LUTHERANISM. The first of the 95 theses which Martin Luther affixed to the door of the castle-church of Wittenberg on 31 Oct. 1517, read as follows: Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, saying, Repent ye, would have the whole life of believers to be repentance) This academic act has been generally looked upon as the inaugural act of the Lutheran Reformation, so much so, that 31 October is to this day cele brated by Lutherans in all lands as the Festival of the Reformation. And the thesis quoted above is perhaps the most concise exhibition of Lutheranism extant. The thesis is, as a whole and in all its parts, a positive doctrinal state ment. Doctrine, positive doctrine, is, and was from the beginning, of first importance, the groundwork, the very life, of Lutheranism. The first and foremost task of the Lutheran Church is the promulgation and maintenance of sound doctrine. Preaching, in the Lutheran Church, is not primarily exhortation but teach ing, and doctrinal preaching is considered the chief element of Lutheran public worship. Even the better part of Lutheran hymnology is preponderatingly doctrinal. The great bulk of Luther's voluminous writings is doctrinal, and no other church has so extensive a doctrinal literature as the Lutheran Church. Even its controversial theology partakes of this char acter. It is true, the Lutheran Chuich in all its best periods was eminently an ecclesia militans (a militant church); but the subjects at issue were again doctrinal. PeMaps the most mas terful polemical work in Lutheran, if not in all Protestant theology, Chemnitz' (Criticism of the Decrees of the Council of Trent> (Examen Concilii Tridentini), is also one of the richest storehouses of doctrinal theology.
But doctrine is knowledge communicated. Teaching presupposes or implies a master and a disciple or a number of disciples. And of the Master Luther says in his thesis: ((Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ?) No councils nor synods, no traditions of the Church, no Fathers, early or late, not Luther himself, not any of these, nor all of these together, must be ac knowledged as empowered to establish articles of doctrine which every disciple is bound to accept. For the Master is also the Lon. He comes with authority: His teaching is not human but divine. Christian doctrine is not a product of evolution, nor of human specu lation, nor of self-consciousness of the Church, but the truth of God set forth by the Foun tain of divine truth, who has said, ((I am the Truth?' He is the one and only au thoritative teacher in the Church. There is no such thing as an evolution or perfectibility of Christian doctrine. Here the ancient cdirocift
bath said it,° is in its place. Here man has no alternative but either to accept or to reject. Here to add or to modify is to adulter ate, and to take away or to yield is to deny. Such is the Lutheran concept of the primary source of Christian doctrine.
But the means also whereby such communi cation of divine knowledge to man is effected is Indicated in Luther's thesis when he says: 'Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, Repent ye.° Here he refers to an express dictum of Holy Scripture. Christ and the Spirit of Christ taught man in the 16th century and teaches man in the 20th century in and through the written Word. Not by awaiting direct revela tions, not by following the traditions of the Church or the definitions or decrees of its rep resentatives, are we disciples of Christ, but by searching the Scriptures which were written aforetime for our learning. What is clearly taught in Scripture, that and that only is Chris tian doctrine. That the Bible is the only and sufficient source of Christian doctrine is the formal principle of Lutheranism.
The material principle of Lutheranism, the cardinal doctrine, around which all other doc trines radiate, because it is the central doctrine of Scripture, is also indicated in the thesis. Luther there describes the subjects and disciples of their Lord and Master Christ as believers. According to the Lutheran concept of Christian ity and the Christian Church it is faith that constitutes a Christian and a member of the Church of Christ, which is simply the whole number of all believers. Christianity, as dis tinguished from all other religions, is that re ligion according to which salvation is not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by what God has done in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. And faith is simply the acceptance of this reconciliation. Not as a work of obedience, with any merit of its own, but only as the acceptance of the merits of Christ, faith is saving faith. It is justifying faith inasmuch as, in view and consideration of the merits of Christ accepted by faith, God in His judgment pronounces the believer righteous. And this doctrine, that God justifies the sinner by His grace, for Christ's sake, through faith, is the material principle of Lutheranism, the cardinal doctrine of Lutheran theology. This doctrine is looked upon by the Lutheran Church as doctrina stantis et cadentis ecclesice, the doc trine with which the Church stands and falls.