In illustration of our exposition of the Epistle to Sardis, and in proof of what we have said of the constitution of the Lutheran churches, we will now refer to their original organization. And that the truth on this point may be fairly and fully stated, we will quote from D'Aubigne, who has said all for Luther and the Reformation that can be said.
"The reform needed some years of repose that it might increase and gain in strength: and it could not enjoy peace unless its great enemies were at war with each other. The madness of Clement VII. was as it were the lightning-conductor of the Reformation, and the ruin of Rome built up the gospel. It was not only a few months' gain; from 1526 to 1529 there was a calm in Germany by which the Reformation profited to organize and extend itself.
"The papal yoke having been broken, the ecclesiastical order required to be re-established. It was impossible to restore their ancient jurisdiction to the bishops; for these Continental prelates maintained that they were in an especial manner, the pope's servants. A new set of things was therefore called for, under pain of seeing the church fall into anarchy. Provision was made for it. It was then that the evangelic nations separated definitely from that despotic dominion which had for ages kept all the west in bondage.
"Already on two occasions the Diet had wished to make the reform of the church a national work. The Emperor, the pope, and a few princes were opposed to it. The Diet of Spires had therefore resigned to each state the task that it could not accomplish itself.
"But what constitution were they about to substitute for the papal hierarchy?
"They could, while suppressing the pope, preserve the episcopal order; it was the form most approximate to that which was on the point of being destroyed.
"They might, on the contrary, reconstruct the ecclesiastical order, by having recourse to the sovereignty of God's word, and re-establishing the rights of the christian people. This form was the most remote from the Roman hierarchy. Between these two extremes there were several middle courses.... Evangelical Germany, at the moment in which she began to try her hand on ecclesiastical constitutions, began with that which trenched the deepest on the papal monarchy."
The reader will plainly see from these few extracts, that the princes of Germany, in re-constituting the church, were guided by expediency, or political principles. Although they may have been sincere in desiring to act in conformity with the word of God, yet it never seems to have crossed their minds that God has given a constitution for His church in the New Testament. He has not given to man the liberty of adding to, or altering a single word of, that divine constitution, any more than He gave to the Jews the liberty of adding to, or altering a single pin in the tabernacle. But as we have gone very fully into the question of the inauguration, constitution, and discipline of the church in the early part of our first volume, we need say nothing more on that subject here. Everything should be tried by the standard of God's word, and whatever has not the sanction of that word should be given up.