Nevin’s intro to Shaff’s The Principle of Protestantism

Part One

Part Two

This much however is certain at the same time. The work will not be regarded by Puseyites and papists as a plea in their favor. Rather, if I am not much mistaken, it will be felt by them, so far as it may come under their observation, to be one of the most weighty and effective arguments they have yet been called to encounter in this country in opposition to their cause. For it is not to be disguised that a great deal of the war which is now carried on in this direction is as little adapted to make any impression on the enemy as a battery of popguns in continual fire. instead of being alarmed or troubled on its account, the enemy is no doubt pleased with it at heart. Nothing can be more vain than to imagine that a blind and indiscriminate warfare here can lead to any true and lasting advantage. Not with circumstances and accidents simply must the controversy grapple, but with principles in their inmost life, to reach any result. The present argument accordingly, in throwing itself back upon the true principle of Protestantism, with a full acknowledgment of the difficulties that surround it, while proper pains are taken to put them out of the way, may be said to occupy the only ground on which any effectual stand can be made against the claims of Rome.

To contend successfully with any error, it is all-important that we should understand properly and acknowledge fairly the truth in which it finds its life. The polemic, who assails such a system as popery or Puseyism with the assumption that its pretensions are built upon sheer wind, shows himself utterly unfit for his work and must necessarily betray more or less the cause he has undertaken to defend. All error of this sort involves truth, apprehended in a one-sided and extreme way, with the sacrifice of truth in the opposite direction. Hence a purely negative opposition to it, bent simply on the destruction of the system as a whole, must itself also become inevitably one-sided and false, and can only serve so far to justify and sustain what it labors to overthrow. Romanism includes generally some fast truth in every one of its vast errors; and no one is prepared to make war upon the error, who has not felt, in his inmost soul, the authority of its imprisoned truth, and who is not concerned to rescue and save this, while the prison itself is torn to the ground.

In this view, no respect is due to an infidel or godless zeal, when it may happen to be turned in this direction; and that must be counted always a spurious religious zeal, which can suffer itself to be drawn into communion with such an irreligious element simply because for the moment it has become excited against Rome. It is greatly to be feared that the spirit into which some are betrayed in this way is unhallowed and profane, even where they take to themselves the credit of the most active zeal for the glory of God. so with regard to Puseyism. Nothing can well be more shallow than the convenient imagination that the system is simply a religious monstrosity, engrafted on the body of the church from without, and calling only for a wholesale amputation to effect a cure. Such a supposition is contradicted, to every intelligent mind, by the history of the system itself. No new phase of religion could so spread and prevail as this has done, within so short a period of time, if it did not embody in itself, along with all its errors, the moving force of some mighty truth, whose rights needed to be asserted, and the want of which had come to be felt in the living consciousness of the church, vastly further than it was clearly understood. If the evils against which the system protests were purely imaginary, it could never have acquired so solid a character itself, as it has done in fact. Most assuredly the case is one that calls for something more than a merely negative and destructive opposition. Only by acknowledging and honoring that which is true and good in the movement is it possible to come to any right issue with it so far as it is false. The truth which it includes must be reconciled with the truth it rejects, in a position more advanced that its own, before it can be said to be fairly overcome.

Nevin’s intro to Shaff’s The Principle of Protestantism

Continuing…

But after all, the work stands in no special need of apology in this direction. It is more likely to be met with distrust, in certain quarters, under a different view. It may seem to occupy suspicious ground with regard to the church question. With the argument for Protestantism, in the first part, in its positive, separate character, even the most rigid in their zeal for this interest can hardly fail to be generally satisfied. But some may not like the relations in which it is mad to stand, nor the consequences it is made to involve. And then they are still less likely of course to be pleased with the formal development of these consequences in the par that follows. They may thing that too much is surrendered in the controversy with Oxford and Rome. They may not be willing to endure that the nakedness of Protestantism, in its modern position, should be so freely exposed. It is always difficult in the case of earnest, violent controversy to have an eye for anything less than extremes. All must be right in one direction, and all must be wrong in the other; although in fact, no great controversy in the church is ever precisely of this character. So at this time, the excitement which prevails on the subject of popery and Pusyism, and for which undoubtedly there is good reason, must naturally render it hard for many to exercise any moderat judgment upon questions that lie in this direction. In such circumstances then particularly, there is some danger that this book may not escape censure in the view already mentioned.

I’m going to start posting snips from John Williamson Nevin’s introduction to The Principle of Protestantism. Eventually, I’ll complete the text and post it on Theologia.

————-

Our religious life and practice can be sound and strong only in connection with a living, vigorous theology. But to be thus living and vigorous, our theology must be more than traditional. It must keep pace with the onward course of human thought, subduing it always with renewed victory to its own power. Not by ignoring the power of error, or fulminating upon it blind ecclesiastical anathemas, can theology be saved from death; but only by meeting and overcoming it in the strength of the Lord. Now this requires, in our day, a legitimate regard in this form to the errors of Germany in particular. For it is preposterous to suppose that in the most speculative portion of the whole Christian world these errors stand in no connection with the general movement of the world’s mind, or that they do not need to be surmounted by a fresh advance on the part of truth as being only the dead repetition of previously vanquished falsehood.

In immediate contact with the evil, the friends of religion in Germany itself know the case to be different. There it is felt that theology must advance so as fairly to conquer or die. We may not feel the pressure of the same necessity. But this is no evidence that we stand on higher or surer ground. In the end our theology, to be worth anything as a science, must be carried over this limitation. It may not devolve on us possibly to achieve the work for ourselves. We may trust rather that this precisely is the special commission of the church in Germany itself, the land of Luther and the glorious Reforation. Certainly at this very time the struggle with error may be regarded as most auspicious and full of promise. And if there be one coutnry in the whole compas of church, where at this moment orthodox theology is not dead, but full of life and spirit and power, that country is Germany. We may hope then it will be found sufficient for its own work. This however when accomplished must be viewed as a work properly for the whole Christian world; and we owe it to ourselves at least, to be willing to take advantage of it in its progress and to employ it for the improvement of our own position, if it can be so used.

This much I have thought it proper to say on this point, merely to counteract, if possible, the poor prejudice that some may feel toward the present work, simply because of its German source and German complexion; as if all must needs be either rationalistic or transcendental, that breathes a thought in common with Hegel, or owns a feeling in sympathy with the gifted, noble Schleiermacher.

The influence of dead cultures on the living is an interesting thing to think about.

Well. This is interesting (and colorful). I have to admit I am intrigued. I am about to add the earliest work of Nietzsche to my wish list. As soon as I get some idea of his bibliographical chronology I guess I’ll be adding something by Kierkegaard as well.

By the way, I now have several lists: CDs, Computer Games, Novels, Hardware, and DVDs.

Just FYI.

If you haven’t noticed, Rev. John Barach has been posting some excellent stuff on Mark’s Gospel. Here is a great insight.

Keep it up John.