Chapter XIV: Section I: The Rise and Progress of the Reformation (2)

Touching the morals of the clergy before the Reformation, there was a general concurrence of testimony against them; to the historian, however, this subject appears as a complicated problem tinged by the contorted notions of the age; inasmuch as it is difficult to reach the truth and do justice to opposing parties. From the beginning of the fifteenth century, a reformation of the Church had been loudly demanded; and the shortcomings of the clergy were generally, if somewhat reluctantly, acknowledged throughout Christendom. They neglected the religious instruction of the people, and their sacred functions were often prostituted to worldly purposes; while the exactions of the Church were becoming more and more unbearable. Nowhere were these abuses and grievances more rampant than in Italy. The Court of Rome itself was more corrupted than any of the political Courts of Europe; the unprincipled and faithless character of its policy was everywhere notorious; in fact, it was a system of intrigue, of cabal, and of bribery. The sacred bodies of clerical dignitaries who surrounded the throne of the Pope might agree to dupe the world; yet they rarely scrupled to supplant and deceive each other when their personal interests were at stake.¹ Many of the clergy did nothing but say masses for the dead, a more lucrative occupation than praying for the living. The education of the clergy and their modes of life were not well calculated to encourage self-culture nor the study of Divine truth, in order to qualify them to instruct others; and the root of the prevailing system directly tended to narrow their sympathy and to dwarf their humanity. Celibacy cut them off from all the interests and duties of domestic life, and this left them at leisure for mischief of all kinds. “The history of the clerical celibacy, in England as elsewhere, is indeed tender ground; the benefits which it is supposed to secure are the personal purity of the individual, his separation from secular ways and interests, and his entire devotion to the work of God and the Church. But the results, as legal and historical records show us, were very different. Instead of personal purity, there is a long story of licensed and unlicensed concubinage, and appendant to it, much miscellaneous profligacy and a general low tone of morality in the very point that is supposed to be secured. Instead of separation from secular work is found in the higher class of the clergy entire devotion to the legal and political service of the country, and in the lower class idleness and poverty as the alternative. Instead of greater spirituality, there is greater frivolity. The abuses of monastic life, great as they may occasionally have been, sink into insignificance by the side of this evil, as an occasional crime tells against the moral condition of a nation far less fatally than the prevalence of a low morality. The records of the spiritual courts of the middle ages remain in such quantity and in such concord of testimony as to leave no doubt of the facts; among the laity as well as among the clergy, of the towns and clerical centres, there existed an amount of coarse vice which had no secrecy to screen it or prevent it from spreading.... And in this, as in other particulars, the mediæval Church incurred a fearful responsibility. The evils against which she had to contend were beyond her power to overcome, yet she resisted interference from any other hand. The treatment of such moral evils as did not come within the contemplation of the common law were left to the Church courts; the Church courts became centres of corruption which archbishops, legates, and councils tried to reform and failed, acquiescing in the failure rather, than allow the intrusion of the secular power. The spiritual jurisdiction over the clergy was an engine which courts altogether failed to manage, or so far failed as to render reformation of manners by such means absolutely hopeless: yet any interference of the temporal courts was resented and warded off until the evil was irremediable, because a clerk stripped of the reality of his immunities, but retaining all the odium with which they had invested him would have no chance of justice in a lay court. Thus on a smaller stage was reproduced the result which the policy of the papacy brought about in the greater theatre of ecclesiastical politics. The practical assertion that, except by the court of Rome, there should be no reformation, was supplemented by an acknowledgment of the evils that were to be reformed, and of the incapacity of the court of Rome to cure them: there popes and councils toiled in vain; they could neither bear the evils of the age nor their remedies. Strange to say, some part of the mischief of the spiritual jurisdiction survived the Reformation itself, and enlarged its scope as well as strengthened its operation by the close temporary alliance between the Church and Crown.”² Everywhere there was a number of priests and friars, whose religious duties occupied only a small portion of their time, and whose standard of morality was formed upon an extremely low ideal; and it was the moral standard that required to be raised before there could be any real improvement in the social condition either of the clergy or the people.

