The Papacy is an immense wall raised between man and God by the labour of ages. Whosoever would pass it must lay his account with paying or suffering. And yet will it not be passed?
The Reformation is the power which threw down this wall, restored Christ to man, and levelled the path by which he may come to his Creator.
The Papacy interposes the Church between God and man. Christianity and the Reformation make them meet face to face. The Papacy separates—the Gospel unites them.
Having thus traced the history of the decay and extinction of the two great principles which distinguish the religion of God from all the religions of man, let us attend to some of the results of this vast alteration.
First, however, let us pay some tribute of respect to this Church of the middle ages which succeeded that of the Apostles and Fathers, and preceded that of the Reformers. The Church, although decayed, and always more and more enslaved, still was the Church, that is to say, still remained the most powerful friend that man possessed. Her hands, though tied, could still bless. During those ages, great servants of Jesus Christ, men, who in essential doctrines were true Protestants, shed a benign light, and in the most humble convent or the most obscure parish, were found poor monks and poor priests to solace deep griefs. The Catholic Church was not the Papacy. The latter acted the part of oppressor, the former that of the oppressed. The Reformation, which declared war on the one came to deliver the other. And yet, truth to tell, the Papacy itself was sometimes, in the hands of God, who brings good out of evil, a necessary counterpoise to the power and ambition of princes.
CHAP. III.
Religion—Relics—Easter Merriment—Manners—Corruption—Dissorderly Lives of Priests, Bishops, and Popes—A Priest's Family—Education—Ignorance—Ciceronians.
Let us now attend to the State of the Church before the Reformation.