makemie had been born in 1658 in the north of
Ireland, in Ulster. But two years after he was born Charles II became king; and
you remember how Charles II persecuted the Presbyterians in Scotland and in the
north of Ireland also. And so as Francis was growing up, he saw his friends
subject to this terrible persecution; he was too young to be himself subject to
it. Some children were greatly injured by it, but he himself escaped direct
injury; but he saw what was happening; and in 1681 he was licensed as a
preacher in a presbytery in the north of Ireland. But he felt a call to help
the scattered Scotch-Irish congregations in America; so in 1683 we find him in
America. We find Francis Makemie vigorously traveling
up and down the eastern shore of Maryland; and in the subsequent years he
extended his activities up from there into eastern Pennsylvania; and when he
found these little groups of Scotch-Irish, many of whom were holding services
on Sunday simply by themselves without any established minister, he would go
among them and hold services; and he would look about for men to help them in
becoming regular pastors where there was a large enough group to support one;
so he founded Presbyterianism in America; and in 1706 he had enough associates
that he founded the Presbytery of Philadelphia, the first Presbytery in
America. In that very year, Makemie was foolish
enough to extend his preaching up into New York State; and the Royalist
Governor of New York had him seized as a troublemaker for holding services
outside the established churches; the Church of England and the Dutch Reformed
Church were permitted in New York, but
the governor said that this was a trouble-maker coming in to introduce another
religious view into New York; he had him arrested; they had a trial, and at the
trial he was acquitted but ordered to pay all costs of the trial; so he had
several hundred dollars he had to raise to pay the cost of the trial. And then
the Governor said, even though he had been acquitted of that charge, that he
was a troublemaker anyway, so he put him in jail. But this aroused great
protest in New York, with the result that complaints were made in Great
Britain; the governor was recalled, and quite a major religious movement was
introduced into New York, as a result of Makemie's
activities in New York. But the strain on him of his imprisonment, his trial
and all, may have hastened his death, we don't know. We do know that he died
two years later, in 1708. So the Presbyterian work in America was begun by Makemie but doctrinally it was identical with the beliefs
held by the Congregationalists in New England. Now we go on to
2. The Tennents and the Log College. You see, we are still before Wesley's Conversion now; we are noting events in America, just shortly before it. In 1726 another man from Ulster came to America, a man named William Tennent. Tennent, who was a native of Ireland but a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, had come over to America in 1716 with his wife and four sons. Here he had joined the Presbytery of Philadelphia; and he served churches in New York and then became minister in Doylestown, just north of Philadelphia. And there he saw the need of giving his son an education such as he had had in Ireland and in Scotland. So he founded a school in 1726; he took a log house, 20 feet square, which he built, between here [Philadelphia] and Doylestown, and there he began a school for the training of his sons and other young men. When James MacRae and certain others studied there at the log house, people began to jeer at him for his so-called college; they said, "It's just a log college; so the name the people used in criticism of it came to be accepted as the regular designation for it—the log college. And if you go up to Doylestown you will see a monument there today, showing the location of the Log College. It was the first of the Presbyterian colleges in America; but gradually by the end of the century, it had established 100 other colleges of similar type—100 other log colleges in America. And graduates of this Log College were filled with the spirit of William Tennent, the minister of Doylestown, founder of the college—a spirit of ardent revivalism—which resulted in their becoming leaders in a revival movement in America before the conversion of the Wesleys in England. The one son in particular, Gilbert Tennent, the son of William, became the leader in the revival movement in the middle states here; this gradually gained momentum, until it became a very effective and wide-reaching movement in the middle states here, one that was already in full swing when Whitefield came up from Georgia and visited the middle states, and he gave great assistance to it.
William Tennent was a very good language teacher and a good pedagogue; I suppose he started them off on Latin when they'd be about 7; and by the time they'd be 9 or 10 they'd be ready for Greek; by the time they were 12, they probably started Hebrew; but I'm not sure of the details of it; but the emphasis was on languages, on the study of the Bible, and on the means of reaching e# people with the Biblical teaching; of course there was a great deal of emphasis on theology; its purpose was for the training of Christian workers; that was the specific purpose of the college. Two of the graduates of this Log College here were two of the first five presidents of Princeton University.
Well, the Log College trained these men, who went out holding revivals; and they became quite strongly criticized by some of the older ministers, who were used to a more dignified approach and didn't like the personal emphasis; but these men felt that the purpose of preaching was not merely to tell what the Bible says, but to show how what the Bible says should affect the lives of those who listen; and to bring it directly home to their hearts and souls; and the result was that there came quite a strong division as a result of it. Eventually they founded a new presbytery, the Presbytery of New Brunswick, which supported the Revivalists, when the Presbytery of Philadelphia began opposing them. In the end the two of them were split into two groups; the Presbytery of New Brunswick group called themselves the New Lights, and kept increasing; and the Old Lights, the Presbytery of Philadelphia, kept decreasing. Eventually, after William Tennent's death, his followers founded Princeton University, as a continuation actually of the Log College. Its first three presidents were graduates of Yale; the next two were graduates of the Log College; but the group in Philadelphia decreased in size to the point where they eventually joined with the other group; and the split was reunited with the New Lights in general control. And Princeton University was under the control of the Log College group for its early days, a great center of evangelism for many years. It is possible that Tennent, an old man by now, very happy with the work he had done, didn't like to see the Log College stopped; but there were people who felt they should have a higher academic standing than the Log College was able to have; and also that the location which would be perhaps nearer the big cities would be more effective; and a group of men, most of whom were graduates of the Log College, were the men who founded Princeton University. Those people were avid writers and we have any amount of letters by them, and other records; although some things, like the time when Makemie came to America, the precise time just doesn't happen to be mentioned.
Well,
now if we had another year for Church History we would take a month looking at
the detail in the work of Gilbert Tennent (Willam Tennent's son) and the
others; the great evangelistic work they did in these middle states. But we
must move on to a man who was far better known in American history than Gilbert
Tennent was.
3. Jonathan Edwards in Northampton. Jonathan Edwards was a graduate of Yale. And you might think that he was about as different from Gilbert Tennent as a man could be. The difference between Whitefield and John Wesley, take that difference and multiply it tenfold and you've got the difference between Gilbert Tennent and Jonathan Edwards. But yet Jonathan Edwards in New England was effective in doing the same work that Gilbert Tennent did in the Middle States. He started a little later; his work began in 1734, there is no evidence that he knew of Gilbert Tennent's work done here; but it wasn't long before the two movements came together; and they worked together because they both were pushing in the same direction. But Jonathan Edwards was a very, very careful scholar; later in life he wrote extensively on philosophy; he never spoke extemporaneously, he wrote out everything he said; he wrote in a very small writing, and read every word of it in the pulpit; so one writer said he must have given more attention to deciphering his writing than he could give to his audience. His sentences were very involved and called for close attention on the part of his hearers; and yet, the sermons which he gave in 1734-35, on the wrath of God, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, on the results of sin which must inevitably follow, were such that the people felt as if they could see the floor opening beneath them and hell underneath ready to receive them. The meetinghouse couldn't contain the throngs that came to witness the receiving of a hundred new members on a certain Sunday morning. "Night and day the parsonage was thronged with agonized sinners seeking the pastor's help so that they soon might join the company of the saved and the rejoicing."
This
movement began in Northampton, up in Massachusetts, under the preaching of
Jonathan Edwards; but the book I have here says that Northampton Revival in
1735 was a gentle shower compared with the tempest which soon came under the
impassioned preaching of a young stranger, George Whitefield. So we move on to
4. Whitefield in America. Though George Whitefield did great work in England; was instrumental in the founding of at least 50 churches in England; and reached great multitudes in England during the course of his life with his preaching; yet perhaps his most effective work was done in America; and in America, it was not the Wesleys or Whitefield who started it, it was the Tennents and Jonathan Edwards who started it; but Whitefield carried it on; he worked with these men. Six times he made trips to America, that is 13 times he crossed the Atlantic; and that was a voyage of several weeks, you know, in those days. 13 times he crossed the Atlantic, made his headquarters in Georgia; he was tremendously interested in building an orphanage in Georgia, but he travelled from Georgia, north as far as Maine; back and forth time after time, and as he travelled he preached to great multitudes of people. Jonathan Edwards was able to secure for him an invitation to preach to Harvard University, and he preached there on his first visit; but on his second visit, Harvard was unwilling to receive him, said he was too enthusiastic; he would upset the young men, and turn their minds away from their studies. And Whitefield aroused great opposition among certain individuals in all the colonies, but he reached tremendous multitudes of people; he used to preach as much as 40 hours in a week. He was constantly holding meetings, but finally he had some trouble with his health; he had to limit himself severely; decided that from then on he must only preach three times on a Sunday and once each day of the week. But before that he had been just going every minute, it seemed like; and he had such a tremendous gift as a speaker, as we have described, that people thronged to hear him. He had 20,000 here in Philadelphia, gathered out in the open air to hear him preach; time after time he came through here. He belonged to the Church of England; but the Church of England in America—some of its directors were friendly with him—but as a whole it was the Presbyterians in America who worked with Whitefield; and the result of his preaching was the foundation of many new Presbyterian churches in the Middle States.
His tremendous ability overshadowed that—as a preacher—of Jonathan Edwards, and of the Tennents; but they had begun the work, a very substantial work. If Whitefield had never come, there would've been a great work done by them; but the chances were that four or five times as many people were reached as a result of Whitefield having come than would've been otherwise. Whitefield went on year after year; and finally, it was his desire to die preaching the Word of Christ, and on the last day of his life, when he was in poor health, people came around and urged him to preach; and he took his candle and stepped out onto the porch of the house, a few hundred people gathered there, and while he held this candle he preached until the candle burned clear down to the bottom; and it was that night that he died. His work did not build an organization like Wesley did, but it had a tremendous influence in England and in America. So that is all that we can take time for to examine the course of the Great Awakening. But it was a movement which affected the whole of the colonies; it brought them back to the loyalty to Christ which had characterized most of the founders a century before; and it is intimately tied up with the work in England, because of Whitefield's relationship to the Wesleys and because of the work that Whitefield himself did in England.
Now while Whitefield was in America there came a certain misunderstanding between him and John Wesley. Because John Wesley was a very loyal servant of the Church of England, and he a1ways considered himself a minister of that church, he never held any services at the time of the Church of England services; he wanted people to attend its services, and he thought of himself as organizing Bible classes, organizing groups for cultivation of the spiritual life; but he considered his people as belonging to the Church of England; and he was forced against his will into a work separate from it, because of the refusal of its leaders to countenance his work, or to encourage it in any way; in fact they tried to stop it repeatedly. But he was very loyal to it, and his theology was in the main the theology that he had received in the Church of England.
Now the Church of England, you remember, was a church which had been thoroughly Calvinistic in its founding, and had been in the days of King James; but King Charles had brought in Arminians into positions of leadership in it; and the Arminian view had permeated the Church of England; so the theology that John Wesley received was a combination; and his great interest was in Greek exegesis and in practical work among people; he did not, like Jonathan Edwards, take the time to study carefully into metaphysical and philosophical problems; but Wesley came in touch with certain Presbyterian and Baptist preachers in England who were so attached to the specific emphasis of Calvin that they couldn't see anything else; and who thought it was more important to train people to believe in predestination than to lead them to believe in Christ; and these people opposed the work of Wesley, refused to give any help to it; and Wesley wrote against predestination. Now what he was really attacking in this article was not the Scriptural teaching of predestination, but the exaggerated emphasis upon it which was being given by certain of the ministers in Presbyterian and Baptist churches in England, who had the Truth—they held the vital truth of Christ—their preaching in the course of a year, you'd get all the great essential truths of salvation, they stood by the word; but their emphasis was on believing and predestination, rather than being saved through Christ. And Wesley reacted against this violently and wrote this article against predestination. And that greatly offended Whitefield, because Whitefield was a very strong Calvinist, and always was throughout his life, as were Gilbert Tennent and Jonathan Edwards and the others with whom he worked in America; and so when Whitefield came back to England, he wrote against Wesley in favor of predestination; and there were very hard feelings for a brief time; but then Whitefield and Wesley got together, and saw that the basic emphasis and purpose of the two men were identical; and as long as Whitefield lived, there was never any hard feeling after that between him and Wesley. They worked together most amicably, but Wesley also issued a magazine which he called the Arminian Magazine.
So there has been a tendency to think of Wesley as representing Arminianism, the opposite of Calvinism. But a professor in Boston University, named Sell, wrote a book called the Rediscovery of John Wesley about 20 years ago, in which he goes into Wesley's preaching, and Wesley's teaching, Wesley's journal, and so on; he endeavors to show that the heart and center of Wesley's preaching and of Wesley's emphasis was the same thing which was the heart and center of the preaching of Luther and of Calvin; and that actually he was reacting against certain attitudes, of taking certain Scriptural teachings, and giving them a stress which led to neglecting other Scriptural teaching; rather than that it was really Calvinism which he was against. That is to say, Sell says the strength of Wesley's work, the central force, was the Calvinistic emphasis, which Luther and Calvin had stressed and which were stressed by Whitefield and by Tennent, and by Jonathan Edwards. James Orr the noted Scotch author, in one of his books, makes the statement that the teaching of John Wesley, instead of being Arminian, is actually about halfway between the two of Arminian, and Calvinist, but a little on the side of the Calvinists, rather than the Arminians. That is James Orr's evaluation of him; but the fact is that as long as Whitefield was active, he and Wesley worked together in great harmony; but after Whitefield's death, there came very violent controversy which to quite an extent split the movement of the followers of Wesley; and the group of Methodists who were called Lady Huntingdon's connection—a group of quite a large number of churches which was particularly devoted to Whitefield's teaching—they separated from the group that was following Wesley. But this was after Whitefield had passed away, because Whitefield and Wesley both felt that their differences were actually far less than their agreements, and their purpose was identical.
Well,
that makes a good bridge to move from America back to England. So we will call
D. Progress of
Wesley's Work in England. And under this,
1. Extensive Preaching. Wesley continued as Whitefield had begun; he preached in the fields and to miners with no education, no opportunity in life for sanitation; many of them never having been in a church; they say that these men with their black faces—with their faces blackened with the coal dust—would hear Wesley preach; they say the tears would run down and make white streaks on their blackened faces; his influence began to reach out among the poor people of England, and also to many of the better-educated. And he, like Whitefield had done, made appointments ahead; and he would find himself in the work and didn't want to leave it, so he would get Charles to fill in for him. Charles filled in for a while until Charles became happily married and didn't like to leave home; so Charles became settled in a pastorate as a minister of the Church of England. But kept up his interest in the work, in hymn-writing, and other writing; and was an important leader in the work all through his life.
But while Charles Wesley didn't keep up the itinerant work long, John kept it up all his life. As I mentioned, he travelled thousands of miles in his wagon every year. It would have worn out the ordinary person, but Wesley seemed to have a constitution of iron; he would get up at five o'clock in the morning, pray and study; often at 7 in the morning he was preaching; and he was travelling all over England, and reaching great crowds. One time he came to Epworth—his father was now dead, and another man was pastor there—and Wesley came and visited; and the people said we'd like to hear our old pastor's son John Wesley preach in this church. But the pastor refused to let him. So Wesley went out to the graveyard and stood on his father's tombstone and preached; and he did that for seven days in a row; and great multitudes came there to hear him. [student] Later in his life he had very excellent health; the work he did was tremendous. Now whether he had a particular time of illness—he may very well, since you have heard it—but I don't know. But he did not have the incentive to stop itinerant work that Charles had, because he had a very unhappy marriage. His wife was always scolding him, very disagreeable to him; and it was a great relief to get off on a trip. And he was away most of the time on these trips all over the country. But it was the extended preaching and the conference work which Wesley did; this was of course a tremendous part of the effectiveness of the work.
Once he met Bishop Butler, the author of Butler's Analogy; and Butler was a Defender of the Faith, a man who wrote some excellent material; and later in his life Wesley thought very highly of the work that Butler had done. But at this time Butler tried to stop Wesley from preaching in his area; he told him that he was the bishop in charge of that area, and if he wanted Wesley to come there and preach he would invite him. And so Wesley did not preach there. Wesley said, "I do not hold any services at the time that the Church Services are held, I encourage my people to go to them, I am simply holding services for the enrichment of their spiritual life. And trying to get the people to a knowledge of the Lord." Well Butler said, "That's fine, and maybe on investigation I would invite you to come if I so decide; but you have no right to come before I invite you." Wesley and he had quite a conversation; and at the end of it Wesley said, "I was made a fellow of Oxford University; I was ordained a preacher of the gospel without being tied to any particular church; my parish is the world, and I shall continue to preach wherever the Lord gives me an opening." And of course now we were in the time of the freedom of religion in England. A century before, Wesley's work would have been wiped out. The law would not have permitted it.
George
Fox did a great work the previous century. The Quakers were a group which
continued; but after Fox was gone and Penn was gone, the Quakers were simply a
group that continued; they didn't reach out and reach others as much anymore;
and of course Fox had to contend with constant persecution. Wesley did too, but
his persecution did not include legal aspects; Wesley did have to meet laws. And
here he showed qualities that one would never have suspected this retired Greek
teacher of having. When he would preach and these burly leaders from the mines
would be converted, other leaders there disliked the thing and they said,
"We're going to wreck this place. We're going to put an end to this
meeting." and a group of burly miners would come rushing toward him—some
of them drunk—and they'd say to John Wesley, "You'd better run. Here comes
a mob and they're going to string you up to the nearest pole." Wesley's
primary rule was never turn your back on a mob; so when he'd hear these fellows
were coming, he'd walk boldly out to meet them, hold out his hand and shake
hands with the leaders and invite then to the meeting; and often they'd come to
the meeting and get saved. And he had eggs and stones thrown at him, and went
through a lot of difficulties in the early years; but he seemed to have a rare
gift of common sense in knowing how to meet these; in knowing just how far to
go with his boldness, and where not to take risks that could've resulted in
injury. And in the course of 30 years, the sentiment was so changed that
whether people were his followers or not they universally approved of him. [question] As to the precise form of the meetings, I don't
know. I do know that during one of Wesley's meetings, people started yelling
out and calling to the Lord, and doing a lot of fantastic activities; and Wesley put a
stop to it very quickly; he would not permit any disorder in his meetings; he
was very insistent on it. But he did insist on the people making sure they
really knew the Lord. And he would spend time with them, dealing with them, and
praying through with them; and they came out into a real knowledge of the Lord.
His influence, and Whitefield's influence, was very great; but Wesley's in some
ways seems to be deeper than Whitefield's, and often had a more lasting effect.
2. His Organizing. And his organizing was, he thought, his great gift the Lord had given him. He organized these class meetings, so that the new converts would be in a small group which they would call a class meeting; and they would meet during week to discuss the Bible and to discuss their spiritual problems; and he would appoint one of the men as the leader of the class meeting; and this man would have a responsibility in getting them together, and in taking an oversight of their spiritual life, so that when something began to go wrong—of course there were many backsliders, as there are in all groups—but when something began to go wrong, Wesley wouldn't find out about it till six months later. But the class leader would know what it was that week; and he would do the best he could to help; and if he couldn't handle it, he would meet together with someone else, and present his problem to them, and would be helped in their particular situation. And so he had these sorts of things—quite a number of different things—he introduced; and he was entirely free in these innovations because he didn't think he was building churches; he was building classes and meetings for the development of spiritual life.
He wanted his people to be good members of the Church of England, and to go to its services and to take an active part there. But most of the rectors of the churches weren't interested in his converts, and they didn't pay much attention to them; and when Wesley had to go on and leave a place, he tried to get an ordained minister to take his place. He had by the end of his life a group of maybe 40 men—ordained ministers of the Church of England—who were active supporters and actively engaged in the work with him, but he needed far more than that. And he soon found that he couldn't get enough ordained ministers to carry on. He wanted always the churches to have an ordained minister, thoroughly trained and educated as he was; but he couldn't get enough. So he began setting men apart as local preachers, so that these men would preach what they knew; they would exhort, they would present the Word as they knew it; but they were not to be in positions of leadership, because they didn't have the education, or the training. So the result was that Wesley, not being able to get a sufficient number of educated men to work with him, felt it necessary to keep the control of this work strictly in his own hands; and as people gave things—gave money, gave buildings, as they built churches, and so on—it was always in Wesley's name. So that at the end of his life, he owned everything that belonged to his followers of a religious nature; it was all in his name. And he would tell the people; he would appoint the men to preach in the different vacancies; he strictly controlled everything—I don't think it was because he wanted it that way, but because he was unable to get enough assistants of the training he wanted.
Then toward the end of his life, he sent a man named Coke over to America to help in a similar work in America; and he appointed him a superintendent for the work in America; and he asked him to appoint a man in America called Asbury as his associate as superintendent. And these men in America found that people didn't understand what they meant by the word superintendent of the work over here. Everybody knew what a bishop was; nobody knew what a superintendent was. So Coke and Asbury began calling themselves bishops; and they founded a school which they called Cokesbury College—the putting together of their two names—and Wesley heard of it; and he wrote Asbury in December 1788, he said on one point, "Dear Brother, I am a little afraid that Coke and you differ from me. I study to be little; you study to be great. I stoop, you strut along. I found a school, you a college, named and called after your own names, Cokesbury. One instance of your greatness has given me great concern: how dare you to suffer yourself to be called bishop. I shudder; I start at the very thought. Men may call me a knave, a fool, a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am content; but they shall never by my consent call me bishop. For my sake, for God's sake, put an end to all this." And that's the way he wrote; he did not want the organization of a new church, and particularly of a church under a bishop's control; but that was what he had established under the necessities of the situation. And after all, though he never called himself a bishop, or did such honor to himself, he did control it absolutely. He controlled everything as be thought was for the glory of God; and they simply followed as he had been doing; and for the frontier, for certain areas and types of work, it was a very effective type of organization. But it developed in ways Wesley never dreamed of, and never expected or wanted. Well we continue there next time.
Wesley's work in England. There under 1, we noticed his extensive preaching. All the rest of his life he went back and forth through Great Britain; he never came over to America again; his one visit was quite enough in that regard. But he went back and forth in England, Scotland and Wales, always on the move, always preaching; and not with the tremendous oratorical ability of Whitefield, but with a deep penetrating influence that was very lasting and very effective; and Whitefield did a great work too, but Wesley, as far as Britain was concerned, did a greater work. And we noticed something, 2, of his organizing plans—his organization—which contributed so greatly to the effectiveness of his work. He was able to gather men around; to inspire them; work with them; to give them specific tasks to do. He did not try to fit into an established church system; because he thoroughly believed that the Church of England was the established church; and he didn't want to interfere in any way with it. He considered himself as advancing the Church of England; but his work was developing the spiritual life of these people; and consequently he was free to simply organize them in any way that seemed wise to him; and he showed great ability in this regard, He would have about a dozen people in a class, with a class leader, who would keep a constant interest in their spiritual life; and then these class leaders would get together under a local preacher who would oversee their spiritual life, and would hear reports on the problems of the people in their classes, and would himself help in particular cases. And then this local preacher would have a circuit, in which he would preach; and over several circuits there would be a presiding elder; and the whole system all over Britain of these men was under Wesley's direct supervision. He always rose at 5 in the morning; never got more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep; and he was constantly at work. In fact, Wesley seems to have had a constitution of iron and found no need of rest. He organized a school once; and in this school he tried to have the children work on the basis on which he himself was working; so there were no vacation, work every day; the whole schedule was laid out, but it just didn't work. One of the few things Wesley tried that didn't work. He had no idea of how to run a school for children; and it was all work and no play, no time off in any way.
But his organizing system was excellent; and his influence was widespread by his ability to lead others and encourage them to do work similar to what he was doing. Whitefield—as great a preacher as he was, and as tremendous as his personal influence was—did not have the organizing ability of Wesley.
The
third way in which Wesley's work was effective,
3. His
publications.
I mentioned to you that as Wesley travelled about in England, in those days
before railroads, he had a wagon; and he would have somebody to drive the
wagon. It was in the early days that he went horseback; and as soon as he got a
little money he got this wagon, and a man would drive the horses, and in the
back he had bookshelves rigged up, and a table, and he would sit there and read
and write, work all the time they were jogging over those rough roads; he must
have had very unusual eyes to stand it. But he read practically all the
literature that was then published in England. Of course publication then was
not nearly as extensive as it is today; but even so, Wesley was a rapid reader;
and he kept abreast of the fiction of the day; was able to give illustrations
from it; and to see its influence upon the lives of the people; and he was
constantly studying his Greek Testament; he made a new translation of the New
Testament for the help of his society; he was always writing discussions of
current problems; and he published a tremendous amount of material. But then a
fourth matter which perhaps was as helpful in the evangelical arrangement as
anything else, is:
4. Hymns. And here we see influence of the third member of the group. We notice that it was Charles Wesley who had organized the Holy Club in the first place; John Wesley was a wonderful organizer after a movement got started, but whether he would have started the movement is highly questionable. Charles Wesley had gathered others around him and stirred them up to try to live their college life along the Christian principles which the university proclaimed; and which supposedly all of the students were expected to follow. Now Charles was converted through the influence of the Moravians, as Wesley had been. I have here a Methodist Church History, written by Bishop Hurst; and Hurst does not call it a real conversion. He says these men were earnest Christians before that time. Well, the question of when a man becomes a Christian is a hard thing to tell; only God knows; and it certainly must be said they were devoted to Christianity as they understood it; that they were students of the Bible, and were anxious to serve the Lord to the best of their ability. But they certainly were lacking in understanding of what the real basis of salvation is. And whether their so-called conversion was really their first being saved; or whether it was their first coming to a real understanding of the true basis of their salvation; whichever it was, it affected their lives and their work tremendously. And Charles experienced this through the influence of the Moravians as John had, just very shortly after John did. So the change of life—which Whitefield had received through the book by a Scottish minister that John Wesley had given him—3 or 4 years later John and Charles received through the influence of the Moravians, and John specifically through the writing of Martin Luther. But Charles Wesley began immediately the sort of itinerant work that John was doing; and for 18 years, Charles kept up a constant active itinerant work such as John was doing. Charles many times had to face mobs, as he would go off into the wildest sections of the country, places where there was simply no gospel preaching; and like his brother John he would go out there and begin to preach. And sometimes against the mob he held his ground, till his clothes were torn to tatters and the blood ran down his face in streams. But he was constantly working like John, preaching here and there, until 1756. There were two things which stopped his itinerant work; one of them was that his health didn't seem to be quite as good and quite as strong as John's; the other was something which had the opposite effect to what it had in John's life. This was his marriage in 1749 to a pious and wealthy Welsh lady. He married her in 1749, and for seven years afterward he kept up his itinerancy. She would ride behind him on his trips, and with her fine voice she would lead the singing at his meetings. His marriage was singularly happy, but after seven years of travelling and itinerant work like this, they were both glad to settle down to a settled life in one place. His life was very happy with this widow; and it really had a lot to do with stopping his itinerary. Though marriage to John Wesley, you remember, stimulated his itinerary, because it was very hard for him to stay long at home. They say that one time when Wesley's wife was giving her husband one of her periodic scoldings right in front of Charles, Charles abruptly silenced her by repeating from memory in a loud, clear voice, page after page of Virgil's Aeneid. He deeply sympathized with his brother, and all the more so as his own life was so very happy. He was well acquainted with Hebrew and with French, but did not, like John, also have fluency in German and Spanish. But Charles settled down in 1756, in a Methodist pastorate, first in Bristol, and then in London; and continued in it till his death in 1788. And Charles proved to have a special ability as a hymn-writer. One writer has said that Cowper's is the greatest name in the hymnbook; but he says Cowper's best poems—which are very few—are the equal, though not superior to Wesley's best, which are many. Charles Wesley wrote thousands of hymns. He wrote great amounts of poetry; and many of these hymns are absolutely outstanding, and are used by Christians of all denominations; and his hymns were a tremendous force in the extension of the evangelical movement. The excellent hymns which he wrote and then their wide use greatly benefitted the whole activity.
