Pieper's “The Reformation & the 3 Counter-Reformations” (Eastern District, 1930) (Part 1 of 4)

* * * * * *   June 3, 2024 – 93 years after Franz Pieper went home.  * * * * * *

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      A review of the old Convention Essays that I have published (here) caused me to review again the last one of these by Dr. Franz Pieper in 1930 at the Eastern District convention. This was delivered only a few years after his massive effort in publishing his 3-volume Christliche Dogmatik, which had finished in 1924. The essay gave a short review of Luther's Reformation, and followed it with a review of those who opposed it from various camps. Perhaps this material may be known to readers in various degrees, but the coverage of the "counter-reformations" was most beneficial for me, to show the clear distinction from the Church of the Reformation. 

      Pieper's essay was entitled, in English, "The Reformation of the Church and the Three Counter-Reformations". One will find the listing for this convention essay on my "Convention Essays" blog here. which provides my earlier downloads of the German text and the scanned copy from the Eastern District report. This scanned copy has now been uploaded to the Internet Archive here. —  In this 4-part blog series we cover each major heading separately. The first of these is the Reformation itself:

I. The Reformation.

Notable Quotations:

p. 15: "We have in Scripture from the mouth of our Savior a description of the life (a “biography”) of the world… Matthew 24:14".

15: "God does not hate the lost world of sinners, but loves them, as the Scriptures expressly testify… John 3:16".

16: "They must repent, that is, recognize themselves from the law as sinners worthy of condemnation, and seek refuge from the curse of the divine law in the one who took the curse of the law upon himself and thereby put it away."

17: “To this (Jesus) all the prophets [of the O.T.] testify, that through his name all who believe in him should receive forgiveness of sins”, Acts 10:43.

17: "The great multitude did not want to repent of their sins and therefore also refused to accept the Gospel of grace of the forgiveness of sins for the sake of Christ.".

18: "…under the papacy. The anguished consciences, anxious for the forgiveness of sins, were not directed to the Gospel, but were sent on journeys to Rome, to Compostella in Spain and other places of pilgrimage, also directed to monasteries and nunneries as especially blessed places…"

18: "At Constance, the man who knew something of the Gospel (John Hus) was condemned to death and burned.".

18: "Neither the councils nor the popes have supreme authority in the Church. In the Church there is no rule of men at all.".

18: "the bull “Unam sanctum” (from 1302)…was unanimously accepted and sanctioned that the Pope had supreme power in both the Church and the State."

19: "The Reformation of the Church consists in the fact that God, through Luther's ministry, gave the Gospel of grace back to the Church in apostolic purity."

19: Walther: "After all, Luther was equipped by God to be a Reformer only because he was first in that hell of anguish over his sins…"

20: "We do not forget that through the Fathers of our Synod the pure doctrine of grace of the Church of the Reformation has also come to us."

20: Luther: "Oh, it is a living, busy, active, powerful thing about faith that it is impossible that it should not work good without ceasing."

21: "“problem of social attitudes”. It is said that the Church, if it wants to gain more influence in the world, must also take the physical needs of people to heart. Faith in the gospel of grace also solves this “problem”." [I.e. no "social gospel", only Gospel]

21: "Truly, the Gospel of grace is not an enemy of sanctification and good works, but the working power, as of the forgiveness of sins and salvation, so also of sanctification and good works."

      In Part 4, a download of the full DOCX file will be provided, which will then be added to the original Convention Essays listing. — In the next Part 2, we extract the major points Pieper uses to demonstrate "The Roman Counter-Reformation."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Table of Contents  - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Part 1: This blog post: Introduction; "The Reformation"

Part 2: The Roman Counter-Reformation

Part 3: The Reformed Counter-Reformation; inner testimony of the Holy Spirit (TSSI)

Part 4: The Counter-Reformation within the Lutheran Church: Melanchthon's error