Wow. What a great line.
Accommodation to existing religion has always been its leading thought, and this accommodation it achieved at once by taking as poetry what the church confesses as the highest reality, by attaching to the holy history the alluring character of the legend and the myth, and finally by interpreting its actions of worship as mere symbolical utterances.
AMEN!
Hence the preference, which in the opinion of these modern symbolists, the Roman Catholic Church possesses above the Protestant, and among our various denominations the Episcopalian above the Presbyterian, in all its branches. Already in the first half of this century the so-called Romantic school in Germany led to the conversion of a great many famous Lutheran scholars and artists to the Church of Rome; and this can not surprise us. As with the solution of every vital problem, Rome's strength lies in her compromise. Rome understood perfectly well the two different principles involved in the antithesis between Revelation and Symbolism, and avoiding, as always, every absolute choice, kept to the Revelation in her confession, but at the same time indulged in Symbolism for her worship. So Rome possesses an elaborate dogmatical system, but without troubling the mind of the people by it. The church thinks for the people, theirs is the "fides implicita" the implicit faith. In that "implicit faith" to adhere to the church is considered to be satisfactory for the laity. And thus the Revelation being secured, clergy and laity both are allowed to indulge in the most exquisite, most splendid, and most artistic symbolical worship. The impression of a high-mass performance in the Saint Peter's, or in the Cologne or Milan cathedral is indeed overpowering and overwhelming. But the shady side is obvious, and at the end of the middle ages, the lower as well as the higher class could witness, to what sad results both for the church and for society, this compromise between Revelation and Symbolism had led. I do not refer here to the abuse. From abuse every system has to suffer. I draw your attention merely to what, at the end of the middle ages, proved the downright consequence of the system itself. God's holy Word almost ignored by the people. An overflow of mystical sensations darkening the mind. A general bluntness and dullness, rendering both the conscience and the consciousness dim and obtuse; and the distance between the lower and the higher classes wide and sharp. The laity overruled by the clergy. All vital energy broken. And the spirit of liberty and independence quite crushed down...
At that critical period God sent as a saving angel, what we all still shall honor as the Reformation, and this powerful reaction against Roman symbolism, partly checked in the Lutheran, and more so in the Episcopalian church, has been wrought out fully only along the Calvinistic line, in the non-conformist churches. These churches therefore took a fully opposite stand. Instead of relying upon feeling and sensation, they appealed to Faith, and faith here meant both the understanding of the Revelation and its personal application to the soul. They denied absolutely the necessity of connecting the Infinite with the finite by symbols. God had revealed himself, had revealed the mysteries of salvation, had revealed his ordinances for every sphere of our existence, and according to what Jesus declares, eternal life was not to have agreeable sensations, but "to know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Not symbols but the "wisdom of God" was the preaching of the Cross. "I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say," interpreted the apostolic method of teaching, expounding not to the clergy alone, but to all the saints, the mysteries of justification and redemption. — Here, therefore, lies the fundamental difference between our old Calvinistic churches with their bold confession, and Rome with its compromise. Of course there is the mystical working of hidden potencies in our mind, there is the perception of God in the conscience, there is the emotion in prayer, and there is the communion with the indwelling Holy Spirit. But these are the mystical gifts, and the aim of God's Revelation is not to abandon us to shady and dim perceptions, but to declare to us the truth, to lift us up to its understanding, and so to enable the children of the kingdom of heaven to kindle the pure and serene light of the Gospel, to become confessors of a sound and clear confession, and if necessary to shed their martyr blood not for mystical sensations, but for the inviolability of God's Revelation. Hence the circulation of their Bible among all social classes; the well defined confessions, which they unfolded as their banners; the substantial Scriptural content of their preaching; their purified and simplified liturgy; and finally their submitting of every creature to God's holy ordinances. So standing before the dilemma of feeling or faith, they choose for faith. Standing before the dilemma between sensation and understanding, they declared themselves distinctly for understanding. And as to the fundamental dilemma between Revelation given to us by God, and Symbolism conventionally coined by man, they firmly antagonized the symbolical system, and stood up for the all pervading authority of God's holy Revelation. This was the nerve of their strength, and to this staunch defense of Revelation over against Symbolism, they owe their imperishable glory in history. For it was by thus decidedly turning the wheel of life, that the human mind was roused from its slumbers, that the hidden energies of humanity came forward, that the direct union of the soul with God was restored, and that the liberty of conscience, the liberty of worship, and as its immediate consequence, the social and political liberties, were reconquered for every nation, following in their track...
AMEN!!! Sorry for these long excerpts from the post, but every word of this is joyous and confirms the power and the intent and the accomplishment of the Holy Spirit.
Symbolism in the holy precincts stuns, blunts and stultifies the organs of understanding, and checks their function agnostically. Our churches, on the contrary, did not cease to pray, with St. Paul, and "to desire that all the people of God might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding."
Symbolism throws us back to that lower stage of religious development, which could but stir the feelings and intoxicate the senses of the masses. Our churches, on the contrary, raised the religious life to that much higher level, which leads every believer personally to what St. John confessed, "that the Son of God has come and has given us the understanding that we might know him." And so also Symbolism subjects the laity to the mysterious performances of the clergy and hereby fosters aristocratic sympathies. Our churches, on the contrary, united both laity and clergy in one brotherhood, and thereby laid the foundation for the democratic pre-eminence of modern times.
AMEN! A foundation without peer.
At bottom is the question "Who do you believe?" If one believes the church or a man - instead of God - he is in trouble. Only Christ saves.
And yet many evidently cannot discern the difference. No wonder some see life where there is none and end up becoming literally albeit often without malice, worshippers of things instead of worshippers of God.
And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them. And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus.
And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. For he wist not what to say; for they were sore afraid.
And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.
And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves. - Mark 9:2-8
Why do ye not understand my speech? [even] because ye cannot hear my word. – John 8:43
He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. - John 12:48