Charles
always was opposed to what John seemed to be doing toward a separation from the
Church of England. When John came to ordain men himself, Charles was very much
upset about that, and was very much opposed to it at the time; yet many think
Charles did more to separate from the church than John did. John never held a
service during the Church of England's periods of service. He would always go
to Church of England's service and take as many of his followers as he could
with him. While Charles, in his Methodist pastorate in his
churches, held services at the regular time of the Church of England services.
And he held his own sacraments every week for his people. But of course Charles
was an ordained minister of the Church of England, and perhaps he excused
himself on that basis. But actually it was the Methodist Church, not a Church
of England at which he was officiating—not under the direction of the Church—so
both men were inconsistent in this regard. And the result of their activity was
the establishment of a movement entirely independent, actually, of the Church
of England. We move on then to
E. Results of
the Evangelical Revival. Now the results of this movement were very, very
great. Some historians have said that the Evangelical Movement spared England
what France went through in the French Revolution. Now that may be a dream—but
yet not entirely—because in England during this century there had been growing
up a large class of people who had no connection with the church, no knowledge
of Christianity; people who were becoming very much brutalized; and this great
class of people was to a tremendous extent reached and affected by Wesley's
preaching and this movement. But in addition to that the tendencies, the
anti-Christian tendencies which we have seen in England before the coming of
the Evangelical Revival, were those which went on in France unhindered. And in
France you had the great clash between two bodies each seeking simply what they
wanted for themselves. You had the nobles and the aristocracy in France, with
great desire for personal pleasure, no interest in anybody else's welfare; and
then you have great masses of people interested in getting simply what the
aristocracy had, and taking it away from them. Apart from Christianity a
similar movement would certainly have developed in England—a similar contest
between the two classes—and whether it would have continued to the extremes of
the French Revolution may be doubtful; but certainly it would have been a great
difficulty in England toward the end of the century; these classes were greatly
affected by the change that came in all the social life of England as a result
of the Evangelical Revival. John Wesley Bready in Canada has written a book
called England Before and After Wesley.
In this book he shows pictures of the English ships that captured negroes in
Africa; they took them off as slaves, jammed together in the boat, and they in
such a shape that a third would die on the way across the ocean; they brought
them over to the British Isles, and over here to America to sell them; and he
shows the life in the slums of England; and he shows the drunkenness and
debauchery—shows these low conditions morally—and the social life at the
beginning of the 18th century; and then of the indirect results of the
Evangelical Revival, led by people who had been directly influenced and
affected by the Revival. Bready's great book, England Before and After Wesley, sold in
England rather widely; there haven't been so many of them sold here; he
abridged it and jazzed it up a bit for American consumption into a book which
he called This Freedom Went, a much
smaller book which was published about 20 years ago by the American Tract
Society; this book has much the same material but in briefer form and easier
reading. He sold a great many copies of this in America—This Freedom Went. Bready was interested in the religious effects
of Wesley's work; but also in the social effects, which pervaded the entire
nation and which continued for nearly a century after his death. Well, the
great results then we will look at under certain heads. The first one;
1. Establishment of the Methodist Denomination in England and in America. That was the direct result of Wesley's work. It was a new denomination separate from the Church of England, though this had not been Wesley's intent at all. We will look at this in America a little later under a different head; but it became a very vital force, particularly on the frontiers of America, which was a result of Wesley's work. Now in England the establishment of the Methodist Denomination was of course a great work, particularly among the poor people, among the un-churched people of England. However, Wesley's work as a whole cannot simply be placed under this category by any means.
When you look at the figures of English religious membership recently, you find about 600,000 members of the Methodist Church and about 27 million members of the Church of England. In other words the Church of England's membership is almost 50 times as great as the membership of the English Methodist Church. The effect of Wesley through the Methodist church was much greater in other countries than it was in England; and during the following century, the Methodist Denomination encouraged many young men, often with very little education but with a love the Lord and a zeal to make Him known, to go out and preach in their own country, and in other countries; and for a century and a half after his death, it certainly was one of the most fruitful movements in the world for the carrying on and spreading of the gospel, until modernists took over most of its branches within the last 60 years.
But
we want to go on to
2. Effects on the Church of England. There were many people in the Church of England who were greatly affected by the evangelical movement. Probably if you measure it in statistics, it would be greater there than the whole effect, as far as England is concerned, in the Methodist Church. There were great multitudes in the Church of England who were tremendously affected, not so much directly by Wesley, as by leaders who were affected by Wesley; and in the Church of England, as an outgrowth of the evangelical awakening, there were great numbers of godly pastors; some of these were doing perhaps a great solid evangelical work before Wesley came, but were stimulated and stirred and increased in it; others were won to a knowledge of the Lord through the direct or indirect effect of his work,
We should mention a few of these leaders in the Church of England, one whose name all of you have seen, John Newton. I heard a minister not long ago talking about John Newton and calling him Isaac Newton, and praising him for some of the great scientific work that Isaac Newton did. Now Isaac Newton was a very fine Christian and a great student of the Bible; he was perhaps as great a scientist as ever lived. And his discovery of the law of gravitation and his discoveries in the field of physics, while at some points changes have been made by more recent discoveries, they certainly constitute a step forward as great as any scientist in the world's history has ever made.
But Isaac Newton is an entirely different man; as far as I know he had no relation to John Newton. But John Newton was a rector of an Episcopal church in England; and he was a man who had had an evangelical conversion, and who was always telling about the wickedness of his own life before his conversion. He had been employed on a slave ship and he describes himself as certainly the worst of sinners. Now some incline to feel that, like John Bunyan, he probably exaggerated the wickedness of his early days; and he may have done so, but at any rate he had had a great marked change in his life by his conversion; and in his later years he had a great influence over a considerable part of England, not only by his preaching but also by his writing; and he wrote some hymns in our hymnbooks today, including "Amazing Grace."
John Newton had in his congregation a man over whom he had a very great influence. This man was William Cowper, and Cowper wrote some of our very best hymns. Cowper, many think was injured by the rather morbid emphasis on sin and evil. Whether that is true, we don't know, but at least Cowper was a very great poet and a very great Christian influence.
Charles Simeon had an influence in a different way than these others. He was pastor/rector of a church in Cambridge; and there in Cambridge, at Cambridge University, he would invite the students to his home for conversation, as he called it. Simeon developed a movement among the students in Cambridge from which many students there went out to become active leaders in the Church of England, in its work in England and in missionary work; and the movement which he organized among the students has continued to this day, in taking members and bringing them from all parts of Cambridge University; these parts that in England are called colleges: the college was really more like a dormitory there; but they called this group the Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union, shortened to CICU; and this continues to this day, which Simeon founded as a very active force. Some people from Cambridge who went to Oxford carried over the work of the Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union into Oxford; and there the similar work was called the Oxford Intercollegiate Christian Union; but the one at Oxford has had a very different history than the one at Cambridge. The CICU has continued its evangelical witness steadily from the time of Simeon to the present, and is a great force among Cambridge University students. The one in Oxford has had at least three occasions since its foundation when it has become infiltrated with unbelievers; and there has been a brand new start made later. But when I was at Oxford, I went to a breakfast attended by a hundred members of the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, at which a missionary spoke; and though much more sporadic than Cambridge, a real Christian work has been done also by Oxford, an outreach of this work by Charles Simeon. It was about 40 years ago that the members of these two societies decided to branch out to other English universities; so their club, which they called Intercollegiate, reaching to other universities they called Intervarsity, varsity being the English way of saying university. So they reached out to other schools and other colleges all over England, and to secondary schools; and then they raised money to send one of their men over to Canada, and establish a similar work in Canada about 30 years ago; and from there they have reached on into the United States. But this work goes directly back to the work of Charles Simeon in Cambridge, at the end of the 18th century.
One man whom we ought to mention is William Wilberforce. He went into the work of social improvement, applying Christian principles to the condition of England; and in England many social improvements were made as a direct result of the evangelical movement. There was a group of people in England who used to meet—members of the Church of England—they used to meet at a place called Clapham, so they called them the Clapham Sect; but the Clapham Sect was not a sect or a denomination, but simply an informal meeting of everyday people who loved the Lord and who were active in stimulating one another's spiritual life; they had a tremendous influence on English life during the following decades.
People
often speak of Victorianism and the Victorian age, as if that was something
very backward which we have gotten away from now. Actually the Victorian Age
was just as much of a change from what preceded it as it was from what
followed. We will look at it, of course, under the next century, but I'd like
to say this; that the good features of the Victorian Age were very many indeed;
they are the result of the increasing influence of the Evangelical movement of
the previous century; and as it spread out in various denominations—various
groups—it resulted in a change in the general atmosphere of England. And this
change came into clearer light about the time when Queen Victoria became queen.
She was so different from the licentious monarchs which had preceded her, that
the general situation easily became tied up with the character of the monarch;
though I think it was, humanly speaking, an accident that a queen of high moral
character came to the throne just about the time when the evangelical movement
had reached its greatest outreach in English society; it gave her general
support to that which was good and uplifting in English life. But we look at
that in the next century.
3. Effect on
Other British Churches. I mention here,
a. The Presbyterians. Not because the Presbyterians were the largest group in England, which they certainly weren't; but in the British Isles they are the largest group next to the Church of England. At the time of the great revolution of 1688, the attempt to force the Episcopalian Church upon Scotland was given up; and the Church of Scotland, the Calvinistic church then, was recognized as the official church of Scotland; and it is to this day, with the result that when the Queen is in England, she is an Episcopalian; when she is in Scotland, she is a Presbyterian. In England, she is the head of the Church of England; in Scotland, the head of the Church of Scotland; but in most cases this is largely a matter of title—a matter of an honor—rather than that she exerts much direct control. But the Presbyterians in Scotland, in Wales, and in England were greatly affected by every aspect of the Evangelical Movement; perhaps most particularly by Whitefield's work, because he himself was a very strong Calvinist. In Scotland, he came into the Presbyterian work rather than work among the Methodists. The work in Wales was largely strongly Calvinistic; and the result is that the Methodist churches of Wales are Calvinistic; when such people have come to this country, they have usually become Presbyterian churches over here, because the movement was quite definitely Calvinistic. Among Wesley's strong supporters were some like Whitefield, who were very strong Calvinists; and there were others who were Presbyterian. Wesley was a very godly man, but one who was very much opposed to Calvinism. And after Whitefield's death, there was a very bitter controversy, which made quite a division in Wesley's work. But Whitefield's work greatly helped the Presbyterians, particularly elsewhere than in England.
Now
in England, the principal advance in this line is what was called the Countess
of Huntingdon's Connection. Salina, the Countess of Huntingdon, was a very
earnest Christian, and particularly strong for the preaching of Whitefield. She
was very well-to-do, and had a very great standing in English society; she used
to invite dukes and duchesses and other nobility to her home to hear the
preaching of Whitefield and other leaders of the revival; and some of these
people were converted at these meetings. She began selling her jewels in order
to build churches for Whitefield's converts; and at her death there were 60
churches which she had built, in which the followers of Whitefield were
carrying on a work which was Congregationalist in polity but Calvinistic in doctrine
and strongly evangelistic in spirit. And the Countess of Huntingdon's
Connection then had influence in England, and it had a great influence in Wales
through a college which she founded there. The churches in Scotland were all
greatly benefited and strengthened as a result of the work both of Wesley and
of Whitefield. Now
b. The Baptists. As Newman
points out in his Baptist church history, in the Baptist movement in England
there were two separate movements. They had begun about 1608, when various
groups began to turn away from infant baptism; and then about 1640, they began
to add to that a belief in immersion; but the two groups were entirely distinct
and had no fellowship with one another. These were the Particular Baptists who
were Calvinistic, and the General Baptists who were strongly Arminian. In the
course of a century, while individual churches remained very true to the
faith—Newman points out—the mass of the General Baptists became Unitarian and
gave up any real hold on the faith. But among the Particular Baptists the
emphasis came to be a hyper-emphasis on the Calvinistic points of doctrine, to
the point where one of them said, when William Cary began missionary work,
"If God wanted to convert the heathen he could do it without your help and
mine." And of course that is not true Calvinism at all, but carrying
Calvinism to an unwarranted extreme; but this seems to have been typical,
according to Newman, of the Particular Baptists at the time of the beginning of
the preaching of Wesley. But among the Baptists, the influence of the preaching
of Wesley and Whitefield was very profound; and both groups were soon
tremendously affected by the evangelical movement, and both groups soon had
large numbers among them of very earnest evangelical preachers. They became
very active in solid evangelical Christian work in England. It never became a
great movement in England, comparatively speaking; that is to say, today, there
are about 200,000 Baptists in England, about 200,000 Congregationalists, about 600,000
Methodists, and 27 million members of the Church of England. So that with the
Baptists also, the work was much greater in its outreach into other
countries—other sections of the British Empire—than in England. But still
200,000 is a sizeable group, and there was a very great influence and a very
excellent work done by many of these men which, much of the credit for which
again should go to great Evangelical Revival.
William Carey. Now among the
Baptists there came this great genius William Carey; and William Carey's work
at the end of the century is a work which has continued to influence all the
churches to the present time. William Carey was a language genius; he was
largely supporting himself as a cobbler, and did preaching on Sunday; he was a
very earnest Christian; but he learned by himself Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German,
French, Dutch, Spanish; he knew 8 or 9 languages as a cobbler there in England.
But William Carey became strongly moved to reach out to distant lands with the
gospel; and he began preaching and urging this, but found none of his
associates who would take any interest. And as long as he was urging for
somebody to go and preach the gospel in India, nobody came forward; and he
accomplished nothing until he said, "The way to do it is not to try to get
somebody else to go, but do it myself." So he declared that he was going
to India to preach; and he organized a missionary group and told them,
"You send me out, you pay my expenses to go, that's all I ask." He
said, "With the little I've been able to save, and what I'll be able to
earn there, I will take care of all further expenses and everything you get
after that should go to send more people out." And when Carey declared
himself determined to go, then he was able to raise support and help among the
other Baptist ministers; and the missionary board which he established was the
beginning of the great modern missionary movement. Again, an
indirect, but nevertheless definite result of the Evangelical Revival.
c. Other Boards. This Board was established shortly before the end of the 18th century; within two or three years another was established, among other separate churches; and then within a year or two, another was established by members of the Church of England—a church missionary board—an independent board but yet composed of members of the Church of England, and sending out missionaries from the Church of England. So there were three independent boards founded before the end of the 18th century, the impetus to all of which came from William Carey's work.
William Carey went to India and got himself a job there in India; and he largely supported himself; but his letters home and his activity resulted in the sending of other missionaries, the building of schools there; he learned many Indian languages, made grammars, dictionaries, translations of the Bible; he did as great a missionary work as anyone has ever done in all of Christian history.
The
founding of these other mission boards we'll say more about in the next
century; but it was at the very end of the 18th century when they were founded.
Now we go on to
F. America in
the Latter Part of the Century. This is, of course, the latter part of
the 18th century; and as all of you know, America had some rather exciting
times toward the end of that century. And naturally we won't go into the
political history in this class; but it greatly affected the churches and
that's what we want to look at now.
1. Results of
the Great Awakening.
We've noticed that the Great Awakening was not something that was a result of
the evangelical movement in England. It had begun before the evangelical
movement began. It began from purely American forces, but it continued here in
close relation to the evangelical movement in England; and so there was an inter-relationship
back and forth between the two. We have already seen something of the work of
Jonathan Edwards and of Gilbert Tennent here in this
area, and Whitefield's preaching. I want to mention here a young man,
a. David Brainerd. David Brainerd had a very short life; but as a result of the publication of his journal, his life had a wide influence after his death. And during his life, he accomplished a very considerable amount. He was a young man who was stirred by Whitefield's preaching and by the evangelical revival to the extent that he began doing active personal work in Yale University; he told a friend that he thought one of the professors there was not a Christian at all. And word got to this professor, and Brainerd was dismissed from Yale University. So he never graduated from the college; he went back there to the Commencement to see the others get their degrees; but he himself was dismissed from the University, they said, for his zeal and fanaticism.
The leaders of Yale and Harvard were taking an antagonistic attitude toward the Great Awakening. But Brainerd, who became the son-in-law of Jonathan Edwards, felt a call to missionary work among the Indians. You remember a century before John Elliot had done a tremendous missionary work among the Indians. Brainerd and his wife were married for a brief time, I believe. They were engaged for a long time, and Jonathan Edwards thought of him as his son-in-law. But Brainerd came in contact with an independent mission board in Scotland which was for the Propagation of the Gospel; and their representative over here talked with Brainerd; he investigated his life, his genuineness, his piety, his desire to serve the Lord; and then he took him on as a missionary; but they laid down the condition that he should be ordained.
So
he went to the Presbytery of New Brunswick and they examined him; he had
considerable study in theology, though he had not graduated from Yale
University; Jonathan Edwards of course was not any great preacher, but a very
great scholar; and Brainerd satisfied the committee, and was ordained by the
Presbytery of New Brunswick; he was sent out by the independent board in
Scotland. He devoted himself ardently to work among the Indians, but his life
didn't last very long. However, his father-in-law edited and issued his Journal—and that journal has been
republished within the last few years—it has had an influence off and on ever
since. He was a very godly man, and his life had a great influence on others.
b. Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards had a great part in the beginning of the Great Awakening; and then as it died down people began to get irritated at him, and eventually he was asked to leave the church. And he left the church and continued Brainerd's work among the Indians. But he also wrote books on philosophy, and was considered one of the greatest American philosophers. He was a very ardent, earnest evangelical worker, and at the same time a very deep scholar; and finally the newly established university—or college it was then, the College of New Jersey—later took the name of the town, and became Princeton University, invited Jonathan Edwards to come as President. People were urging that there be inoculations for smallpox; and the President of the University, in order to encourage others to take this vaccination, took it himself; and it must have been a bad batch he got, or something. Anyway he died from it within a short time. So he was president of the university for a very brief time, just at the very end of his life.
The
Presbyterians in America introduced something which was carried on later by the
Methodists to a very great extent. It was what they called Camp Meetings. They
introduced camp meetings, having a center to which people would come; while it
was under Presbyterian leadership, they were strictly an interdenominational
movement. One of the largest of them was in Kentucky; they had the governor of
Kentucky present, with people from all over the area; and they had 9 different
buildings in which men of various denominations were preaching. And these Camp
Meetings had a great influence in carrying on of the Great Awakening.
2. The Organization of the Presbyterian General Assembly. The Presbyterian churches up to this time had been in presbyteries which cooperated together; but there had been no overall union of them in this country. After the Revolutionary War, the coming of unbelief into many groups made them feel a special need of guarding against the entrance of unbelief into their church. So the various presbyteries organized in 1789 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Churches in America. And they adopted a definite constitution for the church; and this of course was the Westminster Confession, for their doctrinal basis; and their purpose was to have the churches individually carry on their work, to the best of their ability; but to have the General Assembly watch out for the entrance of false doctrine. And right in the beginning of their stand, the statement was made that "synods and councils have erred, from the days of the apostles, and that the voice of the church is not the voice of God, but that the church is an organization of Christians endeavoring to stand together for the work and to keep out false doctrine."
So
in 1789 the first organization was made; but the members did their work through
independent boards entirely for many years. It was a long time before
denominational boards were established. They cooperated with the
Congregationalists in the American Board of Missioners for Foreign Missions.
Missionaries from all over the country were sent out under this board, which
met in Boston. The Home Mission Board, which had leaders from the New England
Congregationalists and some Presbyterians on it, did a tremendous work in Ohio
and on the frontiers; and the work for many years was entirely through independent boards,
but with the General Assembly watching to keep out false doctrine, and to keep
modernism from having an entrance into these churches.
3. The American Methodists. We referred to them briefly in connection with the results of the Evangelical Revival, but there we were particularly interested in its results in England. The work of the Methodist church became a far greater work in America than it ever was in England, In America the beginning of it was largely through the work of Francis Asbury. Asbury was one of the two men whom Wesley had appointed to have leadership of the work in America; and the other, Coke, returned to England every year, and was very active in the work in England; and eventually he spent most of his time in the work in England. So that of the two, Asbury became the real leader in the work in America. Asbury had great organizing ability, as Wesley had. And Asbury's work was largely that of getting men to work with him, all of whom were on circuits; it was not a settled work, but they were working on circuits going to various areas; and then they were under the direction of presiding elders, and on up to Asbury's direction; but Asbury himself carried on a constant itinerant ministry, constantly travelling north and south, through the American colonies. The work was not particularly effective in New England, where Congregationalism was very strongly established. But in many other sections—particularly on the frontier—it was extremely effective; and the Methodist church developed into the largest denominational group in America. The Methodists had some difficulty because of the fact that John Wesley came out very strongly against the American Revolution, which he declared was a turning back on their legitimate king and absolutely wrong; but most of the Methodists of America were strongly in favor of the Revolution, and so the church wasn't much hurt by John Wesley's attitude.
There
were only about a thousand members of it at the beginning, but at the end of
the 1700s there were about 4,000 members; and ten years later there were about
14,000, and it grew rapidly, particularly on the frontier.
4. Effects of the American Revolution on the Church of England. The Church of England was, of course, the established church in the southern and central colonies of America; in New York and in the southern colonies, largely, the Church of England was the established church. When the Revolution came the leadership of the Church was—great parts of it were—pro-British, and many of the members of it; and the result was, when the war ended, there was no real leadership for the Church of England in America. But there were many people here who were devoted to it, and they were anxious to carry it on. So they sent representatives over to England and asked them to ordain bishops, so that their church could continue in America. And England had made a peace treaty with the United States, recognizing the United States as an independent country. Now the Church of England in England was, nominally at least, subject to the crown; and actually to this day, the bishops are appointed by parliament; and that's how it came about that the Dean of Canterbury is practically a communist; he was appointed in England at a time when a Labor government—quite a radical labor government—was in control of parliament; and so this man was appointed to that position, and he is there till he dies. But being thus officially a part of the British government, they said, "We have given the United States independence; we can't appoint bishops for the United States." So this committee from America went about in England and the English people gave them no help. Finally they found, up in Scotland, a part of the Church of England—way up in the north of Scotland in Aberdeen, which really was in a way independent of the Church of England, but yet holding the doctrines of the Church of England; it had been what Charles II tried to make the Church of Scotland. Now it was the Presbyterian Church—the Church of Scotland—but this was tolerated. So these men in Aberdeen took the American leaders, and they ordained them bishops for the United States; and a few years ago, some American Episcopalians, as a result, sent a great deal of money to this church in Aberdeen, which is now beautifully fixed up with the coats of arms of all the American states around on the windows of it; and it is in a way the mother church of American Episcopalians.
But this new bishop was a man of considerable ability, and the Episcopal service got a reestablishment in America after the Revolutionary War; it has never been a large church, but it has had an aristocratic position; George Washington was a member of it; and to this day, when a Methodist makes a bit of money, he is apt to join the Episcopal church; and though there are some very poor churches, they do have perhaps the wealthiest body of churches in America. But it is a rather small church; they've had some very evangelical people among them, but they've had a great many who were just church members. But fortunately they have kept up Cranmer's prayers to this day; and many a godly preacher today has an Episcopal background, where the influence of the service that Cranmer wrote has affected his whole life, even though later he has affiliated with an evangelical group.
At
the end of the hour yesterday we were speaking about the U. S. at the latter
part of the 18th century, and we looked at 4, effects of the American
Revolution on the Church of England, and saw the difficulty the Church of
England had in becoming re-established in a country which was no longer a part
of the British empire. But they succeeded in doing it, and have maintained a
church of considerable size and considerable importance ever since. The name
actually was changed from the Church of England to the Protestant Episcopal
Church. Now
5. The Spread of Unitarianism and Infidelity. The Great Awakening took place in the latter part of the first half of the eighteenth century. In the latter part of the century, as you know, there was a great war, which kept the whole country in turmoil for a good many years; and always in connection with wars, while the spirits of many people are stirred to greater loyalty to God, there are always others who find the confusion of war leading them into a laxer lifestyle and a less spiritual attitude, with less interest in divine things. So we had these two forces in America in the latter part of the century.
And in the war, one of the great helps for the United States against England had been the support of France. Without the support of France, it is doubtful if the war could possibly have been won; but the king of France gave support, not because he believed in liberty at all, but because he wanted to hurt England any way he could. However many of the colonies felt a very great closeness to France; and France, in which the Huguenots and the Jansenists had been completely rooted out, the general atmosphere had become more and more atheistic. Voltaire was the great influence of France, and there was an anti-Christian attitude generally, an anti-religious attitude in France. One of the great propagandists for the American Revolution was Thomas Paine, whose book in favor of the Revolution had a great influence in helping to raise the strength of the colonies; but Thomas Paine also was one who wrote very strongly attacking the Bible and Christianity.
