confusion followed. A reconstruction of government and discipline became necessary. The idea of
an invisible church of all believers was not available for this purpose. The invisible is not governable.
The question was, how to deal with the visible church as it existed in Saxony and other Protestant
countries, and to bring order out of chaos. The lawyers had to be consulted, and they could not
dispense with the legal wisdom and experience of centuries. Luther himself returned to the study
of the canon law, though to little purpose.^670 He hated it for its connection with popery, and got
into conflict with the lawyers, even his colleague, Professor Schurf, who had accompanied him to
the Diet of Worms as a faithful friend and counselor, but differed from him on matrimonial
legislation. He abused the lawyers, even from the pulpit, as abettors of the Pope and the Devil.^671
He was not a disciplinarian and organizer like John Calvin, or John Knox, or John Wesley, and left
his church in a less satisfactory condition than the Reformed churches of Switzerland and Scotland.
He complained that he had not the proper persons for what he wished to accomplish; but he did
what he could under the circumstances, and regretted that he could do no more.
Four ways were open for the construction of an evangelical church polity: —
- To retain the episcopal hierarchy, without the papacy, or to create a new one in its place.
This was done in the Lutheran churches of Scandinavia, and in the Church of England, but in the
closest connection with the state, and in subordination to it. In Scandinavia the succession was
broken; in England the succession continued under the lead of Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury,
was interrupted under Queen Mary, and restored under Queen Elizabeth.
Had the German bishops favored the Reformation, they would, no doubt, have retained
their power in Germany, and naturally taken the lead in the organization of the new church.
Melanchthon was in favor of episcopacy, and even a sort of papacy by human (not Divine) right,
on condition of evangelical freedom; but the hostility of the hierarchy made its authority impossible
in Germany.^672 He had, especially in his later years, a stronger conception of the institutional
character and historical order of the church than Luther, who cared nothing for bishops. He taught,
however, the original equality of bishops and presbyters (appealing to the Pastoral Epistles and to
Jerome); and held that when the regular bishops reject the gospel, and refuse to ordain evangelical
preachers, the power of ordination returns to the church and the pastors.
- To substitute a lay episcopate for the clerical episcopate; in other words, to lodge the
supreme ecclesiastical power in the hands of the civil magistrate, who appoints ministers,
superintendents, and church counselors as executive officers.
This was done in the Lutheran churches of Germany. The superintendents performed
episcopal duties, but without constituting a distinct and separate grade of the ministry, and without
the theory of the episcopal or apostolical succession. The Lutheran Church holds the Presbyterian
(^670) Letter to Spalatin, March 30, 1529 (De Wette, III. 433): "Jura papistica legere incipimus et inspicere."
(^671) Comp. A. Kohler, Luther und die Juristen, Gotha, 1873; Köstlin, M. Luth., II. 476 sqq., 580 sq. In his Table Talk (Erl. ed., LXII.,
214 sqq.), Luther has much to say against the lawyers, and thinks that few of them will be saved. "Ein frommer Jurist," he says, "ist ein
seltsames Thier."
(^672) Apol. Conf. Aug., Art. XIV. (Müller’s ed. of the Lutheran symbols, p. 205): "Nos summa voluntate cupere conservare politiam
ecclesiasticam et gradus in ecclesia, factos etiam humana auctoritate." He subscribed the Smalcald Articles (1537), with a clause in favor
of a limited papal supervision.