¹ “The corruption of the Papal Court involved a corresponding
moral ♦weakness throughout Italy.”――Symonds’ _Renaissance_,
Volume I., page 382, and the whole of the 7th Chapter.

♦ “weaknass” replaced with “weakness”

² Stubbs’ _Constitutional History Of England_, Volume III.,
pages 372‒374; 1878.

For several centuries before the Reformation much of the popular literature of Europe was directed against the vices of the clergy and the abuses of the Church; upon this theme the most orthodox and the most heretical were agreed. The secular clergy often despised the monks, the monks satirised the begging friars, and thus their inconsistencies were exposed to the people, and gradually the strength of the old traditions and prejudices were loosened and impaired, and the people partly prepared for a revolution in their opinions and belief.

From an early period in Italy the corruptions of the Church were ably exposed by persons who had not thought of renouncing her communion. The Italian poets laid open the abuses of the head of the Church as well as of the subordinate orders of the clergy. Dante, who was a sincere believer in the Roman Catholic Church, showed little faith in the infallibility of the Popes or general councils, and he describes the avarice and the luxurious lives of the clergy in the language of indignation and ridicule. In his treatise on Monarchy, he inveighed with remarkable boldness against the corruption of the Church; and in the same work he also attacked tradition, the grand fortress of Catholicism. Petrarch and Boccaccio followed in a similar strain; and the latter, especially by his broad humour, keen wit, and reckless pleasantry was exceedingly effective. He mercilessly assailed the popular religion; its pilgrimages, relics, and miracles were scoffed at in the most playful style; its corruptions were exposed, and the monks, the nuns, and the friars were stripped of their sanctity and derided in profane mockery and jeering scorn.¹ The _Decameron_ of Boccaccio is the bitterest satire of the religion of the Middle ages ever written, and to this day it remains the most curious illustration of the belief and notions of that age. Many other Italian poets and writers employed their talents to unmask the ignorance, the vice, the greed, the hypocrisy, and the absurdities of the hierarchy, from the Popes downward to the wandering mendicants; and this warfare was continued down to the eve of the Reformation.

¹ Dante’s _Inferno_, H. F. Cary’s Translation; Petrarch’s
_Sonnets_ and other Poems; Milman’s _History of Latin
Christianity_, Volume VI., pages 516‒518, etc.; M‘Crie’s
_History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation
in Italy_, Works, Volume III., pages 14‒19; 1855. “While
so much liberty of thought prevailed in Italy it may be
wondered why the Renaissance, eminently fertile in the
domains of arts and culture, bore but meagre fruit in those
of religion and philosophy. The German Reformation was
the Renaissance of Christianity; and in this the Italians
had no share, though it should be remembered that, without
their previous labours in the field of scholarship, the band
which led the Reformation could hardly have given that high
intellectual character to the movement which made it a new
starting point in the history of the reason. To expect from
Italy the ethical regeneration of the modern world would be
to misapprehend her true vocation; art and erudition were
sufficient to engage her spiritual energies.”

“True to culture as their main preoccupation, the
Italian thinkers sought to philosophise faith by bringing
Christianity into harmony with antique speculation, and
forming for themselves a theism that should embrace the
system of the Platonists and Stoics, the Hebrew Cabbala,
and the Sermon on the Mount. There is much that strikes
us as both crude and pedantic, at the same time infantine
and pompous in the systems elaborated by those pioneers
of modern eclecticism.”――Symonds’ _Renaissance in Italy_,
Volume II., pages 21‒23; 1877.