So you had these conflicting influences; and at the end of the century, we noticed the big Camp Meetings that were held and the great work of the Presbyterians and the Methodists on the frontiers; we noticed the new life in the Baptist churches in America at that time. But along with this, we have increasing infidelity among the educated classes and in the universities. In New England, which had been the cradle of out-and-out Christianity in this country, there was spreading an attitude of denial of the Trinity. Now the early Unitarians in New England would be considered almost fundamentalists today; they were very conservative compared to the general rank of modernist churches today. But they had given up the great central doctrines of salvation through Christ alone and of his full deity. So in New England, this movement culminated in the beginning of the next century with the great Unitarian defection. We won't look at that yet, as that comes in the 19th century; but we will look at what happened in Yale University.
Yale University, at the end of the century, had in its constitution and its declaration to the faculty the same principles which had been in it when it was founded. They declared their loyalty to the Scriptures; their loyalty to the deity of Christ; their loyalty to the great doctrines of the Faith. The purpose of Yale's foundation—like that of Harvard—had been to prepare ministers of the Gospel and men who would present the faith in its purity. And every professor in Yale at this time was considered to be true to these doctrines, with no outward evidence that any of them had departed from them. But the attitude of the students was that though the professors were giving them a good solid education—for which they were grateful—that the professors either held old-fashioned superstitious ideas, or were supposed to hold them to keep their jobs. And the students had clubs which they called the Voltaire Club, the Tom Paine Club, and so on, named after various leading atheists; and if any student at Yale University was caught praying or showing any interest in religion, he was hooted and jeered at by the other students. The atmosphere of Yale among the students had thus become thoroughly irreligious. Now this was a rather natural development from the situation 50 years earlier, when David Brainerd had been dismissed from Yale for raising the question as to whether one of the professors was truly converted, and for his religious fanaticism. But in 1795, Yale University invited to become its president a nephew of Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards, you remember, had died a few years before after being only very briefly the president of Princeton. The nephew's name was Timothy Dwight; he had been a minister of a congregational church in New England for a number of years, but he had written on historical and scientific subjects; he was a man of high scholarship, a man who was recognized as of great ability in the educational sphere.
So Timothy Dwight took over the presidency of Yale University and was acclaimed as a great educator and a great scholar. There was a custom among the student body—the student body was comparatively small, as all our American universities were at that time—there was the custom of having debates in their literary society, which embraced the greater part of the students. And in these debates it was customary for the president of the university to meet with them and give them criticisms and suggestions; and the students would present to him subjects for debate and he would pick one out of the lot; so they presented to him about six or seven subjects of general secular, scientific or historic interest; but in the midst of the lot, they included the subject that Christianity was an old-fashioned superstition which had been completely superseded by the advance of modern science. And they just stuck that in the middle, never thinking that they would be permitted to express such sentiments on the campus of a Christian University; To their amazement, Timothy Dwight picked that subject as the one for debate; they were quite amazed at that, but when the students from the society were appointed to take the two sides of it, the students who had the negative of it, that Christianity was not an old-fashioned out-of-date superstition found themselves in a very difficult position. And they did the best they could to try to make a debate that would uphold Christianity, but they didn't believe in it at all, and they didn't find it easy to make a good presentation
So
the night of the debate came and Timothy Dwight was present, and the students
who were assailing Christianity had all sorts of material from Voltaire and Tom
Paine and made a wonderful presentation. The students who took the negative
side did the best they could, but it was pretty poor. When they were through
with the debate, then it was time for the president to give his comments and
suggestions. And Timothy Dwight began complimenting the affirmative on the
excellent way in which they had presented their side and the fine able
presentation of it. And then he said that the negative, he could see, was
laboring under considerable difficulty and pointed out two or three things they
had done that he thought were very well done. Everybody agreed the affirmative
had clearly won that debate, but he went on to say that he thought the negative
could have made a better presentation than they did. And he said, "Now
here is a certain point where I think they could have strengthened this
argument," and he proceeded to give some evidences from facts which
actually completely demolished the other side on that point. And then he said,
"Now here is another point where this speaker presented this," and he
said that was a good argument, but he said he just gave the words, he didn't
give evidences; and he proceeded to give some evidences from that; and after he
had talked a while this way, showing what the negative could have done on the
debate, the students began to get quite interested; and they said "Dr.
Dwight, would you tell us some more about this? This is very interesting; we
never heard anything like this before." Well, he said, "Yes, I'll be
glad to. Let's have a meeting next week at this time, at which all students
will be invited who care to come. And we will discuss this matter." And
for the next ten weeks, once a week he gave a lecture in which he went into the
evidences of Christianity; and he showed how Christianity was intellectually
defensible; how actually it offers the best explanation of the universe that
could be found anywhere; how there were evidences from miracles; evidences from
the working of Christianity in the world, and so on. And by the time the series
of lectures was over, the whole atmosphere of the student body in Yale was
changed; and during the next ten years, Yale sent out more ministers and
missionaries than they had sent in the previous 40 years; and Yale became a
great evangelical center and continued that way for a good many years, after
this tremendous revival which was brought about by Timothy Dwight in a very
unusual way. He was dealing with students; with students with a certain
background; and he directed his material to meet these students where they were
and to show them what the truth was. And during the next half century, Harvard
was the great center of liberalism, of modernism, and Unitarianism, but Yale
stood as the great center of the evangelical faith among American universities.
Well, that brings us pretty near the end of the century, 1795. I merely mention
that Timothy Dwight continued as president until his death in 1817; and he
raised Yale educationally, scholastically, in every way; it had a higher
standing at his death, by far, than it had when he became president; but his
greatest achievement was that he made it into what it had been founded to be—a
thoroughly Christian university. Now we go on to
And
under the 19th century we take up
1. Background in the 18th Century. The reason that I take a little time for background here is because we said practically nothing about Scotland in the 18th century. So we just briefly wish to summarize the background of Scotland previous to this, the beginning of the 19th century. Now you doubtless have well in mind the background of Scotland up to the 18th century; so we don't need to more than mention the fact of the great martyrs in Scotland in the beginning of the 16th century, Patrick Hamilton and others; and then the work of John Knox, and how in Scotland the nobility voted to accept the Reformation and the whole nation was changed; and then it was given help by Queen Elizabeth, which stopped the French from coming in and destroying the Reformation there. But under John Knox's leadership, the whole of Scotland was organized into churches along the lines of the views that John Calvin held. Mary Queen of Scots ruled in France and also over Scotland. And during a great part of the 17th century England was trying to force the Scots to give up their Presbyterian religion, and great numbers of Scots were tortured, killed, and forced to flee and hide in the mountains for years on end; so there was the great struggle of the Covenanters for their freedom of religion, which ended in 1688 when William of Orange landed on the coast of Scotland and marched from there down into England and took over control of the nation; and the law of toleration was established, toleration for all who accepted the Trinity and accepted the Bible as the Word of God, except Roman Catholics.
That toleration was established in England and was quite a change from the way in which dissenters had been treated during the persecutions of Charles II and James II. But in Scotland the Presbyterian Church became the official church; it was the Church of Scotland as it had been before, before Charles II tried to change it. It was the Church of Scotland; the Episcopal church was the Church of England. And the people in each district called their minister; they selected the man they wanted for minister; they had to take the initiative; no one else had the authority to put a man in as minister. The people would call him, but the people had no authority to make the man a minister; they would call the man, then the presbytery would examine the man the people called. And if they found him sufficiently trained, true in his doctrine, and possessed of real love for Christ they would ordain him to the ministry and install him in the church. Now that was the law as established in 1688. But shortly after the beginning of the 18th century, Scotland and England were united into one government, and the Parliament meeting in England had control; and then in 1709 a Tory majority came into power in the Parliament in England; and the lairds in Scotland who owned most of the land—the system even as it is to the present day—the greater part of the land is owned by a comparatively few individuals and most have to pay rent fees to the lairds of the land in Scotland. Well these lairds and the Tories—the majority in the parliament of England—together in 1709 passed a law whereby the patron of the church—that is the man who owns the land, either the king, who was theoretically the head of all the church, or the king's representative, the patron, who owned the land in the area—the patron, or the king, would present the man to be the minister of the church; and the constitution continued just as it was, that the people called the man; but after a few years some of patrons began to exercise their rights under this law by declaring here is the man I want to be minister of this church; and if there was no minister, the rents of land in the area that were allocated to the church went to the patron; and some of them thought it to their advantage to leave the ministry vacant, so they presented a man the people didn't want; and the people would turn him down; and things would drag on, and the laird would get the rents that were supposed to be paid for the support of a minister. So the Church of Scotland soon began protesting to the parliament against this law, and for 60 years, every year the General Assembly protested and asked for the repeal of the law, but Parliament never did anything about it.
And the result was that there were cases where there were very unworthy men put into pastorates, sometimes against the strong opposition of practically everybody in the parish. In one case there were 150 heads of families in the parish, all of whom said we don't want this man; there was just one who was willing to sign the call. But the man was installed as minister because the patron wanted him. So there came two secessions from the Church of Scotland during the 18th century. The first of these was in 1747, when—well it began in 1733 when a man named Ebenezer Erskine, along with 3 supporters, were deposed because of preaching a sermon claiming that Christ alone was the head of the church; the church was the freest society in the world, and that neither the assembly nor the patron had a right to install a minister against the desire of the people of the church. He was deposed from the ministry; 3 others went with him, and they formed what they called the Associate Presbytery in 1733. And in 1747 their Associate Presbytery split into two parts over a question of a particular oath required by the law. Then in 1761, another minister who strongly opposed the patronage situation and came to the support of some people who were being oppressed under it, was deposed from the church; and he with a few others formed a church they called the Relief Church, because they said they were formed for the relief of Christians oppressed in their Christian faith.
Now these 2 groups had only 3 or 4 churches at the start, but in the course of the next 70 years the two grew until between them they had nearly 500 churches; but they were still a comparatively small part of the Church of Scotland; and in the main body of the Church of Scotland, there was a great body of ministers who felt that the thing to do was to recognize the law; there was nothing they could do about it. Some of them said, "We should stand; we should present the truth; and we should preach the Bible, but we shouldn't interfere with the law; we should go along with it," while others began to give up their interest in the doctrines and their loyalty to the Scripture to hold their position in the church; but this group adopted the name "moderate." They called themselves the Moderates, and their opponents very soon came to say, "The Moderates are those who are moderate as far as belief in the Bible is concerned; moderate as far as loyalty to Christ is concerned," but you see, the other groups were very tiny for many years.
But within the church, the great majority of ministers called themselves Moderates; they would not get excited about what the king was doing; and many of them would not get excited about what the Bible taught either; yet there were good orthodox teachers in the church, and many very loyal men; but there was this great group of Moderates that took this position very clearly, and very strongly.
One time, towards the end of the 18th century, Dr. Thomas Guthrie of Edinburgh was one of a group sent by the Presbytery to inquire about a case where a patron was putting a man in as minister of the church, and the people were against him; and the Presbytery felt that he was definitely unworthy; and the court of sessions forbade the church's delegate to preach anywhere in the district whether indoors or outdoors. And Dr. Guthrie, the representative of the General Assembly coming to this town of Strathbogie said, "In going to preach at Strathbogie, I was met by an interdict from the Court of Sessions, an interdict to which as regards civil matters I gave implicit obedience. On the Lord's Day, when I was preparing for divine service, in came a servant of the law and the interdict. I told him he had done his duty, and I would do mine. The interdict forbade me under penalty of the Kelton Hall jail to preach the gospel in the parish churches of Strathbogie. I said the parish churches are stone and lime and belong to the state, I will not intrude there. It forbade me to preach the gospel in the school houses. I said the school houses are stone and lime and belong to the state and I will not intrude there. It forbade me to preach in the courtyard and I said the dust of the dead is the state's and I will not intrude there. But when these Lords of Session forbade me to preach my Master's blessed gospel and offer salvation to sinners anywhere in that district under the arch of heaven, I put the interdict under my feet and I preached the gospel." and that's what Dr. Thomas Guthrie said about this and it is the way that a great many felt about it.
But
when we begin the 19th century we find that the secession churches had grown
very considerably; but that in the Church of Scotland, where the Moderate party
was by far the majority, there was beginning to be a strong turning of the
Spirit among other ministers, and so we will call
2. Evangelical Stirrings in the Early Part of the Century. You see this is coming on now into the 19th century; we've been speaking thus far of the background in the 18th century. And here there were three young men with whom every Christian should be familiar. One of them is Robert Murray McCheyne. His close friend was Andrew Bonar, and Andrew Bonar had a younger brother Horatius Bonar. Now these were three young men in the Church of Scotland, who began to take a great interest in the gospel and in reaching souls for the Lord. Dr. R. A. Torrey used to say that every minister ought to read once a year the Memoirs and Remains of Robert Murray McCheyne. It is a book which gets one into the real spiritual life of a true servant of the Lord, as much as perhaps any book that ever had been written.
Murray McCheyne did not have a long life. He died at the age of 30 in Dundee, in 1843. He was distinguished for his poetic ability, won a prize at the university for poetry; but he was a minister who was very, very ardent in the salvation of souls. He studied the Word and presented it; he was greatly interested in the prophetic teaching; he, like the two Bonars, were very pronounced pre-millennialists in their teaching; and McCheyne toward the end of his life went—he and Bonar went—as representatives for the Church of Scotland, to go to the Holy Land in order to investigate the condition of the Jews there; for the sending of missionaries to the Jews in Palestine; and a mission was begun in Palestine; I saw one of its representatives in 1929, when I was there, a very godly man, doing a very fine work among the Jews at that time in Palestine.
Well,
this McCheyne, after his return from Palestine, he
preached with renewed vigor and earnestness; and soon there were great revivals
in Dundee, and in other places to which he was invited to preach. He died at
the age of 30 in 1842, and his friend Andrew Bonar wrote a book of his memoirs
and remains which continues to the present day to have very considerable
influence. Bonar also wrote a book God's
Way of Holiness which is as fine a book on the Scriptural teaching
regarding sanctification and Christian increase in godliness as has ever been
written. Horatius Bonar wrote some very fine hymns,
some of which are used today rather widely. But these three men were
representative of many others in the Church of Scotland who were spreading the
Word of God among the people and were increasing interest in the things of God.
Now I want to mention one man who was particularly outstanding in the events
that followed. This man was
3. Thomas Chalmers. Thomas Chalmers was a brilliant young man who had been outstanding in mathematics in the university. He had taken a theological course, but as far as we know he was not particularly on fire for the gospel in his early days. In fact, in his early church, although he was preaching regularly in the church, he was teaching mathematics in a college in the neighborhood; and he was actually giving more of his time to that than he was to his church work. He was a typical modernist to begin with, but after 7 years of a lifeless ministry, in the sovereign grace of God, Chalmers experienced the renewing and transforming power of the gospel. This was in 1810, and he had just been minister in this small town in Scotland for 7 years; and a change came over him which his people noticed tremendously. They said that now he would bend over the pulpit and press them to take the gift of salvation as if he held it that moment in his hand; and would not be satisfied until every one of us had got possession of it. And often when the sermon was over and the song was sung and he rose to pronounce the blessing he would break out fresh with some new entreaty, unwilling to let us go until he had made one more effort to persuade to accept it.
In
1815 he was called to a big church in Glasgow and he was saying farewell to his
congregation; he said, "You have at least taught me that to preach Christ
is the only effective way of preaching morality in all its branches; and out of
your humble cottages, I have gathered a lesson which I pray God I may be able
to carry with all its simplicity into a wider sphere; and to bring with all the
powers of subduing efficacy upon the vices of a more crowded population."
He did a great work in Glasgow and later in Edinburgh. A young man named
Guthrie became his assistant in Edinburgh at one time; and there the district
in which Guthrie was supposed to work was one of the real slums of the city,
the most backward area in the whole city; and as you look down from this great
hill to Edinburgh, here, on one of these roads on the side of the hill, you
look down over into this section—it's a section in which there had been two
notorious murderers apprehended shortly before, who had killed many people
before they had been caught—a section of perhaps the most degraded section in
any part of Scotland; and as young Guthrie stood there and looked out over this
and wondered what he would be able to do there, he felt a hand on his shoulder
and he looked up and there was Thomas Chalmers; and Chalmers said to him,
"Guthrie, you've got a wonderful field there, in which to preach the
gospel." And Chalmers and Guthrie proceeded to do a work there in this
slum district of Edinburgh such as would be hard to parallel anywhere in the
world; it changed the whole situation very much. In Edinburgh, before long
Chalmers was, in addition, lecturing in theology in the University of
Edinburgh. Now I want to mention
4. The Disruption, 1843. As the evangelical influence in the church increased, people became more and more aware of the attitude of the modernists; and the lines began to be drawn more sharply between the moderates and those who were very anxious to spread the gospel in every possible way; and the difficulty of course was that there was this law of tolerance; consequently, there were occasional cases where the patrons would put unworthy men into pastorates in different places; and the moderates would say, "We don't like this but it's the law; there is nothing we can do about it." The people who were really on fire with the gospel would say, "Is this the parliament's church or is it the Lord's church? We should follow Christ and something should be done about this." And when the situation seemed to get worse and worse, in November 1842, there was a convention of ministers held in Edinburgh, to give consideration to the ecclesiastical situation; and they decided there—there were over 400 ministers who met out of about 1100 in the Church of Scotland—and for 6 days they met, and they drew up a memorial to submit to the Prime Minister and the other members of the Cabinet, asking them to do away with this matter of patronage interfering with the ministry of the church; and they said that, failing in securing help in this, they felt that it was necessary that they should give up their churches; should give up their support, and should step out and stand for the truth of God no matter what it might cost them. And so the decision was made in this meeting in November, and the ministers of the government sent an answer in 1843, in which they said the church's claim was unreasonable; and the Home Secretary in London said, "Her Majesty's ministers now understanding that nothing less than the full abrogation of the rights of the crown and of other patrons will satisfy the church, are bound with firmness to declare they cannot advise her Majesty to consent to the grant of any such demand."
They made one more appeal to Parliament, and on March 7, 1843, a motion was made in the British Parliament to examine and report on the grievances complained of by the church. Robert Murray McCheyne said that night, "An eventful night this, in the British Parliament; once more King Jesus stands on earthly tribunals and they know him not." By a majority of 211 against 66 the Parliament rejected the church's claims; the House refused even to appoint a committee of inquiry. So the ministers proceeded to carry out what they had decided upon in the Convocation in November. On May 18, the General Assembly met in Edinburgh; and at the meeting of the Assembly, the Moderator of the previous Assembly preached the sermon; and the sermon was on the text, "let every men be fully persuaded in his own mind" from Rom. 14:15. It was evident that he had already determined what he was going to do. He preached this sermon and then opened for business, and after they opened in prayer, the moderator of the previous Assembly addressed the audience, saying that he had a paper that he would like to read, and asked permission to read it now. He said that it was impossible under the conditions without an infringement on the liberties of their constitution, a violation of the terms of the union between church and state; and he must protest against their proceeding further. He read the protest and then moved toward the door, accompanied by Dr. Chalmers, and closely followed by all who agreed with him, approximately 500 ministers out of the 1100. It was a little less than 500—about 2/5 of the ministers—marched out; they marched over to another hall, and there they met and signed the statement that they were giving up their established positions and giving up the stipends to which they were entitled by virtue of having these positions; and the papers which they signed gave up stipends amounting to over half a million dollars a year, which was worth several times that in today's buying power; and these ministers signed that, and then proceeded to declare themselves the Free Church of Scotland, carrying on the traditions of the Church of Scotland, but renouncing their relationship to the state and not renouncing the principle. Because they declared that Christ should be the head of the state in civil affairs, with a civil representative deciding what would be His will in civil things; and the head of the Church in religion, with a representative of the church deciding how the church should be run. That was their theory of the church, but the theory was impossible with these appointments by the state; so they relinquished their positions and their income, and signed away half a million dollars a year of support. And they proceeded to continue the church as they called it, and they elected Thomas Chalmers as the Moderator of the church.
If you go into the Free Church assembly halls in Scotland today, you see a painting there which shows this first meeting in 1843; and it shows Thomas Chalmers and the others of these saintly men who decided to give up everything earthly in order to stand for the cause of Christ.
They then proceeded to rally their people around them; they had no more access to the church buildings; to the church property; to the income by which the church had always been supported. Now their real difficulties began; the patrons who owned the most of the land declared that these men should not have any place to preach on their land; and there were the halls and schoolhouses in which almost anybody had been able to hold a meeting before; but they were told that you are not to hold a meeting on this property. There was one place where the people wanted to have a Free Church, and they refused to rent them a plot of ground to build anything on or to give them any hall to meet in; but they found there was quite a sizeable lake there; and the people raised money and got a ship builder in Glasgow to build a large boat which they managed to transport up there and put in the lake; so for the next 3 or 4 years they had their meetings on this boat in the lake. And many of the ministers had to live in little hovels; and some of them in the next 2 or 3 years in a tent where they had to pin up blankets to try to keep the rain out. They were subject to very great suffering during the next 2 or 3 years; but the people rallied around them, and in the course of the next 30 years they built hundreds of churches.
In the course of about 5 or 6 years, the patrons gave up their attempt to destroy them by not letting them have a place to meet; so they were able to rent or buy land, and to put up buildings; and the Free Church of Scotland became a very great influence in Scotland, and sent its missionaries all over the world; and they had many great writers of theology, many fine exegetes, and a very great influence during the succeeding decades.
For some decades they remained very true; but now there was another development; this disruption happened in 1843. The two secession groups we mentioned—the Secession Church and the Relief Church—these two groups united in 1847, four years after the Free Church came out; these two groups united into a group which they called the United Presbyterian Church; they now had several hundred churches between them; but there was a part of them, maybe a fourth of them, who refused to join the union with the other groups, and instead joined the Free Church; so there was quite an accession from these other two groups into the Free Church, though the bulk of the other two groups formed the United Presbyterian Church. Now it was the United Presbyterian Church in Scotland into which modernism came perhaps more rapidly than into either of the others.
The
moderates were in control of the Church of Scotland. They drifted slowly into
modernism. In the United Presbyterian Church, modernism came in fairly rapidly.
They were in groups like the Methodists—I guess you might say—like the
Methodists in this country. The Methodists in this country 50 years ago were a
very earnest, godly, gospel-preaching group; but they were a group with
comparatively low standards of education. And the result was that when they began
turning to a stress on education, and forming schools, the modernists got
control of the schools more quickly than of other denominations, and the
Methodist Church perhaps made a more rapid transition than most any other group
in this country. Well, it was perhaps that way with the United Presbyterian
Church. Modernism came in to a very godly group, and when it came in it came
very rapidly. In Scotland, it found its greater difficulties in the Free
Church; and here we can mention a very, very brilliant man,
5. William Robertson Smith. He was the son of a Free Church minister; he was a very earnest young man, a very brilliant student; he went over to Germany to study, and when he got to Germany to study, he was very shocked; he wrote back to his parents and he said, "One of the German students invited me to go for a walk with him on the Sabbath afternoon. I never would do such a worldly thing on the Sabbath as go for a walk. I was quite shocked at the way these German students think nothing whatever of going walking on the Sabbath. I got him to walk with me to the service in the Scotch church, though I told him it was all right because we were walking to church." But Smith felt very shocked at the lack of Sabbath observance in Germany.
I think that here perhaps was one of the weaknesses in the Free Church set-up; that is, the tendency was to put equal emphasis on all points of the teaching of the church, with the result that a man would be just as shocked on a different idea of Sabbath observance that he had as he might be by the denial of the deity of Christ. It has been my observation that if you put your stress equally on all points, we tend to neglect the stress on essential points that we ought to put there. I've known men who could recognize an Arminian three blocks away, but could walk right straight up to a modernist and never see anything wrong. I've known people like that. I think the Calvinistic teaching is the teaching of the Word of God, and I think there is great blessing in it; but I believe that the difference between the fundamentals of Christianity and their denial is a hundred times greater than any denominational difference I know of between true Christians. I think we should give a secondary emphasis to secondary points.
Well the Free Church tended to give the same strong emphasis on all points, and the result was that young William Robertson Smith—a brilliant young man and later the Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a man whose influence was felt all over the British Isles and to some extent all over the world—Smith, after he recovered from his strong feelings at some of the lesser points on which the ideas of these Germans differed from the ideas on which he had been brought up, was in a mood to follow some of their teachings that differed greatly on main points. The result was that, when Robertson Smith came back to Scotland, he had a very close friendship with Julius Wellhausen, the founder of the Graf-Wellhausen theory of the O.T.; Smith had come to the conclusion that the O.T. was a book that contains a great many myths and legends. Although he still thought that he held the great doctrines of the Scripture, he felt that the O.T. was not dependable. And then, of course, if you take that attitude on the O.T., logically you can go on to the N.T. and then to the doctrine of the deity of Christ, and the Atonement; there is no stopping, once you start on that proceeding. Now Smith was very, very brilliant, a man of tremendous memory. I heard Dr. William Albright of Johns Hopkins University tell once the story about Smith: how there was a meeting of a group of country squires, and it so happened that a relative of Smith's was there, and Smith had been invited; Robertson Smith was present, and someone looked across the room and saw Robertson Smith talking to one of these squires; and he said, "Poor Smith! Here is Smith, one of the greatest students of the higher criticism in the world; a man who knows Arabic and understands the Arabic background of the Bible, and all these things [a man who later was Editor-in Chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica]; and there he is talking to those two squires that don't know anything but horses and pedigrees and that sort of thing. Poor Smith, he'll be bored to death." And after a while, Smith and his relative left, and he noticed these squires were looking all enthused; he stepped up to them, and one squire said "Say, there's a man knows more about the pedigree of horses than I do—first one I've ever met." Smith's knowledge was so wide; and if he had had an upbringing which had put the emphasis on the main things—the fundamentals—and if his loyalty had been kept there, he might have accomplished a work as great as Chalmers or McCheyne. But as it was, he became a professor in the University of Aberdeen, and there he began in his classes teaching the higher criticism; and he wrote an article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the History of Israel, in which he took the Graf-Wellhausen view right down the line; and the result was that the ministers of the Free Church brought charges against him; he was publicly tried for disloyalty to the Scriptures, and he was dropped from his position as professor in the Free Church College in Aberdeen.
