FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   335   336   337   338   339   340   341   342   343   344   345   346   347   348   349   350   351   352   353   354   355   356   357   358   359  
360   361   362   363   364   365   366   367   368   369   370   371   372   373   374   375   376   377   378   379   380   381   382   383   384   >>   >|  
e of charity since the Catholic times; and a divine attributed the growing selfishness and harshness to the doctrine of justification by faith. The alteration in the condition of the poor was followed by severe enactments against vagrancy; and the Protestant legislature, after creating a proletariate, treated it as a crime. The conversion of Sunday into a Jewish Sabbath cut off the holiday amusements and soured the cheerfulness of the population. Music, singing, and dancing, the favourite relaxation of a contented people, disappeared, and, especially after the war in the Low Countries, drunkenness began to prevail among a nation which in earlier times had been reckoned the most sober of Northern Europe. The institution which introduced these changes has become a State, not a national Church, whose services are more attended by the rich than by the poor. After describing the various parties in the Anglican system, the decay of its divinity, and the general aversion to theological research, Doellinger concludes that its dissolution is a question of time. No State Church can long subsist in modern society which professes the religion of the minority. Whilst the want of a definite system of doctrine, allowing every clergyman to be the mouthpiece, not of a church, but of a party, drives an increasing portion of the people to join the sects which have a fixed doctrine and allow less independence to their preachers, the great danger which menaces the Church comes from the State itself. The progress of dissent and of democracy in the legislature will make the Church more and more entirely dependent on the will of the majority, and will drive the best men from the communion of a servile establishment. The rise and fortunes of Methodism are related with peculiar predilection by the author, who speaks of John Wesley as the greatest intellect English Protestantism has produced, next to Baxter. The first characteristic of Scottish Presbyterianism is the absence of a theology. The only considerable divines that have appeared in Scotland since the Reformation, Leighton and Forbes, were prelates of the Episcopal Church. Calvinism was unable to produce a theological literature, in spite of the influence of English writers, of the example of Holland, and of the great natural intelligence of the Scots. "Their theology," says a distinguished Lutheran divine, "possesses no system of Christian ethics." This Doellinger attributes to the st
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   335   336   337   338   339   340   341   342   343   344   345   346   347   348   349   350   351   352   353   354   355   356   357   358   359  
360   361   362   363   364   365   366   367   368   369   370   371   372   373   374   375   376   377   378   379   380   381   382   383   384   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Church

 

doctrine

 

system

 
people
 

theology

 
theological
 

Doellinger

 
legislature
 

English

 

divine


possesses

 

dependent

 

democracy

 

dissent

 
progress
 
Lutheran
 
church
 

mouthpiece

 

distinguished

 

majority


Christian
 

ethics

 

increasing

 
portion
 

independence

 

danger

 

communion

 

menaces

 
attributes
 
preachers

drives
 

servile

 
appeared
 

divines

 
Scotland
 

Reformation

 

Leighton

 

considerable

 

Scottish

 

Presbyterianism


absence

 

natural

 

Forbes

 

literature

 

influence

 

produce

 

Holland

 
prelates
 

Episcopal

 

Calvinism