the other hand, looking at the matter from the religious point of view, the Reformers did not think of themselves as really breaking with the church of God. They had been trained in Catholicism to regard the church institution itself as authoritative; and they unconsciously took this view over into their own ecclesiastical organizations, which they looked upon as the "true church." Hence, we encounter the paradox that the more spiritually minded of the Reformers, like Martin Luther, treated the Bible with more freedom than the rationalistic Reformers of Calvin's type. Although Luther held the Bible to be in a general way "the Word of God," he emphasized the believer's personal experience of God through Christ, and considered himself at liberty to choose and criticize among the sacred books with considerable freedom. The Lutheran tendency, however, was gradually counteracted by the influence of Calvinism, which made itself more and more felt among the Protestant churches of all countries, even in Germany. Calvin's type of thought was rationalistic, systematic, and legalistic; and it corresponded more harmoniously than Lutheranism with the existing social constitution of the world. Monarchy was the order of the day; and Calvin pictured God as an Absolute Ruler, whose sovereignty was more despotic and awful than that of the most potent human king or emperor. Setting out from a few principles, Calvin deduced a logical and orderly system of divinity; and his formulas had enormous influence in shaping Protestant theology. Although Calvin urged a lofty place for the ministry, he was careful to say that they should rule mankind "in the Word of God"—that is, in the Scriptures. He thought the words of the Bible should be received by men as if God himself uttered these words into the ear of the reader. "The exegesis of Calvin," as Gilbert says, "was fatally defective in that it subordinated Scripture to the dogmas of I Preserved Smith, Martin Luther (Poston, 1911), pp. 263-70.

the church." On the increasing dogmatism and appeal to external authority in Protestant theology, several writers make the following statements:

More and more, as the first generation of Protestant leaders recedes into the past, the theology of those who come after passes into the scholastic stage. . . . . The Bible was looked upon as an authoritative text-book, from which doctrines and proofs of doctrine were to be drawn with little or no discrimination as to the use to be made of the different sacred books. Such were the ramifications of the system that little if any space was left for varieties of opinion, and dissent upon any point was treated as a heresy. . . . . The impression often made was that of a divine absolutism enthroned in the souls of men as well as in the visible world of creatures."

The Protestant Reformation was mediaeval, not modern, in its spirit and interest. . . . . Bondage to an external law of faith and practice was for a long time as complete in Protestantism as in Catholicism, and the one was as conservative in the field of religious thought as the other.

In their effort to guarantee the absolute infallibility of the Bible some of the theologians of the day were carried to the furthest possible lengths. The Bible is not in any sense a human book; it is the literal word of God in all its parts, having been dictated by the Holy Spirit to men acting only as amanuenses. Who the author of this or that book might be was of no consequence, and all questions as to date and circumstances of composition, or as to authenticity and integrity became unimportant and irrelevant. Not simply is the Bible as a whole, or the truths which it contains, from God, but every phrase, word, and letter, including even the vowel points of the Hebrew Massoretic text. It is infallible, not alone in the sphere of religion and morals, but in history, geography, geology, astronomy, and every other field upon which it touches.3

By the beginning of the eighteenth century the structure of scriptural interpretation had become enormous. It seemed destined to hide forever the real character of our sacred literature and to obscure the great light which Christianity had brought into the world. The Church, 'Gilbert, Interpretation of the Bible (New York, 1908), p. 213; cf. pp. 218, 219, 233.

Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine (New York, 1899), p. 347.

3 McGiffert, Protestant Thought Before Kant (New York, 1911), pp. 186, 147.

Eastern and Western, Catholic and Protestant, was content to sit in its shadow, and the great divines of all branches of the Church reared every sort of fantastic buttress to strengthen or adorn it. It seemed to be founded for eternity.'

These tendencies and views prevailed wherever Protestantism established itself. In Europe, and in the new communities of America and the other colonial possessions, the Bible and its religion were taken to be the products of an absolute and infallible verbal inspiration. The ideas and laws by which Israel was distinguished from the surrounding heathenism were believed to have been put into human history amid the smoke, flame, and thunder of Sinai. There was no more disposition to doubt the older theory than there was to question whether one and one made two. The authoritative conception monopolized the field. The Bible and its religion were practically regarded as the outcome of a spiritistic séance on a grand scale, in which God imparted messages through the medium of certain Hebrews, and authenticated these communications by a display of supernatural marvels. This theory was held by the Lutheran pastor, the English rector, the preacher in the Scotch kirk, the Methodist elder, the Congregational minister, and all other Protestant clergymen and laymen. Moreover, it was professed by the Roman Catholic and Greek churches, and by the Jewish synagogues. It took its rise in the ancient world, on the basis of habits of thought common to the Jews and their heathen contemporaries. It was held by the biblical authors themselves (who wrote after the event); its reign was undisputed in the Middle Ages of Christendom; and it has, in fact, largely prevailed throughout modern history. It ruled, of course, in the sixteenth century, at the time of the Reformation (1500-1600); and the same can

* White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (New York, 1896), Vol. II, p. 311.

* Exception has been taken to the “séance” figure as a caricature of orthodoxy; but it certainly represents the older view.

fairly be said of the seventeenth century (1600-1700), despite the critical work of such men as Spinoza and Simon. In harmony with the spirit of orthodox Protestantism, the seventeenth century saw the production of what is even yet the most popular of all English renderings of the Bible, a translation "authorized" by a monarchical British government. The King James Version was thus published by "authority," and "appointed to be read in churches."

I

1 Among those who prefer this version of the Bible, few can tell who "authorized" it, or why it was published. The reader is duly impressed by its "authority," and in most cases no doubt imagines the authority to be something mysterious and peculiar to itself. By the same token, the partisan of the King James Bible is opposed to modern "revised” versions, and usually overlooks the fact that the King James Bible describes itself on the title-page as "diligently compared with former translations," and "revised."

CHAPTER XXXIV

PROTESTANTISM REJECTS THE SOCIAL PROBLEM

Orthodox Protestantism reproduced the attitude of the Jewish and Catholic churches toward the social problem.—We have seen that Judaism and Catholicism took form in periods of great social tension, and that they endeavored to save the world by a legalistic redemption of the individual. In this way, they tacitly denied the existence of a social problem, and prepared for their own loss of influence. It now becomes our duty to observe that the evolution of Protestantism went forward in obedience to the same law of history.

Aided by the opening of new land in America, the reorganization of European society which took place at the time of the Reformation practically solved the social problem of that age. But as modern history took its course, and century followed century, the problem of social adjustment began once more to press for solution. The emergence of the modern social problem is indicated by various events. Notable among these are the English commonwealth of the seventeenth century, the French and American Revolutions in the eighteenth century, the European uprisings in the mid-nineteenth century, and the progress of socialism down to the present hour.

Along with the profound social changes indicated by these important historical facts, the Protestant churches went through an evolution identical with that which took place in the Jewish and Catholic churches. We saw that these older ecclesiastical institutions became identified with the upper social class; and the same situation is illustrated by the new churches that arose out of the Reformation. Although Protestantism derived its propelling motives from the discontent of all classes with Romanism, the actual break with