CHAPTER VII
THE REFORMATION
The age of popery's greatest glory was the world's midnight. I have not attempted to give an adequate description of that long reign of superstition and error preceding the reformation of the sixteenth century. Such is the particular province of ecclesiastical historians. I have simply confined the discussion to certain features essential to our present purpose.
One point of importance I have endeavored to impress, namely, that the papal hierarchy, with all its attendant evils, corruption, superstition, and spiritual despotism, was the logical successor of the Ante-Nicene church; that the ripened fruits of papalism were the direct results of the seeds of error planted in the second and third centuries. In view of this fact, one is led to inquire why true Christianity was not permanently buried in oblivion beyond the possibility of resurrection, how any reformation could be possible.
If Christianity were nothing more than a human religion, its reformation at such a period of decline and corruption would appear impossible. But Christianity was of divine origin. No matter how deeply it was buried under the rubbish of human tradition and superstition, no matter how grossly it was perverted and misunderstood by men, it still retained within itself the vital spark of divine life, the living principle of reformation.
First cause of reformation
The secret of this reformatory power was Jesus Christ himself, the great ever-living head of the church. Notwithstanding the decline of faith and morals among those professing Christ, the wonderful character of Jesus still stood out with remarkable clearness and power in the records of the New Testament and could not but exert a tremendous influence in spite of prevailing standards; could not but shed rays of light and warmth in the midst of the surrounding darkness. Although men's ideas of the church became perverted, they could not entirely lose sight of the great Founder of the church, and they could not escape the conviction that the record of the founding of that church was given in the writings of the New Testament and that these writings were worthy of peculiar veneration. Perhaps this is the main reason why the learning of antiquity was chiefly preserved in monasteries and churches. There were ecclesiastics in all these ages who were acquainted with the Scriptures in Latin, and this acquaintance tended to preserve the knowledge of Jesus the Christ as portrayed in the original gospel records. The history of that epoch proves that there were men who loved the Lord more than priestly forms and ceremonial observances. John Wyclif, Jerome of Prague, John Huss, and others experienced that deeper longing for personal relationship with Christ, and they proclaimed the gospel of Christ in a manner that could not be understood by the hierarchy of their times.
Classical learning
Jesus was indeed the Christ of God. The light which shone forth from his presence could not be totally obscured, and the moral power and influence of his life and teaching could not be destroyed. The revival of classical learning restored the Greek Testament to western Europe and attracted the attention of students and learned men in all the monasteries and universities. While the hierarchy insisted on the exclusive right to interpret the Scriptures, the simple reading of these wonderful records could not but create new conceptions of truth which no clerical prohibition could banish. Life was springing up in the midst of death.
Love for truth