In the latter part of the fifteenth century, Savonarola, a Dominican friar, became a religious reformer; he was an Italian by birth and education, a man of talents and great piety; but he seems to have yielded to the illusions of his imagination, and at last persuaded himself that he was possessed of supernatural gifts. In 1486, he commenced preaching against the vices of the popes, cardinals, priests, and monks, the tyranny of princes, and the immorality of the people; he was an eloquent and powerful preacher, and he called earnestly for repentance and reformation. He preached in various cities, and vast crowds of the people came to hear him. Florence was chosen as the scene of his labour, and for a short time he had a great influence in that city. His aim was to improve the morals of the clergy and the people, not to change the faith of the Christian world. He was also a warm friend of the cause of political liberty and freedom. From this standpoint he was one of the most ardent reformers. Towards the close of his career his mind seems to have become fevered and unbalanced. In 1495, Pope Alexander VI. deemed it time to extinguish so bold a preacher, and he was excommunicated and proclaimed a heresiarch; and he was afterwards taken, tortured, condemned to the flames, and strangled and burned in May, 1498, by the order of the Pope, who had himself committed many dark crimes.¹

¹ Symonds’ _Renaissance_, Volume I., pages 428, 471.

For two centuries preceding the Reformation a literature in the language of the people had been growing up in Germany, France, and England, and in each of these countries the vernacular contained a mass of writings which satirised the corruptions of the Church and the vices of the clergy. These compositions were sometimes in the form of rude rhymes and short poems, and sometimes songs or ballads, but occasionally they assumed a more ambitious form, as in the poems of Chaucer, and Piers Ploughman. As before indicated, the general result of this literature upon the minds of the people was that gradually and with difficulty they began to see some of the inconsistencies of the Church, and their moral and religious consciousness at last awoke to a clearer conception of their rights.

But the causes of the Reformation were manifold and extremely varied, rising so high and at the same time descending so low, and yet invoking so many venerated feelings and sentiments; and it must be added, so many prejudices and passions were inflamed on both sides, so many great prizes and vested interests depended upon the issue, that even at this day it is almost impossible for any man to assign the true and just measure of all the causes and influences which contributed to this the most momentous struggle of the Christian era.

Another important agency of the revolutionary movement was implied in the printing and publication of editions and translations of the Scriptures. In Italy during the fifteenth century much attention was devoted to the Hebrew language and to sacred literature. The Psalter appeared in 1477, and from that date parts of the Old Testament in the original continued to be issued from the press till in 1488 a complete Hebrew Bible was printed at Soncino in Italy. The first edition of the Septuagint came from the Aldine press at Venice in 1518. Erasmus published at Basle in 1516 his edition of the Greek text of the New Testament, together with his own Latin version and explanatory annotations. The book of Job in Hebrew was printed at Paris in 1516. The Complutensian Polyglot Bible under the patronage and at the expense of Cardinal Ximenes, was printed at Alcala between 1502 and 1517 and published in 1520, in six volumes folio, six hundred copies on paper, and three on vellum. It contained in three columns the Hebrew, the Septuagint Greek, and the Latin Vulgate version of Jerome; the Chaldee paraphrase of the Pentateuch by Onkelos was printed at the foot of the page, and to it a Latin translation was given; the New Testament included the original Greek and the Vulgate Latin version. The work also had a grammar and dictionary of the Hebrew, a Greek vocabulary, and other explanatory treatises attached to it. Spain thus had the credit of printing the first complete edition of the Scriptures. It is said that this work cost 250,000 ducats. An edition of the Septuagint and of the Greek New Testament was published at Strasburg by Cephalæus in 1524 and 1526; editions of the New Testament also appeared at Paris in 1534, and at Venice in 1538; and about the same time editions were printed at various other places. Hebrew and Greek grammars and lexicons then began to appear, and commentaries on the Scriptures followed.¹

¹ Ginguene’s _History of Italian Literature_, Tome VII.;
M‘Crie’s Works, Volume III., pages 31, 34, 36; 1855. Among
the earliest books of any kind printed was a Psalter in 1457,
and a Latin Bible about the year 1455, usually called the
Mazarin Bible, the exact date of its printing is uncertain,
but it is not earlier than 1450 nor later than 1455.

