Joseph Augustus Seiss

“ Her life, commingled with other lives attempered to her own, now pulsates from ocean to ocean and from the frozen lakes to the warm Gulf waters, all glad and glorious in the unity and sunshine of constitutional government in the hands of a free people. With her population drawn from all nationalities to learn from her lips the sacred lessons of independent self-rule, she has sent it forth as freely to the westward to build co-equal States in the beauty of her own image, whilst four millions of her children still abide in growing happiness under her maternal care. ”

“ It is not conscience, but the overriding of conscience; nay, rebellion against the whole code of conscience, against the foundations of all government, against the very existence of civil society. Liberty to blaspheme Almighty God, to profane his name and ordinances, to destroy his worship, and to set common morality at naught, is not religious liberty, but disorderly wickedness, a cloak of maliciousness, the licensing of the devil as an angel of light. It belongs to mere brute liberty, which must be restrained and brought under bonds in order to render true liberty possible. ”

“ There is no rest for me in my age, unless I join Luther; and that I cannot, for I cannot accept his doctrines. Sometimes I am stung with desire to avenge my wrongs; but my heart says, Will you in your spleen raise hand against your mother who begot you at the font? I cannot do it. Yet, because I bade monks remember their vows; because I told persons to leave off their wranglings and read the Bible; because I told popes and cardinals to look to the apostles and be more like them,—the theologians say I am their enemy. ”

“ But his mighty impress is not confined to Germany. "He grasped the iron trumpet of his mother-tongue and blew a blast that shook the nations from Rome to the Orkneys." He is not only the central figure of Germany, but of Europe and of the whole modern world. Take Luther away, with the fruits of his life and deeds, and man to-day would cease to be what he is. ”

“ It was the Word that kindled the heart of Luther to the work of Reformation, and the Word alone could bring it to its consummation. With the Word the whole Church of Christ and the entire fabric of our civilization must stand or fall. Undermine the Bible and you undermine the world. It is the one, true, and [Pg 98] only Charter of Faith, Liberty, and salvation for man, without which this race of ours is a hopeless and abandoned wreck. ”

“ If I write calmly against Luther, I shall be called lukewarm; if I write as he does, I shall stir up a hornet's nest.... Send for the best and wisest men in Christendom, and follow their advice."—"Reduce the dogmas necessary to be believed to the smallest possible number. On other points let every one believe as he likes. Having done this, quietly correct the abuses of which the world justly complains."
So wrote Erasmus to the pope and to the archbishop of Mayence. Such was his ideal of reformation—a thing as impossible to bring into practical effect as its realization would have been absurd. ”

“ Luther's first encounter with the hierarchy was on the traffic in indulgences. It was a good fortune that it there began. That traffic was so obnoxious to every sense of propriety that any vigorous attack upon it would command the approval of many honest and pious people. The central heresy of hierarchical religion was likewise embodied in it, so that a stab there, if logically followed up, would necessarily reach the very heart of the oppressive monster. And Providence arranged that there the conflict should begin. ”

“ A crowded church awaited their delivery. He entered with his brother-monks, and joined in all the service with his usual voice and gravity. Nothing in his countenance or manner betrayed the slightest agitation of his soul. It was a solemn and momentous step for himself and for mankind that he was about to take, but he was as calmly made up to it as to any other duty of his life. ”

“ The true word of God's deliverance was brought home to Luther's understanding. He was penitent and in earnest, and needed only this great Gospel hope to lift him from the horrible pit and the miry clay. As a light from heaven it came to his soul, and there remained, a comfort and a joy. The glad conclusion flashed upon him, never more to be shaken, "If God, for Christ's sake, takes away our sins, then [Pg 39] they are not taken away by any works of ours."
The foundation-rock of a new world was reached. ”

“ But there may be liberty under monarchy, as well as reverence and obedience under democracy, whilst there may be oppression and bloody tyranny under either.
Amid the varied experiments of the ages the human mind is more and more settling itself in favor of mixed forms of government, in which the rights of the people and the limitations of authority are set down in fixed constitutions, taking the direct rule from the multitude, but still holding the rulers accountable to the people. Such were more or less the forms under which the founders of our commonwealth were tutored. ”

