Outlines of Ecclesiastical History

by B. H. Roberts

8. True Cause of the Reformation.—We cannot ascribe the Reformation to accidents and mischances, such for instance as the jealousy of Luther because the sale of indulgences was entrusted to the Dominican monks instead of to the order of Augustine monks, to which he belonged^[[36]]—we cannot assign the cause of the Reformation to this, neither can we go to the other extreme and say that the great revolution of the sixteenth century resulted solely from a pure desire to reform the abuses that had arisen in the church or bring back Christianity to its primitive purity. Not a few of the princes that favored Luther in his revolt against the pope did so from other motives than those prompted by a desire to reform the church.

9. Many of the temporal monarchs and princes were jealous of the power exercised within their dominions by the Roman pontiffs, as it lowered the dignity of their own position. They were tired, moreover, of the assumed right of the pope to enter their dominions, and, under one pretext or another, tax their subjects and thus not only impoverish the people, but reduce the revenue of the temporal ruler. It will be found, therefore, that the jealousy, ambition and interest of these princes, and not a desire to establish pure religion, made them factors in the great revolution. (See note 1, end of section.)

10. The people also were tired of the dominion asserted over their minds by the papal authority, and were only too glad to escape from that thraldom under any pretext whatsoever. The preceding century had brought a great intellectual awakening to Europe, and men were no longer content to have questions of fact and belief decided by the authority of the church. (See note 2, end of section.) They insisted that human reason and individual judgment had a right to investigate and to be satisfied on these questions; and the securing of that freedom was not only the leading principle of the sixteenth century revolution, but its greatest achievement. (See note 3, end of section.)

11. Revolution, not Reformation.—It is absurd to say that the revolution of the sixteenth century was a reformation, if by that it is meant that it re-established the primitive doctrines of Christianity, purified the morals of the people, or gave birth to a better ecclesiastical government. It did no such thing. The Reformers declaimed against some of the abuses of the Catholic church, such as denying the sacramental cup to the laity, the celibacy of the clergy, the absurdities of the mass, fasts and ceremonies of human invention, the whole system of monkery, and the great usurpation of authority by the church; and consequently did not include any of these abuses—except perhaps the last—in the system of religion they founded. Still their doctrines led them into serious errors and great disorders.

12. Private Interpretation of the Bible and its Effects.—The evils that arose from the doctrine of justification by faith alone, we have already noticed.^[[37]] The disorders that grew out of the doctrine of private interpretation of scripture is yet to be considered. When Luther refused to longer recognize the authority of the church in matters of doctrine, he still was aware that men would need some authority to decide controversies that would arise, consequently he held up the Bible as the final arbiter of all questions touching faith and morals. But the Bible had to be construed, its meaning made plain, and as each one was left to explain it in his own way, the utmost confusion prevailed. On the great fundamental principle of the Protestants—justification by faith alone—Osiander, a Lutheran, says:

There are twenty several opinions, all drawn from scriptures, and held by different members of the Augsburg, or Lutheran Confession.^[[38]]

When the Reformers from the several parts of Germany consulted together, and with them the Reformers from other states met with a view to come to some understanding in respect to religion and modes of worship, it was soon apparent that they were hopelessly divided, not only upon matters unimportant, but also upon fundamental principles. Luther had rejected the authority of the church and set up the tribunal of private interpretation of scripture in its stead. A number of his disciples proceeding on the same principle, rejected some of his doctrines and undertook to prove from the scripture that he was in error and that the Reformation needed reforming.

13. Carolstadt, [says the author of the "End of Religious Controversy] Zuinglius, Okolampadius, Muncer and a hundred more of his followers, wrote and preached against him and against each other with the utmost virulence, whilst each of them still professed to ground his doctrine and conduct on the written word of God alone. In vain did Luther denounce hell fire against them; in vain did he threaten to return back to the Catholic religion; he had put the Bible into each man's hand to explain it for himself, and this his followers continued to do in open defiance of him, till their mutual contradictions and discords became so numerous and scandalous as to overwhelm the thinking part of them with grief and confusion."^[[39]] (See note 4, end of section.)

14. The Multiplication of Sects.—The division of the Reformers into numerous sects has ever been a reproach to Protestants and likewise an evidence of the weakness of their position. Men of different capacities and dispositions examined the Bible; they found it no systematic treatise upon religion and morals, but a miscellaneous collection of inspired writings, dealing with historical events, connected, in the main, with the people of God; prophecies, dreams, revelations, doctrines, and morals; written at different times, to different peoples, and under a great variety of circumstances. In addition to all this, many plain and precious parts have been taken away from it;^[[40]] other parts have doubtless been purposely changed by designing men;^[[41]] which, with the imperfections arising from its translation from the original languages in which it was written, has made it an uncertain guide, taken alone, for the church or for individuals; and as Protestants insisted upon the right of private judgment in the interpretation of the Bible, it is not surprisingg that a great variety of opinions were entertained, or that numerous sects were founded upon them. It was a great evil; much confusion and disorder arose out of it; but it was an evil that could not be avoided. It was one of those periods of time when liberty was a cause of disorder, but the attainment of liberty through that disorder more than outweighed the evils that arose from it.

15. The Error of the Reformers.—The great error which the Reformers made was in not giving full application to their principle of the right of private judgment in matters of religion. They claimed the right to revolt from the Catholic church, to interpret the Bible for themselves, and to found their mode of worship upon their own conceptions of what was required by the revelations of God; but when others differed from them, and desired to exercise the same liberty, the Reformers were themselves intolerant, and attempted to compel men by force to accept their religious faith and modes of worship. It is this intolerance which is the chief reproach applied to the Reformation by its enemies, and it must be admitted that it somewhat sullies the glory of its achievements. (See note 5, end of section.)