But these important works were confined to the learned, and could have had no impression upon the popular mind. The influences, however, which had contributed to produce them were general and not limited to any class; for the religious feelings and sentiments were as active among the unlearned as among the most cultured men of the age. The activity of the learned class, as manifested in the publication of the Scriptures, was the effect of general and widely spread influences which were running in a definite direction. Translations of the Scriptures were therefore eagerly solicited, and then for the first time began to be supplied. It is said that the Scriptures were translated into the Italian language in the thirteenth century, and it appears that fragments of very early translations were found in libraries during the fifteenth century. Nicolo Malermi, a monk, produced an Italian version of the Bible from the Vulgate, which was published in 1471. Before the end of the century it went through eleven editions, and in the following century through twelve. About this period also Italian versions of parts of the Scriptures appeared. An improved and more faithful translation of the New Testament was executed by Antonio Brucioli, and printed at Venice in 1530. His translation of the whole Bible was published in 1532, and revised and printed in 1541. Other Italian versions of the Scriptures soon followed. But in none of the modern languages were so many translations and editions of the Bible published as in the Flemish or Dutch tongue. A Flemish version of the Bible appeared in 1477; a translation from the Vulgate was printed at Delft in 1497, and reprinted several times before the Reformation at the presses of Antwerp and Amsterdam. A Flemish version of the New Testament from that of Luther was published at Antwerp in 1522, and reprinted twelve times within the next five years. During the first thirty-six years of the sixteenth century fifteen editions of the entire Bible were printed in the Flemish language, and thirty-four editions of the New Testament alone within the same period, twenty-four of which were printed at Antwerp; some of them were taken from the Vulgate, but most of them were from Luther’s version. The earliest French translation of the Old Testament from the Vulgate was printed about 1477; a French version of the New Testament was published in 1512, and a version of the Bible in 1530. The earliest Protestant translation of the Bible in French was printed at Neufchatel in 1535.¹

¹ Panfer’s _An. Typ. In._; Simon’s _Critical History of the New
Testament_; M‘Crie’s Works, Volume III., pages 38‒40.

In Spain the Scriptures were translated into the Castilian dialect in the year 1260, and other ancient versions of the Bible in the dialects of the Spanish people have been preserved in the libraries of the Continent. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, Bonifacio Ferrer, a Carthusian monk, translated the whole of the Scriptures into the Spanish language, and this translation was printed at Valencia in 1478; but shortly after its publication it was suppressed by the Inquisition, and the whole impression ordered to be burned. A Spanish version of the New Testament was printed at Antwerp in 1543.¹ Luther’s German translation of the Old and New Testaments was published between the years 1522 and 1530. Translations of the Bible were published in the Danish language in 1524, and in the Swedish in 1526.

¹ _The Bible of Saci_, Book I. Andres.

Wycliffe commenced his English translation of the Bible from the Vulgate in 1380, and it is supposed that portions of it were widely circulated in manuscript. Tyndale’s English version of the New Testament was printed in 1526, and within ten years fourteen editions of it were published. Coverdale’s translation of the whole Bible was published in 1535; and another version, mainly based upon Tyndale’s, appeared in 1537. A revised translation was issued in 1539,¹ which was sometimes called Cranmer’s Bible. The publication of so many translations of the Scriptures in the languages and dialects of the people, and the numerous editions which they passed through, seemed to indicate that a crisis was approaching, as the religious sentiments of the people were warmed, and that their feelings and passions were being raised to a pitch of excitement which might be extremely difficult to control. The lower classes in many parts of Europe had been long groaning under oppression, and a sense of wrong had begun to rankle in their minds. A century and a half earlier the English peasantry had rebelled against their masters, and we have seen that the same classes had revolted against the Church and the nobles in Germany. The inconsistencies of the profession and the practice of the clergy could not fail to open the eyes of the people, while the social position in which they found themselves placed did not harmonise with the most elementary ideas of justice and truth. They therefore listened with keen emotion and swelling hearts to the impassioned appeals of the reformed preachers, who they easily won over the multitude; but there was much more difficulty in moderating the zeal and the passions aroused by their preaching. Even in Luther himself the destructive leaning was pretty strong and pronounced; he said――“I believe it to be impossible that the Church should be reformed without completely eradicating canons, decretals, scholastic theology, philosophy, and logic, as they are now received and taught, and instituting others in their place.”²

¹ Dibdin’s _Typographical Antiquities_; Anderson’s _Annals of
the English Bible_, 1862.

