LECTURE VIII.

THE PERMANENCE OF CHRISTIANITY INFERRED FROM ITS MISSIONARY CHARACTER AND PRESENT STANDING.

"Ex quo intelligimus Ecclesiam usque ad finem mundi concuti quidem persecutionibus, sed nequaquam posse subverti: tentari, non superari. Et hoc fiet, quia Dominus Deus Omnipotens, sive Dominus Deus ejus, id est, Ecclesiæ, se facturum esse pollicitus est: Cujus promissio lex naturæ est."-HIERON., Comment in Amos, sub fin.

"Is it possible to expect a further and more perfect manifestation of Religion, as we may expect a further and more perfect manifestation of Art, or Science, or Philosophy? No. Never, either in our days or in the remotest future, can any religious progress hope to rival the gigantic step which humanity made through the revolution effected by Christ." -STRAUSS, Life of Christ, Vol. II. p. 49, 3rd ed.

LECTURE VIII.

"Lo! I am with you alway; even unto the end of the world."— Matt. rrviii. 20.

§ I.

HERE is a growing tendency to regard Tendenste

THE

of opposite

the Refor

the Chris

the results of the Reformation in two views of very opposite aspects. It has been assailed as the mation on the present commencement of an era of unbelief, of unsettle- estimate of ment of all authoritative teaching; as the cause of tian religion. all subsequent fluctuations of opinion on religious subjects. Its historical course has been held up as a warning; as exhibiting the Nemesis of a revolt from traditional doctrine. Strange to say, the Romanist and the disciple of Comte, though from very opposite suggestions, are of one opinion as to the demerits of Protestantism. While the former eyes it with sternness, or, at best, with compassion, as the outcome of human waywardness and rebellion; the latter regards it only with philosophical contempt.2 To him it is an interruption, a View of

the Posi

1 Gibbon (VII. 61) struck the first chord of this ill-omened pre- tivists diction. "The friends of Christianity are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry and scepticism;" &c. He here appears in the unwonted garb of "the candid friend" of the Religion of Christ. "Le Protestantisme le grand réveil chrétien," says M. Renan more truly.

2 Comte notes as marks of the religious disorganization of the age, the resistance of Catholicism to intellectual emancipation, and the secularization of the ruling classes. These are the results of Protestantism, i. e. of the right of private judgment, which leads inevitably to Democracy in Church and State, to a negative philosophy, attacking first

of the Rational

istic School.

stumbling-block, a logical inconsequence, an issue of mental anarchy, a period of transition, of confusion, of necessary evil, fraught with social and political disturbance. As the introduction to afterchanges; the pioneer of Positivism; a main agency in dissolving the older military and hierarchical organizations; the accompaniment of an era of free, metaphysical discussion; it might, one would have thought, have been entitled to passing respect. This is not, it seems, to be accorded. But there is also another view of this great historical movement, one which has affected so largely and so permanently the condition and fortunes of Europe; which is now becoming popular. The Reformation is looked on as the companion, and as itself the result, if not the precursor, of a spirit religious truth, while all other becomes a lesser and included result. He divides Protestantism into a. Lutheranism, which is really an attack on Catholic discipline, the dogmatic differences being slight: b. Calvinism, an assault on Catholic organization or hierarchy, of the most powerful kind: c. Socinianism, a dogmatic revolution of the deepest character, being a protest in favour of Monotheism. See Phil. Pos., V. 680, ff. In V. 353 he speaks of "l'esprit d'inconséquence qui caractérise le Protestantisme," and mourns the intellectual fluctuation, the malady of the age, which has flowed from it. He thinks the recognition of the solidarity of man and the continuity of human life have been lost in the anarchy which has been the work of Protestantism. This era of revolution, of dispersive analysis, began, indeed, from the fourteenth century, continuing to the present time, when it is about to close irrevocably. Phil. Pos., V. 233, 346; Pol. Pos., III. 417, 500. See also Littré, A. Comte, p. 223; and Paroles, p. 60. Dorner, Hist. Prot. Th., I. 272, points out that the Reformation principle, which has been so often termed disorganizing, and has even been confounded with the spirit of revolution, gave effect, with a power previously unknown, to the divine right of civil authority.