(the Meaning of the Name)
We have spoken of the circumstances which attended the assuming — or rather the receiving — of the name of Protestant. We are going to speak now of the meaning of the name. A name which is historical in its origin does not usually have an appropriate meaning apart from its history; whilst even the names which are given or assumed for their meaning are sometimes singularly inappropriate. We do not find Methodists particularly methodical; and Quakers have been seldom known to quake — even before very serious dangers. But with regard to this word Protestant: we have found that its history is one we can remember with pride and thankfulness, and I think we shall also find that its meaning is both honorable and appropriate.
It is indeed a noble name. We venture to think there is only one which is higher and grander. That name also is both historic and descriptive. It is the best and dearest name by which any of us can be called — the name of Christian. We claim for the name of Protestant a place, in our hearts and on our lips, second only to that.
No doubt you know already that Protestant means witness. It is derived from the Latin word testis — a witness. Testant is witnessing. A Protestant then is a witness, or a person witnessing. It is a word that often occurs in Scripture. Where we have witness in our English Version, in the Vulgate, or Latin Version, which is used by Roman Catholics, the word is testis, or one of its variations. It is the word applied to the Apostles, the first witnesses of Christ — to St. Stephen, to the “great cloud of witnesses,” to our Lord Himself in the first chapter of Revelation; and later on, in a passage most significant for us, to the mysterious “Two Witnesses” of whom the voice of prophecy tells us. But there is a prefix to the root. We do not call ourselves Testants, but Pro-testants. Here is an instance of what in course of time very often happens to words. The current and popularly accepted meaning has wandered somehow from the original and derivative one. If “the man in the street,” who seems now to be considered a sort of universal referee, is asked, “What is a Protestant?” he will probably answer, “One who protests against the doctrines of Rome,” or “against the errors of Rome,” according to his point of view. True, so far as it goes; but by no means all the truth, or even the greater part of the truth. The prefix pro does not mean against, it means for. During the South African war we heard a great deal of certain people who were called pro-Boers; were they people particularly distinguished by their hostility to the Boers — dead against them, so to speak? And when we talk of the “pros and cons” of any matter, do not we assume that the “pros” are the things for it and the “cons” the things against it? To protest, therefore, means literally and derivatively to witness for.
Yet it is not difficult to see how, both in ordinary use and in this special use of it, the word has come in the popular mind to change its meaning. If we stir ourselves up to witness against anything, it is generally because that thing is opposing, interfering with, something we value. We only care to witness against what is contrary to that which we witness for. But then, as time goes on, we often come to think more and more of what we witness against, and less and less of what we witness for — a thing much to be regretted.
It will be well for us to bring back our word Protestant to its original meaning, and fix our thoughts upon the thing, we are witnesses for, in place of the things we are witnesses against. Whose witnesses are we? God’s witnesses. For what?
For several things.
We shall name first that to which the first historical Protestants gave the foremost place in their Protest — the Word of God, “seeing,” said they, “that there is no sure rule for doctrine and for life except the Word of God.” Thus Protestants are called to witness for the inspiration and the authority of the Word of God. On this point the Articles of the Reformed and Protestant Church of England speak with no uncertain sound. The Sixth Article declares that we are not called upon to believe anything that cannot be proved from Holy Scripture, and that Holy Scripture is to be the rule both of our teaching and our life.
Another thing we are called to witness for is— Truth. What do we mean by Truth? There are two meanings we may give to it. When we use long words we speak of truth objective and truth subjective. But when we want to speak more simply we say, “Truth means the thing that is true; and that is what we have got to find out as far as we can.” That is Truth objective. Whatever is presented to us we must examine, and see if it represents reality and fact — if it is truth and not a lie. But sometimes we say instead, “When we have found the truth we must ourselves be true to it.” That is Truth subjective. We must not only believe what is true, but also be true to what we believe. The two things are very like, but they are not the same. When Galileo came to believe that the earth turned round the sun, he had the truth, objectively. He knew the fact as it was. But when, under the terrors of the Inquisition, he denied that fact, and said that the sun turned round the earth, he was not truthful, not true himself to the truth he knew.