² Ueberweg’s _History of Philosophy_, Volume II., pages 16‒17.
“Luther railed against all speculative doctrines and pursuits
with violent, indiscriminate recklessness. He frequently
expresses the most withering contempt for Aristotle and
all his works.”――Blakey’s _History of the Philosophy of
the Mind_, Volume II., page 129; 1848. Compare D’Aubigne’s
_History of the Reformation_, Volume I., pages 154, 219.

This awakening of the religious consciousness, and its association with moral and social practice, soon led to important issues. The married life, which had hitherto been regarded as inferior to celibacy, now appeared in a new light, as something divine, as a law imposed by God Himself; and the domestic duties at once assumed a higher and nobler significance. Poverty was no longer considered an object in itself, and the life of the monk, though before deemed higher than the worldly energy and industry of the layman who supported himself by the labour of his hands, began to be regarded with contempt. Religious freedom took the place of blind obedience, and henceforward monkhood and priesthood lost much of their sway.

Again, in relation to knowledge and to thought, man returned, as it were, from the extramundane to the genial earth――from the alien region of authority to himself. He was at last convinced that the entire work of salvation must be accomplished within himself, and that reconciliation and grace were matters that stood in a direct relation between himself and God. With this conviction in the core of his soul, he found his real and true being; thus it is that the philosophy of the human mind is closely connected with Protestantism, for the principle of both is one and the same, though it realises itself in the course of development in varying forms.¹

¹ Schwegler’s _History of Philosophy_, Stirling’s Translation,
pages 148, 149; 1868.

The Bible appeared to the early Reformers as the pure, genuine, and true word of God, and whatever had been added to it, was not regarded as a real advance upon the original, but rather as a debasement. The authority of tradition was denied, the mediæval hierarchy, and the scholastic tendency to rationalise Christian dogmas were rejected. In the first burst of their enthusiasm, the Reformers called the Pope Antichrist, and Aristotle, the chief of the Catholic school of philosophy, the godless bulwark of the Papists. The logical result of this would have been the abandonment of all philosophy in favour of immediate, unquestioning faith: but when Protestantism gained a fixed consistence the necessity of a definite order of instruction became as apparent as that of a new ecclesiastical polity. Melanchthon perceived the need of Aristotle, the master of form, and at last Luther allowed the use of the text of the Aristotelian writings, when not encumbered with scholastic commentaries. Thus there arose at the Protestant Universities a new, though simpler, scholasticism; the development of an independent philosophy on the basis of the generalised Protestant principle was the work of a later time.¹ Modern Philosophy began when the intellect threw off that entire subservience to theology which characterised it in the Middle Ages. In the words of one of the best authorities the chief divisions of modern philosophy are:――“1. The Transitional Period, beginning with the revival of Platonism; 2. The Epoch of Empiricism, Dogmatism, and Scepticism, from Bacon and Descartes to the Encyclopedists and Hume; and 3. The Epoch of the Kantian Criticism, and of the systems issuing from it, from Kant till the present time.

¹ Ueberweg’s _History of Philosophy_, Volume II., pages 15‒16.

