12 ; ORIENTATION,
tribunal can measure the share of responsibility. Much is due, no doubt, to the violence and extravagance of the Protestant opposition, but still more to the intolerance and stubbornness of _ the Roman resistance. The papal court used against the Reform- Ἢ ation for a long time only the carnal weapons of political influence, diplomatic intrigue, secular wealth, haughty pride, scholastic philosophy, crushing authority, and bloody persecution. It _ repeated the course of the Jewish hierarchy, which crucified the Messiah and cast the apostles out of the synagogue. 3
But we must look beyond this partial justification, and view the matter in the light of the results of the Reformation.
It was evidently the design of Providence to develop a new type of Christianity outside of the restraints of the papacy, and the history of three centuries is the best explanation and vindication of that design. Every movement in history must be judged by its fruits. |
The elements of such an advance movement were all at work before Luther and Zwingli protested against papal indulgences,
84, The Preparations for the Reformation.
C. ULLMANN: Reformatoren vor der Reformation. Hamburg, 1841, 2d ed. 1866, 2 vols. (Engl. trans. by R. Menzies, Edinb. 1855, 2 vols.). C. DE BonNnE- CHOSE: Réformateurs avant la réforme du xvi. siécle. Par. 1853, 2 vols. A good résumé by Gro. P. FisHER: The Reformation. New York, 1873, ch. III. 52-84; and in the first two lectures of CHARLES BEARD: The Reformation, London, 1883, p. 1-75. _Comp., also the numerous monographs of various scholars on the Renaissance, on Wiclif, Hus, Savonarola, Hutten, Reuchlin, Erasmus, etc. A full account of the preparation for the Reformation belongs to the last chapters of the History of Medizval Christianity (see vol. V.). We here merely recapitulate the chief points.
Judaism before Christ was sadly degenerated, and those who sat in Moses’ seat had become blind leaders of the blind. Yet “salvation is of the Jews;” and out of this people arose John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary, the Messiah, and the Apostles, Jerusalem, which stoned the prophets and crucified the Lord, witnessed also the pentecostal miracle and became the mother church of Christendom. So the Catholic church in the sixteenth century,
§ 4, THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE REFORMATION. 15
though corrupt in its head and its members, was still the church\ of the living God and gave birth to the Reformation, which removed the rubbish of human traditions and reopened the pure fountain of the gospel of Christ.
The Reformers, it should not be forgotten, were all born, baptized, confirmed, and educated in the Roman Catholic Church, and most of them had served as priests at her altars with the solemn vow of obedience to the pope on their conscience. They stood as closely related to the papal church, as the Apostles and Evangelists to the Synagogue and the Temple ; and for reasons of similar urgency, they were justified to leave the communion of their fathers; or rather, they did not leave it, but were cast out by the ruling hierarchy.
The Reformation went back to first principles in order to go forward. It struck its roots deep in the past and bore rich fruits for the future. It sprang forth almost simultaneously from different parts of Europe and was enthusiastically hailed by the leading minds of the age in church and state. No great) movement in history—except Christianity itself—was so widely | and thoroughly prepared as the Protestant Reformation.
The reformatory councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basel; the conflict of the Emperors with the Popes; the contemplative piety of the mystics with their thirst after direct communion with God; the revival of classical literature; the general intellectual awakening; the biblical studies of Reuchlin, and Erasmus; the rising spirit of national independence; Wiclif, and the Lollards in England; Hus, and the Hussites in Bohemia; John von Goch, John von Wesel, and Johann Wessel in Germany and the Netherlands; Sayonarola in Italy; the Brethren of the Common Life, the Waldenses, the Friends of God,—contributed their share towards the great change and paved the way for a new era of Christianity. The innermost life of the church was pressing forward to a new era. There is scarcely a principle or doctrine of the Reformation which was not anticipated and advocated in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Luther made the remark,