In these two ways — seeking honestly to find out what is true, and when we have found it being true to it in word and act — Protestantism bears witness to truth. Romanism does not do so. She will very readily, even gladly, allow people to believe what she thinks edifying, what she thinks helpful, what she thinks pious — “a pious opinion” she calls it, whether it be true or no. “Oh,” she says, “it will do people good — let them believe it. Why not?”
For instance, there is a legend that one of the martyrs, St. Denys, who had his head cut off, took it up Afterward in his hands and walked away with it. Romanists say: “Whether that happened or not, it is very nice for the people to believe it.” We say: “Did that thing really happen? Did that man really walk away with his head in his hands? We are sure he did not, as a matter of fact; and so we will have none of it!” And, having tried to find what is true, we will also try, if God gives us His grace, to be true to the truth we have found. Marvelously indeed has He given of His grace to men and to women — ay, and to children, too— enabling them to refuse, for any fear of punishment or any hope of honor or reward, to say with their lips the things their hearts could not believe.
We are witnesses also, by virtue of our Protestantism, for another thing — we are witnesses for Freedom. Everyone who has studied history in anything like an impartial spirit must acknowledge the immense services Protestantism has rendered to the cause of freedom. Look at the nations of Europe as they stand now, and see what Protestantism has done for those who accepted it, in making them free, in making them great, and in making them prosperous. See also what those have missed who rejected it. The reason is obvious; for that principle, “We will seek the truth, we will find the truth, we will hold to the truth,” plants in the mind of every man who receives it the living seed of freedom. It imparts a strength which all the material forces of tyranny cannot overcome. To take one out of many illustrations — Palissy, the Huguenot potter, was a man of genius, and he gave an impulse to his art that lasts to this day. His works may still be seen, and his life may still be studied with pleasure. For he was a man who feared God, and could not be moved from the truth he had embraced, even in the darkest days of persecution. In the Massacre of St. Bartholomew he was spared, probably by favor of the King, who admired his works and liked him personally. But he was put in prison, where the King himself visited him and urged him to change his religion, “If you will not become a Catholic,” he said, “I am very sorry, but I shall be compelled to let your enemies have you.”
“Then I am stronger than your Majesty,” returned the brave Huguenot, “ because no one on earth, not even you, can compel me. I will not change my religion.”
Truly has it been said, “He who can die cannot be compelled.” Thus in every country where Protestant faith prevailed there arose a set of men who, because they could die, could not be compelled; and through them the nation’s freedom was won, or maintained.
We are witnesses, then, for Truth and for Freedom. But we do not stop there. Had we been fighting only for abstract principles, however grand or precious, our battles would never have been won. The center of Protestantism is not a principle, not a power, not a doctrine, but a Person. In its innermost essence Protestantism is witness for Christ. Let this never be forgotten, let it be taken close to our hearts and held there forever. We are witnesses for Christ, for the power of Christ, for the love of Christ, for the sole claim of Christ upon our obedience, our allegiance, and our love. No one — no thing — shall stand between us and Him — no person, however venerated; no system, however splendid; no organization, hover ancient or imposing. Especially we are witnesses for the finished work of Christ as our only Saviour. We know that what is usually considered the cardinal doctrine of Protestantism is the doctrine of justification by faith. It was of this Luther became the champion, and it was this which he called “the article of a standing or a falling Church.” But what does it mean? We are saved by faith indeed, but faith in itself has no power to save. It is only a link uniting us to Him who saves. Justification by faith means justification by Christ — by trusting Him, following Him, having Him. Faith in itself is nothing — Christ is all. That is what Protestantism means — Christ is all. As one of our martyrs said in the fire, crying it out again and again in his dying agonies: “None but Christ! None but Christ! “That is the center word of Protestantism — “None but Christ.” As long as we hold to that we live, we grow, we triumph. Once let that go, and all goes.