But
very soon he was called to be professor in Cambridge University; and his
influence went all through the British Isles instead of being confined to
Scotland; he was soon the Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; he had a tremendous influence in the bringing in of
the higher criticism into the British Isles, and particularly into Scotland. So
while the Free Church was much slower than the other churches in receiving
modernism, yet though Smith was out of the church, he had had considerable
influence in it; and men who had been trained under him, and others of like
views, soon began to get into positions of importance in the church.
6.
The United Free Church. And then the movement began to be made for union
between the Free Church and the United Presbyterians. And the claim was made,
"Well here isn't the United Church? They seceded from the Church of
Scotland before we did; they stood for the Word of God against these things; we
came out in 1843, they came out a century before; why should we be separate
from them?" Well, the United Presbyterian Church had far more modernism in
it than the Free Church, but the men who inclined toward modernism in both
churches pressed for union. It is a common thing; I was talking with a man in
another denomination just recently; he has been going to Chicago every month to
meet with representatives of another group of the same general denomination
that he belongs to; they are trying to effect a merger; it was interesting to
see how these leaders in getting the merger they're getting something that
neither of the separate groups have; but the leaders will agree on this; and
they say, "Oh we've got to do something to concede to them, to get
together with them." And that way these modernist leaders get things in
that neither group had had before, and neither group would have been willing to
accept. But the end of it was that in 1900, the United Church
and the Free Church united together to form the United Free Church. And
in this union, the safeguards of doctrine which had been in the Free Church and
in the United Presbyterian Church—to a great extent—were swept away.
7. The Wee Free. And there was a little group which refused to go into this merger—what they called the "Wee Free." This little group claimed they were the Free Church of Scotland; and they stayed out of the union; and four years later the House of Lords voted in a judicial trial that they were right; they were the continuing Free Church, and entitled to all the property of the church, though they were not a tenth of the church. Well, we will continue there next time.
We mentioned 5, W. Robertson Smith, and then just at the end of the hour under 6, The United Free Church, I mentioned to you that the United Presbyterian Church, the church which represented the earliest secession groups from the Church of Scotland—two of them having united to form the United Presbyterian Church—that that group had slowly and steadily become infiltrated with modernism, though it was not as much so as the Church of Scotland, but much more so than the Free Church of Scotland; but in 1900 the ecumenists in the United Presbyterian Church and in the Free Church succeeded in leading both groups to believe that after all, both had seceded from the Church of Scotland and therefore they should be united; why should they be separated? And the union came in 1900 but there was a small group of the Free Church, a very small group of ministers, who held out against the union. Now when the Free Church had come out of the Church of Scotland, out of about 1200 ministers, 500 had come out, well over a third of the church, maybe two-fifths; but now when these two churches united, the number of ministers staying out was not over perhaps one-seventh of the whole; it was a very small group. But this small group said that those who united with the United Presbyterian Church had deserted the Free Church of Scotland—deserted the Free Church principles; and they stayed out of the union and claimed to be continuing the Free Church, and so they continued a very small group of individuals as far as ministers were concerned; but there were a great many laymen, particularly in the north of Scotland, who felt the way they did. And this little group of ministers tried to carry on the Free Church, but they were called the "Wee Free," Wee, because there were so few of them. So The Wee Free and the Free Church, which now called themselves the Free Church of Scotland, continuing with a very small group of ministers—some of these men had very large churches—particularly up in the highlands. And they maintained that the Free Church, the United Free, had deserted the principles of the Free Church of Scotland; that they were the Church of Scotland—the Free Church—and they applied in the courts for the properties. The Union refused to give them any property; they took all the churches; the hall of the Free Church in Edinburgh, they wanted to have their meeting in it; the doors were locked, they were not permitted to enter. Everything was taken away from them; they had a tough struggle but they appealed to the courts, and the appeal was turned down; and they appealed higher and higher, until it got to the House of Lords in London; and in 1904 the House of Lords in London gave a decision that the Wee Free were the Free Church of Scotland, and that though they were a small group, yet they were holding the principles of the Free Church, the principles for which back in 1840 such tremendous efforts had been made and for which the money had been raised to build all these churches and schools all over Scotland; and so the House of Lords gave the decision in 1904 that the Wee Free were entitled to all the property. Well, of course that immediately made a situation which seemed much worse than the situation 4 years before; because 4 years before you had maybe a seventh of the ministers staying with their congregations, wanting to be with them, and the others taking property away from them; and that was a very bad situation and they were very, very meanly treated; but now you have a situation where this seventh of the ministers had a right to all the property, and out of the United Free Church, of which the Free Church was probably at least two-thirds of the total, it meant that out of that whole church, two-thirds of their property would be given to this 30 or 35 ministers; and of course they couldn't use all that property—couldn't possibly—they couldn't use all those schools, they couldn't handle them. And they said, "You have formed this union, that's wrong, but it's only right to give you some of this property. Let us each for the time being use the buildings we have; and then, after ten years, let's see how we stand and make a permanent arrangement." They felt that within ten years that these people would rally to them so they would have at least half of the old Free Church. But the United Free, while before they had refused to give them any property, now they recognized that legally they were entitled to all of it; but they made a big fuss about how here was this church with hundreds of ministers being deprived of their property, churches and schools; and they said, "Let's make an equitable division; let's give the Free Church all they could use but no more; and let's divide it right today, according to the way the churches are today." And the result was that they got a law put through Parliament, a law which appointed a commission to divide the old Free Church Property according to the present strength of the body. So after the House of Lords had given them all of it—before that they wouldn't give them a thing, a church, or a manse or anything—now they agreed to have a commission decide, and the commission decided on the basis of their present strength. And so the result was that the Wee Free got their buildings, and their manses, one or two schools, a good assembly hall in Edinburgh—the one that had the picture in of the original disruption in 1846—they got that; and they were able to build new theological college of their own there, though the main theological college of the Free Church, the United Free Church had, and their people; they had just two little churches in Edinburgh and two in Glasgow, those big cities where the United Free had maybe ten churches. But up in the highlands, the great bulk of the people are in the Free Church; that is up north, up in the colder country, which is not much good for agriculture but it's beautiful scenery; and they say—I didn't have the privilege of attending a highland communion—but they say a highland communion is really a rare experience. They have their communion services there once in every six months; and this communion service is a state occasion. Each town has its communion on a different day. They don't have it at the same time, and the communion service lasts for four days. And all the stores are closed in the town while services are in session; the whole town gives itself over to it, and the minister invites other ministers to come in and assist him. So what it amounts to is a four-day Bible conference, which is held every six months. When we had a conference of the International Council [of Christian Churches] in Edinburgh, we had speakers from many parts of the world, presenting the truth and discussing Biblical themes; at the end of it, one of the men from the Free Church gave his strong praise of the meetings in these terms: he says, "It is just like a highland communion." And that shows what the highland communion means to them. They have services for 3 or 4 days, stressing the death of Christ, its importance, what it means to us, what it means to be united with Christ; and the actual communion service, you might say, is the climax of it all, and it is a tremendous experience. But in the highlands there are very, very earnest and devout people; in the highlands and in the islands off the northern coast of Scotland, very, very earnest and devout people who are members of the Free Church. The United Free Church has some churches up there but not many.
Now
though we are dealing with the 19th century, rather than come back to this
later, I'm going to just carry it a little further, so
8.
The Union of 1929.
And this union seemed to the Wee Free to prove everything they had said about
the union of the Free Church and the United Presbyterians. Because at this
union the United Free Church united with the Church of Scotland; the disruption
of 1843 was erased as far as any effect was concerned on the great body of the
Free Church by that union. At that time then the United Free Church ceased to
exist, because it joined the Church of Scotland, from which they had come out
some 80 years before. And it all became part of the Church of Scotland. So I'll
just call
9. The Present Situation. The present situation is that you have a little seminary in Edinburgh of the Free Church; you have a couple of Free Church seminaries in Edinburgh and in Glasgow; and then way up in the north, in the Highlands, you have churches some of which as many as a thousand members. I've spoken to a thousand members in one of those churches up there, as godly a group of people as I have ever seen anywhere in my life, a tremendous interest in the word of God, and if you want to sense their feeling, just listen to them singing the songs in Gaelic, the old language of Scotland And it is something that just moves you. And the Free Church is a small church but it has very, very earnest ministers and it has a great many very earnest godly Christian people in it, but they're a small part of Scotland and the overwhelming bulk of Scotland now is in the Church of Scotland. There is one other group I perhaps should mention, this is called the Free Presbyterians. The Free Presbyterian Church was a small group which left the Free Church before the Union with the United Presbyterians, and the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland has many very godly ministers in it. It is an ultra, ultra group. It will cooperate with nobody; it stands absolutely by itself; they feel they are the only real Presbyterians left, but there are very earnest people among them and they have some very fine publications. They are very, very strict on Sabbath keeping; they think it is utterly wrong to ride in any commercial conveyance on the Sabbath, whatever. One of their ministers left the church because they disciplined him for using the street car to get to a church service. He wrote a book on the theme, "Can Sabbath-keeping Prevent Church-going?" And his claim was that a person has liberty on the Sabbath to use a public conveyance if it is to get to a church service; but not for any other reason. Now they are very, very strict and as I say they cooperate with nobody; they will not unite with any other churches for any functional work whatever; they have a very earnest group of people in the north of Scotland; but quite a bit larger than the Free Presbyterian Church is the Free Church; and the two of them together though, are a tiny fraction of Scotland.
The area where the Covenanters suffered under Charles II, and where great numbers of them died for their faith—in the southern part of Scotland—is today almost solid Church of Scotland; and the Church of Scotland has adopted the higher criticism right straight down the line as part of the central truths of the ecumenical movement; it is a great center of modernist influence today. Very sad, when you think of John Knox, and his great stand for the faith; when you think of the Covenanters, who died for their loyalty to Christ; to see this error in their churches, their schools; all these in the hands of people who are dedicated to modernist views.
There was a Methodist teacher in one of the Wesleyan schools—I forget if it was Ohio Wesleyan—I think it was. We met when I was studying in Berlin; and he said to me, "Oh you ought to go Scotland; you shouldn't be studying in Germany. Go to Scotland; you will get something you'll never get in Germany." I said, "What is that?" "Oh," he said, "I studied in Scotland. There in Scotland is such a wonderful combination." He says, "You've got the old tradition of Calvin and Knox; you've got the Covenanters; you've got all that tradition; everywhere you turn, you see evidence of the Covenanters who were there and stood for their faith." And then he says, "You have that combined with the influence of the Moody Revival which just swept Scotland in the last century." And then he says, "You have that combined with the higher criticism, just a thorough-going acceptance of the higher criticism." And then he says, "You have the theory of evolution, universally accepted. You put these four together, and you've got an influence that will just thrill you to your soul." Well, it didn't thrill me; I kept on studying in Germany.
I mentioned the big church which is the overwhelming mass today in Scotland, the Church of Scotland; then there is the Free Church which is a comparatively small; and then the Free Presbyterian which is even smaller than the Free Church. In Scotland, especially in the big cities, you have some Plymouth Brethren groups, but not so many in Scotland; and you have in the big cities a few Baptist churches, but not many. Scotland, since Knox, has been just about solid Presbyterian; but the mass of Scotland today is Presbyterian only in tradition and heritage; higher criticism and evolution are the present teaching. And when I was studying in Berlin, a young Scotchman said to me, "Oh," he said, "I've been talking with some of these German students, and they say their professors are envious of Scotland." He said, "In Scotland our students study in the seminaries, and they learn the higher criticism; they get the present ways of interpreting the Scripture; then they go to their churches and they keep in touch with their universities and seminaries; they keep in touch with the new developments, and they're up to date on the latest developments of the higher criticism, and they preach it to their people." He says, "In Germany here, they say, the students come to the university and they get the latest developments of the higher criticism; and they memorize it, and write it on their examination and get their degree; but then they go to their churches and they preach old-fashioned Lutheran teaching that has nothing to do with the new views at all." He said these professors in Germany were just distraught because their influence was great on the students, but it didn't seem to reach the church. While he said in Scotland our churches move right straight along with the newer developments of the higher criticism. Well, now that was in 1929 that he expressed that views. He is now professor of O.T. in the Church of Scotland College in Edinburgh.
The Free Church has one seminary, the one in Edinburgh. The Church of Scotland has a seminary in Edinburgh, one in Glasgow, one in Aberdeen; they have quite a few of them, and according to law in Scotland, religion must be taught in the schools; and so in Edinburgh in the universities, there are courses in religion taught by a minister of the Church of Scotland and by a minister of the Free Church; and the students can take from either one they want; but the minister of the Free Church who teaches it told me how the others treated him; and they said, "Why, students are foolish to take courses from you; because just up in the backwoods country, up in the highlands, is the only place where they could get a teaching position in the schools if they hadn't had their training under the Church of Scotland, to be up to date in interpretations in theology and of the New Testament." This man was giving what the Bible teaches rather than what the new theories are; and they're a very orthodox and godly group of pious people in the north of Scotland—in the highlands—and a few in the southern part, but very few and very small. The rank and file, the great mass, are in the Church of Scotland; there is an occasional Baptist church that throws light, an occasional Plymouth Brethren Assembly in the south, but not many, very little. The Union of 1929 was between the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church. Both of them were nominally Presbyterian; both of them held nominally to the Westminster Confession; but they both had made a declaration which reduced it actually to a great historical mandatory, rather than an expression of conviction.
The United Presbyterian church had united in 1900 with the Free Church, to form the United Free Church. The Presbyterian Church of Northern Ireland has got pretty much into the hands of the modernists. There was a group headed by a classmate of mine in seminary, who had come over here to study, who led a group out of that, about 30 years ago; and they have a Church in Northern Ireland which has very friendly relations with the Free Church. There is no actual connection, but they are very, very friendly. That is the situation in Scotland today; there is more of the old forms than in most countries in the world. There is less Sabbath-breaking today in Scotland than in most any country in the world, and but it is coming in rapidly.
In
1947 when I was in Aberdeen, it was a most interesting experience to go into
the big railroad station on Sunday and see nobody there; just deserted, empty,
You go into the 30th Street Station here [Philadelphia] on Sunday, and it is
jammed with a rushing crowd of people; but until World War II there were no
trains that ran on Sunday in Scotland; none at all. The old forms are still
preserved in Scotland, more than perhaps any other country in the world; but
unfortunately the young ministers—except for these small groups—practically all
the other ministers are trained in the higher criticism today. Well, we could
talk about Scotland for months—a very interesting country and a very historic
country. But we must go on to a much larger country—not so much larger in
area—but many times as large in population. And because the country is flatter,
there is more agricultural land in it, and so a far larger group of people,
that is English. So
B.
England.
And here I want to speak of
1. Conditions at the Beginning of the Century. Now you remember the condition of England at the beginning of the previous century. In 1700 England was at the lowest situation religiously that it ever sunk. There were godly churches here and there, godly people here and there, but as a whole they were despised and looked down upon and morality was at the lowest ebb, as low an ebb as it ever was in England's history, in 1700. During the 1700's came the great evangelical revival, which produced a substantial new denomination—the Methodist Church—and yet compared to all of England, a comparatively small segment. But the evangelical revival had far greater results than that as we noticed; the Baptist churches, which had become given over almost entirely to modernism and to unbelief, as a result of the evangelical revival were completely changed. By 1800 the Baptists were—while a very small factor in Scotland—but yet a very large factor in England.
And the same was true of the Congregational Church; and above all it was true of a very large part in the Church of England. The evangelical section of the Church of England was very strong and very important by 1800; there were many individuals who perhaps had never heard any of the Wesleys preach, yet who were indirectly tremendously affected by the work of the Wesleys and Whitefield; the result was that by 1800 you had perhaps a greater outreach of Christian teaching through England, through all areas, sections and groups of people, than perhaps of any country in the world's history. And it was right then that the great missionary movement began; England and Scotland through the next century did tremendous things in the missionaries they sent out. We've been reading lives of missionaries lately at home with our little boy; and these biographies put out by some of our evangelical presses lately, it is amazing how many of these missionaries in many different areas of the world came from Scotland, from these different groups in Scotland during the 19th century; and there were a great many also from England, who came during this century.
And so this leads us to the Victorian
Period—the Victorian Era—which was named after Queen Victoria. Victoria was a
good symbol for it, because she was a good woman, something rare in the royal
character. She was a good woman, very, absolutely, utterly different from her
predecessors, the kings of England, her uncles, grandparents, and so on. She was
a woman who had high ideals and a woman who tried to support the best in her
country during her reign; and she reigned for about 65 years. She was a young
girl when she became queen, I think it was in 1837 if I recall correctly—about
that—and I think it was about 1901 when she died. So there was a long period in
which this woman was queen. By that time, the ruler of England had practically
no power. The English government had so developed that Parliament ran things,
as it does today; and the monarch is just a figurehead and has absolutely no
voice on anything. But Victoria made a good figurehead for this period, when
the influence of the gospel was reaching out and pervading all different areas;
and aside from the evangelical wing of the Church of England, the high church
wing in the Church of England was devoted to the old standards of the church.
They were maintaining that the Bible was true and that the Church of England
was right; and they were putting great stress on their old ceremonies; but they
were not, like today, trying to fill up these ceremonies with mythical meaning
or to interpret them as just old symbols; they really believed them. And so
there came a movement early in the 19th century—a very interesting
movement but one that, as the year goes by, we will have to barely mention,
that is called The Oxford Movement.
2.
The Oxford Movement. I'm going to have to barely
mention it. It is now over 100 years back; it is a movement which included a
great many people; it had a tremendous influence. But the Oxford Movement was a movement in the Church of England among those
who put increasing stress on the ceremonies of the Church; on its history; on
the Church; what they emphasized was the Church. But they made it a very real
subject of sentimental love. And these people who took this attitude toward the
Church were—many of them—people of a strong evangelical background; but they
were turning that emotion—which in their youth had been tied to Christ and to
the gospel and to the Bible—and were turning it to the Church as their
objective. This movement centered around Oxford
University, and came to be called the Oxford Movement; one of the features of
this movement was the issuing of a series of writings, which they called
tracts; so sometimes it is called the Tractarian
Movement. From 1833 to 1841, they issued a series of what they called Tracts for the Times. And the man who
wrote the first of these tracts, and who wrote a good many of them, was a man
named John Henry Newman. They wanted to startle the Church of England; they
wanted to bring the Church back to its historical stand; and Newman had had a
strong evangelical upbringing, but he was transferring a great deal of his
emotions to the Church. Now in the course of those 9 years, as they tried to show
the Church of England has apostolic succession; the Church of England is a true
church; the Church of England ceremonies go back to the earliest times; they
were putting all this stress on the Church of England. The time came in 1841
when Newman wrote a tract, the 90th tract, in which he tries to show
that the 39 articles of the Church of England—the offspring of an uncatholic
age—are through God's providence, to say the least, not uncatholic; and they
may be subscribed to by those who aim at being Catholic in heart and gospel. In
other words, the Church of England is the true Church, like the Church of Rome.
And you can believe all the Church of Rome holds; and they set the stage for
the Church of England. And that's what Newman tried to prove in the tract. And
now some people, who had opposed the tracts right from the beginning, said,
"Look, it's just like we have said; these tracts are moving in the
direction of Roman Catholicism." And now he has come out in the tract, and
the result was there was a tremendous storm of protest against it; and Newman
and a few others left the Church of England and joined the Roman Catholic
Church. Newman became an important force in the Roman Catholic Church; and
today if you go down to the University of Pennsylvania, you will see a big sign
up in the hall, "The Newman Club meets at such and such a place at
such-and-such a time." Newman was a great leader in the Church of England
who became a Roman Catholic; so Romanist students in our universities have
Newman Clubs to remember Newman, the man who they say, by conviction, by
understanding of the facts, adopted Roman Catholicism. Well, the bulk of the
Oxford Group did not leave the Church of England; there were quite a few that
did, but there were many who did not. But they continued as a force in the
Church of England,; stressing its ceremonies; its
claim to have apostolic succession; its claims to be a true church alongside
the Church of Rome; different from the Church of Rome in certain points, and
having the truth in those points. That's the attitude of the High Church party
in the Church of England; there are those in it who, like Newman, feel that the
Church of Rome is the right church, and that they should reunite with the Roman
Church. Yes? [student] No, that is a movement of this
century, About 40 years ago at Penn State University here, there was a man
named Frank Buchman who introduced a new method of reaching people; and this
movement they called Buchmanism, and it spread to
universities in this country quite a bit. It takes quite a number of vital
points of evangelical Christianity—while not putting any stress on the main
central points—and adding certain new points; and they had quite a stress in
this country; they stand for absolute honesty, absolute purity—I think four
absolutes—but after they had been going about ten or fifteen years, they tried
to start groups in other countries; and they got one in Oxford, among other
universities; and knowing of the great fame of the Oxford Movement in the last
century, they called themselves the Oxford Group; but it seems to me they
failed in absolute honesty, and that they should be the Penn State Group,
rather than the Oxford Group. Today they have changed their name again to Moral
Rearmament, and they are very active today; they've got some good things among
them, but they fail to put any stress upon the central facts of Christianity,
so that it is not a movement which in my opinion is beneficial. I think they
had Buchman's picture; he is now a very old man but he is still their great
revered leader. I think, among them, there are some real Christians; but I
don't think that the effect of their teaching is to put the stress on the main
things of Christianity, but on their peculiar attitude; and I think some of
their leaders have practically no stress on the vital things of Christianity;
their emphasis isn't be saved through the death of Christ; their emphasis is
confess your sins; share your difficulties with somebody else; and then sit
quietly and wait to get guidance as to what you should do next. They have loads
of money, and they have influenced individuals in very wide areas; but in
proportion to the amount of money they have, I think their influence is
comparatively small. Well, the Oxford Movement: I've
given you this brief rapid summary of. John Henry Newman left the Church of
England, and entered the Roman Church. The Pope had no confidence in Newman.
The Roman Catholics by this time had been given full rights in England; they no
longer had disabilities in England; but Cardinal Manning, who was leader of the
English Roman Catholics had no confidence in Newman
whatever; and Newman had a very tough time in the Roman Catholic Church until
the death of the Pope. It was about 1880 when the pope died, and the new pope
who came in immediately made Newman a cardinal; so he is always spoken of now
as Cardinal Newman, though he was well over 70 before he was made a Cardinal.
The new pope recognized his value as a symbol of leaving Protestant churches
and becoming Romanist. All the books on literature speak of him as a man who
was not a very deep thinker; there is not a great deal of thought in his
writing, but he has tremendous charm. But any course in modern English
literature is apt to give considerable attention to his writing because of the
great charm he had in his way of presenting things, and Newman was a real
influence.
3.
The Victorian Era and the Rise of Evolution. We cannot take the time I'd like
to make clear these developments, but I do want to be sure that you get an
understanding of the general progress of what happened.
a.
The Nature of the Victorian Age. The Victorian Era began with the effect
of the evangelical awakening of the previous century reaching more and more
into English life. You read of anybody who visited England in the middle of the
Victorian Period; and they remark on the tremendous attendance in all the
churches; they remark on the great amount of social service that was done by
people who didn't merely go and help others, but helped them and told them
about the Lord, and brought them to the knowledge of Christ. You read about the
great missionary groups founded in England in the last century. You see the
tremendous change that took place in English life; as a result of the great
awakening of the previous century, it went into the hearts and lives of people.
And then there were individuals who took just certain aspects and stressed
them; like as the Evangelical Awakening led to a turning away from the wicked
licentiousness of 1700, which was so widely characteristic of England then. So
there were people who put their whole stress on that attitude, and went to an
extreme; and today when people speak of Victorianism they're apt to mean one of
two things: either a complete unthinking confidence in the Word of God; or an
utterly prudish attitude, which refuses to mention things which play a real
part in life, but which certainly shouldn't be just mentioned to everybody
promiscuously. The writings and Scott and Dickens, who wrote during the
Victorian period, someone has said there isn't a page in either one of them
which the purest mind couldn't read without a blush coming over their face.
Today such matters must be included or they think it won't sell; that's the
attitude today toward literature, but in the Victorian Era it was the exact
opposite. Even people of filthy mind kept it out of their writings, because
they knew that it would not be received; and so in the Victorian Era you have
two things: you have society and life pervaded with the result of the Evangelical
Awakening—to the point where people's attitude is different from what it
normally is in any case, and to which on certain points of purity and of
rightness they go to an extreme—but in which it is respectable to be good and
unrespectable to advance what is bad. In England during the last century a
person could win a campaign on an issue of people being oppressed somewhere in
the world, an issue of England's standing for freedom. That is what England
stood for during the last century; now England brought the slaves to America in
the first place. It was English ships that seized them in Africa; jammed them
into ships so that thousands of them died from the terrible treatment; brought
them over here and sold them to work in the cotton fields; but then during the
Victorian Era it was the English who declared that if a slave stepped on
English soil anywhere he was immediately free. They were absolutely forthright
in their attitude on all issues of that kind. But the change that had taken
place wasn't typical then; it was the change that had taken place as a result
of the Great Awakening, in the previous century; and so we have this outward
attitude very characteristic of England during the Victorian Period. But then
along with it, we have the great force of the Evangelical Awakening of the 18th
Century having to quite an extent died out; and we have some great evangelists
in the last century who did tremendous work—we want to look at me of them if we
can get time—and we have some great preachers like Spurgeon in England—in
London—who had his tabernacle filled every Sunday with thousands of people; he
put his emphasis always on the new birth and on the great central features of
the Christian faith, and had a tremendous influence. But on the whole, the emphasis
was moving away from the gospel, and people were satisfied to think what a
great wonderful country we have; we stand for what is right, and what is good;
and we look down on the people around that don't have the good things that we
have; and so you had, during the Victorian Era, you had a tension between the
outward situation, which was a result of the Evangelical Awakening, and
the spreading attitude among people of
unbelief and of desire to get away from Christian restraints—a spreading
attitude which was kept more or less hidden but which was looking for a means
of expression. And when evolution came along, that gave it its excuse for
expression.
b.
