Philosopher and Peacemaker
The Reunion of the Churches : A Study of Leibnitz. By G.. Jr Jordan, D.D..- (Constable. 12s.) - TUE cause Of Christian' iefinion is making a strong appear-to many diverse minds. More and more it is clearly seen that a tinted front is necessary if the great principles of Christ are tp be effectively presented to a world sadly at sea for the lack of them. Since the War Europe has become exhausted and disillusioned. That tragic experience represented the failure to bring happiness -by material conceptions. The koverimient of the world by-the powerful and learned ended in catastrophe. Science had proved unable to create new and nobler ideals, and had become the willing handmaid of destruction. Where is man to turn for a principle of regeneration ? The Churches seemed incapable of prodking it ;' in the War they spoke, not with the single, authoritative voice of Christ, but in the' sec- tional and partisan accents of the different nations. And so a:position is created in which, many are -content to live from day to day, content if they can keep a roof over their heads. But those who think more deeply know that unless sonic broad, general, compelling principles can resume their sway over the human mind, the last state will be worse than the M.A. These principles, they are certain, are to be found in Christianity. -But without embodiment in an institution, which touches the life of the individual intimately at many points; these great truths will remain abstract and ineffective, Ifence the devireidand -unielfishlafionis devoted tothe ' task Or 'bringing Christians together in one -fellowship-of faith and Worship. Lambdh, Stockholm, Lausanne are names that ,= ciisktint and gnriving_hopcs_ But when once the problems are faced, it is discovered that many of them are very old, driving deep roots into the memory and history of a continent more dominated- by its past than it is any way aware of. Timely, then, iS the publication of Dr, Jordan's detailed history of a previous effort at comprehension. It deserves 'close and careful study. When the peace of West- phalia came in 1648 it brought rest to a World worn out by the bitterest religious conflicts ; but it also proved that neither the Empire nor the Roman Catholic Church were strong enough to impose unity on a distracted Europe. It showed, more- over, that neither the Catholics nor the Protestants could hope to extirpate their A century of congresses and conferences followed in the endeavour to build up a system of international law. To a,. few men the vision came of doing Something-More radical to heal the running wounds. The reunion Of Catholics and Pin- testants on a religious basis captured their imagination. In. that noble enterprise two names shine brightly ; the German philosopher, and Bossuet, the French bishop. Tile • contribution that the former made has never been so clearly- presented to the English public before. . His work falls into two periods. In the first his activity is political ; in the second he aims at influencing' leading men by a laborious spondence. In the first period he thinks lie sees a chance of bringing leading Protestants into touch with representatives of the Court of ROnie. Spinollk, the Bishop of Neustadt, bnsy intermediary, and Leibnitz occupies a strong strategiol pesition as librarian and privy councillor to Duke John 1: 0.c *ICA' Iligki*i.gleAt4.13:91k:IgkEA.17_7E9.t.1.8.Itillt
State, who gathered round him the best men of all parties. A plan was drawn up, in which Leibnitz undoubtedly had a hand, and was carried by Spinola from one German Court to another. It aimed at removing many secondary questions from the area of controversy and concentrating on essentials. All must agree on the two rules of faith, of which the first is :" The internal guidance and determination of the Holy Spirit and the external Word of God," and the second " The inter- pretation of that Word as given by the Universal Church." The document went very far in giving a tolerable and mini- mizing interpretation of the Roman system. At the same .time Leibnitz wrote a work too little known, in which he went a surprisingly long way in accepting such dogmas as Transub- stantiation and the Infallibility of the Pope. But the whole
enterprise came to nothing. Side by side with these efforts was the work of the Landgrave Ernst of Hessen-Rheinfels,
one of the most attractive figures of the time, a convert to Rome from the dreary severity and narrowness of Calvinism.
His conversion was itself the outcome of a passion for unity, and it did not cause him to forget all the truths of Protest- antism. His book, The Genuine, Sincere and Devout Catholic, can hardly have pleased his new preceptors, maintaining as it did that in essential matters the Church and not the Pope was infallible. It became the basis of a long and interesting correspondence with Leibnitz, which admirably reveals the crucial difficulties. The Landgrave made it more and more clear that submission to Rome was the only method of reunion he could understand. Leibnitz's position, on the other hand, is shown clearly in a letter to Madame de Brinon " You are right, Madame, in thinking of me as a Catholic at heart . . . for selfwill alone makes a heretic, and, Laus Deo, my conscience does not accuse me of that. The essence of Catholicity is not that of external Communion with Rome ; otherwise those Who are unjustly excommunicated would cease to be Catholics. The essential and real Communion which constitutes our membership in the Body of Christ is love."- It is seen more -fully in- his subsequent correspondence with Bossuet. The Bishop of Meaux was genuinely anxious to include. Protestants. But his- mind moved within the old scholastic walls. 'a assured;" he wrote to Leibnitz, that Trent is a fixed point beyond which our side will not go." Leibnitz, on the other hand, came more and more to see that the hope of the reunion of Christians lay in the adoption of historical perspective. This discovery led Leibnitz to enlarge his view of the Church ; he came to rest it, not on the hier- archy, but on the totality of believers. The refusal of Rome to recognize the Eastern Churches and the Protestants was sectarian and not Catholic. Episcopacy Leibnitz valued as a product of history, but not as of divine origin ; and-he urged its adoption on the King of Prussia as the one hope of reunion. For the rest of his life he devoted himself to the reunion of Protestants. That was a task difficult enough. He told the Bishop of London that among the Lutherans there were many of the genus irritabile vatum. But he did not wish to create a pan-Protestant anti-Roman army. He had too large a heart for that ; but he also possessed a strong practical instinct. He was a realist-idealist, who never allowed the ultimate hope to hinder the immediate possibility, nor forgot in taking the next step to keep his eyes open to the larger vision.
It is a fascinating character that Dr. Jordan presents to us, not always, it must be admitted, in a very attractive form. The book is in some ways ill-arranged and repetitive, and too much space is occupied by unnecessary controversies with other writers on Leibnitz. But it is crammed with informa- tion, and would form a valuable starting-point for many further studies which enthusiasts for reunion might well follow up. The story of Leibnitz makes one thing abundantly clear. The time spent by the Faith and Order Conference at Lausanne on attempts to discover a true definition of the Church was time well spent. The discovery of such a definition is the essential preliminary to all else.
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