“Unity, servitude, freedom――these are the three stages through which the philosophy of the Christian era has passed in its relation to ecclesiastical theology. The stage of freedom corresponds with the general character of the modern era, which seeks to restore, in place of mediæval antagonism, harmonious unity. Freedom of thought, in respect of form and substance, has been secured gradually by modern philosophy. The first movement in this direction consisted in a mere exchange of authorities, or in the reproduction of other ancient systems than that of Aristotle, without much modification, and such adaption to new and changed conditions, as the scholastics had effected in the system of Aristotle. Then followed the era of independent investigation in the realm of nature, and finally also in the realm of mind. There was a transitional period marked by the endeavour of philosophy to become independent. The second epoch, the epoch of Empiricism and Dogmatism, was characterised by methodical investigations and comprehensive systems, which were based on the confident belief that knowledge of natural and spiritual reality was independently attainable by means of experience or thought alone. Scepticism prepared the way for the third stadium in the history of modern philosophy, which was formed by criticism. According to the critical philosophy, the investigation of the cognitive faculty of man is the necessary basis for all strictly scientific philosophising, and the result aimed at by it is, that thought is incompetent to the cognition of the real world of phenomena, beyond which the only guide is man’s moral consciousness. This result has been denied by the following systems, although these systems are all lineal descendants from the Kantian philosophy, which is still of immediate (not merely historical) significance for the philosophy of the present day.”¹

¹ Ibid., Volume II., pages 1‒3; 1874.

There is only a limited truth in the presuppositions of a complete parallelism between the progress of the development of the ancient philosophy and that of modern systems. “Modern philosophy has from the beginning owed its existence in a far greater measure to an interest in theology (though not for the most part to an interest in the specially ecclesiastical form of theology) than did ancient philosophy previous to the time of Neo-Platonism.” The most remarkable difference between the ancient and modern philosophy is in the science of mind. Psychology has in comparatively recent times been developed to a stage of completeness much beyond what the philosophers of Greece had reached; and the departments of moral and social science are now treated on a different and far wider method than in ancient times.

From the outset there were two chief doctrines which determined the course taken by the Reformers. One of these was the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, the other manifested itself in the constant appeal to the Bible as the only decisive authority in questions concerning faith. It is pretty evident that the German Reformers held mainly by the first, while those of Switzerland, Zuinglius and Calvin, gave the preference to the second.

Although the leaders of the Reformation did not adopt a bold critical method of inquiry, and though the systems which Luther and Calvin founded were essentially dogmatic at all points; yet the admission of an act of spiritual rebellion, of an appeal to conscience and to the judgment of the people, instead of the authority of the Catholic Church, involved a principle which must ultimately lead to consequences that the Reformers hardly intended and could not have ♦foreseen. Questions concerning the sacraments, the meaning of certain texts of Scripture, the forms of church polity, were discussed with the utmost zeal; but the grand issue of the revolution――the rebellion of the moral faculty against the doctrines that collided with its teaching――was as yet little manifested by the Reformers. They had rejected many of the traditions and external ceremonies of the Church, but they still looked to the Bible and historical authority for the basis of their theology. And yet it cannot be doubted that the Reformation introduced influences which had a powerful effect on the philosophy of the human mind;¹ and at length greatly modified the moral ideas and sentiments of the people, and led to political and social results. This revolutionary movement also gave a marked impetus to scientific inquiry. It was then that empirical science began to assume importance, and it is only from this epoch that it has a continuous history.

♦ “forseen” replaced with “foreseen”

¹ D. Stewart’s Works, Volume I., pages 28‒30; 1854. Blakey’s
_History of the Philosophy of the Mind_, Volume II., page
128; 1848.