Moral and Ethical Principles. Evolution did not bring in the
anti-Christian attitude of today, though it tremendously furthered it; but
evolution was the excuse the people seized upon, and which gave this rising
feeling the opportunity to find full expression. I want to read you quotations
which I think bring out the situation very clearly. One of these quotations is
from a woman who in her writing took the name of George Eliot. George Eliot,
early in the 19th century, from her reading the writings of German
rationalists, gave up all faith in the Bible and in Christianity; but her
adherence to the great principles of right and goodness, which had been
inculcated in her, remained an outstanding feature of her character. In 1873
someone said of meeting her, "I walked with her once in the Fellows Garden
of Trinity on an evening of rainy May, and she, stirred somewhat beyond her
wont, and taking as her text the three words which have been used so often as
the inspiring trumpet call to men: the words God, Immortality, Duty; pronounced
with terrible earnestness, how inconceivable was the first (that is, God) how unbelievable
the second (that is, Immortality), and yet how peremptory and absolute the
third. Never perhaps have sterner accents affirmed the sovereignty of
impersonal and uncompromising law. I listened and night fell; the graves of the
garden turned me toward them like the sibyls in the gloom, it was as though she
withdrew from my grasp, one by one, the two scrolls of promise and left me the
third scroll only, awful with inevitable fate." Well, you don't often meet
anybody today for whom duty is the great central objective of life to that
extent. That was the remains of Christianity in the community, in the society,
in the family; with the belief in Christianity disappearing, but the emotional
effect remaining; and you had these writers like George Eliot, who felt that
duty and right, justice and all these great principles, but with no solid basis
to back up these principles. Well, you had that attitude which was
characteristic of the Victorian age; but along with it, you had the coming in
of rationalism, of turning away from Christianity, as she said,
"inconceivable to believe in God, to believe in Immortality."
c. The Spread of Rationalism and Indifference. One of the saddest things is the English poet, Arthur H. Clough. He died in 1861. Darwin's book was only published in 1858, so that he could hardly have been influenced by it, but one time, celebrating Easter Day in Naples he wrote this poem:
"Eat, drink and die for we are souls bereaved,
Of all the creatures under heaven's wide scope, we are most helpless
Who had once most hope,
And most beliefless, that had most belief.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
As of the unjust also be it of the just,
Yea of that just One too,
It is the one sad gospel that is true,
Christ is not risen."
So
here you have the sad song of a man who was raised to believe in the Christian
doctrine; and who found all around him belief being given up; and who longed to
believe and tried to cling to it, but who felt the world falling about him. I
think another good picture of that change in attitude is in Arnold's poem
"Dover Beach." That is a poem which is in most of our anthologies of
English poetry, and in it you find him speaking of how the great sea of faith
had once girdled the earth and how now it is retreating, and leaving only
sadness and melancholy. Well, there was this attitude of giving up the belief
in the Christian gospel and yet trying to stand for its by-products, the great
principles of truth, and right, and justice. To this day in England, tremendous
emotion attaches to the person of the sovereign, so long as the sovereign
doesn't try to rule or say anything about how the government is run. But I
don't think that would substitute for Christianity.
d. The Rise of Evolution. But in 1858 Darwin wrote his book on evolution, The Origin of the Species, expecting perhaps to sell a few copies, and never expecting the book would pay for itself. And the publisher hesitated about publishing the book, because he didn't think many people would be interested in a textbook of that kind. But to Darwin's and everybody's surprise the books just sold like hotcakes; and people all over the British Empire, who knew nothing about biology, were arguing evolution; and the evolution movement came in with a bang. It was the result of this readiness for it on the part of people; and it, in turn, extended the attitude. One thing we should realize is that evolution did not begin with Darwin. Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus, wrote a long poem presenting evolution; and about ten years before Darwin's book appeared, an English writer wrote a book called Vestiges of Creation; he wrote it anonymously; later they found out who he was, a very well-known writer; and in this book he advanced a view of evolution; and Gladstone's great enemy, Disraeli, wrote a novel before Darwin's book on evolution came out, in which one of the characters, having just read this book, Vestiges of Creation, turned to the other and said, "Oh, but don't you realize, we weren't created; how was it now, we came from fish, and they came from giraffes, and they came from crocodiles, how was that again?" The other said, "No, I think the fish came before the crocodiles, and the giraffes?" But you have all that fully expressed in this book—of which Charles Darwin said, "A very superficial book"—but evolution had been taught. It's the only thing to believe if you're not going to believe in creation.
Evolution had been taught by individuals in England, in France, and elsewhere for a long time. But Darwin did not introduce evolution; he introduced a theory as to how evolution would come about; a theory which would explain an evolution without any mind behind it; without any directing force; with no need for God. Darwin's wife said once, she said, "Oh, I hate to have Charles get out another book, because every time he does God seems further away than did before." Well, Darwin's book was to show how the world could be explained without any directing intelligence; and in his first book of this type—he had written other books before The Origin of the Species—he devotes a great deal of space in his preface, to ridicule of evolutionists before him, who believed that there was a purpose in the universe which moved from the lower to the highest. He said, "There is no need of purpose; it's pure accident. It is the survival of the fittest." And that was his great theory in his first edition. In subsequent editions, he gradually changed until he adopted a great deal of what the predecessors had said. Jacques Barzun, who is Dean of the Graduate School of Columbia University, wrote a book 20 years ago called Darwin, Marx, and Wagner, and in this book he showed what Darwin said; in point after point, how he changed; how he made fun of his grandfather and these others, in the first edition; and in the later ones, he accepted a great part of their teaching until actually he had a great deal of their theory; and Barzun goes so far as to say this: "If a man was to write a book in favor of Confucianism, and then in subsequent editions he introduced little by little Buddhism and gave up more and more of Confucianism; and yet he still claims to be a Confucianist, we would say that he was dishonest." But he says, "Of course nobody could apply a term like that to a great scientist like Darwin." That's what Barzun says in this book. It was written 20 years ago and appeared in paperback edition about 15 years ago. But Darwin advanced an explanation which would do away with God altogether, and it was eagerly seized upon by those who wanted to escape the shackles of the Victorian Age. Well, I'm going to have to stop here.
We were speaking last time about B, England, under that 3, The Victorian Era and the Rise of Evolution. At the very end of the hour—I didn't give you subdivisions under 3, so [rcn: we'll try to put them in] small a, The Nature of the Victorian Age: I pointed out to you how the outreach of the Evangelical Awakening had spread through the land and affected every phase of life, and the result was that there were ideals and standards established in England which were felt everywhere, and which showed themselves during this period we call the Victorian Age, the period when Queen Victoria was ruling from 1837 to 1900. That, during this period, particularly the first half of this period, these ideals had affected those who were not directly reached by Christianity; but the Christian gospel had also reached perhaps a larger number than any other time in human history. The probabilities are that the movement, which the Wesleys and Whitefield had led through the previous century, had continued to reach out to the point that, at the accession of Queen Victoria, probably there was a greater proportion of the English people who were born-again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ than at any other time in the whole of English history. But there were those who were not greatly affected by it. And then we referred to b, Moral and Ethical Principles. Under this I read to you from George Eliot. George Eliot who was affected by German Rationalism; who read the writings of Strauss and others, and translated them into English; who was no longer going to attend the Church of England because she lost all faith in its creed; but her father felt so badly about it, that out of deference to him she continued. She lived a life which was in many ways unconventional; but a life in which great ethical principles were absolutely supreme in her attitude; and she suffered and sacrificed for her loyalty to these great ethical principles. Her great novels—many of them—are novels of people losing faith, trying to hold but losing their faith in supernatural Christianity; and I read to you a statement in which her attitude on duty was very clearly manifest, something that we don't find much today. The effect of the Evangelical Awakening has pretty well died out now; and it is rare to find people today to whom the idea of duty would seem such a tremendous force as it did to her a hundred years ago. Then c, The Spread of Rationalism and Indifference; remember I read to you from Clough, his beautiful poem, in which he showed how sad he felt at losing faith in Christianity; and Arnold's poem, "Dover Beach," is along the same line; it tells how the sea of faith was formerly at a high tide, but now is ebbing and retreating; and about all we can do is be true to one another; great forces are fighting over nothing; and nothing is accomplished; and practically we despair as faith disappears from life. Well there was this feeling coming through the intellectual class in the early part of the Victorian Period; but the mass of the people were not affected by it; yet it was beginning to show itself in the literature. And then d, The Rise of Evolution; I mentioned to you there about Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin; he held that everything came as it is today through a process of evolution; this was long before the rise of the modern evolutionary theory, at the beginning of the 19th century. Erasmus Darwin, an English physician, not a believer in Christianity—though one who maintained his pew in the church and saw to it that his family went regularly, and himself occasionally went—he wrote this poem in which he described how everything came into existence through natural processes; and through it all there ran one increasing purpose, which moved up from the little tiny amoeba up through all the different stages, to the great climax in man; the great purpose, to which everything moved forward. And the Frenchman Lamarck issued his great work on evolution which showed how there is something in the organism; there is in there a purpose which molds and changes and causes it to move up from the lower to the higher. Now Charles Darwin thought this sounded like utter nonsense; he thought his grandfather's theory was the most utter nonsense; and the theories of Lamarck, "What can there be that is a purpose in the organism that causes it to move upward?" If you're going to believe in a personal God that directs the process, that's one thing; but if you're going to believe in a purpose in the organism, well that's just reducing it to words; that seemed to him to be utter nonsense. But these views were taught by individuals and accepted by some—not a great many. However, an English publisher named Chambers had taken a year or two off to make a study of science; and he had written a book he called The Vestiges of Creation. This came out some fifteen years before Darwin wrote his book The Origin of the Species. And in his book Chambers showed how, in his opinion, everything had evolved from the simple to the complex; he published the book anonymously, and people guessed who might have written it. Charles Darwin read it and thought it was a lot of nonsense; he thought it was very ridiculous in its unscientific attitude at point after point. He wrote some very scathing remarks in the margin of the copy of it which he read; but it was widely read along the pseudo-intellectuals of England; and Disraeli, the great English Prime Minister, wrote at this time a novel in which he describes one character saying to another, "Well, don't you know where we really came from? First, there was a fish and then there was a bird and then there was a tadpole, oh, or was it an elephant, I forget just what it was we came through." But he has the characters talking about this as if it was rather accepted; and this was before Darwin's Origin of the Species.
So
the idea so current today that Darwin originated evolution is utterly contrary
to fact. The idea had been taught by many people through the centuries at
different times; for after all, if there is not a personal God who created the
universe and who directs and controls things, how did it come? The only
alternative is that there is some natural process, and that's what evolution
amounts to—a natural process by which from very simple beginnings all the great
complexity of the world today has come into existence. That is the real meaning
of the term evolution as used in the scientific theory. Now many people have
used it in a sense just for development. One boy said to me once, "How can
you doubt evolution? Anybody can see the evolution of a boy into a man."
Well, I saw pictures the other day of my little boy's first-grade class; and I
looked at his picture and then looked at him now in 7th grade, and he is markedly
changed. If you'll look at a picture of me in first grade and look at me now,
the change is far greater. You could see a resemblance, but the changes are
very great. Here is a parent, and they have a child who is very different from
the parents. There is change; there is development; life is full of change and
full of development. But that's not what we mean by evolution, The word evolution just simply means change from one thing
to another; but the word as used in philosophy and in science means that
everything has developed by natural process from an extremely simple beginning.
It's the only thing you can believe if you're not going to believe in a divine
creator who directed and controlled the universe. Well, we must say a few words
about Charles Darwin.
e. Charles Darwin. I wish we could take a couple of hours on him, because he is an extremely interesting character. But Charles Darwin was in no sense the originator of evolution. Charles Darwin was the man who gave respectability to it. He was a man who had a tremendous reputation as a slow careful methodical worker in science. He had spent ten years studying barnacles, and he had written a great work on barnacles; he had ten thousand barnacles in his country home, and he was glad to get rid of them; he was sick of them after ten years of them. But [student: What are barnacles?] They're those little tiny animals that get on ships and eventually wear through the ship if they don't clean them off. It's a type of marine life which most of us have very little contact with; but Darwin got ten thousand different ones to study, and he spent ten years at it. He was considered as the slow careful methodical scientific worker, and when a man with his standing as a scientist came out for the idea that everything had evolved, that was different from a popularizer like Chambers, or a poet like Erasmus Darwin or a Frenchman like Lamarck. It was something which many English people were ready to sit up and pay attention to.
Now Darwin did not think he was simply coming out with a book in favor of evolution. That was not his emphasis. His interest was that he thought he had found a mechanism for evolution which entirely got rid of what he considered the nonsense of Lamarck and his grandfather. And in the preface to the first edition of his book, he ridiculed Lamarck and Erasmus, and referred to their rather ridiculous theory; but he had a new theory which suddenly had occurred to him at the reading of Malthus' Essay on Population—a book which is very famous in sociology; it advances the idea that people become too numerous, and then they kill themselves off in war and pestilence; and those most able to survive continue. After he read that book, the thought suddenly occurred to him, "Well, maybe that's how all the different varieties of life have come into existence." Those that are able to survive continue; those that can't disappear; those that are able to survive reproduce their kind; and so we have a process through which by a purely natural progress with no purpose—nothing working from lower to higher, nothing like that—but simply a natural process, you get all the great varieties of life. Now this thought occurred to Darwin when he was a young man, making—in fact it occurred to him, I believe, while he was on his voyage in the ship Beagle, in which he spent about two years going around the world; he visited South America and the Pacific, studying them scientifically. In that expedition, or very shortly after, this thought occurred to him. He was always making up theories to account for everything; he had a very quick fertile mind for making theories, though he spent a tremendous lot of time in very careful study of detail, as in his study of barnacles. Darwin was a retiring scientist, a man of independent means because of his father—his father was a very successful physician—and his father's accumulation of money was left to him; and second, Darwin had very great ability as an investor. He had taken the money his father gave him, and by shrewd investment he multiplied it many times. Somebody asked Darwin once, "What do you think is your greatest ability aside from your ability in science?" Well, he said, "I think probably the greatest ability I have, aside from my work in science, is the ability to invest money wisely." Well, Darwin was in very poor health; whether it was the effect of his trip around the world, nobody knows; but he was constantly in very poor health; sometimes he could work two or three hours a day, sometimes five or six—never more than 5 or 6—but he was always hard at work on his scientific study, like when he studied barnacles for ten years. He was interested in every phase of science.
He was going to write a log book on his Beagle journeys; and 15 years went by and nothing really to speak of; and then another man whom he knew slightly—a younger man, who was off in another part of the world on an expedition—read Malthus, the same book that Darwin had read, and got the same idea. And this young man, Wallace, said, "I've got an idea how the species came into existence," and he wrote it out and sent it to his friend Charles Darwin; and he said, "Will you please get this paper published for me?" When Darwin got the paper, in which Wallace had also read Malthus and got the same idea he had gotten, he said, "Well here is my theory that I made up 20 years ago, and someone else is going to get ahead of me!" So he talked to one of his friends, and his friend said, "Well, why don't you present his work and the summary you made 20 years ago, present them both at the meeting of the scientific society, and explain the circumstances." So Darwin did this, and the people of the society weren't much interested; but they said, "Well you got it first; you'd better go ahead and publish it."
So
Darwin got busy and worked this up into something about as fourth as long as he
really intended, but a fairly sizeable book, The Origin of Species. And the publisher hesitated about putting
money into it, publishing a book of this type which he thought nobody would be
much interested in; he felt he probably would lose money on it. I think he
offered to Darwin, "Instead of my taking the book over and paying you a
thousand dollars toward publishing it, suppose you agree that I won't give you
anything but then I'll give you ten percent of the proceeds?" And Darwin
didn't want to take a chance on it; if he had, probably he would have received
millions. As it was, he got a very slight return from it; but when the book
came out, to Darwin's surprise, people all over England were tremendously interested.
And the reason they were tremendously interested was because it just fit into
the thought of the period. People were looking for a way to get away from the
Biblical teaching; and they found it in a theory which didn't need purpose;
didn't need God; didn't need any kind of an abstruse idea that there was a
movement from the lower to the higher that kind of forced its way up; but just
natural process; all these varieties, and the ones most capable survived, and
they procreated; and that way there was a gradual change; and so the book
aroused tremendous interest, but the interest was probably strong for five
years and then forgotten; the book would have been remembered by a few
scientists, and that would have been all it would have amounted to if it were
not for Huxley. So we must say something about
f. Thomas H. Huxley. Huxley was a very different type of man from Charles Darwin. Darwin always hated to disagree with anybody. He loved to get off with his scientific equipment and study and write up what he found. He loved to work out theories to explain things; but if somebody wanted to differ with his theory, well he wouldn't argue with them. He wasn't much interested; he was interested in his study and his writing. Toward the end of Darwin's life, fine Christian people came to see Darwin; and they said, "Mr. Darwin, you realize of course that there is a God that created the universe. Darwin said, "Oh, certainly." Well, then they went on, and he was always obliging; they left him and went away and said, "Darwin really regrets the harm his book on evolution has done. He really has a real sympathy with evangelical Christianity." But when you get deeply into his life, you see this is extremely unlikely that he had any real sympathy with it. But he was a nice sort of fellow that didn't like to disagree with anybody; and most anybody who would talk with him and present views, he would try to be pleasant; he wouldn't mean to give you a false idea of what he thought, but he was so pleasant, so nice, that you could easily get the idea that he agreed with you right down the line. But Huxley was a very different sort of a man.
Now Huxley as a young man had been forced by his parents to go to the Church of England and hear long sermons. This was the grandfather of the present Huxleys, Julian and Aldous, his grandsons; this is their grandfather, This was Thomas Henry Huxley; he was a contemporary of Darwin; that is to say, he'd have been born about 1830, I don't have the exact date. But Huxley, as a young man, had been forced by his parents to go to the Church of England services, and hear the Rector read long dry sermons on some aspect of theology; and the young boy had been very much irritated by it, and disgusted; there was nothing in it to arouse his interest, and he decided he didn't like the church at all. And then, when he was a little older he read Carlisle—Carlisle's presentation in England of some of the German rationalistic philosophers—and Huxley said before he was 20, that after reading Carlisle he was thrilled to learn that a person could have a very deep thorough-doing religious feeling, but having absolutely no theology whatever. That was his conclusion reached before he was 20. So Huxley always felt he had a deep religious feeling; he loved to be in tune with the universe; he wanted to get people in tune with the universe; he had a great deep religious feeling, but he had no interest in Christianity; and he always delighted to do anything he could to hurt it. For instance, they say, that one of his students couldn't remember which side of the heart the mitral valve was on. Well, you know a bishop wears a mitre, and there is a mitral valve in the heart; and the student couldn't remember whether it was right or left. Huxley said, "Oh, that's easy to remember; of course it's on the left. A bishop couldn't possibly be right!" And that shows the attitude that he had. But Huxley was a good student; a worker in anatomy and in physiology; he was a physician, he had had done it as a physician in a ship; and Huxley had become a good friend of Darwin's; and Darwin had Huxley and another man, Hooker, who was his expert in Botany; and Huxley in Biology; and Darwin was always asking them all kinds of questions about all aspects of these sciences, writing to them or talking to them when they came to see him; and Darwin showed his book to these two men in manuscript; and when Huxley read it, he said, "There is nothing to it." He said, "It just couldn't work the way you say here, at all, I just can't see it at all." Well, Darwin said, "Think about it some more, I think I've got the real answer there." Well, Huxley read the book; thought about it, studied it; but he could not see that it was true. Huxley said later that after the book appeared in published form, and he read it again; then he saw what Darwin was driving at and saw that Darwin was right. Well, maybe it is the way he said it; or maybe the fact that he saw that the Christian people were—so many of them—attacking it, that sort of aroused his emotions and made him think it must be pretty good after all; we don't know; but anyway, for the next ten years, every time Darwin was asked to come somewhere to make a speech about the theory; or to go and receive an honorary degree from a university, or receive a special prize or anything, Darwin always said, "My dyspepsia is just too bad; I couldn't go; but my good friend Thomas Huxley will come, and represent me." So Huxley traveled all over England speaking for evolution, declaring that Darwin's book was the last answer, and attacking Christianity in every way he could; and he was a wonderful debater—a very able debater, in many ways a very attractive man—and it was Huxley that won the success and acceptation for evolution. In fact, you see the combination: Darwin could be off here as the great remote scientist, and spend ten years working on barnacles, the careful, slow, serious student; and Huxley says, "Look here; all his careful, slow, methodical work; the result is this wonderful theory of evolution."
Actually
Darwin had made his theory long before he had even started work on barnacles.
It wasn't the result of any slow careful work but an idea that came to his head
after reading Malthus. And it wasn't the beginning of the evolution theory;
that had been widely taught before that, though it had not had any great
acceptation; but it was a new method of evolution which Darwin presented and
claimed. Well, Huxley presented this, and he was very, very effective in it;
and one reason why he was effective was this: the situation in England at the
time was that the result of the Evangelical Awakening was to arouse a loyalty
to principles of truth, of absolute honesty, of integrity, of determination to
stand by what was right; and those principles were very, very widespread, even
among those who were not directly affected by Christianity. But there were in
the Church a great many people who had good positions in the Church; and they
carried on their positions; they held by the doctrines of the Church; they
defended the doctrines of the Church; but they had no great heart warmth at the
center; they had a good position; an easy-going job; they would work, do their
work properly; but many of them would do the work of the Church, and then spend
their time studying some other science, making contributions; while those who
weren't interested that way might spend their time fox-hunting or of having
pleasure of different sorts. So you had many people who were the official
representatives of Christianity who were not exemplifying the moral principles
of Christianity in their lives and in their attitudes. And when there was a
debate or a discussion at Oxford University, they asked Darwin to come; and
Darwin just wasn't in sufficient health; he couldn't do it; but he said, "My
good friend, Dr. Huxley, will represent me," so Huxley went; and nobody
knew Huxley hardly, but he sat there on the platform at Oxford; they had this
meeting, and one of the great bishops of the Church of England said, "We
are here to discuss this matter of evolution. Now this is a lot of foolishness.
I hear Mr. Huxley who defends it. I'd like to ask you, Mr. Huxley, is it through your mother or through your father that you
are descended from a monkey? Which one is it?" And it was that sort of
ridicule. And when he did that Huxley put his hand on the shoulder of the man
next to him, a very dignified fellow; he said, "The Lord has given him
into my hand, I have him by the neck." This fellow didn't know what on
earth Huxley meant; but Huxley felt that this man in attacking evolution from a
viewpoint simply of ridicule, was putting himself in a position where those who
loved truth, and who were anxious to be absolutely honest and to investigate
facts and see where they lacked, could easily see, if it was pointed out to
them, that his attitude was one which was not worth following; and so when they
called up Huxley he got up and started very quietly, gave a few points, a few
arguments, discussed a few of the things the other man had said; but as he went
on, he said, "The question has been asked about my ancestry. Now, I would
just like to say this, that I would rather have an honorable decent monkey for
my ancestor than to have a man of great ability, who uses his words to hide
truth, and doesn't investigate facts and see what the truth is, but just holds
by an opinion because it has been passed down." And boy, the place was in
an uproar; the students jumped and yelled; and everybody saw that Huxley had
put the other man in a position in which he was not following principles of
righteousness end truth, but Huxley seemed to be just trying to follow truth
wherever it would lead; and that, you might say, was the breakthrough. It was
using the principles of righteousness and of truth and integrity, which the
Victorian movement held so high, to defeat that which had brought these
principles into existence; but which was often being forwarded by men who were
using unworthy methods. So we go on to
g. The Rapid Spread of Evolution. Huxley loved to debate, just as much as Darwin hated it; and Huxley was always debating, and arguing, so when they did put him on a committee for education for England, he brought out a report on this committee, that the Bible should be taught in every school in England. "Students cannot be well-educated if they're not trained in the Bible." That's what Huxley said in his report; and toward the end of his life he gave the annual lecture at Oxford; in that lecture, Huxley said evolution explains the development of species and the way man has ascended to what he is today; but he said for moral life we need entirely different principles. He said evolution cannot be taken as a guide in the moral sphere. Today his grandson, Julian, says the exact opposite; he says we've got to get away from old-fashioned ideas of ethics and work out a new evolutionary ethic. Julian is a thorough-going atheist; he used to be the head of the United Nations Educational Organization; he is a bitter hater of Christianity. Now Huxley, the grandfather, also hated Christianity but he maintained many of its principles and supported them.
Well, evolution was just in line with the temper of the times; and the reason it spread so widely was that the idea was already thoroughly familiar to many leaders. They didn't see how it could work, but if you're not going to believe in God, evolution is the only alternative; and so they wanted to believe it, but they couldn't see how it would work. Now Darwin gave them a way it could work; and it sounded so logical, so simple, such a natural process; no purpose, no intention to get something higher; nothing of the kind, just a natural process, the survival of the fittest. Darwin was in no sense the originator of evolution, but he was the originator of the idea of evolution by the survival of the fittest.
Now it is very interesting that a book was published about 15 years ago, by the man who is now the Dean of the Graduate School of Columbia University, Dr. Jacques Barzun. It is called Darwin, Marx, and Wagner. This book came out three years ago in a paperbacked edition; Barzun, in this book, devotes the first six chapters to Darwin; and he takes up Darwin's statements in the first edition of Origin of Species in which he derides Erasmus Darwin; ridicules Lamarck; says that is utter nonsense; and evolution is a purely natural process, just a survival of that which is fit to survive. But of course as time went on, scientists began saying, "Yes that's very nice to say, that that which has the ability to survive, will survive; but how do you get the variations in the first place? Where do these changes come from? What makes the variations? Darwin explains how they pick which one will last, but what makes there be one anyway?" And so Darwin began to accept Erasmus Darwin's and Lamarck's theories; and little by little, as Barzun shows, in the succeeding editions of his book, he adapts the possibilities that to a large extent evolution proceeded along the line of Lamarck instead of along the line of survival of the fittest; and Barzun goes so far as to say this, he says if a man wrote a strong presentation of Buddhism, and then if in succeeding issues, he toned it down and began to praise Confucianism until he was practically saying Confucianism was better than Buddhism, but he still calls his book a defense of Buddhism, we would say he was utterly dishonest not to change his title and to say he had completely changed his views. But he says, with a great scientist like Darwin, of course nobody would ever accuse him of dishonesty. That is Barzun's conclusion to it. That Darwin's great theory, which won the battle, Darwin largely gave up.