“ Since Phocas decreed the bishop of Rome the supreme head of the Church on earth there had grown up strange power which claimed to decide beyond appeal respecting everybody and everything—from affairs of empire to the burial of the dead, from the thoughts of men here to the estate of their souls hereafter—and to command the anathemas of God upon any who dared to question its authority. ”

“ II. Accordingly, also, the chief corner-stone in the constitutional fabric of our State was the united official acknowledgment of the being and supremacy of one eternal and ever-living God, the Judge of all men and the Lord of nations.
The self-existence and government of Almighty God is the foundation of all things. Nothing is without him. And the devout and dutiful recognition of him and the absolute supremacy of his laws are the basis and chief element of everything good and stable in human affairs. ”

“ Only when the hierarchy claimed to qualify these direct relations and obligations, thrust itself between the soul and its Redeemer, and by eternal penalties sought to hold the conscience bound to human authorities and traditions, did the Reformation protest and take issue. Had the inalienable right and duty to obey God rather than man been conceded, the hierarchy, as such, might have remained, the same as monarchical government. ”

“ Severity upon such disorders is not tyrannical abridgment of the rights of conscience, for no proper citizen's conscience can ever prompt or constrain him to any such things. And everything which tends to weaken and destroy regard for the eternal Power on which all things depend, to relax the sense of accountability to the divine judgment, and to trample on the laws of eternal morality, is the worst enemy of the state, which it cannot allow without peril to its own existence. ”

“ May the faith and spirit of the men through whose piety and wisdom it has come still warm and animate the hearts of their successors to the latest generations! May no careless or corrupt administration of justice or "looseness" or infidelities of the people come in to bring down the wrath of Heaven for its interruption! ”

“ Continental Europe was being deluged with blood and devastated by relentless religious wars to crush out the evangelic faith, whose confessors held up the Bible over all popes and secular powers, and would not consent to part with their inalienable charter from the throne of Heaven to worship God according to his Word. And amid these woeful struggles the good providence of the Almighty opened up to the attention of the nations the vast new territories of this Western World. ”

“ And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, named before thou wert born! what love, what care, what service, and what travail has there been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from such as would abuse and defile thee! My soul prays to God for thee, that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, that thy children may be blessed of the Lord, and thy people saved by his power. ”

“ He founded the University of Wittenberg in hope that it would produce preachers who would leave off the cold subtleties of Scholasticism and the uncertainties of tradition, and give discourses that would possess the nerve and power of the Gospel of God. He sought out the best and most pious men for his advisers. He was the devoted friend of learning, truth, and virtue. By his prudence and foresight in Church and State he helped the Reformation more than any other man then in power. Had it not been for him perhaps Luther could not have succeeded. ”

“ It is hard for men to keep their footing amid deep and vast commotions and not drift into ruinous excesses. Storch, and Münzer, and Carlstadt, and Melanchthon himself, were dangerously affected by the whirl of things. Even good men sometimes forget that society cannot be conserved by mere negations; that wild and lawless revolution can never work a wholesome and abiding reformation; that the perpetuity of the Church is an historic chain, each new link of which depends on those which have gone before. ”

“ At a single stroke, made in modesty and faith, Luther had become the most noted person in Germany—the man most talked of in all the world—the mouthpiece of the best people in Christendom—the leader of a mighty revolution. ”

“ The glowing energy of his faith acted like a spreading fire, kindling the souls of men as they seldom have been kindled in any cause in any age. His Address to the Nobility electrified all Germany, and first fired the patriotic spirit of Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer. ”

“ In the happy freedom which has come to us among the fruits of that man's labors we bring our humble chaplet to grace the memory of one whose worth and services there is scarce capacity to tell.
Human Greatness.
Some men are colossal. Their characters are so massive, and their position in history [Pg 10] is so towering, that other men can hardly get high enough to take their measure. An overruling Providence so endows and places them that they affect the world, turn its course into new channels, impart to it a new spirit, and leave their impress on all the ages after them. ”