When we inquire what was the meaning of a national revolt from Romanism, and look only to external circumstances, it will not appear to amount to much. It was the claim set up by the Government or the Crown for the control of those rights within the nation, which the Pope had before claimed as the head of the Christian empire; the clergy, monks, and friars had hitherto been regarded as subjects of the Pope’s sacerdotal rule. Now, where there was a revolt from Rome, the allegiance of this class of persons was annulled, and the civil government claimed as full a power over them as it had over its lay subjects; there were some partial exceptions to this, but the essential point was the entire exclusion of all the pretensions of the Pope to interfere with any of the affairs of the nation. Generally, matters relating to marriage and wills still remained under the jurisdiction of the clergy, but when the ecclesiastical courts ceased to be papal they became national, and the special matters with which they dealt, might, if necessary, be brought under the control of the Government. Even touching religious doctrine and the forms of public worship, the Government often claimed the final authority, which had been before exercised by the Pope. Thus externally considered, the revolt from Rome was rather a political and ecclesiastical arrangement than a purely religious matter. In relation to the ruling powers, it was an assertion of free, independent national life; the instinctive feeling for unity and the pride of distinct national independence entered as a very strong influence into the struggles of the Reformation, but it was not always on the side of the Protestants; and in those countries where the movement failed, as in Spain and France, it was probably owing to influences of this kind more than to any other cause. In the imperfectly tutored mind the instinctive tendencies, the inherited feelings, and the traditional notions, form a conservative and unreasoning force which it is almost impossible to overcome without a gradual change of surroundings and circumstances; while to many highly cultured individuals, the mere idea of belonging to the great historical and the only true and infallible Church is exceedingly soothing and gratifying. To be relieved also from all perplexing doubts and questions touching the spiritual and eternal destiny of the soul, is to many a matter of exquisite satisfaction; they glory in the thought of the certainty of their everlasting salvation; they glory in the notion that whatever others may be, they at least cannot be wrong; time may come and go, generation after generation of heretics and heathens may be whirled into everlasting misery, but they alone go on for ever, rejoicing that the universe was specially created for their eternal happiness.

The eras of the Reformation among the different nations of Europe were comprised within a period of about fifty years, though in some countries the struggle lasted longer. The revolt of Luther is usually dated 1517, the year in which he published his theses against indulgences, but the Reformation in Germany was only partly successful. Denmark and Sweden both broke off from Rome and adopted the Lutheran doctrines between 1521 and 1534; about the same time several of the cantons and chief cities of Switzerland became Protestant. England threw off the authority of the Pope in 1535. But the struggle with the Roman Catholic powers was long continued in the Netherlands, in France, and in Germany; and in the two latter the Catholics ultimately recovered much of the ground they had lost.

Luther was supported by the Elector of Saxony, and this enabled him to continue his controversy with the Church. His activity and writings soon raised a stir in Germany, which spread to other lands. In 1520, he published two pamphlets. The first was addressed to the nobility of the German nation, and in it we find the following sentiments:――“The Romanists have raised round themselves walls to protect themselves from reform. One is their doctrine, that there are two separate estates: the one spiritual, including the pope, bishops, priests, and monks; the other secular, embracing the princes, nobles, artizans, and peasants. And they lay it down that the secular power has no authority over the spiritual, but that the spiritual is above the secular; whereas, in truth, all Christians are spiritual, and there is no difference between them. The secular power is of God, to punish the wicked and protect the good, and so has power over the whole body of Christians without exception, pope, bishops, monks, nuns, and all. For St. Paul says――‘Let every soul (and I reckon the pope one) be subject to the higher powers.’ Why should 300,000 florins be sent every year from Germany to Rome? Why do the Germans let themselves be fleeced by cardinals, who get hold of the best preferments and spend the revenues at Rome? Let us not give another farthing to the Pope as subsidies against the Turk; the whole thing is a snare to drain from us more money. Let the secular authorities send no more annates to Rome; let the power of the Pope be reduced within clear limits; let there be fewer cardinals, and let them not keep the best things to themselves; let the national churches be more independent of Rome; let there be fewer pilgrimages to Italy; let there be fewer convents; let priests marry; let begging be stopped by making each parish take charge of its own poor; let us inquire into the position of the Bohemians, and if Huss was in the right, let us join with him in resisting Rome.”¹ This passage shows that Luther knew well how to catch the ear of the people, and it was a strain admirably calculated to arrest the attention of the princes of the day; nothing could be more gratifying to them than to set their own authority above the clergy and the Church. From this date Luther’s impassioned nature hurried him onward; and he burned the Pope’s bull and the canon law books in the month of December 1520. But it would be unjust not to mention that there were many in the Roman Catholic Church who earnestly wished for a reform of the discipline, the manners of the clergy, and the monastic orders, although they were averse to any separation from her communion or any breaking up of what was deemed her legitimate authority. This class of moderate men, though some of them were not without influence, were doomed to effect very little, because in times of revolution bold measures alone have the chance of commanding success.