Now
today there are some scientists who might say survival of the fittest is the
answer, it is completely proven today; and there are other scientists today who
say survival of the fittest explains nothing, and you have to look elsewhere
for the explanation; and the two are at opposite poles, but of course the two
are explanations of how evolution might come to pass; how we might get this
tremendous complexity in life without a God to plan it, to direct it, to
control it, to introduce changes at important points. So this spread of the
doctrine of evolution resulted in terrible injury to faith and to morals; it
had a great effect on the life of all the churches of England—and of most of
the world—before the end of the century; and its by-products are reaching out
today to all of the churches. Well, that was 3, The Victorian Era and the Rise
of Evolution. Our clock is moving fast, we'll have to go rapidly, but I want to
say a few words about
4.
Baptist Churches in England during the 19th Century.
a.
Results of the Evangelical Movement. I've already discussed this; I just
mention it here for transition. Newman points out in his book how the
Particular Baptists and the General Baptists had no dealings with each other;
the General Baptists had practically all become Unitarians, giving up belief in
Christ and the Word of God. The Particular Baptists—some were Unitarians—but
Newman said that most of them were so ultra-Calvinist in their attitude that
they were practically fatalists; and their influence was practically nil,
before the Evangelical movement; but that the Evangelical Movement had a
tremendous effect upon them. Now
b.
Andrew Fuller and the Particular Baptists. Andrew Fuller was a close friend
and associate of William Carey; and it was Andrew Fuller who went about through
the Baptist churches urging support of William Carey; but he did far more than
that; Newman says that the restoration of the Particular Baptist body to its original
evangelical position was due to Andrew Fuller more than to any other
individual. Fuller was brought up in an ultra-Calvinistic Baptist church, which
said if God is going to convert a man, He'll convert him; there is nothing you
and I can do about it. But Fuller read the works of Jonathan Edwards, a
thorough-going Calvinist who believed that God had ordained all things, but
that God has given us a tremendous part to play in it; and this affected
Fuller; he thus adopted from Edwards an attitude which led him to go about as a
preacher and a writer, and bring multitudes to see the sympathy between a true
preaching of the doctrines of grace and the most earnest efforts for the
salvation of sinners. So Fuller and the others who followed him, their work resulted
in a tremendous growth of the Particular Baptists.
c.
Growth during the Century. Newman said that in 1800 the Particular Baptists of
England, Ireland, and Wales numbered considerably less than 40,000; and that
the General Baptists had less than a hundred small churches, whose membership
was would not probably aggregate 5,000; but during the next few years they
tripled in size; and they kept on growing, with the work of Fuller and others
reaching out through England, until there was a union eventually of the two
branches, the Particular and the General Baptists. The Baptist Union was formed
in 1812, but didn't become a pronounced success until about 1832; and by 1891
they had managed to get the schools, societies, and colleges of the two groups
to be fused pretty much; so that since 1891 the Baptist union has pretty well
done away with the distinction between the General Baptists and Particular
Baptists. It took the greater part of the century to do it. Now
d. Charles Haddon Spurgeon 1834-92. He was another man to whom the Lord had given oratorical gifts such as He gave to Whitefield; he began preaching before he was 20, and by the time he was in his early twenties he was preaching to crowds of thousands of people. Before he was 30, he had a tabernacle which would seat 6,000 people; it was filled almost every Sunday to the end of his life. Perhaps it was a disadvantage for Spurgeon that he was such an able speaker at the beginning; his preaching was in such demand that it kept him from taking the time to get the thorough education that he would have liked to have gotten. He was converted at a Primitive Methodist Church when he was 16, and the very next year he began preaching. And his preaching just attracted tremendous multitudes. Though he never got a rounded, careful, thorough, theological training, he was always a very great student, particularly a student of the Puritans. He has been called the heir of the Puritans; he had hundreds of books written by the Puritans of the 16th and 17th centuries; and constantly he was studying them. He took their careful exegetical approach and their thorough going Calvinistic interpretation; he put it in a practical effective way that had tremendous influence in his day; and his congregations were filled.
By the time he was 21, he had students gathering around and wanting to learn from him. He formed a college which was largely taught by others, but he gave the tone and direction to it. He was a tremendous influence in keeping England in the fine direction in which the Evangelical Awakening had pushed it—much longer than would otherwise have been the case. Spurgeon was in one of the Particular Baptist Churches, and it came into the union; but he very soon became utterly dissatisfied with the union. Shortly before his death, there occurred what they called the Downgrade Controversy. Spurgeon said that the Baptist churches of England were on the downgrade; that in uniting all these churches in this big movement for union, they were uniting people regardless of their differences of doctrine; and that they were building up a movement which would in the end do away with loyalty to Christ on the part of all the churches. He said, "What has Christ in common with Belial?" He said, "How can those who believe in the Bible work with those who deny the Resurrection and the Deity of Christ?" He used the strongest of language in his denunciation of these people—leaders in the Baptist union—whom he felt were leading it into an un-Christian attitude; and eventually he was attacked by England as a whole, because of his attack on the other people; and he resigned and led his church out from the union, along with the other churches that stood with him. Spurgeon said at this time—about the position of the Scripture in this controversy—he said, "The turning point of the battle between those who hold the faith once delivered to the saints and their opponents, lies in the true and real inspiration of the Holy Scripture. This is the Thermopylae of Christendom. If we have in the Word of God no standard of truth, we are at sea without a compass, and no danger from rough weather without can be equal to this loss within. 'If the foundations be removed, what can the righteous do?' And this is the foundation rock of the work."
Now Newman—writing in 1900, his book has gone through many editions since, but much of it remains unchanged—Newman says, "The withdrawal of Mr. Spurgeon had a considerable number of ministers closely attached to him withdraw from the Baptist Union, because of the toleration by the union of lax teaching respecting the Scriptures, the Atonement, and Eternal Punishment, and so on, no doubt made the complete union of the two parties easier." So many biographers make out that Spurgeon, toward the end of his life—he was in his middle 50s now—he got sort of senile on this matter, and he took an attitude of denouncing people in strong terms and was quite unjust. Here's a book by Day, Shadow of the Broad Brim, a life of Spurgeon in which he rather runs down this controversy, says it was too bad for Spurgeon to use such strong language about people; he praises Spurgeon to the skies in all the rest of the book, but he tries to minimize this—he says it contributed to his early death—this controversy.
But you get Spurgeon's own works—you get his four-volume Life, you get what he wrote in it—and you'll find that he was facing just the situation we are facing; and he was speaking out in the strongest terms; he was determined that he could not have fellowship with those who denied the Scriptures; and the fact that a considerable amount of his work remains to this day is largely a result of the fact that he separated from the Baptist Union, which would have gradually taken control. So people like to praise Spurgeon for his life; but they say little about his great stand at the end of his life for the cause of Christ, and for his separation from those who denied. But it's very interesting that after Newman sort of runs down this matter of Spurgeon, and says after all it was a good thing for the Baptist Union; then he goes on to sort of run down the English Baptist Union; he says that the Welsh and Scotch Baptist churches, and a small party among the English Baptists, the Manchester Baptist College and Theological Seminary, are in doctrine and practice nearer to the American type. So he recognized as early as 1900 that there had been results which he doesn't altogether approve of in this Baptist Union, although he doesn't like to admit any truth to Spurgeon's charges. Newman's is the standard Baptist Church History, as far as I know; he was professor in a Baptist Theological Seminary. He shows the decline of the Baptist churches prior to the Great Awakening, and then he shows their tremendous progress afterward. I read his praise of the great work of Andrew Fuller, and his praise of the great work of Spurgeon, but he runs down Spurgeon's stand against the central matters of the faith. The reason I read from it was because it certainly was not a book prejudiced in any way against the Baptists; he is a strong Baptist, and on Baptist matters I read from him.
Well,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon then was a great force affecting not only the Baptist
churches, but all the churches of Britain, and affecting the churches in
America as well. He had a great influence on D. L. Moody, who was a close
friend of his, and who was greatly influenced by hearing Spurgeon preach. Now
C.
United States in the 19th century.
1. Unitarianism in New England. We saw at the end of the 18th century, Timothy Dwight becoming president of Yale and of finding Yale University just at the edge of becoming a thorough-going Unitarian place. But there had been no change in the doctrinal basis of Yale, in the principles which the professors were supposed to hold, and most of them did theoretically hold, when Timothy Dwight became president. But Dwight changed the situation at the college, so that the college held to the principles to which it was officially tied, and which it was supposed to be maintaining. Now this change at Yale was part of a movement which was affecting the Congregational churches all through New England. These churches were the result of the coming of the Puritans 150 years before; and they had held for a very long time very loyally to the faith. But particularly in Boston, rationalism had been coming in for some time before 1800.
When these Puritans came to this country, they wanted to establish communities in which the gospel would be supreme; and consequently the church was supposed to have control over the religious and educational life of the community; but as time went on, and there were people in the community who were not interested in church, they had moderated this position; but still the community had control over the church; and so when Unitarianism began to come to New England, in church after church the majority of the community, including people who never went to church, voted in favor of the Unitarians—that is, there was no Unitarian organization yet—a man of Unitarian views, a man denying the deity of Christ, against a man who held Trinitarian views.
And the people with Unitarian beliefs spread these very piously; they were getting ministers in more and more churches in New England; these things came into public view when shortly after 1800, a man was elected to the Harvard professorship in theology at Harvard University, who was a pronounced Unitarian in his views. When this happened, the sound ministers began preaching against it, and pointing out what had happened; in fact a lot of the sound ministers got together and founded a new seminary, Andover Theological Seminary. It was founded in 1807, a seminary which was to do what Harvard was founded to do 150 years earlier; and this Seminary proceeded in the next 80 years—I guess—to train hundreds of men, men who stood for the Word of God, and who were missionaries under the Congregational Board and under other missionary boards; they were ministers and missionaries all over this country and all over the world; there is no seminary probably that had done a greater work in sound Christian leadership than Andover Seminary; until about 80 years later, when people of Unitarian views infiltrated the Board at Andover; they brought it in line with the teaching of Harvard, and put an end to its work. But during that period it was a tremendously fruitful seminary.
But the Unitarian Movement spread in New England; and the result was that when the Evangelicals realized what had happened, and began to try to move against it, the Unitarians took a great many of the churches of New England. They took with them Harvard University—the great university of New England. All but two of the congregational churches of Boston went Unitarian. They took a great number of the churches, a greater part of the wealth; the greater number of the people of standing in the community joined the Unitarian Church; and so there was a great defection from the Congregational church in the New England area. But the Congregational churches gathered together their strength and established Andover Seminary. Abiel Holmes, the grandfather of Oliver Wendell Holmes the Supreme Court Justice, had the pastorate of the First Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts for over 20 years; he was greatly beloved by the church, but when the Unitarians began to come in, the community voted that he would have to have Unitarians to preach when he was on his vacation; and the result of this was that Aviel Holmes walked out of the church—this is about 1820—where he had been pastor for 20 years, without even so much as being able to take a hymnbook; and he walked out with the spiritual center of the church; they had to start a new church from scratch, and they built up the first Congregational Church of Cambridge. This was typical of what was happening all over New England, as Unitarianism took over what had been the greatest center of evangelical Christianity. It was taken over by it to such an extent, that today as a whole New England is religiously dead.
Today you can go for miles without finding a church that has an evening service or that has any great number of people attending. And at the beginning of the 19th century the Unitarians took over just about everything. But the Congregationalists built Andover and did a tremendous work for the next 80 years. At the end of this period they had four times the membership the Unitarians did; they had done a tremendous work before Modernists in turn infiltrated them about the turn of the century [1900].
Yesterday we began C, United States in the 19th century, and under that 1, Unitarianism in New England. I'm not sure—judging by one or two questions at the end of the hour—that the main features of this were quite clear. So I'm going to recapitulate just the main features. New England, you remember, had been settled first by the Pilgrims in 1620. Then the Puritans began coming in 1630; they were far more numerous than the Pilgrims, and soon they assimilated the Pilgrims into their number. The Pilgrims were strong separatists; they definitely broke with the Church of England; they came over to get away from the Church of England and they desired to have no relationship with it; they considered it as Babylon. And if it were not for the Pilgrims who made the break, and opened up the way and showed it could be done, it is doubtful if any considerable number of the Puritans would have come. They would have stayed in England and their children or their great grandchildren would have been completely swept away from out-and-out Christianity, as happened to most of the Puritans who remained in England. But seeing what the Pilgrims had done, they followed their example and thousands of them came between 1630 and 1640; they came over saying, "We depart not from the Church of England but from its errors," but they were so far away from it physically that it amounted practically to a departure from it; and in the end, the Puritan churches were entirely independent of the Church organization in England; each congregation controlled its own section of New England, where they tried to develop a community in which the Word of God would be central; and the Pilgrim church eventually became a part of this Puritan church. Now I doubt if any denomination in history has continued as long in its loyalty to Christ, as long in its solid doctrinal work, as these churches of New England. Other denominations have had periods of a century or so in which they've done a tremendous work for God, but in between they have fallen into apostasy and sin and practically lost any influence as far as a real effective stand for the Lord is concerned. But these churches in New England maintained, for one and a half centuries, a very, very high level of Christian life and of solid emphasis on the Word of God. There were ups and downs in the course of that time, naturally. And there were men of great zeal, and there were men who became interested in matters purely from an intellectual viewpoint, and didn't show any great zeal. But the standard was as high or higher than the standard of any church that I know of anywhere has kept up for as long a time as that. But by 1800 rationalism and unbelief had come from Europe into the center of New England Puritanism. That center was in Boston. And there in Boston, in Harvard University, which had been the great Christian school founded for the training of ministers who were out-and-out for Christ; in that school, by 1800, unbelief had a very large measure of success.
We notice by that time that in Yale University, unbelief had no control as far as the stand of the school and the announced stand of the professors was concerned; but shortly before 1800 the students in Yale had been almost all of them unbelievers; but President Timothy Dwight had changed all that, so that there was a great revival among the students of Yale; By 1800 Yale University was a center of belief in the Word of God from which hundreds of men went out to preach the Word and to carry it as missionaries to the very ends of the earth. Well, in Harvard, in 1805 a professor was appointed to the Harvard Chair of Divinity, a professor who denied the Trinity; and this caused churches in that whole area to realize what was happening; and the result was that, seeing they could not train solid Christian ministers in Harvard any longer, in 1808 they established Andover Seminary; and in Andover Seminary, a few miles from Harvard, a center was established which, for the following 80 years was as great a center for training of Christian leaders, as I ever heard of anywhere in the world. There were hundreds of students graduated from Andover who went out as ministers of Congregational churches in New England and in the west, who went out as missionaries to many different countries; and they did a tremendous work for God; and it was in the latter part of the century that those who did not believe got control of the Board of Andover Seminary. And when they got control of the Board of Andover Seminary, they began changing the teachers, bringing unbelievers in to do the teaching; and soon Andover began to fall off in student body, until shortly after 1900, there were hardly any students there; it had become just a handful of students like Harvard; the result was that these trustees united Andover with Harvard, and moved the seminary to Harvard and took the library and put it in Harvard and put the endowment in Harvard.
About 1930 or a little before, a layman in New England brought suit against the trustees of Andover in the courts; because Andover was formed to fight Harvard's unbelief, and now it had been united with Harvard and its endowments and funds given to Harvard. And he made a big fight in the courts; the courts recognized that he was right; the money was being misused, so they took it away from Harvard but gave it another Modernist seminary, Newton Theological Seminary, a modernistic Baptist seminary near Boston; and then Newton changed its name to Andover Newton, in recognition of the fact that it had received Andover's money; but its training is just about as remote from that of the old Andover as that of Harvard, perhaps more so.
But Andover for that century was a great center of evangelical work until the modernists took over at the end of the century, as they took over Harvard at the beginning. Now that is part of the effect on educational institutions. There were other schools founded the history of which we just don't have time to go into; though it would be very interesting if we could, because there were a number of very fine schools among the Congregationalists during that time.
But that happened later than what we're now speaking of; we're dealing with the 19th century, and we dealt with England; now we're dealing with America. But the unbelief that came in to New England was before the rise of evolution—60 years before. It was largely, though, affected by rationalism in Germany, Scotland, and in England. At the same time that this change took place in the educational institutions, and parallel with it—closely related to it—there took place a change in the churches; and that change which took place in the churches of New England was a change which seemed to impartial observers to mean the end of supernatural Christianity in New England. Rationalism from Germany had been taught in Harvard; in Harvard it had trained new ministers who went out to the churches not believing in the Trinity; some of them would be considered almost fundamentalists today, they were so much more conservative than the modernists today. But for that day they were quite liberal. and some of them were very radical. And these men went into the Puritan churches in New England, and soon the preaching of this type was in most of the wealthy churches, the important leading ones in New England. And the result was that when the others became aroused and began to make a stir, and Andover was founded, and men from Andover came out standing for the truth, these churches broke off fellowship—the churches that had accepted the liberal teaching—broke off fellowship with the others and formed an organization which they called the Unitarian Association.
And so by the old system in New England, each church had been independent, but the churches united together for mutual assistance and help. Now the churches with the most money, the most prestige, the highest standard of education, in this group with the Puritan background in New England, particularly in the Boston area, united together. Somebody said their creed is: The Fatherhood of God, The Brotherhood of man, and the Neighborhood of Boston. Well, no denomination ever got a better start than the Unitarian denomination. I heard Dean Brown of Yale 40 years ago; he was then Dean of the Divinity School of Yale. And I heard him give a talk in which he said a little after 1800, the Unitarians left the Congregationalists; then those that remained took the name Congregationalists. He said the Unitarians took with them most of the well-to-do churches, the best educated people; they took the great university of Harvard, one of their two great universities; they took most of their endowments; people said, "Within 40 years Unitarianism will be the great church; and the remaining people, the Trinitarians, which came to call themselves Congregationalists, they will disappear."
Dean Brown died 40 years ago; he said the Congregational Church has been one of the slowest-growing churches among the great denominations; and yet, he said, "Today, 100 years later, we find that the Congregational Church has grown many times as much as the Unitarian church has; that the Unitarian church is a very small segment of American life, and that the Congregational Church, while not one of the biggest denominations, is many times as big as the Unitarian." Well, he was giving that as an evidence of the value of Christ—the deity of Christ—having an effect upon a church that could never be gotten from the Unitarian view of Christ as a great teacher but not as God.
The Congregationalists, until about 1900—or a little after—continued the old Puritan traditions; they stood solidly on the truth of the Bible, solidly on the Bible as God's Word. In general, pretty close to the teaching of Calvin as to the interpretation of the Bible. They had many revivals in their churches; they had much effect on the life of their section, and some effect on other sections of the U.S. Today we don't know much about the Congregationalists, because for 40 years or more now, their denomination has been largely under modernistic control; but they continued for nearly a century as a thoroughly sound church after they had lost a tremendous number of churches through the Unitarians' defection. Fortunately for them, the Unitarians left them; if the Unitarians had remained in fellowship in their churches, they would have permeated the whole church. As it is, in a hundred years they have permeated their churches and most of our other denominations. Today some of the Unitarians boast: they say, "Our denomination has grown very little, we are a small church"; but they say, "In penetration of our ideas, the other denominations are shot through with those today who believe just as we do." Today you'll find an occasional Congregational Church in the U.S. that is a great center of sound Christian teaching. But they are comparatively few; the bulk of them are under the modernists today. And the bulk of their state unions—they have state secretaries—they are nearly all trained in congregational seminaries, which during the last fifty years have been taken over by the modernists.
When the Unitarians took over in Boston, a little after 1800, there were only two important churches in Boston left that were Congregational. There was the Park Street Church and the Old South Church; and the Old South Church remained an orthodox church until about 1900, then they got a new minister named George Gordon, and I read Gordon's autobiography. It told how as a young man from Scotland, holding very modernistic views, he finished his education in New England; and he received a call—he was an excellent preacher—he received a call to this big church in Boston, but the Congregational association was asked to ordain him; and he said at the meeting before he would come up, another young man came up who was half as modernistic as he was; and this man came up, and those Congregationalists there questioned and questioned him on his faith; they brought his unbelief in the virgin birth, and different points; and he said, "The way they went after that young fellow, when they come after me I haven't got a chance to pass." But they questioned this man for hours, and then they argued for hours; and after arguing for hours, they took a vote, and by a small majority they won out to ordain the other man. Well, he said, at the next meeting, he came up for ordination. He says they asked him a few questions on what he believed, and ordained him. And he was amazed that they didn't give him any trouble, but the situation was that they had made their change. On the other man, the thing was far out; the modernists won; after that they had the church, so when he came up it was just carrying out what they had done; and so he went into the Old South Church, and that left the Park Street Church as the only remaining sound church in Boston. And the Park Street Church, at the end of the century, was just about to go to pieces; then an old minister, a man 80 years of age practically, but of tremendous vigor, was called to the church and he built it up and reestablished it and did tremendous things for it. Dr. John L. Withrow. He was there a number of years, and made a change; and the Park Street Church became a center of preaching but very different from what it had been.
Well,
the Unitarian Movement then in New England is something that we should be
familiar with, even though today Unitarianism as a denomination is a
comparatively small thing. The Congregational church continued for a century as
a very great influence for the gospel in America.
2.
Evangelism in America. Now to cover a survey of evangelism in the
nineteenth century would be a tremendous task, and would take us many weeks,
All I want to do is to mention the fact that during that whole century, there
were many great revivals in America in different sections; and I want to tell a
little about the two men who were the two outstanding evangelists of the
century. The first of these was
a. Charles G. Finney. Charles Grandison Finney was a lawyer who was born in 1792 in Connecticut; and he went to western New York when it was a section that wasn't much built up yet; he didn't make any claim to Christianity; he got law training, entered a law office in 1818, in Adams, New York; and he says in his autobiography that he was then almost as ignorant of religion as a heathen. But his curiosity was excited by quotations from the Bible in his law book; so he purchased the first copy of the Bible he had ever owned; he began to drop into prayer meetings in the local Presbyterian churches in that area; and he took a general interest in it, and he would read his Bible and was interested in it; and then one day he began not reading his Bible in front of anybody else. He would sit in his office reading his Bible, and the minute somebody came in he would stick it under the table; and he remarked how it was, how at one time he'd just read the Bible in front of anybody, and it was an interesting book; two days later he didn't want anybody to see him reading the Bible; he hid it under the table till they got out; then he read it again. He was under conviction. And the Spirit of God worked in him for a time, and he came out into a sharp, complete acceptance of Jesus Christ as his only Hope, his Saviour; and he determined to make his life count for Him; and then he wanted to be entirely devoted to the Word of God.
Now he came to the ministers then and asked them, "What he should do to become trained to serve the Lord?" And they said, "We are graduates of Princeton Seminary; we will raise a fund here to help you and send you down there." And he said, "No, I don't want to go there." And they said, "You don't want to go to Princeton; why not?" Well, he didn't want to say why not; but when they pressed him, he said, "You fellows are all graduates of Princeton, and I don't want to be the sort of minister you folks are," so he said, "I just don't want to go to Princeton." And so they said, "Well, we can let you study theology under the direction of some of us, and pass examinations; we can ordain you." So they did it that way. Princeton had been founded about ten years before. And Princeton was standing for the evangelical doctrines at this time; but it was pure scholarship at that time—excellent scholarship—and was doing marvelous work in defending the faith; but there was not that spirit of evangelical feeling that was very much there when I was there 40 years ago; it was not present at that time. And in addition to that, the Calvinist teaching at Princeton, some of these ministers had carried to an extreme, which the professors did not carry; to the point where instead of interpreting it that they were to go out and preach the word of God and win people for Christ, knowing that God had before ordained whose going to be won; so that they must do their best, but leave the results with God; some of them were taking the attitude, "Well, I present the word, and if they take it fine; and if they don't take it, we just know they're not elect." Of course that's an utterly false interpretation of Calvinistic teaching; and I don't mean that was characteristic of all those ministers by any means, but of some of them. And Finney felt, having just come to a knowledge of the gospel—from utter ignorance of it—he felt here was something that people should really get excited about and be on fire with. Well, he studied theology; he already had a good background in Latin and Greek; he learned Hebrew; he got a foundation to the point where these men ordained him; and then he started preaching; he preached with conviction, and he preached in an area in which all the people had a background of Christian truth; they had some knowledge of it, and probably all of them thought, "Now, I don't want to go to hell; before I die I want to accept the Lord; but I'd like to have a good time a few years longer, before I do it." And Finney went out among those people preaching "Now is the day of salvation." There was a fine old elder who was holding services at a place in the country; and some ungodly fellows in the neighborhood used to try to stop him from getting to his place; sometimes they even took the wheels off his carriage so he couldn't get there, and they were making difficulty. This man said to Finney, "Can you come out and help me?" He said, "Sure; he came out, and he met these fellows; and he stood up and began to talk; and he preached on the text, "You generation of vipers, how shall you escape the damnation of hell?" And he preached right straight to them; and the result of his preaching was a tremendous revival among the fellows, and the building of a tremendous church there.
He became engaged and he got married; he left his wife right after the ceremony in order to go to the city 30 miles away where they were planning to live; and 30 miles in those days was quite a little trip. Well, he got up to this place and came into town and began looking for a home for them. People said, "Mr. Finney, we want you to preach down here, will you come down and give us a sermon." He said, "I've got to find a home for my bride and me," but they said, "Give us a sermon first." So he went up and gave them a sermon; and a great revival broke out; and he was six months holding services, and he was preaching so vigorously that he didn't have time to go back and get his wife until six months later. But one time he was preaching and somebody passed up a note to him which said "Finney, please give an altar call; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York says if you'll give an altar call he will come forward." Finney said, "I haven't quite finished drawing out this logical structure that I'm building here; wait a few minutes and I'll give one." And he went on with his preaching, and gave his call; and the Chief Justice of the State of New York came forward, along with most of the prominent people of that particular place.
