[5] In 1302 the first "Estates-General" of France supported the King, and denied the right of the Pope to any supremacy over the State in France. In England, about the same time, the right of the Pope to levy taxation on the English was disputed by King and Parliament. In 1446 William III of Saxony limited the powers of ecclesiastical courts, and forbade appeals from Saxon decisions to any foreign court.
[6] The London Academy, 1893, p. 197, published evidence to show that there was a widespread demand among the bishops of Spain for church reformation, during the fifteenth century, and along the same lines that Luther advocated later.
[7] "But all these attempts at reformation in the Church, large and small, had failed, as had those of the early fifteenth century to reform its government, leaving the Church as thoroughly mediaeval in doctrine and in practical religion as it was in polity. It was the one power, therefore, belonging to the Middle Ages which still stood unaffected by the new forces and opposed to them. In other directions the changes had been many; here nothing had been changed. And its resisting power was very great. Endowed with large wealth, strong in numbers in every State, with no lack of able and thoroughly trained minds, its interests, as it regarded them, in maintaining the old were enormous, and its power of defending itself seemed scarcely to be broken….
"The Church had remained unaffected by the new forces which had transformed everything else. It was still thoroughly mediaeval. In government, in doctrine, and in life it still placed the greatest emphasis upon those additions which the peculiar conditions of the Middle Ages had built upon the foundations of the primitive Christianity, and it was determined to remain unchanged." (Adams, G. B., Civilization during the Middle Ages, pp. 406, 412.)
[8] Every reform movement produces two kinds of reformers, each seeking the same ultimate goal, but differing materially as to methods of work. In the religious conflict these two types are well represented by Erasmus and Luther. Erasmus was as deeply interested in religious reform as Luther and devoted the energies of a lifetime to trying to secure reform, but he believed that reformation should come from within, and that the way to obtain it was to remain within the old organization and work to reform it. Luther represented the other type, the type which feels that things are too bad for mere reform to be effective, and that what is wanted is rebellion against the old. The two types seldom agree as to means, and usually part company. One is content to be known as a conservative or a conformer; the other delights in being classed as a progressive or even as a radical.
[9] "The early Protestant theory was that an individual's Christian religious life, convictions, and salvation were to be worked out through a direct study of the Scriptures, acceptance of the obvious teachings of Christ as there presented, and direct appeal to God through prayer for help in leading a Christian life. The Catholic position, on the other hand, came to be that the individual's religious life was to be achieved through the intervention of the Church, which claimed on historical grounds to have been founded by Christ, and to be his official representative and mediator in the world. It was through the teachings of this Church that the individual was to receive his ideas of the Christian religion, to be stimulated to believe these, to be kept in the path of righteousness, and to obtain salvation." (Parker, S. C., History of Modern Elementary Education, p. 35.)
[10] Adams, G. B., Civilization during the Middle Ages, p. 413.
[11] A good illustration of the way parts of Germany and German Switzerland were divided by religious differences is to be found in the Canton of Appenzell, in northeastern Switzerland. As each small governmental division had to follow the religion of the ruling prince in Germany, so in Switzerland the cantons divided on religious lines. To compromise matters in Appenzell the canton was divided into two half cantons, following the religious wars of 1597—Inner Rhoden, of sixty- three square miles, exclusively Roman Catholic, and Outer Rhoden, of ninety-six square miles, entirely under the Swiss Reformed Church.
[12] Calvinism is also a product of the northern humanism, Calvin's difficulties with the Church arising out of his study of the Greek texts. Calvin had received an excellent theological and legal education, and used the knowledge and training derived from both to help him formulate a comprehensive system of belief.
[13] Like the famous Sentences of Peter Lombard (p. 171), it formed a splendid textbook of the new faith. Calvin based his work on the infallibility of the Bible, as against that of the Church and Pope, and presented, in a remarkably clear and logical manner, the principles of Calvinistic doctrine. Before 1630, as many as seventy-four full editions and fourteen partial editions of the Institutes had been printed, and in nine different languages.