“ Nor is there any form of government known to man that is not liable to abuse, prostitution, tyranny, unrighteousness, and oppression.
The best government is that which most efficiently conserves the true ends of government, be the form what it may. Anything [Pg 202] differing from this is worthless sentimentalism, undeserving of sober regard. And to meet the true ends of government there must be power to enforce obedience, and there must be checks upon that power to secure its subjects against its abuse; for "liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery." ”

“ Again and again had he preached and proclaimed the folly and wickedness of attempting to change the religious opinions of men by the application of force—the utter unreasonableness of persecuting orderly people in this world about things which belong to the next—the gross injustice of sacrificing any one's liberty or property on account of creed if not found breaking the laws relating to natural and civil things. ”

“ The spirit of commercial and foreign adventure on the one hand and, on the other the assertion and maintenance of religious liberty, having their source in the Reformation, and this love of religious liberty drawing after it or bringing along with it, as it always does, an ardent devotion to the principle of civil liberty also, were the powerful influences under which character was formed and men trained for the great work of introducing English civilization, English law, and, what is more than all, Anglo-Saxon blood, into the wilderness of North America."—Daniel Webster, Works, vol. ”

“ Ah, yes; there is greatness and good and blessing untold for man and for the world in the personal hearing, believing, and heeding of the Word and testimony of God. No man can tell to what new impulses in human history, or to what new currents of benediction and continents of national glory, it may lead for souls in the school of Christ to open [Pg 172] themselves meekly to the inflowings of Heaven's free grace. It was the sowing of God's truth and the planting of God's Spirit in these men's hearts that most of all grew for us our country and our blessed liberties. ”

“ II. THE PRINCIPLES ENTHRONED.
The religious element in man is the deepest and most powerful in his nature. It is that also which asserts and claims the greatest independence from external constraints. It is therefore the height of unwisdom, not to say tyranny, for earthly magistracy to interfere by penalty and sword with the religious opinions and movements of the people, so long as civil authority and public order are not invaded and the rights of others are not infringed. In such cases it is always best to combat only with the Word of God. ”

“ He was a man of amazing faith—that mighty principle which looks at things invisible, joins the soul to divine Omnipotence, and launches out unfalteringly upon eternal realities, and which is ever the chief factor in all God's heroes of every age. ”

“ Reaction against wrongs done to truth and right is sure to come, and will push through to revolution and victory in spite of all unrighteous power. It is vain for any human governments to think to chain up the honest convictions of the soul. ”

“ I will call this Luther a true Great Man; great in intellect, in courage, affection, and integrity; one of our most lovable and precious men. Great not as a hewn obelisk, but as an Alpine mountain, so simple, honest, spontaneous; not setting up to be great at all; there for quite another purpose than being great. ”

“ We think of Luther wrestling with his sins, despairing and dying under the impossible task of working out for himself an availing righteousness, and rejoice with him in the light and peace which came to his agonized soul through the grand and all-conditioning doctrine of justification by simple faith in an all-sufficient Redeemer ”

“ III. Another great and precious principle enthroned in the founding of our commonwealth was that of religious liberty.
One of the saddest chapters in human history is that of persecution on account of religious convictions—the imposition of penalties, torture, and death by the sword of government on worthy people because of their honest opinions of duty to Almighty God. ”

“ For two hundred years had men been laboring to curb and tame it. From theologians and universities, from kings and emperors, from provinces and synods, from general councils, and even the College of Cardinals—in every name of right, virtue, and religion—appeal after appeal and solemn effort after effort were made to reform the Roman court and free the world from the [Pg 15] terrible oppression. Wars on wars were waged; provinces on provinces were deluged with blood; coalitions, bound by sacred oaths, were formed against the giant tyranny. ”

“ Luther had found the Bible chained, and set it free. Apostolic Christianity had reappeared, and was re-uttering itself with great power among the nations. Its quickening truths and growing victories were undermining the gigantic usurpations and falsehoods which for ages had been oppressing our world. Conscience, illuminated and revived by the Word of God, had [Pg 175] risen up to assert its rights of free judgment and free worship, and resentful power had drawn the sword to put it down. ”