For years he carried on one of the most effective and successful sorts of revival meetings that this country has ever seen. But I think one thing we need to keep in mind about that is that he went into a situation where people believed the facts of the gospel. They believed the facts; they simply were resisting and holding back from doing what they knew they ought to do; and Finney came saying, "This is what you ought to do," and the people listened to his very logical legal type of argument, his strong clear presentation; and the results of it are hard to duplicate. It was tremendous what he accomplished in his revivals. Eventually he founded Oberlin College. He was now a member of the Congregational Association; he founded Oberlin College, which for many years was a center of out-and-out Christianity; until, within the last few years, the movements in congregationalism have swept over it.
One time when he was at Oberlin toward the aid of his life, people said, "Mr. Finney, we haven't had any rain here for weeks. We're going to have a prayer meeting for rain; all the crops will be ruined if we don't get rain. Will you come and lead the prayer meeting?" He said, "All right, I will." The afternoon came, the parched dry afternoon; people were there in the service and Finney hadn't gotten there yet; and they looked out, and it was just time for prayer meeting to start, and here comes Finney walking down the street, carrying a great big umbrella; and everybody began laughing, "Look at him carrying this big umbrella. Why, we haven't had rain for weeks and it's dry and parched." Well, Finney said, "You folks are wanting to pray for rain; don't you have faith God can answer your prayer? Do you want to get soaking wet?" So they held a great prayer meeting for rain; and before they finished the meeting, the rain was just pouring down in bucketsful; and Finney was the only man who got home dry. But that was his view regarding evangelism. He didn't preach simply to give the Word; he preached expecting things from God, and he got results from God. He was a great Christian leader; he was not a great theologian. He developed certain vital aspects of the gospel—and I say we're better off with the things that Finney developed without the rest, than with all the rest without that—but the Lord wants us to have it all. And Finney, in opposing perversion of certain Scriptural theology, he went in the other direction on certain points. But that did not form the central basis of his creed at all. He was a tremendously effective servant of the Lord. Oh, by the way, Dr. R. A. Torrey—I think one of the great influences in my life were the lectures I heard from Dr. R. A. Torrey—said, "Every minister, every year, should read the Memoirs and Remains of Robert Murray McCheyne, for his inner spiritual life, and the Autobiography of Charles G. Finney, for his external Christian activities." Torrey felt that those two books, if read every year, would keep these two sides of a minister's life alive and on fire.
Well,
the other man, we want to mention is
b. Dwight L Moody. He was a few years later than Finney, he came from a different background, and he worked largely in a different area. Moody was brought up in New England, in a section in which Unitarianism had completely won out; he was born in Northfield, Massachusetts, in 1837; he died in that same place just nine days before the end of the century. He was the sixth of nine children, in a family in straitened circumstances. He went to the village Unitarian church, and he took an interest in getting pupils into his Sunday School; but he got no gospel there at all, though he felt an interest in the church's activity and tried to help it. In his late teens, he moved to Boston, and there his uncle hired him as a clerk in his shoe store; his uncle was a member of a Congregational Church there, a very sound godly church, the Mount Carmel Congregational Church; and his uncle made one of the conditions of his coming to Boston and working in this store, that he must regularly attend his uncle's church and Sunday School; and he started in to do it. He faithfully attended, and there he received orthodox Christian teaching; the Sunday School teacher came and talked with him, and led him to the Lord. Eventually he became a member of that church. But when he was only 19 years of age, he moved to Chicago, having been about 3 years in Boston. There he found a more lucrative position than any that his uncle could offer him, and soon he had a reputation as a great salesman of shoes, and a traveler in the shoe trade. And soon he accumulated $7,000—which was a very sizeable amount of money in those days. He was still in his very early 20's but he was a very active successful business man. But while active in business, he began to take a great interest in Sunday School work in Chicago. He gradually became more and more prominent in Sunday School work in Chicago, until eventually, when he was only about 25, he gave up business and became an independent city missionary. He carried on Christian work for a number of years, doing the very best he could—studying all he could on the side—but his real fame began in England. He was invited to come over to England to hold some meetings; when he got over there, he found that the man who had invited him had died and nobody else knew anything about the invitation. He'd spent all the money he had getting to England; he had nothing more; but he started in, just independently holding meetings in England; and gradually they built up, and eventually he made a very good start in meetings in England. He heard Spurgeon preach, and was tremendously affected by Spurgeon's preaching; he became a very good friend of Spurgeon, who was a little older than he was, not a great deal. Then he came back to the U. S. and continued work here; and then went back to England again. This time when he went back to England, they say there were two bedridden women who had been praying for years that Moody would come and hold meetings over there. They had been praying for this, from what they had read about Moody; and one day a member of the family came home, and they asked, "How was the church service?" and she said, "Oh they had a man from America." "What was his name?" "Oh, D. L. Moody." Well, immediately they said, "We haven't time for any lunch." They gave themselves to prayer. They had been praying for years, and that evening the revival began there. Moody stayed two years, being invited from one place to another in England and Scotland; and his first great meetings were over there. Horatius Bonar, whom we mentioned in the progress of the Free Church in Scotland—the great hymn writer, and poet of Scotland—of the Free Church, he said of Moody's campaign in Edinburgh, there was hardly a family in the town, but what at least one member and sometimes several were converted at these meetings; he had a tremendous stirring of the Spirit there. Then he came back to America, where he was hardly known, except among individuals with whom he had had contact; he came back here, and the news of his great effectiveness in Great Britain was noised about here; and he began holding meetings here, which began to increase; and soon he was holding tremendous meetings with thousands of people present; and Moody did a tremendous work here in America with great evangelistic meetings, toward the latter part of the century.
He died, as I said, just nine days before the end of the century. But I've been told that Moody said once, that he noticed quite a change in America in his meetings. That in his early ministry all he had to do, it seemed to him, was to say, "Christ died for you; you must accept him and be saved," and the people said, "Yes, I know I should accept him, I know I ought to have done it long ago; yes, I will." But that toward the end of his meetings, the attitude of people was, "Well, how do we know that Christ is God? How do we know the Bible is true?" The unbelief, he felt, was spreading during his period of activity in this country, so that it made a great difference in people's attitude; and while his work was tremendously effective to the end of his life, he did not feel that it was nearly as easy to reach people then as it had been in the early part. There was a change which was coming, a change which he didn't know what caused it, but he could see its effect.
Now Moody was interested—I'm not sure whether he founded Oberlin or whether he came to it very soon after it was founded, but he really put it on its feet—he was interested in the educational work there, and for quite a time Oberlin sent out real Christian workers. Moody founded schools that were more like high schools—up in New England. and a big Bible conference there—but they have since fallen largely—I think entirely—into the hands of the modernists. His sons became modernists. His two sons were presidents of colleges, and I read the inaugural address of one of those, as the president of the college. He said that the great ideal for us is the ideal of the ancient Persians, who had to learn three great things: to ride a horse, to shoot straight, and to tell the truth. And that was his inaugural address; nothing about Christianity in it. His sons got a good education, but they wandered from the faith of their father. He also founded the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago; and in the Moody Bible Institute, which did a great work while he was there, he got Dr. R. A. Torrey to continue it.
Torrey was a graduate of Yale and had studied in Germany; he had the thorough theological training that Moody lacked. Torrey did a tremendous work in evangelistic campaigns—nothing like what Moody did, but a very tremendous work—but Torrey had the educational foundation, the understanding of theology, to continue the school and keep it on the foundation on which Moody desired it to go. There was not much pronounced modernism at this time in the Congregational church or the Presbyterian church; most of the Baptist churches were very sound at this time; and with these groups they cooperated very closely, with all these groups. The Unitarians and the Universalists were the groups that denied the Scripture; and I don't think those groups were interested in cooperating with them. I'm quite sure that he never made any move toward cooperating with the Unitarians and Universalists. Moody had been brought up in the Unitarian Sunday School, but had left it through his uncle's activities, when he was in his middle teens. And his mother was converted later on, through his activity, and joined the Congregational church. But there was a brilliant Scotchman named Henry Drummond, who was converted in one of Moody's meetings; and Drummond wrote The Greatest Thing in the World; and in the explosive power of the new affection, Moody had quite a great influence on Drummond; but Drummond had accepted the whole higher criticism, and the evolutionary views; and he tried to reconcile them with the Christianity he received from Moody; and Drummond came over and spoke at the Northfield Conference; and they say—I don't know the facts but I have heard by rumor—that Torrey objected to what Drummond was giving, that there were unchristian emphases and attitudes toward the Scripture; and it is said that Moody said to Torrey, "Well, I like some of his attitudes better than yours, he shows a more Christian attitude than you do." But others say that, whether Moody said that or not, he didn't invite Drummond back any more to the conference. I don't think Moody had much educational background; and I don't think he understood these things as Torrey did; but I think his desire was to have his work be entirely for the advancement of thoroughly Christian work; and he wouldn't knowingly let anybody go into a church where there was the least question raised on the truth of the Scripture or on the deity of Christ.
Well,
these two were very great friends, Finney and Moody. I want to very briefly
summarize.
3.
Presbyterian Developments during the 19th Century. Under that
small
a. The Presbyterian Association with Congregationalists. The Presbyterians were largely in the middle states, as you know. And the Presbyterians realized that, while their system of government was different from that of the Congregationalists, their doctrinal viewpoint was identical; and the result was that the Presbyterians sent their missionaries under the Congregational board, the American Board of Foreign Missions. The Presbyterian missionaries went all under this Congregational Board; and the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists united in an organization called the Home Mission Society, which formed hundreds of churches in Ohio and in Illinois, out in these parts of the western frontier, hundreds of churches; they sent out dozens of missionaries, did a tremendous home mission work for a time.
Eventually
many of the Presbyterians began to feel that this board was establishing
Congregational churches instead of Presbyterian churches; it was supposed to be
neutral in the matter of government and the doctrine was identical of the two;
but there was dissatisfaction with it and they left it; and the
Congregationalists said that when they did they took with them a thousand
churches, which became Presbyterian churches, which would have been
Congregational otherwise, We haven't time to go into details of that; and it
would be hard to check the rights and wrongs of those claims, but for some
decades they worked together in this way. Well,
b. Founding of Seminaries. We noticed how Andover was founded in New England, and this action of the Congregationalists may have given the spurs to the Presbyterians in the middle states. At any rate they began founding seminaries. The first of them they called the Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., but the place they founded it was Princeton, New Jersey.
Princeton was founded in 1812, and quite a few other Presbyterian seminaries were founded in the next few years, until it was 1836, I believe, when Union Seminary was founded in New York. And Union Seminary in its early days had many very godly ministers teaching in it, and sent out many very fine Christians in Christian work; but there was a difference in the attitude of Princeton and of Union. Union was very receptive to the newest thoughts and ideas from Europe, while Princeton from the beginning tried to take its stand solidly on the Word of God and the Confession of Faith. The result was that the people felt that Union was much more responsive to new movements and new thoughts; and of course as long as the new movements and new thoughts are strictly in line with the Word of God, there is nothing wrong with them; but when they get outside of that area, it can result in Union Seminary going where it went today.
Princeton
Seminary—somebody said to one of the professors toward the end of the last
century—he said, "Professor, if you keep on with this attitude, there
won't be any more students coming to Princeton." The professor said,
"Young man, Princeton Seminary will go on just the same, whether there are
any students or not." Well, that of course was an attitude which I think
was dishonoring to the Lord. They were interested in the truth and that was
wonderful; but they did not have an interest in getting the truth into the
hearts of people and reaching out as they should. Now they got that interest
toward the end of their evangelical time—just before the modernists took them
over—partly because of an influx of evangelical-minded people at that time.
These were attracted by its stand for the faith, and partly by two or three
members of the faculty like Dr. J. Gresham Machen,
who united with an orthodox faith a great interest in human souls and a great
desire to stand out-and-out for Christ in every way. We haven't time to go into
details of Princeton in that century; we just mention now its founding in 1812;
the university was founded a long time before, you remember; the Seminary now
in 1812, and these other seminaries leading up to Union, which I believe was in
1836.
c. Old School and New School Split. There was a division in 1837 between the men who stood around Princeton Seminary and the men who stood around the movement that resulted in the foundation of Union Seminary. And this split between the so-called Old School and the New School—the New School wanted to be responsive to new movements and new thought; the Old School wanted to take the old solid truths and stand upon them—and I think each of them went a little bit to extremes. There was no real heterodoxy in either group at that time; but there was a tendency in each which, if carried to extremes, could be harmful; and Charles Hodge of Princeton, opposed the split in 1837; strangely he also opposed the reunion later, but he opposed the split in 1837. And Princeton tried to keep a position of friendliness with both sides. It proved impossible to do, but they tried it for a time.
But
in 1837 there was this split into two parties, the Old School and the New
School.
d. North and South Split. This affected practically all the churches for the next 20 years in the days before the Civil War. Feeling got so hot that when they'd have ecclesiastical meetings of just about any denomination, they would find themselves discussing national political issues to the extent that it was hard to get the religious work done; and the result was that practically all of our denominations split between north and south some years before the coming of the Civil War. And so the Old School and the New School split, they both split between the north and south. But in the south the New School was quite small and before long they reunited with the southern church. In the north the Old School and New School both grew, and both were quite successful; and this continued until 1869, and they made the agreement then; and in 1870 they consummated it with a union of the Old and New School in the north. And Charles Hodge voted against the reunion. And you might say this was inconsistent, wasn't it? To vote against the split, and then to vote against the reunion. But it wasn't so inconsistent when you realize what it meant.
The split came between the people centering around New York—who wanted to be progressive and responsive to new movements, new ideas, new ways of presenting the truth—and the group centering around Princeton—which wanted to stand by the old words exactly as they were, keeping every jot and every tittle just as it was. And Hodge felt that we should be progressive and open to new thought and new movements so long as they are not contrary to the word of God. Therefore, he saw no reason why there should be a split. But during the period when they were separated, each of them being freed from the holding back of the other one, the result was that the New School moved further in adopting new progressive ideas that would help in the advancing of the gospel, but in addition to that they adopted new progressive ideas that were in denial of certain points of the Calvinistic theology, and that eventually went to denial of central features of the faith.
So
Hodge saw that, given the way they had gone during that period, they would be
far better off without the reunion; so he was not inconsistent in voting
against the split, which was an unfortunate thing, but also voting against the
reunion, which brought into the whole church these tendencies which had
developed during the time that they were split. In the south, the New School
and the Old School were together and now in the north the Old School and New School
were reunited; but the northern and southern church continued until two or
three years ago. The northern was the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.; the
southern was The Presbyterian Church in the U.S. Today there are still the
Presbyterian churches in the U. S., but the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.
has united with the United Presbyterians, which 20 years ago was a far more
sound church than the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Some of us were quite
surprised when that union was made. They had been infiltrated more than a lot
of people realized. Now they call this combined body the United Presbyterian
Church of the U.S.A. That merger was formed just two or three years ago; but
the southern church which they desired to have in the union stayed out of it,
and is still a distinct church; and it is at present definitely more
conservative than the northern church; but its seminaries are largely in the
hands of modernists, and they have many sections of it, and they have the
machinery of the General Assembly pretty strongly in their hands. There are
certain sections of the southern church that are still very conservative, but
if they continue as they are they will be taken over by the others, because the
others have the machinery of the church pretty well in hand. Well, that's
getting into the 20th century, we can't do that, we're in the 19th now.
e. The Reunion of the Northern Church in 1870. After 1870 the reunited church grew rapidly. The influence of the Old School was dominant, but the influence of the New School was undermining—that is of that section of the New School which had gone beyond the teaching of Scripture—and so at the end of the century there were several heresy trials. For instance, Professor [Charles Augustus] Briggs of Union Seminary was tried by the General Assembly, and convicted of heresy; and the General Assembly voted to recommend to a theological student that they not go to Union Seminary in New York; and the result was that Union Seminary cast off all control of the General Assembly and declared itself entirely independent of the Assembly; and the Union Seminary student body dropped and Princeton's rose very considerably about 1890; but then in subsequent years Union got their graduates into the church, and eventually infiltrated the entire church, but at the end of the 1890's the orthodox forces were in control, and I think they were pretty dominant until within the last 25 years.
25 years ago I was talking to a Quaker who told me how he and his wife and son had gone to a Bible conference; one summer they visited a dozen Bible conferences. He said they were all interdenominational Bible conferences, and they heard wonderful Christian teaching in these Bible conferences. He said they were interdenominational Bible conferences, but the teachers were practically all Presbyterian; and he said the people whom we met were nearly all Presbyterian, but they were all interdenominational Bible conferences. Well, during those years the modernists were getting the control of the machinery of the church; and so those conferences which represent the attitude of the majority of the church and had great numbers of the leaders of the church were held on an interdenominational level, or an independent level, but the Presbyterians were their backbone, their center, and the great base of their teaching. They were trying to ignore the ecclesiastical developments and maintaining their spiritual life by holding independent meetings for the purpose. If a third of that energy had been put into trying to get control of ecclesiastical organization, and get the small minority of the modernists put out, they might have held the whole church; but as it was, the modernists got control of the church, and now they have introduced a unified curriculum which requires the teaching of modernism in every church; and there are very, very few churches which do not now teach—in the northern Presbyterian churches—a unified curriculum which imposes modernism upon the church. That was not the case 20 years ago. 20 years ago, the organization was in the hands of the modernists, but many, many churches were carrying on a truly Christian testimony, giving nearly all their missionary money to independent missionaries, and ignoring the way the top organization was going. Now we can't do that, because the top organization is reaching right into practically every church; and people are in a position where they've got to get out, and get with those who hold Christian teaching; or if they stay in, they will find themselves more and more subject—even though the majority at the individual church may be thoroughly Christian—they'll find themselves more and more subjected to the necessity of teaching modernism in their Sunday School, and of receiving modernist preachers in their church.
Last
time we were speaking about the United States in the 19th century, and we go on
to
D.
The Roman Catholic Church in the 19th Century. And I'd like to
speak very briefly about this, but there are two or three things that it is
important we should be aware of.
1. The Re-establishment of the Jesuits. It was toward the end of the 18th century that the infallible pope declared that the Jesuit Order was forever, permanently abolished, never to be reestablished. But four years later, the new infallible pope reestablished it with all its privileges and powers. And so the Jesuits since that time have been careful to avoid certain things that brought great disrepute upon them before. They've stayed a little more in the background than they had before; but they were even stronger, and a greater force than they had been before. When there is dirty work to do, they get someone else to do it; but they watch it very carefully, and they are today the backbone—I don't think there is any question—of the Roman Catholic Church. Now you don't see a person's backbone; and you may not see the backbone of the Roman Catholic Church. The "black pope" is the name often given the head of the Jesuit Order. He has his place a few blocks from the Vatican. Millions of people go to the Vatican hoping to get a glimpse of the "white pope"—the Bishop of Rome. The Black pope, very few people other than Jesuits ever go to see him, but he probably has a much greater actual voice in the conduct of the church than the pope actually has, in most cases.
The
last pope had a Jesuit confessor—not the general of the order, one of the
Jesuits—but this man would be responsible to report to the black pope; he would
be right under his orders, but the black pope is not the confessor. He has a
tremendous administrative job, with thousands of Jesuits all over the world,
and I doubt if he does much active confessing of anybody.
2.
Pius IX, 1846-1878.
You're familiar with various popes named Pius. Pius II, you remember, was the
first humanist pope back in the 15th century. And most of the popes named Pius
were not so prominent, except for Pius II, until we come to Pius IX; he was
much younger than most popes are when he was elected; and as a result reigned
from 1846 to 1878—32 years—an unusually long period for a pope to reign,
because most of them are quite elderly. But he was a man of great energy and
tremendous importance in Romanist history. There were four things that happened
during his reign: three of them the results of his own activity, one of them
something that happened against his wishes. These four are of tremendous
importance.
a.
The Immaculate Conception (1854). In 1854, eight years after he became pope,
Pius IX proclaimed that the doctrine which holds that the blessed Virgin Mary
was from the moment of her conception—by the singular grace of God—preserved
free from every taint of original sin, has been revealed by God; and is
therefore to be fervently and constantly believed by all the faithful. Now
during the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas had denied
this. He said the Virgin Mary never committed sin; but he said she was subject
to original sin from which she had been saved by the death of Christ, as had
everyone else who was ever saved. But some of the monks in the Middle Ages had
held that the Virgin Mary was conceived free from sin—not merely born free from
sin—but conceived free from sin. One of the opponents of this theory said,
"Well, if you're going to say that about the mother of Jesus, next thing
you know you'll have to carry it to the grandmother and the great-grandmother
and carry it way back." The idea is to prove that she is free from sin,
because she has no sinful ancestors; but they don't do that, they just carry it
to the one, the mother. But this was a step in the exaltation of the Virgin
Mary; she has been tremendously exalted for centuries, in various sections of
the church; but this made it official—the Immaculate Conception—and a vital
thing about this is that the pope promulgated the doctrine; he declared it
without having a church council to do it. Hardly ever in. history before had a
pope dared do a thing like that. Popes might make statements about political
situations, but to declare officially as doctrine one on which there had been
disagreement in the church before, this was a radical step forward; and it
exalted the prerogatives, or the power, of the pope tremendously—the fact that
he took such an action. And then ten years later he took another vital action,
b. The Syllabus of Error (1864). Now the Syllabus of Error was not such a vital thing as far as papal claims were concerned—like the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception—because it did not deal with doctrine; it dealt with expressing his view regarding present tendencies. The popes have often done that; but never had one in such a sweeping way made such a thorough-going declaration as this in 1864, when the pope declared that the following errors are wrong, un-Christian and not to be countenanced by the true church; and then he named 80 serious errors, of which one was Freedom of Conscience; another was Freedom of the Press; others were Protestantism, Communism, Bible societies, marriage by other than a priest, Free Scientific Investigation, Separation of Church and State, Schools not under direct control of the church, Religious toleration, and the final one—the 80th—was that he condemns the error which says that the Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to and agree with progress, liberalism and civilization, as lately introduced.
Now this Syllabus of Error—declared in 1864 by Pius IX, officially and publicly declared by the great infallible head of the church, as stating the attitude of the Church, and its claims—has never in any way been abrogated, denied, or even attempted to be changed by any subsequent pope. It is something that all who deal with the Roman Catholic Church should be aware of; it would be good if we were to be familiar with this attitude, which is declared to be the attitude of the Church; particularly so, since subsequent popes in later times have in their general actions and attitudes taken an attitude which would seem to belie in some way this attitude of Pius IX.
The fact of the matter is that the official goal and desire of the Church—as declared by Pius IX and maintained by all subsequent popes—that it is a wicked error to hold that church and state should be separate, that the Church, as the vicar of Christ, should not be supreme over all earthly potentates. That is a wicked error; but for the sake of obtaining the goal of complete control of the world by the Vicar of Christ; for the sake of obtaining that goal, subsequent popes have felt that it is desirable to do everything possible to win the friendship of those with other views; and to move them toward a position where then can come under the jurisdiction of the church; and consequently the attitude of subsequent popes is to maintain the right of Freedom of Religion and power in countries where Protestants are in control; but denying it and opposing it in countries where the Romanists have a strong working control. Their objective is definite; it is clear and has been proclaimed; but they do not feel that they will attain that objective by getting off in a corner and having nothing to do with anyone who differs with them. They wish their followers to be thoroughly aware of that objective and to move in that direction; but any time they can get someone else to move a little bit in that direction, they rejoice in the move they've made, instead of being upset and disgusted because they haven't yet come all the way.
And so today, the Jesuits and the other Romanists in this country keep in conferences with Protestant and Jewish leaders for discussions of problems of the family, problems of the home, interpretation of the O.T., Biblical problems, all sorts of things; not in religious meetings; they definitely separate meetings; they will not take part in a worship service in which a non-Romanist has a part; but in a meeting for discussion and for scholarly purposes and all that sort of thing, they take a most friendly attitude, and that way they are moving people toward them, winning their friendly respect and reaching out, until many people have the idea that the Syllabus of Error is something that was enacted way back in the dark ages, and does not represent the attitude of the church today. That is entirely false. It is their attitude in Romanist countries; it is their goal for all the world; but is something they don't feel they have to flaunt as a banner, but to hold as an objective.
And consequently we find that the new pope at a most friendly meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury; although previous popes have maintained that the English church is schismatic; that it has no true apostolic succession; it must confess its sin and come back to the Roman church before it can be considered a true church; he meets in the friendliest terms—this pope—with the head of it, wishing to move it in his direction as far as he can, in the hope of eventually having it coalesce; and they would even compromise some minor points in order to get it to coalesce. In no way has any one of these items in the Syllabus of Error ever been officially contradicted. You may find actions which seem to contradict it. Like the last pope, during the world war, they say; a group of American GI's went to the Vatican, and had a reception by the pope; and they all knelt before him except one boy remained standing; and the pope said, "Aren't you going to kneel?" And the boy says, "I'm a Protestant." Oh, the pope said, "It never hurt anybody to receive an old man's blessing; you kneel with the rest." Well, he didn't make a fuss about this Protestant coming in there; put him out, or anything; he got him to kneel, too, out of courtesy to an old man; and they take a picture of American GI's bowing; they avoid all difficulty; they don't make a fight over drawing the line; they draw it in their minds and they try to move people toward it; and they are, doubtless, under Jesuit planning and Jesuit influence.
When I went to Rome to get books for Faith Seminary, I wrote a note to a Jesuit whom I had met In Berlin when I studied there. I visited at Rome on a pilgrimage year; and it is pretty hard to find a good place to stay there. My Jesuit friend said, "I'll try to find a good reasonable place for you to stay, and I'll meet you at the train." So I got off the train in Rome; I hadn't been there for 16 years, didn't know my way around; I had been a little boy when I was there. I got off the train and walked down the platform; here were all these people milling around; I didn't know which way to go; I couldn't speak Italian, didn't know where to find a place to stay or anything. I looked, and way down there I saw a short fellow with long black skirt on coming up the aisle; I recognized his face as the man who, 20 years before, had studied with me in the University of Berlin. Here he came, greeted me, took me to his Jesuit school of Biblical studies; he got me some fruit drink and all that; he showed me where to buy good books, and then he found a nice place for me in a Swiss boarding house, where I had a very reasonably priced room. He went out of the way to be as friendly and kind to me as he could; and that's the Jesuit procedure, to be kindly, be friendly, be helpful, move people towards you; but hold the line rigidly in what you hold for admission to the church, and what you hold as the ultimate goal; and whether you get it this year or next year or 500 years from now, they have plenty of time, so long as they keep moving in that direction.