There is something more to be said about the word Protestant. We have spoken of its derivation from the Latin testis, which means witness. But what is its Greek equivalent? What is the Greek word for witness? I think we all know that. There are two places in our English Authorized Version where the Greek word is retained. In Acts 22:2020And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him. (Acts 22:20) St. Paul speaks of “Thy martyr Stephen,” and in Revelation 2:1313I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. (Revelation 2:13) Christ Himself calls Antipas “My faithful martyr.” Martyr, that is the Greek word. Everywhere, in the New Testament, where the English word “witness” is used, it is in the original “martyr.” In the eleventh chapter of Revelation the “two Witnesses” are in the Greek, Evai wáprvai. And in the majestic opening chapter of the same Book, One greater than all these, even He to whom they all bore witness, is Himself called “the true and faithful Martyr.”
In our modern use of it, which dates almost from the beginning of the Church’s history, the word “martyr” has acquired a, special and distinctive meaning. It is reserved for those witnesses who have given up their lives, and sealed their testimony with their blood. In a very close and peculiar way this meaning links it with our subject. Protestantism has been emphatically the creed of the martyrs. This is a fact not half — not a hundredth part — so well-known as it ought to be.
Most of us, when we think of martyrs at all, turn back instinctively to the early Christians. This is very natural. The champions of our faith, who kept its light alive in the first ages amidst the darkness of heathenism, ought indeed to be much remembered by us who enter into their labors. Their names we honor; the records of their faith and patience we carefully preserve. I wonder which of these martyr stories is the dearest to your hearts? To mine there is none so dear as the splendid witness of the aged Polycarp — possibly the very “angel of the Church of Smyrna,” to whom our risen Lord addressed the words, “Be thou faithful unto death.” When commanded to blaspheme Christ, or die, you remember his noble answer — “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He hath never wronged me; how then shall I blaspheme my King who hath saved me?” The Master said to the servant, “Be thou faithful.” The servant answered, “How can I but be faithful to my faithful Lord?” And we may be very sure the Lord received him with His grand “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
Beautiful stories like this we find in the records of the early Church. But we must remember that after only three hundred years Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire, and — save for the short reaction under Julian— Pagan persecution ceased entirely. During those three centuries ten persecutions are usually reckoned, but some of them were short and partial. Nor was the “world” of the Roman Empire at all so extensive as the “world” of modern Europe.
But to anyone who undertakes the labor— too sadly neglected — of searching the crowded records of Protestant martyrology, the number of the witnesses grows — and grows — and grows — until it becomes absolutely overpowering.
They are, literally, “like the stars for multitude,” not merely the stars seen by the naked eye, but the stars discovered by the telescope. And when you have resolved into single stars all of these that you can so resolve, then you will find the cloudy nebula baffling you still.
It is hard to give anything like an adequate idea of this so great cloud of witnesses; but, by way of making some approach to it, we will carry on the symbol of the stars, remembering that “one star differeth from another star in glory.” They differ in “magnitude,” astronomers say, but the magnitudes are apparent, not real. We hear of stars of the first, second, third magnitude, and so on; but that does not mean that those which look the largest and brightest to us are necessarily so in reality, only that they appear so, because we see them more plainly. There, too, the illustration holds good. We cannot tell, amongst the martyrs, which may be really “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” — only God can do that; but we cannot fail to notice various degrees in the brightness with which they shine upon us through the darkness of the past.
There are a few stars of the first magnitude whose names everyone knows, or ought to know; and there were a few martyrs who would have been great men in any case, and have found a place in history, even in what is called secular history. Amongst Englishmen, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were sure to be remembered. And there is another name which I mention with the deepest reverence, a name which is known to every one of us, and which ought to be known to every man, woman, and child who can read the English language — the name of William Tyndale, the translator of the Bible, a man of real genius, as is shown by his matchless rendering of the matchless words of Scripture. Though it is not his version that we use now, yet our Authorized Version, which has been founded upon his, retains much of his language, and, deeply imprinted, the “very form and pressure” of his mind. Through this magnificent work he has influenced every one of us, and more than that, every one of the millions who read and love their English Bible. We may call him indeed a star of the first magnitude.
