TO THE

REV. SAMUEL B. WYLIE, D.D.

PASTOR OF THE FIRST REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA,

AND

VICE PROVOST OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA,

Who, by his varied labors as a

PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, A CHRISTIAN PASTOR, AND AN EXPOSITOR OF SCRIPTURE PROPHECY,

Has contributed largely to promote

THE CAUSE OF SOUND PROTESTANTISM IN OUR COUNTRY,

This Lecture

18 MOST RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

A LECTURE.

"And I saw another Angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.—And there followed another angel saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen."-REV. xiv., 6, 8.

On the nineteenth day of April, fifteen hundred and thirty-g nine, an august assembly met in solemn deliberation in the city of Spires in Germany. It was composed of princes of the Germanic empire, and commissioners from its imperial cities. Its presiding officer was the brother, and representative of the Emperor Charles the Fifth; and there was present, also, a special legate of the reigning Pope, who took a prominent part in its proceedings.

The great subject under consideration was the reform in religion, which Luther and his coadjutors had been attempting for a few years past, and which now began to command universal attention.

The friends of reform who were members of the Assembly asked simply for toleration to the Reformers, in the maintenance

and expression of their conscientious opinions. The servants of Rome demanded their punishment as heretics and rebels; and the mere politicians, of whom there were several in the body, talked, and temporized, and sought postponement, until they should be able to determine whether their own selfish ends would be better answered, by a countenance of the new, or adherence to the old religion. At another meeting of this same assembly held a few years before, an act of toleration had been obtained in favor of Luther and his fellow Reformers. By this they had been delivered from the fear of immediate persecution, and were allowed to practise their religion in comparative safety. But the influence of Rome prevailed, as it has often done, before and since, over unprincipled politicians, and the proposition which is now before the assembly is, to revoke the act of the previous diet, and thus leave the Reformers to the penalties which the Pope had already denounced against them.

On the day before mentioned (the nineteenth of April, 1589) Z the act of toleration was revoked by a plurality of votes,

and in its place another deliberately framed, of which the substance is as follows: that there should be no innovation in the established religion; no permission to abstain from the celebration of mass, or other ceremonies of the Roman Catholic worship; no public preaching against the doctrine and practice of the church; no publication through the medium of the press, in any way opposing the popish faith.

Against these iniquitous decrees, which were designed to nip the Reformation in the bud, six princes of the empire, and fourteen representatives of imperial cities entered their solemn PROTEST, and from this arose the name PROTESTANT-a name

which should be for ever dear to the Church of God, and the friends of human freedom, throughout the world.

There were indeed protesters against the corruptions and tyranny of Rome from the earliest ages. For every generation had its witnesses for God, and often had they sealed with their blood the testimony which they held. Let the Vaudois, the Albigenses, the Lollards, and the many distinguished individuals whose name and deeds are emblazoned, with letters of light, on the pages of the church's history, be held in everlasting remembrance! They kept the light of the true religion, which they had received from the primitive Christian Church, burning amidst the darkness of papal night, and at it the Protestant Reformers of the 16th century kindled their lamp. But while this admission is cordially made, it is still true that the name Protestant, as a formal designation of the opponents of AntiChrist, had its origin in the historical fact to which we have just referred. And although it has been often treated as of little importance, it was undoubtedly of much consequence, as an element in the great moral revolution which was now commencing. Like the protests of the American colonies against the usurpations of the mother country, which prepared the way for the "Declaration of Independence”—the Protest of the German princes and deputies at the diet of Spires, contributed much to prepare the public mind for the final rejection of the papacy, by the Church of God, and her own independent re-organization on the Apostolic platform.

Liberty of conscience, of speech, and of the press, was the comprehensive claim of the Reformers, from the court of Rome.

Their claim was denied, they entered their protest; and under its broad shield went forward to emancipate the nations.

The principles exhibited in the claim of the Reformers, and whose refusal by the papacy made them Protestants, are now regarded as axiomatic, and undeniable by all but Romanists themselves. But they involved heresy and rebellion against established authority when first promulgated; and to give them the hold which they now have on the mind and heart of Christendom, cost years of painful effort, and the suffering, and bloody death of many thousands.

The anti-christian system claimed infallibility, and of course admitted no reform; and such was the connection of the ecclesiastical and civil powers in that system, and the subserviency of the latter to the former, that to dissent from the Church was treason to the state. Against this vast and impious compound of irreligion and tyranny, the Reformers protested, at the peril of their lives. We, their posterity, are enjoying the blessed fruits of the tree which they planted, and it were ingratitude for us to forget their principles, or the price of blood which it cost to maintain them.

The question, therefore, which we now submit to your consideration is,

What is Protestantism?

We bear the name of Protestants, and it behooves us to understand its import. To the inquiry What is Protestantism? we shall now attempt a reply, by presenting four of its characteristic principles.

I. It is a principle of Protestantism, that reform in the institu