The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

of spring, these too have to bear their part in the work of purification."--
"How far superior his expositions of Scripture are, in the deep and living
apprehension of the primary truths of the Gospel, to those of the best
among the Fathers, even of Augustin! If we would do justice to any of the
master minds in history, we must compare them with their predecessors.
When we come upon these truths in Luther, after wandering through the
dusky twilight of the preceding centuries, it seems almost like the sunburst
of a new Revelation, or rather as if the sun, which set when St. Paul was
taken away from the earth, had suddenly started up again. Verily, too, it
does us good, when we have been walking about among those who have
only dim guesses as to where they are, or whither they are going, and who
halt and look back, and turn aside at every other step, to see a man taking
his stand on the Eternal Rock, and gazing steadfastly with unsealed eyes
on the very Sun of righteousness."
Hase.
Hase, most, eloquent, most condensed, most happy in giving the
cream of things of all the writers of his school, shows a just and
appreciating spirit in all he has said of Luther. Not only in his general
allusions to the primal spirit of the Reformation embodied in Luther, his
correct deduction of that great movement, neither from the skeptical, nor
scientific tendency, but from faith and holy desire, but still more fully in the
happy outline of Luther's career in his Church history, has he shown that
as far as one occupying so different a theological position from Luther can
thoroughly understand him, he does so. Not only as a fine illustration of
our theme, but as a highly characteristic specimen of the work of Hase, to
which we have just alluded, we give the whole of his chapter on "Luther's
death and public character." "In the last year of his life, Luther, worn out
by labor and sickness, took such offence at the immorality and wanton
modes at Wittenberg, that he left it, (1545,) and only consented to return at
the most urgent supplications of the University and Elector. He saw a
gloomy period impending over the land of his fathers, and longed to depart
in peace. Over his last days still shone some of the brightness of his best
years--the