There are many other martyrs of Protestantism about whom, although in the world’s sense we can scarcely call them great men, we yet know a great deal, and a great deal that is extremely interesting. These include many of our English martyrs, and not a few of those of other countries. We know their books, their letters, many things about their lives, sometimes even minor details — traits of character, of personal appearance, of daily habit — which make them real to us, and not mere shadows. About their deaths we have often quite full and circumstantial information. The one I shall take for an instance, John Frith, may be truly called a “heritor of unfulfilled renown,” for he was cut off early. He spent just as many years on earth as our Lord Himself did — thirty-three. But he gave such promise of future greatness that, had he lived, his name would no doubt have become famous. That was not to be; but already he had assisted Tyndale in his translation of the New Testament and moreover a trace of his hand remains to us still in our English Prayer Book. The concluding words of the Rubric at the end of the Communion Service, commonly called “the black Rubric,” are from the pen of John Frith.
We come now to those whom we may call stars of the third magnitude, about whose lives we do not know very much, though we have fairly ample, sometimes very ample, accounts of their deaths. Leaving England for a while, we shall take our example here from one of the multitudinous martyrs of France. This martyr suffered very late in the history of his country — later than most people suppose any martyrs suffered at all — in the middle of the eighteenth century, that so-called age of enlightenment and of reason. Yet even in that age it was a capital crime in France to be a Protestant pastor, to perform baptisms or marriages, or to administer the Holy Communion not according to the ritual of the Church of Rome. Every pastor took his office at the risk of his life; his very Ordination was a death sentence. Yet there was a regularly ordained Protestant ministry, and candidates for the office were never wanting. One of these pastors, Majal Desubas, was a young man, full of zeal and love and in consequence much beloved. His preaching made a great impression. But at the age of twenty-six he was arrested, and knew of course that he would be doomed to die. He was to be taken from the midst of his own people to a distant place, Montpellier, to be tried and executed. But his people loved him with that intense and passionate love we spoke of in our first Talk. Their hearts were moved to the depths — they could not let him die. They were strong men — brave men — and they vowed they would save him yet. They could do it; for in that district they were more numerous than the Catholics, not to speak of the gens d’arme and the soldiers. They surrounded Vernoux, the town where he was, and made an unsuccessful effort to reach him, which cost some lives. Not discouraged, they were going to try again. He heard of it; and he said within himself—
“These shall never die for me,
Life-blood weighs too heavily;
And I could not sleep in grave
With the faithful and the brave
Piled around and over me.”
So from his prison he found means to write to his friends, praying them to give it up; and saying for himself that he was “very tranquil, and quite resigned to the will of God.”
That letter did the work, aided by the prayers and exhortations of two other persecuted pastors who were among the people in disguise. No more blood was shed, and Desubas went to his death with joy. It is said that the judge — a stern man, and very hostile to the Protestants — could not refrain from tears when he pronounced his death sentence. And when, on the scaffold, he “trod the last steps that separated him from the living, immortal Christ,” Protestants and Catholics wept together. It is added by the historian that the Catholics congratulated the Protestants on the credit their martyr had done them! His own people celebrated his name, and preserved his story, in artless, pathetic ballads, which passed from lip to lip, and from heart to heart, and are not forgotten yet. One stanza may be quoted, for the simple sweetness of its melody, which lingers on the ear—
“Lubac n’est plus a plaindre,
Il est hors du danger;
Il n’a plus rien a craindre,
Ni rien a desirer.”
But we must hasten on. There are stars of still lesser magnitude — lesser, perhaps, only because we know less about them. They are a great multitude; far more numerous — incomparably more numerous — than the martyrs whose histories we know, are those of whom we know nothing except their names; and then there are those even whose names we do not know — names, indeed,
“On earth unknown,
But Jesus bears them on His heart, before the eternal Throne.”
It has been said of such as these-
“They lived unknown
Till persecution dragged them into fame,
And chased them up to heaven.”
True, indeed, persecution “chased them up to heaven;” but it was beyond the power even of persecution to “drag them into fame.” Fame has no room upon her scroll for such a multitude. And yet, just a gleam of light falls here and there upon some of these obscure names and lights them up — as in looking at a distant field, you sometimes see a sunbeam flash upon a bit of broken glass or a stone, and make of it a little sun.
Take an instance or two. One of the women martyrs of France — and there were a great many — was going to the stake. A crowd of the poor and destitute whom she had been wont to succor followed her, weeping. One poor woman sobbed out, “You will never give me alms anymore.” “Yes, once more,” said the martyr; and stooping down, she took off her own shoes and gave them to her.
