It was long before a mission era dawned in Evangelical Christendom, although a great era of discovery and conquest preceded and mcompanied the Reformation which inspired the Roman Catholic Church to extended mission work in Africa, America, and Asia. But the great fact of the opening of the New World had scarcely any marked effect upon the Reformed churches; principally because the new discoveries were made by the Roman Catholic powers which took possession of the transatlantic countries. Therefore the young Protestantism lacked any dirt connection with the heathen lands which then became attainable, and even had it wished to enter those fields, Spain and Portugal would certainly have been hostile. Besides this, the conflict with the degenerate Chris tianity of the older Christian nations, the struggle for self-preservation against papal and imperial aggression, the necessity of consolidating its own life and government, and the general confusion and wars which followed the era of the Reformation laid claim to all the strength of Protestantism. Moreover, the missionary idea was lacking because the comprehension of a continuous missionary duty of the Church was limited among the Reformers and their successors by a narrow-minded dogma tism combined with a lack of historical sense. They knew of the great missions of the past, but according to their ideas the apostles had already gone forth to the whole world and they and their die. ciples had essentially accomplished the missionary task. Christianity, therefore, had already proved its universal vocation as a world religion and the missionary prises had been met. The Christian ity of that time was considered by them to be the Church which had been gathered together from the heathen. When Luther spoke of the heathen, he meant those who were not Israelites, but were for merly heathen and had come to constitute Christen dom, Very rarely did his outlook go beyond these; but even when this happened, he never thought of sending a mission to the heathen of his time. The thought of missions was in a sense precluded both by the doctrine of predestination, according to which it is left to the sovereign grace of God to lead the heathen unto Christ, and by the eschatology of the time, which looked upon the end of the world as fast approaching. Calvin regarded the apostolate as a munua extraordinanum, while a special effort of man, that is to say, the establishment of a mission for the heathen, was not neces sary. Even Zwingli and Butzer do not recog nize continuous mission work as a duty of the Church.
Only one theologian of the Reformation, and he was of the second rank, raised himself above this narrow view. This was Adrian &mvia, whose importance has been discovered quite re- 1. Adrian cently. He was pastor in Antwerp Saravia. and Brussels and also professor in Ley den; later he went to England, where he died in 1613. Saravia published in 1590 an ~, De. diversie miniatrorum grades gic ut a, d.. ino fvemnt imQuti, to defend the episcopal form of church government, in which he emphasized the necessity of an episcopate clothed with apostolic authority by referring among other things to the planting of new churches. In this connection Sara, via devotes a special chapter (avid.) to missions, under the title: The command to preach the Gospel to all peoples has become an obligation of the Church since the apostles entered into heaven. He proves in this chapter that the command to preach the Gospel to the whole world and the duty of spreading it among all peoples refer to all times until the end of the world. Even to-day, Saravia continues, the Gospel is not yet proclaimed to all peoples, and it is the duty of the Church to obey that command, which was first given to the apostles alone. The Church has therefore not only the duty but also the authority for this great work. It is true that those who undertake this work must be well equipped mentally, and since individuals may easily deceive themselves as to their vocation for the task, the authorization of the Church is necessary. But in this sane understanding of the mission command Saravia stood alone. Beta and Johann Gerhard of Jena opposed Saravia, the former as early as 1592, the latter twenty-five years later. Beza did this in a special polemical work: Ad tratationem de ministrorum gradit~w ab Adriano Saravia Belga editam, Theo. Bezce responsio, and Gerhard, in locus XXiii. of his Loci theolo~.
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