¹ Luther’s Works, Walch’s edition; H. Worsley’s _Life of
Luther_, Volume I., pages 169‒171.

Luther was a voluminous writer as well as a great preacher, and in spite of his faults, taking him all in all, he presents the characteristics of a veritable hero. His works are both numerous and diverse. They consist of sermons and expositions of Scripture, disputations, and controversial writings, many letters and circular epistles, maxims, and hymns, besides his translation of the Bible already mentioned. Most of Luther’s writings were produced on the spur of the moment to meet some exigency. None of them can be regarded as finished compositions, yet they are fresh and full of vigour and energy. Many editions of his works, more or less complete, have been published: one at Wittenberg, twelve volumes in German, 1539‒59, and seven in Latin, 1545‒58; one at Jena, eight volumes in German, 1555‒58, and four in Latin, 1556‒58; another at Altenburg, in ten volumes in German, 1661‒64, and there are several later editions. But it fell to the lot of the calmer and more learned Melanchthon to lead the stream of the newly awakened life of faith into its methodically circumscribed channel. Besides many other valuable works, he composed the first compend of the doctrines of the Protestant Church, which formed the basis of other treatises. His _Loci Communes rerum Theologicarum seu Hypotyposes Theologiæ_ was published in 1521, and has passed through upwards of a hundred editions, about fifty of which appeared during his lifetime.

Melanchthon was appointed by the newly formed Protestant party to draw up a Confession of Faith, in a concise and moderate form, on the basis of the doctrines which he and Luther and other divines had determined. It was laid before the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, and hence it has been called the Confession of Augsburg. It consists of twenty-eight articles; and in the first twenty-one the principal doctrines of faith were discussed in reference to the Roman Catholic Church, but with remarkable moderation of tone; the last seven articles treated of the prevailing abuses of Catholicism. A confutation of this Confession published by the Roman Catholics, was soon after followed by a treatise from Melanchthon, entitled the Apology of the Confession. A similar arrangement was adopted in the Apology as in the Confession, but the number of articles was reduced to sixteen. This work long held the first place among the theological books of the Lutheran Church; and in argumentative power the Apology is exceptionally masterly amongst this class of theological literature. The Articles of Schmalkald, which were written by Luther in a far bolder strain, appeared in 1536, and the first German edition was published in 1538. With these may be mentioned Luther’s larger and smaller Catechisms, the larger one for the use of the clergy and schoolmasters, and the other for the use of the people and children.

The early Swiss Reformer, Zuinglius, proclaimed the principles of evangelical faith in various writings, which may be regarded as the beginning of the consecutive theology of the reformed Church. Besides his polemical writings, sermons, and letters, he wrote _Commentaries concerning True and False Religion_, published in 1525, and _A Brief and Clear Exposition of the Christian Faith_. A Confession of the Reformed Church was published in 1534, which is known as the Confession of Basle. But owing to the controversy touching the Lord’s Supper, and the efforts made to restore peace, a second Confession was composed by the Swiss Reformers and divines in 1536, and is usually called the Helvetian Confession.

From the very commencement of the Reformation it became manifest that the Protestants must proceed upon a different method of attaining knowledge from that followed by the Roman Catholics. The radical difference between the two, which has continued to become wider down to the present day, may be shortly stated: The Protestants assert that the Old and New Testament is the only safe source of religious knowledge, and forms the sole rule of faith; the Roman Catholic Church assumes the existence of another source associated with the first, namely, tradition. The Roman Catholic Church emphatically claims the sole right of interpreting Scripture; but the Protestant Church concedes this right, within limits, to every one who has the requisite gifts and attainments, and in a wider sense to every one seeking after salvation; she proceeds upon the view that Scripture should be interpreted in its entirety according to the analogy of faith, and she also allows for the distinction between a critical and general understanding――between the common understanding and a deeper insight into the meaning of Scripture. Having presented a sketch of the antecedents of the Reformation, I return to the more immediate subject of the work.