Here is another. It is of the protomartyr of Protestantism in Spain, Francesco Romano, a victim of the Inquisition. He was bound to the stake: the fire was kindled, the flames arose. At that last moment those around him thought he made a sign as if he would recant, and tried, in mistaken kindness, to pull him out of the fire. “Did you envy me my happiness?” said he. My happiness! Nothing is more wonderful than the happiness — the joy— God gave to those witnesses for Him even in the midst of their sufferings. Once and again this comes before us, sometimes in the strangest ways. A French martyr, an old man of seventy-two, was broken on the wheel— a peculiarly horrible form of death, much more lingering and protracted than the death of fire. His wife — brave woman! — stood beside him. He looked at her and said, “Though you see my bones broken to fragments, yet is my heart filled with ineffable joy!”
In searching out and studying the voluminous records of those who have suffered for Christ, there must be pain — much pain — from which our timid spirits shrink away. But the pain is more than compensated by the marvelous revelations that come to us of the power and the love that sustained them throughout all. How they help us, these heroes of the Faith, in the circumstances, the sorrows, the conflicts, of our own lives! We say to our hearts: “He helped them in such terrible straits; can He not help me also — even me — in the far lesser trials of my life?” Then, in that sweet sense of communion, the glad words rise from heart and lip—
“There is a multitude around
Responsive to my prayer,
I hear the voice of my desire
Resounding everywhere;
But the earnest of eternal joy
In every prayer I trace,
I see the likeness of the Lord
On every patient face.
How oft, in still communion known,
Those spirits have been sent
To share the travail of my soul,
Or show me what it meant!”
But even beyond what we may call the nebulae, the multitude of witnesses for Christ whose names only, or whose very names even, have not been preserved, there remains another great multitude who perished in general massacres — those massacres of heretics, of which that of St. Bartholomew is the most famous, though by no means the only one. We dare not give to all these thousands of victims the sacred name of martyrs; that would be to lower, perhaps even to profane it. For it is the Faith that makes the martyr; and none but God can know how many, amongst those “multitudes of the slain” sent suddenly into His presence, passed in there willingly for His sake. Some did so, as we know; Coligny, for instance, was certainly “a martyr both in will and in deed.”
Still less should we think of counting those who fell in the wars of Protestantism. They do not come into our reckoning as martyrs, though a goodly number may find a place in our roll of heroes who “waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” Of these Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, is a conspicuous example. And some rays of the true martyr spirit have shone out even upon battlefields. Such was that of the Scottish soldier of Protestantism, who lay on the field wounded and helpless when the camp followers came to strip the dead. Finding him alive, they stabbed him again and again. He raised himself, and shouted with his last breath, “Were every hair on my head a man, I would die all those deaths for Christ and for His cause!” That man had the heart of a martyr.
It is hard to turn from these records of faith and patience to meet the objections of adversaries, sometimes also of ignorant or indifferent friends. They bid us remember that the cruelty and intolerance have not always been on one side and the courage and endurance on the other. One sometimes hears, one sometimes even reads, such a statement as this: “Oh, yes, Catholics have burned Protestants, and Protestants have burned Catholics.” That Protestants have killed Catholics is undeniable. That they killed them in times of war goes without saying, and the sin is altogether with those that made the wars. They have killed them also in times of peace, sometimes in righteous retribution for manifest crimes, or in just self-Defense; sometimes also, being fallible human beings, in revenge or in panic — often most well-grounded panic; and sometimes — seeing that the millions of men who called themselves Protestants must have had amongst them a proportion of bad men — from the motives and the passions which actuate such at all times. But those Catholics who have been— knowingly and intentionally— burned by Protestants are very hard to discover. Personally, I have been looking for them these many years. And I think I have found them at last — in company with those men in buckram suits whom that redoubtable knight and hero Sir John Falstaff boasted he had slain.
