Slike strani
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

Protestantism is bound to investigate and reinvestigate every theological and philosophical problem; to search and research the Scriptures in the light of modern discoveries and advances in philology, archæology and science; to harmonize faith and reason; to grapple with social problems; to improve the condition of the working classes; to preach the gospel to every creature, and to bring the Word of God as a lamp of life into every household.

V. THE DUTY OF PROTESTANTS IN ITALY.

Evangelical religion has now fair play in Italy and numbers in a population of thirty millions about 60,000 professors, in-· cluding the foreign residents. In Rome and in Florence alone, there are about a dozen Protestant congregations, representing nearly as many denominations. Two of these denominations are of native growth (the Waldensian, which is by far the strongest of all, and the Chiesa Liberal); the others are of foreign importation and chiefly supported by friends in England and the United States. They all do good in their respective fields of labor, and far be it from us to underrate their usefulness on account of this numerical weakness. The Kingdom of Heaven itself began as small as a mustard seed, and Paul, the prisoner in Rome, was mightier than Nero on the throne.

At the same time we should not be blind to the danger of the centrifugal tendency of Protestantism to excessive individualism and division, which hinders its progress among Catholics brought up in the tradition of a centralized church organiization, and unable to discern the essential spiritual unity which underlies the variety of external forms.

There must be liberty in non-essentials, but there ought to be unity in essentials and charity in all things.* Liberty we have

* "In necessariis unitas, in dubiis (or non-necessariis) libertas, in omnibus caritas." A famous motto of irenics usually ascribed to St. Augustin, but dating from a German divine (Meldenius) in the seventeenth century.

as much as we desire, and divisions only too and charity are the greatest needs, and the ditions for the success of evangelical missions try.

First unity. It is the burden of our Lord prayer. It is enjoined over and over again in the house divided against itself cannot stand," say authority. Let the Protestant pastors in Italy immovable rock which is Christ, and emphasize ab differences their common faith by which we all hop Let the various denominations come to an understa will prevent jealousy, unnecessary collision and un and enable them to present a united front to the Let them remember that in Christ Jesus neither nor uncircumcision availeth any thing but a new c faith operative in love. Why then should we be ke minor questions of episcopacy or presbytery, p independency, immersion or sprinkling, or even t differences which in the polemic and scholastic ages antism roused the scandalous feuds between Lut Calvinists, Calvinists and Arminians, and made the pray for deliverance from "the fury of the theologi

And as to charity, is it not the queen of Christian crowning virtue, the bond of perfectness? And sh go out to our fellow-Christians of the Roman Ca who, after all, believe in the same Father Almighty Divine Saviour, the same Holy Spirit, and expect to b the same blood of atonement?

Let us be frank. There is as much Protestant bigotry, prejudice and hatred, and it is all the more i because we profess to occupy a more advanced libera For more than three hundred years Protestants of type have been abusing the pope as Anti-Christ, idolators, and the Church of Rome as the grea and as the synagogue of Satan. Is this courte charitable, is it Christian? Or is it an ignorant |

[blocks in formation]

based upon a false interpretation of some obscure passages of Scripture and a perversion of history? At all events what has Protestantism gained, what can it expect to gain, by such bitter antagonism? The converts made by the abuse of Romanism who are worth any thing may be counted on the fingers; while the number of those who are repelled and alienated by it is beyond calculation. It can only obstruct and put off a reconciliation. If St. Paul on the Areopagus had insulted the Athenians by abusing them as idolators he would not have made any converts; but with a master stroke of Christian wisdom and courtesy, he addressed them as over-religious, who unconsciously worshiped "the unknown God," whom he came to preach to them. The best way of refuting error is to preach the positive truth. Verum est index sui et falsi. The noblest and surest way of converting an enemy is to show him the love whereby Christ has loved and saved us.

Oh! for a pentecostal effusion of the spirit of love which is better than speaking with the tongues of men and angels, better than the gift of prophecy, greater even and more enduring than faith and hope.

The deepest and strongest tendencies of our age, which by its wonderful inventions almost obliterates the distances of time and space and brings the ends of the earth into instantaneous connection, is not towards division but towards reunion. A task as great as the conversion of the world, and apparently as impossible. But all things are possible with God Almighty. He has great surprises for us in store-reformations purer, deeper, broader, than that of Luther and Calvin; yea, pentecosts with more flaming tongues than that of Jerusalem. His wisdom and love will bind together what the folly of men has put asunder. He will heal the wounds of Christendom and melt the hearts of the Churches in the sorrow of a common repentance and in the joy of a common forgiveness, and bring once more a beautiful cosmos out of chaos as in the days of creation. The creeds of the militant Churches will be merged into the one creed of Christ, who is the prince of peace and the divine concord of all

human discords. There must and will be one Shepherd as sure as Christ, who promised it, is the sacerdotal prayer must and will be fulfilled, "I thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one; t may know that Thou hast sent Me, and lovedst t Thou lovedst Me."

III.

A RETROSPECT-1791-1891.*

BY JOHN BLAIR LINN, ESQ.

I HAVE chosen for a theme this evening, a brief retrospect of some incidents gathered casually from the history of the century just now concluded with the past, indicative of our progress in political, social and religious well-being. To the providence and care of Almighty God, under a free constitution and government "of the people, by the people and for the people," we owe our marvellous growth in population and our unparalleled progress in the arts of peace, whereby as a republic we stand to-day in the fore-front of the nations of the earth. With the church and school in the formation of the greatness of the United States of America, freedom in religion has not ended in freedom from religion, and equality in law has not ended in independence of law.

Prior to 1787 our national Status was a confederacy of thirteen colonies. "Thirteen staves and ne'er a hoop will never make a barrel," said homely wit. But in 1787 the convention at Philadelphia blotted out the codes of the eastern hemisphere reeking with blood and stained with pillage, and established in their stead the Constitution of the United States of America: and September 2, 1790, a new Constitution was adopted for Pennsylvania; a constitution deservedly considered as an admirable model for a representative state; securing force to the government and freedom to the people.

In 1791 then, our republic was a young empire emerging

* An address delivered before the Alumni Association of Franklin and Marshall College, June 17, 1891.

« PrejšnjaNaprej »