Much more thorough than this class of reformers were a second, who not only turned against papal usurpations in the government of the Church, but also by a study of the Scriptures were led to look upon the entire doc- trinal system of the Church, as it had gradually devel- oped under the misguidance of the popes, as an apostasy from the Christianity of the Bible, and who therefore believed that, more than a reformation in its head and members, the Church needed a reformation in its spir- it and doctrines. The foremost representatives of this
REFORMATION
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REFORMATION
school were Wyclifife in England, and Huss in Bohemia. To Wyclifife the papacj appeared as anti-Christianity,
and the papal power, in hi- opinion, was not derived from « rod, but from the emperor. He rejected altogeth- er the existing hierarchical constitution of the Church,
and advocated the substitution for it of the presbyterial constitution as lie believed ii to have existed in the apostolical age. To the traditions of the Church lie ab- solutely denied an authoritative character, and declared the whole Scripture to be the only source and rule of re- ligious knowledge. llnss derived his views of Church reform largely from Wyclifife, and in 1 1 1 < » was excom- municated from the < !hurcfa as a Wycliffite. < >ne of the centra] doctrines of the reformation of the 16th century rose, however, iii his sj stem to greater prominence, and he also resembled li is great followers more than Wyc- liffe by arousing the masses of the people in behalf of reform. Neither Wyclifife nor Huss succeeded in carry- ing through a reformation. When the English govern- ment, which had protected Wyclifife during his life- time from personal injury, began a bloody persecution against his followers, most of whom were found in the higher classes and among the men of learning, the re- formatory movement in England came to a sudden stand- still. The reformatory ideas of Huss appeared for a time to gain complete control of an entire country, and thus to establish a stronghold of evangelical Christianity in tin- centre of Europe. But internal dissensions and the superior power of the German emperor annihilated in 1434 the prospects of the Hussite movement, which dwindled down into a small sect called the Bohemian anil .Moravian Brethren. Numerically too weak to exercise a missionary influence upon the remainder of Christian Europe, this religious denomination will yet always he counted among the ripest and most delicious fruits of the reformatory tendencies of the .Middle Ages.
Nothing shows better the vast difference between the two classes of reformers who have been characterized in
i lie ,iIh,\ e lines than the fact that (ierson, the most gift- eil representative of the first named, was the leading spirit at the ( 'oiuicil of ( ionstance which sentenced Huss i.. he burned at the stake. Besides these two broad cur- rents "l reformatory movements which an- visible in the Church history of the latter part of the Middle Ages, there were a large number of theological writers who bravely contended for bringing the corrupt Church of their time- hack to the purity of Bible ' Ihristianity, and who more or less discussed all the -real reformatory questions which agitated the world in the 16th century.
Ai g the most celebrated of these reformers were John
i I 'ui .per i of Coch. rector of a convent of nuns at Mechlin. John Wessel i Gansforl I, called by his friends l.ns Mun- di, and John (Ruenrath) ofWesel. Though many of these writers made undisguised assaults upon the re- ceived doctrines of the Church, their views, if not di- rectly addressed to the people, were frequently tolerated a- learned opinions ol the school.
! the most gifted reformatory preachers of the Middle Age8 appeared towards the close of the loth cen- tury in Italy. With a rare eloquence and bbldness he attacked the immoral life prevailing in both * Ihurch and
Slate, and demanded a radical reform of both. Though
few reformatory preachers have ever succeeded better than Savonarola in swaj ing I be emotions oflarge mass- es of the people, hi' did not lay the foundation of any reformatory organization; and when he was burned at was no one to continue the work of his
life.
•_'. At the , lose of the 16th century, the < hurch had I in repressing all the reformatory movements of the Middle v < -. .u least so far as to prevent, mostly by the Bword • >! the secular arm. the consolidation of any of these movements into a powerful ecclesiastical organization, like that of the Eastern Church. Hut her triumph, after all. was more apparent than real. Her au- t in. in \ had been thoroughly undermined, and remained Shaken in even- eouiitn of Europe. The threats of the
Church might extort reluctant recantations from a num- ber of intimidated reformers; hut her very successes of this kind had the effect of spreading the latent discon- tent with a religious organization which so palpably cared more for power than lor tin purity of Christian doctrine and Christian lite. Other powerful agencies aided in Bbaking the belief ol the educated classes in i In' < hurch. The most influential among them w as t he school of the Humanists, who used the revival of clas- sical studies for promoting a .u'e ueral literary culture, which not only fully emancipated itself from the guar- dianship of the Church, lut frequently assumed an in- different and antagonistic position even with regard to Christianity. Especially in Italy, humanism became an enthusiastic worshipper of paean antiquity, and it be- came quite common that high dignitaries of the church v\ere iii the circles ot their friends and acquaintances known as avowed atheists. Even pope Leo X was cred- ited with the remark— and, whether true or not true, it was regarded as credible by his contemporaries — "It is generally known how much we and our- ha\ e profited by the fable of Christ." While in Italy many of the leading humani-ts became opponents of Christian belief, though they had no objection to retaining their positions, which often were id' the highest rank, in the Church, the chief patrons of the classical studies in the Teutonic countries were mostly men of earnest Christian convictions, who cultivated them with a view to strengthening the cause of Christianity, and of reforming tin Church, li was especially the community of the Brothers of the Com- mon Lite who founded a number of exec lk nt -.hi ill-. in which the highest attainments in the- revived classi- cal studies, and an i ducat ion in the principles of (arm -t. purified Christianity, were aimed at. Though the com- munity as a whole never entered into an oppositional attitude with regard to the Church, but rather, like its greatest member, Thomas a Kempis, limited itself to teaching, preaching, and practicing that which in the system of the ruling Church appeared to he unobjec- tionable to earnest and pious Christians, its teachers and pupils generally favored the idea of a Church reforma- tion, and in the 16th century many of them became m- thusiastical co-workers in the reformatory labors of Lu- ther. Zw ingli, and Calvin.