Here someone interposes — I have heard the question, and marked the air of finality and of triumph that accompanied it — “Who burned Servetus?” We bow our heads, and plead guilty to the charge. Not, indeed, that—
“Calvin, for the rest,
Made bold to burn Servetus,”
as is usually said. Calvin, on the other hand pleaded for a mitigation of his sentence. Still, undeniably, he was burned by Protestants, and burned for his religious opinions. But he was not a Catholic; he was a Unitarian, and more than that, he was a Pantheist. He avowed his belief that all that existed — even the devil himself — was a part of God. He had been actually condemned for his heresies by the Inquisition of Vienne to be burned in a slow fire, but he escaped to Geneva. The agents of the Inquisition pursued him thither and demanded his surrender. The magistrates of Geneva gave him his choice — to go back to France, or to remain with them and be judged by their own laws. He chose the latter; so that the Protestants only carried out — and with a shade less of horror — the sentence already pronounced by the Catholic Inquisition!
But none the less it was a crime, as no Protestant in the world now attempts to deny. Nay, we acknowledge and regret it. Protestants have just erected, in the city that witnessed his death, a handsome monument to Michael Servetus, in the inscription upon which they confess and deplore the sin of their ancestors.
And yet it is with thankfulness that we Protestants name the name of Michael Servetus. We do not thank God for his fate, but we do thank God with all our hearts for his fame. While, as it has been said, not persecution, not martyrdom even, can drag into fame the innumerable victims of Rome, who has not heard of Michael Servetus, the man whom the Protestants burnt in Geneva? His mournful celebrity is our vindication. If the victims of Protestantism had been more numerous, they would be less remembered.
It comes in the end to a question of proportion. A robe already black you may steep in ink without altering its appearance. But let one drop of ink fall upon a robe of white, and every beholder throws up his hands with the cry, “Oh, what a horrible stain!” But it is really the blackness of the black robe which is horrible — appalling. No one who has not gone into it — even a little way — can guess how the horror grows and deepens in the soul as record after record is unfolded, each, as it seems, more frightful than the last, until finally imagination sinks outwearied, and we cry, “No more! — no more! Were they men who did these things, or were they demons?”
No; they were not demons — not all demons. Sometimes — alas! too rarely — a gleam of light crosses the gloom, some trait of mercy and pity, some touch of our common humanity. Even after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew there was at least one man, and he a bigoted Catholic, who had the grace to die of the horror of it; and the names of the few who bravely ventured to disobey the Royal command to carry out the same measures in other parts of the kingdom, are recorded to their honor. There are still better things sometimes. More than once has a persecutor, like St. Paul, embraced the faith he tried to destroy. And in other cases, where we cannot say there has been repentance unto life, there has at least been genuine human remorse, and very terrible remorse too. Everyone has heard of the terrors and agonies that shadowed the deathbed of the miserable king who, though he was by no means the most guilty of the actors in the St. Bartholomew tragedy, was yet the man by whom it was decreed and ordered. Yet even here there falls a ray of light. Charles had a Huguenot nurse, Philippe Richarde, who had cared for him in his infancy, and to whom he was sincerely attached. He had taken pains to keep her in safety during the massacre, and she was with him to the end of his brief, unhappy life. We are told that she found him one night in an agony, weeping and bewailing “the murders — the bloodshed.” “I am lost!” he cried — “I am lost!” She soothed him tenderly, and bade him trust to the mercy of God, saying that if he repented God “would cover his sins with the mantle of His Son’s righteousness, and not impute them unto him.” When, a little later, he had received the last offices of his Church, and his weary, sin-stained soul was actually passing, it would seem as if he thought of the message of mercy, for he was heard to murmur faintly, “If Jesus, my Saviour, should number me amongst His redeemed!” Thrice over he said the words, and then he spoke no more. God knows the rest. In His hand are the spirits of all flesh, and He is very pitiful and of tender mercy.
Let our eyes be ever towards Him, and let us ever remember our high calling as His witnesses. We have indeed to witness against that which is false, against that which dishonors His name, distorts His truth, and degrades His service. But our witness against will be powerful and prevailing only so far as it is the outcome of our witness for. It is in witnessing for the Word of God, for truth, for freedom, and above all for Christ, that we shall be more than conquerors hereafter, and that even here we shall be clothed with that joy of the Lord which has been in all ages the strength of His true witnesses, His faithful martyrs.
“Hear ye not the voices singing down the ages,
Echoing still the message, though the task be done?”
From “The Cloud of Witness.”