CHAPTER I THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION 8. NOTWITHSTANDING the era of discovery in which the origin of the Protestant church fell, there was no missionary action on her part in the age of the Reformation. This can be explained, and must be excused, on two grounds-(1) Because immediate intercourse with heathen nations was lacking to the Protestant church (especially in Germany), and (2) because the battle against heathenism within the old Christendom, the struggle for its own existence against papal and worldly power, and the necessity of self-consolidation, summoned it primarily to a work at home which claimed all the energy of young Protestantism. By the Reformation the Christianising of a large part of Europe was first completed, and so far it may be said to have carried on a mission work at home on an extensive scale. It was exclusively Catholic states-Portugal and Spain -which then held sway on the sea, and which were making new discoveries and annexing the great territories beyond. No way was then open for Protestant states into the newly discovered world; and had Evangelicals sought to enter it as missionaries, they would as certainly not have been permitted, even as in Spain and Portugal the entrance of the Gospel was withstood by force. 9. Only, if the want of a direct connection with the newly discovered world and the closing of that world against a possible entrance of Protestantism sufficiently explain the lack of missionary activity in the churches of the Reformation, yet the other fact remains unexplained, namely, that no lament was raised over the practical impossibility of discharging the missionary obligation, which was brought so near by the opening of the world. In the time of the Reformation, we do indeed meet with one complaint as to the want of missionary zeal, a complaint which is at once an eloquent argument for the duty of missions and a powerful missionary appeal to contemporaries. But that complaint was raised by Erasmus, whom 8 we cannot claim as an Evangelical witness. If, however, the Reformers and their immediate disciples have no word either of sorrow or excuse that circumstances hindered their discharge of missionary duty, while they could not but see that the Church of Rome was implementing this duty on a broad scale, this strange silence can be accounted for satisfactorily only by the fact that the recognition of the missionary obligation was itself absent. We miss in the Reformers not only missionary action, but even the idea of missions, in the sense in which we understand them to-day. And this not only because the newly discovered heathen world across the sea lay almost wholly beyond the range of their vision, though that reason had some weight, but because fundamental theological views hindered them from giving their activity, and even their thoughts, a missionary direction. This fact surprises us in the case of so great witnesses for God; it pains us. And for that reason it can readily be understood how, by isolated quotations, principally from the writings of Luther, it has been sought over and over again to disprove it. But on closer examination. these quotations do not bear out what they are meant to prove; and less and less has the fact come to be called in question that the insight into the permanent missionary task of the church was really darkened in the case of the Reformers,-it is only upon the reasons which explain it that some slight difference of opinion still prevails. Had that not been the case, all the amplitude of the reformation work within the old Christendom, which was most incumbent on them, would not have kept them back from at least seeking to fulfil the missionary obligation. From the days of the Apostles until 1 In his Ecclesiastes sive de ratione concionandi. The substance of it is given by Kalkar, Geschichte der christlichen Mission unter den Heiden, Gütersloh, 1879, i. 53. [The reason assigned by Dr. Warneck for practically disregarding Erasmus in his estimate of the relation of the Reformation to missions, can hardly be regarded as satisfactory. Although Erasmus stands aloof from the Evangelical group at the centre of the Reformation, yet there were elements and aspects of the general movement which Erasmus most clearly perceived and most eminently represented. The more accurate Dr. Warneck's estimate of the position of the Reformers in relation to missions, the more is it to the credit of Erasmus that he did not share their theological prepossessions in this respect, and was able to furnish in this particular a truer interpretation of the meaning and spirit of the Reformation. But what ought to be noticed is that neither Erasmus nor Saravia, to whom Dr. Warneck afterwards refers, saw the missionary duty of the church in such a light as to make it matter of a special treatise or of a distinct call to action. Their views on missions were expressed incidentally, by the one in a treatise dealing with homiletics, by the other in a treatise dealing with Church polity. And no one else in the age of the Reformation did what they thus failed to do. For a long extract from the treatise of Erasmus, see Dr. George Smith's Short History of Christian Missions, 5th ed., pp. 116-118.-ED.] 2 So Ostertag, in his Uebersichtliche Geschichte der protestantischen Missionen; Plitt, Kurze Geschichte der lutherischen Mission, Erlangen, 1871; Kalkar, v. ref. to-day, the work to be done within the church has never been able to confine the Gospel at home, as soon as its extension among the heathen has been recognised to be equally the duty of the church. 