Pope Pius IX and Leo XIII, his successor, both issued great denunciations of the idea that an American Catholic is any different from any other Catholic. They said all Catholics must be the same; and if ideas are brought in from a new culture, not in line with the principles of the Church at large, they must be eradicated. They made very strong, clear pronouncements on that matter. The aim of the pope is to have the Church unified; but that is speaking of the theory. In practice, it is a fact that the Roman Catholics—the mass of them—are affected by American ideals and ideas; and Roman Catholic scholars have just recently published a book on the question "Is democracy compatible with Romanism?" And according to the review which I read of it recently, the author made a valiant effort to prove that you can have democracy and still have true Romanism. The reviewer didn't think he succeeded. But the point wasn't "Is Catholicism compatible with democracy?" It was "Is Democracy compatible with Romanism?" And the mass of the Roman Catholics in America are looked upon with considerable distrust, because they are infected and tainted with democratic ideas; they are looked upon with great distrust; and when you hear the statement that the New York Cardinal may be the next pope, you can take it with about ten grains of salt. It is extremely unlikely that they will ever choose an American to be pope. But though that is true of the rank and file of American Catholics, they are very different from the ideals of the church. Yet the hierarchy is controlled from Rome; people are put in positions of leadership partly in relation to their ability, but also partly in relation to whether the hierarchy believes they can be trusted to maintain its central idea. So you will find in the hierarchy as a whole, certain leadership holding rigidly to the Romanist idea, but having a tough job to keep the church as a whole in line. However, they are doing an excellent task of indoctrination. The Catholic schools have enlarged in the last few years tremendously, and the quality has been tremendously improved. When I was in school, we'd get many from the parochial school come into our school, because their training had been very inferior to the training you got in the public schools, Our public school training has been going down, and the Parochial school training has been coming up, and today they are doing a masterly job of indoctrination; but still they are subject, to a tremendous degree, by the general tenor of America.
Now
under Pius IX, the great achievement of his reign was
c. The Vatican Council, 1870. In 1870, a council which he claimed was an ecumenical council was held at Rome; and here was a masterly stroke. Instead of calling a council in order to declare the Immaculate Conception of Mary as a previous pope would had done, he declared on his own the Immaculate Conception of Mary; and now he called a Council which he said had for its purpose the general reform of things in the church that needed improvements; very general was the call, but it was understood that the main purpose he had in mind was to get them to declare that the pope was infallible in his pronouncements when he spoke ex cathedra. And so he had spoken ex cathedra on the Immaculate Conception, and had gotten it accepted by the church; so the people as a whole had accepted that he had done this once; now he gets them to vote that he can do it, what he has already done. It was a very, very masterfully handled plan, doubtless with Jesuit careful thinking and direction. When in 1870 he called the Vatican Council of bishops to come from all over the world to meet, it was a general call, but it was understood its purpose was this. Lord Acton, the great Roman Catholic who was a professor in Cambridge University, went to it; he was not of course to vote; he was not a bishop, but a strong Roman Catholic defender for years; and Döllinger, the great German defender of Roman Catholicism—of whom we spoke much last year—they were in Rome. And there in Rome, the discussion was very hot. The Jesuits had the Church in control to such an extent that the overwhelming majority favored the infallibility of the pope; but there were those who spoke very strongly against it, and Lord Acton, though not able to be in the Council, wrote a series of articles; in one of these he said, that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely; that was his verdict on declaring the pope infallible.
Acton and Döllinger said—though they were ardent Roman Catholics—the fact is, popes have made serious mistakes, and they pronounced things that they were utterly fallacious in the past; this is going against all history; it is just denying facts; but the pressure was brought on the Council—on the bishops—to such an extent that, when the vote came, the bishop of Little Rock, Arkansas, and one European Bishop, were the only bishops who voted against it; and then after it was voted through, then it was voted to make it unanimous; and they fell in line with the rest. But it was adopted as a doctrine of the Church, that the pope, when he speaks ex-cathedra, can speak infallibly, and he always has been able to; that was the tremendous step toward the increase in the power of the pope over anything that has ever been claimed in the Middle Ages. And Döllinger could not conscientiously remain in the church after that; he spoke against it and was excommunicated. They kept trying the rest of his life to persuade him to acknowledge his error and come back, but he never did.
But
a group calling themselves the Old Catholics, which tried to form a new church
denying the infallibility of the pope, but holding to all other Roman Catholic
doctrines, didn't work out very well; eventually this group took part in the
formation of the World Council of Churches. There is a group left, but it is
quite small; it didn't succeed very well. They were definitely not Protestants;
they were strong Romanists, but they couldn't stomach that, the idea of the
infallibility of the pope. Now
d.
Italians take Rome as Capital, September 20, 1870. In the same
year—1870, in which the Vatican Council elevated the papal authority to the
highest point it ever had in history, in that same year—the Italian people
marched against Rome, and they called on the pope to let Rome be the capital of
a new united Italy. Italy had been torn into sections for 1500 years—torn into
little sections, little duchies and dukedoms and so on—with the emperor of
Germany claiming to be supreme over it, and the pope claiming power over a
great part of Italy; at 1800 the pope claimed about half of Italy as a Papal
State. Italians had gradually gained more and more of Italy, until now all
except Rome was in the hands of the Italian government. Now in 1870 they called
on the pope to turn over Rome to be the capital of Italy. The pope refused. So
on the 20th of September, 1870, they marched up to the walls of Rome, tore a
hole through the wall, and marched through and entered the city; so they named
the street against that place in the wall, the Street of the 20th of September.
So they took over Rome; the pope retired to the Vatican and declared himself to be a prisoner; he remained there until around
1930. From then on the fiction was maintained for 50 years, that the pope is a
prisoner in the Vatican. But from that place in the Vatican, he ruled the Roman
Catholic Church, including the Roman Catholics of Italy, which were perhaps 90
percent of the people of Italy. They were subject to him in religious matters,
but they wanted to have their independent Italy without the pope's controlling
the nation. Well, then,
And
we have two or three things to say about the 20th century so I'll have to omit
discussion, just give facts, during this brief period.
A.
The Roman Catholic Church. As we've already said, the Roman Catholic Church
has continued along the lines which were established before, and which Pius IX
declared; but they have tried to raise the minimum of sharp opposition in so
doing; they've tried to make friends with people and win them to it, rather
than to raise them against it. I want to mention just four quick heads under
this.
1.
The General Attitude.
That we've already discussed.
2.
Losses to Communism.
The Roman Catholic Church has lost tremendously since World War II in great
Roman Catholic nations like Poland, which was almost solidly Romanist, and
Czechoslovakia, which was 90 percent Romanist, when they were taken over by the
Communists. And the Communists are making a religion that supremely denies any
God; and while the Roman Catholics have been able to cooperate with most governments pretty well, they find it most difficult with
the Communists. Cardinals have been imprisoned, and they have great
difficulties in various nations. A Hungarian cardinal is now, I believe, in the
American Embassy, where he has been for some years, seeking refuge, having
escaped from prison at the time of the uprising.
3. 1950, Pope's Ex-Cathedra Claim of Virgin Mary's being bodily taken to heaven.
The
claim that the popes were infallible has been used only once during this time;
there is the general claim that he can make an ex cathedra declaration; but the only one that has been made was in
1950, when the pope officially declared that Mary's body did not decay but that
she was raised up to heaven bodily. Well, now some people say, "Does that
mean she didn't die, that she was raised up bodily; or that her body went up
after death?" The pope didn't say; I think it is the latter. The pope did
express his declaration very cagily; all he said is, "She was taken to
heaven bodily," and he doesn't say exactly when it happened or the
condition she was in, and so on. If somebody wants to believe she didn't die,
he doesn't contradict it, but he certainly doesn't say that.
4. Progress in America. In America, Roman Catholic progress has been rapid. It is true that the Roman Church has, during the Middle Ages, thrived on ignorance. And it lost tremendously on account of the ignorance of its people: at the end of the Middle Ages when the Protestants challenged the Roman Catholic leaders to debate; and in Denmark, they had nobody who could debate decently against them; even against Luther, most of them could only say the pope has said it, that proves it. They are no longer in any such situation.
I talked to the minister of the Scotch Church in Rome, in 1947; and he told me, "I am often visited by students in the Biblical Institute, working for their Doctor of Theology degree; they will ask me if I have some very rare Protestant book they want to read. He said these students write their doctoral dissertation on some point of Protestant theology; and they read everything that has ever been written on it. He said there is hardly a Protestant in the world who knows that particular point of theology as well as this man does, who is trained in that particular field. He says they always come out with the church's view in the end of their discussion; but he said they know the facts; so that if any particular point is under discussion, they have a specialist who can get there in a day or two, who is able to know the thing very, very thoroughly.
They have worked up a tremendous system of training men for particular jobs; and in countries where the Roman Catholic Church feels it has everything under control, their priests may be very ignorant, and their people very backwards; simply an attempt by controls from the government can keep people from going to Protestant churches; but in any country where they have a real chance to move ahead, you will find highly intelligent, thoroughly trained priests as you do in this country. In this country you have a tremendous number of them who are highly educated in Rome; they are trained in some of their universities in this country, which are raising their standards up all the time; they are exercising great influence in American educational life. Right across the street here [Elkins Park, PA] we have the Christian Brothers establishment. Men who take four vows: the usual poverty, chastity, and obedience; and fourthly, that they will devote their lives to teaching without pay for the advancement of the cause of the Church. They are not priests—not trained as priests, not to be ordained—but they're to go as teachers, in lower schools, or in colleges, or whatever; but they ask no pay for it.
The Christian Brothers organization will give them clothes to wear; give them food to eat; but their lives are to be spent in advancing the beliefs of the church through teaching. And they have a group of very fine young men over there, who are receiving a very, very solid educational training; and they have their devotional life regularly from morning till night, in such a way as to implant thoroughly into their minds the beliefs and attitudes of the Church. Well, they are growing rapidly and succeeding in America. They have gained, I think they said, 47% in the last few years; their people in America include many prominent and intellectual American leaders who have become Roman Catholics in recent years; and yet, along with that, they have a constant loss in this country of people who are losing their faith in the Church and its God, which is not so much publicized. They are perhaps losing more than they're gaining; and their numerical gain is largely by immigration, I don't know; but they are certainly are moving ahead tremendously, as far as building schools, organizations, church buildings, and so on, are concerned, at a tremendous rate.
Well,
we must move on hurriedly to
B. The Spread of Higher Criticism. The 20th century saw a spread of ideas which previously had been largely taught in a few college classrooms; they spread to ministers, pulpits, and to even being taught in our lower schools. In a high school over here—a member of our group this fall took his daughter to go to Cheltenham High School; and she started in and brought her text books home the first day; and he saw that in her textbook on World History, the higher criticism of the O.T. was given as definite fact as to how the O.T. came into being; and it was sketched, how monotheism developed from totemism, with all these various evolutionary steps. He took his daughter out of the school and sent her to a Christian school the next day. But right in a high school here in Cheltenham [PA], that is put into the children's minds as a result of modern scholarship; and the higher criticism has spread in this century to such a point, that when I went to Berlin to study, I met a young man there; I had just graduated from Princeton Seminary and been ordained; this man had graduated from McCormick Seminary and been ordained. One of the finest young fellows you ever saw in your life; a man who just loved the church. When he went to a Presbyterian college in Ohio he was a thorough believer in the Bible, and in all the great fundamental doctrines. When he left that college his mind was full of questions and doubts; he had the higher criticism pretty well put into his mind, but he had not accepted it; he had three years of McCormick and now he came out; and he still loved the church, but he was a thorough-going believer in the modernistic teachings about the Bible and about the great doctrines.
We used to preach in the American church in Berlin; he preached one Sunday, and I preached one Sunday. I would preach on the deity of Christ; on Salvation through His blood; on the bodily resurrection; he'd sit in the congregation. I'd see his face writhe in agony to show his disgust at what I was teaching, I don't think he wanted to show it, for he was an awfully nice chap, Then he would preach on the glory of the commonplace; or when Jacob went over to visit his uncle in Mesopotamia; when he crossed the Jordan, he got out of the region of Jehovah, the tribal god of that area, and got into the region of another tribal god. I don't know whether my face was as expressive as his was, or not.
One evening we had a cup of chocolate together, and I said to him, "You know, I was puzzled by something you said in your prayer this morning. It sounded to me as if you were expressing belief in the deity of Christ; you were speaking to Christ, and addressed him in tones you use to God." "Oh," he says, "I have no difficulty with the deity of Christ." That didn't fit with my impression of him. So I said to him, "Well, what do you mean by deity? Well, we were alone; there was no committee, investigators there or anything; and he spoke quite frankly. "Oh," he says, "that's very simple. God is a symbol for ethical values, just like Uncle Sam is a symbol for the United States." Well, I said, "How do you pray to God then?" (Oh, he prayed in the most pious tones.) "Oh," he says, "you can speak to a stick or a stone; you can address the ocean." Well, that was his idea of God; but he spoke in very pious tones in the church. I gave what I believed; he gave what he believed, and the people liked us both. And the last I heard of him was about l5 years ago, he was pastor of the largest Presbyterian Church in one of the states, and he has a big influence, I believe; he is a very lovely fellow, a wonderful Christian background; but thoroughly indoctrinated with these ideas.
Well, he is just typical of thousands of others. The Higher Criticism in this century has taken over most of our theological seminaries; most of our colleges; most institutions that were in existence 30 years ago are today solidly held by the Higher Criticism; and we have a situation which is in some ways—or we had a few years ago—very similar to that before the Evangelical Awakening in England, when Blackstone went to church after church, and he couldn't tell from anybody's preaching whether he was a follower of Jesus, or Confucius or Mohammed. It is similar; but it is different, because in those days the church officially held to the Bible as being true; to the deity of Christ; to the atonement, and so on.
When Charles Darwin's father wanted him to become a pastor, or to study for the church—his father originally wanted him to be a medical man; Charles took two years; when he didn't want it, his father said, "All right, go into the church." Well, Charles Darwin studied at the university in order to go into the church; but before he did, he had a struggle of conscience. Darwin said, "I had no doubt the Bible was entirely true—the inspiration of the Bible—I never questioned; but I wasn't sure whether I believed in the deity of Christ or the atonement." So he said I spent two or three months thinking over to see whether I could conscientiously go into the church. He decided he could.
He
thought he believed the Bible, but he didn't know anything about its doctrines;
and as he realized his father was a rank unbeliever—he realized that more and
more as his life went on. His father hadn't shown it much, but it came out in
various things. But his father thought it would be a fine profession for his
son to be in the church. Well, today the attitude of the leaders of the church
is not one simply of ignoring the gospel; it is one of trying to convince
people of the truth of what they believe to be the truth—which is the Higher
Criticism and all that goes with it. Now they often try to hide it,
particularly now.
C. Modernism. Modernism was much more blatant 20 years ago than it is now. In the last 20 years, there has been a tendency to hide statements; to try to keep from arousing the clear opposition that one might have otherwise. And that is necessary; because even in our churches that have the most modernistic preaching, it is amazing how many members believe in the orthodox doctrines. They believe in those doctrines; they were brought up in them; if they didn't, they wouldn't be still going to church; and the ministers are trying to smooth these people over to a different idea without irritating them to the point where they leave the church; and that is a tough problem. They didn't realize that problem so much 20 years ago; but they preached their beliefs, and they lost a great many people. Today they are trying to hide their beliefs to quite an extent.
Not many miles from here, a minister in a large Presbyterian church, just a few weeks ago, gave a sermon in which he spoke about Jesus cursing the fig tree; and he said, "Well, that's not in line with the character of Jesus, cursing a tree and causing its leaves to wither." He said, "I don't believe that happened." And there was a storm in the church—such a storm of protest that the man had to publicly apologize the next week and tell them that wasn't what he meant at all. Now he probably doesn't believe any Christian doctrine; he was thoroughly indoctrinated in seminary in the Higher Criticism and in unbelief and denial of the Scripture. But here in his church, which has been hearing him preach his views in a somewhat hidden way, when he came out boldly denying one statement of the Scripture, he had a storm of protest. And so when people give up their faith in the Bible, the tendency is—at least within a generation—to drop out of the church, having lost sympathy with it. And they're trying to keep the people; and to keep them alive enough; but at the same time to swing their ideas over; and so today the leadership of all the big denominations is—I believe very consciously—seeking to undermine beliefs and views that have been characteristic of Christianity. As Dr. [J. Gresham] Machen described in his book, Christianity and Liberalism, he says, "Modernism is not simply another religion from Christianity; it belongs to an entirely different type of religion. It is not nearly as near Christianity as Mohammedanism, which believes in certain of the central concepts of Christianity, while true Modernism does not." So the rise of the higher criticism, and its wide spread, is one of the great features of this era.
People
who are ardent workers in the church who are Modernists, most of them are
people who have an evangelical background. They have an emotional interest in
the church, which they received as children in an evangelical background. But
having given it up, having at seminary been taught there is nothing to these
doctrines, they have either dropped out of church altogether, or they have
substituted a new emotion for it. And the new emotions which they've
substituted for it are two; and these two are the backbone of the effort of the
leaders of the Modernist church of today.
1. Ecumenism. Well, one of these two is ecumenism. They speak much about the sin of disunity, about the terrible crime of having so many denominations; and the Modernist leaders have for many years now been working toward the goal of getting all those that call themselves Christians into one big church; and they're working steadily and vigorously and actively and intelligently toward this purpose. And they have accomplished a tremendous lot in this direction. They have gotten movements in various churches, like the union of the Presbyterian church in the U.S.A. and the United Presbyterian church, which occurred not so long ago; various Lutheran bodies in the United States have been brought together; the declaration was made last winter that the Presbyterian, Methodist and Episcopal churches should be formed together. Down in South America, at a conference in '49 or '50—I forget—when Dr. [Carl] McIntire went down there, when the World Council held a regional meeting there, they had a great Protestant leader there from France who declared, "The Protestants follow Paul; the Romanists follow Peter; and the Greek Orthodox Church follows John. We want to bring Peter and Paul and John together."
The objective is to bring all the churches together in one great organization. He didn't say that in South America, but he had said that in France; and they were quoting him in South America, and awakening people to his true attitude. But that is one of the two great objectives of the modernist leaders—to bring all the churches together in one great organization; and it is an obsession with them; they have had meeting after meeting; we don't have time now to list the Edinburgh Council, the Lambeth Council, Oxford, and so on; up until it led to formation of the World Council of Churches in 1948; it held its next world meeting in Evanston, in 1954, here; and it is to meet in New Delhi in India this fall. It is often said, "This is not a super-church; it is merely the cooperation of churches," but most of the leaders have made statements which show their objective is to get one big organization.
Well, there is no harm in one big organization; I don't think it is the Lord's will to have one big organization, but I can't see any tremendous harm in having a big organization if the organization was made of true Christians. But this is something that brings together people regardless; if they use the name Jesus—that is all that is required. They have officially said that they do not take their statement on the Lordship of Jesus Christ as a creedal statement, or as anything to exclude anybody; each group can interpret it any way they like; and so Unitarians come into it, people who differ radically, just so they're satisfied to come in under this terminology.
Well,
ecumenism is the great force today; that is singular, I think still I'd better
say a word about the other great emotional objective of the Modernist leaders.
And this one runs all through their attitude, this is
2.
Establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. They are here to establish a
Kingdom of God on earth. That's what they're here for. And the Kingdom of God
on earth, as Stanley Jones says, is an organization, a situation which everyone
gives according to his ability and receives according to his need. And when people ask Stanley Jones, "What about the person who
doesn't care to work under that sort of an organization?" Well, he
says, "If he won't work, he shouldn't eat." So in other words, it
amounts to the Communist system. Let everybody do what the state tells them.
And while these leaders will not call themselves Communists—and I believe a
person should be imprisoned for calling them Communists, I think that is a
libel today—calling them Communists, unless you can prove they are actually
members of the Party. Yet the objective of these people is very near to what
the Communists are doing. The objective is very near to it. And when I went to
a Presbyterian college 4 years ago, I soon found that some of our finest
professors had as their objective persuading students to work for the
establishment of a socialistic world organization; it came out in their
attitude at point after point. It is the second of the great Modernist emphases
and purpose—the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, which is
something entirely different from anything the Bible
speaks of anywhere. And it is so near to Communism that they look with great
friendship on the Communist endeavor; and the influence they have had in
America is made evident, it seems to me, by the fact that their preaching and
presenting it through the last 40 years, has so softened people up, even though
people say they stand for freedom and for capitalism, and they're against
Communism, yet when Castro steals half a billion dollars' worth of American
property, and of this half a billion dollars' worth—a quarter of a billion
dollars' worth of it, the American people are having to pay for in increased
Income Tax—when Castro does that, I have not heard of our government making any
objection to anything they have stolen; but all our government has done is to
try to defend itself against Castro's statement that we are going to attack
them. It seems to me it is exactly as if you were walking down the street with
a money bag in your hand that had a lot of money in it; and a thug comes up and
grabs your bag, and runs over to the other side of the street; and a policeman
comes right then, and the thug turns to the policeman and says, "That man
over there is going to attack me, get after that man he is going to attack
me." Well, you'd answer, "He stole my stuff!" But I haven't
heard of any government statement yet that has pointed this out. Well, that is
giving up the whole principle of capitalism and free enterprise. When they
seize American goods, if we are not Communist, we should immediately protest;
and we should do what is necessary to get recompense for what has been stolen;
but the principle has been given up by our people as a whole, as the result of
this indoctrination which has been going on for 40 years, little by little;
people don't realize, but the attitude of the bulk of the American people, and
of most of our leadership, has been affected by this indoctrination. Now
D. Fundamentalism. And we need about three hours to cover this, but we have about 3 minutes. So all we can say is this.
Back in 1920, the leaders of Princeton Seminary, which had stood like a rock against Modernism through the previous decades; like a rock—solid, wasn't moving, wasn't in motion, but it was very solid, for the previous decades—in 1920 its leadership joined in with others in a call for a union of all the churches in America; and that aroused Dr. Machen, Dr. [Robert Dick] Wilson, and other professors in the Seminary to see how its leadership had gone in the direction of the Ecumenical Modernist stand; and the result was they spoke out strongly against it; and that attracted evangelical students from all over the country to Princeton Seminary. And from 1920 to 1929, it was a great center under Wilson and Machen for the training of people to stand for the faith. Then in 1929, the General Assembly of the church changed the organization of Princeton Seminary; the people stepped out and started another Seminary—Westminster Seminary—with the idea of training people to stand for the faith, and to go into the Presbyterian church. If they had done that 20 years earlier, maybe they could have saved the church; but it was too late now, too late for infiltration to accomplish its purpose; but they struggled along that line until l937, when some felt that it had gone so far that the only thing that could be done was to follow the advice which Charles Haddon Spurgeon had given 50 years before, when Spurgeon said, [Note: see http://www.spurgeon.org/s_and_t/dg12.htm] "I have taken a deep interest in the struggles of the orthodox brethren; but I have never advised those struggles, nor entertained the slightest hope of their success. My course has been of another kind. As soon as I saw, or thought I saw, that error had become firmly established, I did not deliberate, but quitted the body at once. Since then my one counsel has been, 'Come ye out from among them' ... I have felt that no protest could be equal to that of distinct separation from known evil."
[Note dcb: Spurgeon continues: "Nor is it merely doctrinal belief—there is an essential difference in spirit between the old believer and the man of new and advancing views. This is painfully perceived by the Christian man before very long. Even if he be fortunate enough to escape the sneers of the cultured, and the jests of the philosophical, he will find his deepest convictions questioned, and his brightest beliefs misrepresented by those who dub themselves 'thoughtful men.' When a text from the Word has been peculiarly precious to his heart, he will hear its authenticity impugned, the translation disputed, or its gospel reference denied. He will not travel far on the dark continent of modern thought before he will find the efficacy of prayer debated, the operation of divine Providence questioned, and the special love of God denied. He will find himself to be a stranger in a strange land when he begins to speak of his experience and of the ways of God to men. ... To what end, therefore, are these strainings after a hollow unity, when the spirit of fellowship is altogether gone?"]
So
during these last few years we have groups from a number of denominations which
have come out and formed new groups. But if only this had happened 40 years
earlier, they could by this time be real forces, As it is, they are voices, but
they are not forces; and in the providence of God, in another 50 years, they
may become forces, if the Lord tarries. Or the Modernists may win out; the
Communists and Khrushchev may win out; Castro may take over, and it may be that
we are at the very last days, and that today or tomorrow or next week we'll
hear the shout and the Lord will take us up to heaven. It may be. Or it may be
that it is His will to use our efforts to keep back the forces of unbelief and
to bring a real Holy Ghost revival that might cover this world and have another
turning to God before the end of the age. We don't know. And so it is our duty
to work as if we had a chance to accomplish a great deal but to pray, "Oh
Lord Jesus, come quickly, Amen."
Dr. Allan A. MacRae studied under the leading Old
Testament and archeological specialists in the United States, Europe, and
Palestine: R. A. Torrey at Biola; Robert Dick Wilson
and J. Gresham Machen at Princeton Seminary; William
F. Albright at the American Schools of Oriental Research; and E. A. Speiser at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned the
A.B., A.M., Th.B, A.M. (in Semitic Philology), and
Ph.D. degrees, and studied the ancient languages related to the Bible (Babylonian
Cuneiform, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Arabic and Syriac).
Dr. MacRae has taught nearly every course of the seminary during the span of a
teaching career of six decades. He taught Old Testament at three
seminaries—Westminster, Faith and Biblical—and was founding president of the
last two of these.
"The lectures of Allan A. MacRae should be
published." — Martin Lloyd Jones
"Dr. MacRae has carried on the tradition of
Robert Dick Wilson. His scholarship has helped countless young men and women to
understand the weaknesses of liberal theology's view of the Bible." —
Francis A. Schaeffer