When you think of the major doctrines of the Reformation
many things may come to mind.
Justification by faith alone, Regulative Principle of worship, the
authority of the Scriptures, these are probably the ones that pop to mind. I want to suggest that there is another
doctrine that was very important to the Reformation was the conscience of
man. It is related to the authority of
Scripture, but protecting the right of conscience for the believer was
fundamental for the Reformation. Sadly
today the Reformed/Presbyterian church has lost sight of this and often speaks
of submission or misapplies “mutual submission” in such a way that destroys the
conscience. I would like to take a few posts
to discuss this idea of conscience. Let
me start showing that it is a major point of the Protestant Reformation.
Think back to the first major act in the Swiss Reformation:
the Affair of Sausages. The Affair of
Sausages began because many of those who heard and followed Zwingli and his
teaching broke the Lenten fast and they sold and ate sausages. The ultimate justification for breaking this
rule of the church was that the church had no right to bind the conscience of
any man where Scripture is silent. Think
also about how the monastic vows were tossed out everywhere the Reformation
went because it was a binding of the conscience in a place where Scripture did
not speak nor bind. Many of the Earlier
Confessions stated it plainly.
The Tetrapolitan Confession of 1530, signed by the
reformed churches of four different cities and written by Wolfgang Capito and
Martin Bucer, devotes chapter 8 to rejecting the idea that the church had the
right to bind men’s consciences: “When, therefore, we saw very evidently that
the chief men in the Church beyond the authority of Scripture assumed this
authority so to enjoin fasts as to bind men’s consciences, we allowed
consciences to be freed from these snares, but by the Scriptures, and
especially Paul’s writings, which with singular earnestness remove these
rudiments of the world from the necks of Christians.”
The First Basel Confession written in 1531 by John
Oecolampadius and perfected after his death by his successors and was adopted
in 1534 includes an article on conscience.
Article 11 simply states, “We confess that no one ought to command in
any manner that which Christ has not commanded; also, therefore, no one ought
to prohibit that which he has not forbidden.”
The Belgic Confession of Guy DeBres too can
be seen to include a mention of the evils of binding a man’s conscience without
the word of God. In Article 29 in the
marks of the false church it states, “As for the false church, it ascribes more
power and authority to itself and its ordinances than to the Word of God, and
will not submit itself to the yoke of Christ.”
The Belgic is condemning churches that require submission to manmade
rules and such a usurpation of authority from Christ is a sign of a false
church. -- They were shortly afterward removed of their jobs and sent packing
from the city. It is clear from the
historical evidence that the reformers stressed the idea that only the Word of
God could bind a man’s conscience. They
would not bend their consciences simply for the sake of a job or safety. Instead they held fast to the idea that God
alone could command the conscience.
These early confessions held the power of the church was
restricted by the Scriptures. And the
church could not bind a man’s conscience, instead only the Word of God could do
such things. If the church went beyond
the Bible, then a man’s conscience did not need to submit. And more than that if the church attempted to
bind a man’s conscience, the church was in the wrong. A church that put more power in its own
ordinances that are from outside of the word of God is a church that has missed
an important point of the Reformation.
It has missed the authority and headship of Jesus Christ, and it is
dangerously usurping a power that does not belong to it.
Hopefully this is enough of a historical proof for now. Next I would like to go to the Bible and see
if these confession agree with the Word.