10. Evidence for the assertion that "Luther did not neglect. the missionary commandment of the Lord to His church, but sought by word and deed to do justice to it," a man like Plitt, well versed in the life and teaching of the Reformer, can furnish only by altering the idea of "missions" into that of "the Reformation mission." Even Plitt allows that Luther did not think of proper missions to the heathen, i.e. of a regular sending of messengers of the Gospel to non-Christian nations, with the view of Christianising them. For by "missions" we understand, and we must not understand anything else than, this sending, continuing through every age of the church, which carries out the commandment, "Go and make disciples of all nations," i.e. of all nations which are still non-Christian. That, however, is something essentially different from what Plitt says of Luther. "By the heathen he understands the non-Jewish nations which had entered the Christian church; . . amongst them the Gospel must ever have freer course. Amongst them, accordingly, the disciples of Luther went out as messengers and founded mission stations. Now, too, they sought out first the chief centres of commerce, the larger towns, and thence their preaching broadened into ever wider circles, . . . until there was a compact evangelical church-domain. On such wise did Luther carry on Evangelical missions." Certainly; only, not in the specific sense of that term. And when Plitt adds: "From the state in which he found the church, Luther allowed himself to be guided as to how and where he should carry out the missionary commandment: he saw that the church was ignorant of what the substance of missionary preaching should be, and had either forgotten or was unwilling to know in what manner the kingdom of God is to be extended. Therefore here also a work of reformation was set to him. He bore testimony against the secularising of missionary activity," that fits the Reformer well, but it does not prove that the Reformer was also a man of missionary spirit in the sense of seeking the Christianising of the heathen. Luther's mission sphere was, if we may so say, the paganised Christian church. All the quotations of Plitt attest that, and nothing further. They do not prove that the Reformer looked upon the non-Christian 1 [It should be explained to the English reader that in German the word (die Heiden) which denotes the heathen is the common expression for the Gentiles. It may thus signify either the non-Jewish or the non-Christian peoples.-ED.] world as a sphere of labour for himself and his followers, in accordance with the distinctive missionary commandment. Plitt evades the question at issue by substituting an unusual conception of missions. The Reformation certainly did a great indirect service to the cause of missions to the heathen, as it not only restored the true substance of missionary preaching by its earnest proclamation of the Gospel, but also brought back the whole work of missions on to apostolic lines. But the church did not become conscious of this gain, nor did missions profit by it till a much later period, when, long after the age of the Reformation, an age of missions opened within Protestantism. Luther rightly combats, as Plitt insists, "the secularising of missionary work," according to which it was believed that the enemies of the Christian name must be smitten down by the sword, and showed of what sort was the message which was to be brought by the church to all nations. He does not, however, do that in view of the perverted missions to the heathen of that time,-of these he makes no mention, but in connection with his attitude to the Turkish wars. "It does not belong to the Pope, in so far as he would be a Christian, yea, the chiefest and best preacher of Christ, to lead a church army or a Christian army, for the church must not fight with the sword. It has other weapons, another sword and other wars, with which it has enough to do, and must not mix itself up with the wars of the emperor and the princes." Yet Luther never points to the Turks, nor even to the heathen, as the objects of regular missionary work. "There are," he says, "amongst ourselves, Turks, Jews, heathen, non-Christians all too many, both with openly false doctrine and terribly scandalous life." Hence in his Little Catechism he narrowed his interpretation of the second petition of the Lord's Prayer to this: "In this petition we pray that the kingdom of God may come to us." If Luther speaks of the heathen, he constantly uses the word in the sense of the non-Jewish nations which constitute Christendom. As, e.g., " When it is said in the 117th Psalm, Praise the Lord, all ye heathen,' we are assured that we are heathen,1 and that we also shall certainly be heard by God in heaven, and shall not be condemned, although we are not of Abraham's flesh and blood, as the Jews boast themselves, as if they alone were the children of Abraham, heirs of heaven by reason of natural descent from Abraham and the holy patriarchs, kings and prophets." Certainly he says further"If all the heathen shall praise God, it must first be that He shall be their God. Shall He be their God? Then they must 1 See note, p. 10. know Him and believe in Him, and put away all idolatry, since God cannot be praised with idolatrous lips or with unbelieving hearts. Shall they believe? Then they must first hear His Word and by it receive the Holy Ghost, Who cleanses and enlightens their heart through faith. Are they to hear His Word? Then preachers must be sent who shall declare to them the Word of God." It were a mistake, however, to construe this into a missionary programme, as if Luther were summoning to the sending of missionaries to non-Christians. He always thinks of rà vŋ in the sense of the Christian nations who have sprung from the heathen. Only in this sense is the word to be understood even in the familiar hymn, "Es wolle Gott uns gnädig sein," where it is said "Und Jesus Christus, Heil und Stärk, Und sie zu Gott bekehren. So danken, Gott und loben dich Die Heiden überalle." "And Jesus Christ, His saving strength To Gentiles to make known, And turn them unto God. That Thee, O God, may thank and praise Of course, Luther maintained with emphasis the universality of Christianity and its elevation above all kinds of limit, whether of place, time, rank, or nation. He was quite certain also that, according to the promise, the Gospel must speed through the whole world and reach all nations. In this confidence he finds a wealth of comfort and much reason to praise the free compassion of God. "All the world does not mean one or two parts; but everywhere where people are, thither the Gospel must speed and still ever speeds, so that, even if it does not remain always in a place, it yet must come to, and sound forth in, all parts and corners of the earth." But often as such sayings are repeated, they are never set in connection with a summons to send messengers of the Gospel where its message has not yet come. And this is because Luther's view was that Christianity had already fulfilled its universal calling to be the religion of the world. "The spiritual Jerusalem, which is the kingdom of Christ, must be extended by the Gospel throughout the whole world. That has already come to pass. The Gospel has been preached, and upon it the kingdom of God has been firmly established in all places under heaven, so that it now reaches and abides to the end of the world, and in it we, by the mercy and compassion of God, |