I väntan på Jesus

 

 

It is a great, an unfortunate aberration, that the Reformation would end with Luther. He himself was of another opinion: he considered his work only as the beginning of the Reformation. Unfortunate was also the step, which was a consequence of this: namely, that the so-called Symbolic Books were elevated from the human, temporal and corrigible authority, which applies to them, to a constant and infallible authority. It didn't help, that the authors of these books had declared themselves weak and imperfect in understanding and knowledge, like men generally are; it didn't help that they denied having what they repudiated the pope and the synods for: infallibility. In the men, who had to continue their work, the Roman spirit asserted itself. The world couldn't at once be re-created; the old Adam of the slavish mind came to life again and did not rest until he received a new tradition, a new pope to submit to. The Augsburg Confession became the new pope. Thus the starting point and main principle of Protestantism was denied by the Protestants themselves. This is not the place to talk about the sad consequences of this self-denial, nor about the reasons which from a historical or psychological point of view can explain and thus also from the same points of view excuse her.*

 

 

 

* This apostasy of Protestantism from its idea has partly its explanation in external historic circumstances. What was closer at hand to the men of the fifteenth century than the supposition, that one in all points definitely formulated, unanimously held and esteemed creed would form the necessary bulwark for the young church against the overwhelming old, which with its stifling authority and firm organization appeared so terrible still in its decay? This thought got increasing spread and strength through the appearance of swarmers, who in their extreme spiritualism threatened to make all ecclesiastical organization impossible, and it was supported by an urge, which all religious believers feel, they may be Catholics or Protestants, to exist within a circle, where they know they are protected from disturbing doubts and objections to the perception of the highest truths, to which they attach the anchor of their life and their life's happiness. The unanimity in the conviction, which also in other areas creates comfort and devout communion between the spirits, is especially in the religious area a source of spiritual security and harmony. Likewise, it is quite understandable that the original evangelical concept of faith, according to which the faith, to speak with Luther's words, "is nothing but the right and true life in God", would in its indescribable greatness be embezzled and gradually leave room for a statutory belief, a theoretical assertion of certain doctrines, and that the sooner as the faith cannot bear every such theoretical element without sinking into a formless and obscure mysticism. Every reformation grasps in its principles high above the position in which the mass, who convert to her, at the moment find themselves; unconsciously, but necessary, because of this, a reaction against these principles appears gradually within the Reformation's own bosom, which proceeds, until the contradiction, at first veiled, becomes clear to all and not only theoretically unbearable but also practically harmful.