And right here we are brought to the contemplation of the greatest hindrance that ever affected the Reformation: that is, scholasticism.
Luther and all the other reformers stood upon the platform of
"The word of God, the whole word of God, and nothing but the word of God."
They abandoned the sophistries of the schools, and rested solely upon this declaration, which must be the basis of every true reform in all ages. And just so far as that principle is abandoned, so much will the work be retarded. While this principle was adhered to, the Reformation succeeded gloriously; when the principle was abandoned, the Reformation suffered accordingly. In the word of God, lies the strength of the work of God.
In this position there was another great advantage that the Reformers held over their papal antagonists. As long as they stood by the word of God alone, they occupied a field with which the papists were wholly unacquainted; and the more the Reformers studied and applied the word of God, the more easily they could defeat their adversaries.
Their adversaries knew it, and therefore they employed every artifice to draw the Reformers into the scholastic field; for there the papists had every advantage which the Protestants had in the other.
While the leaders of the Reformation lived, the papists were unsuccessful in every attempt in this direction, and so the Reformation was successful everywhere; but when these leaders were removed from the world, and their faith and zeal were not inherited by their successors, and when to the crafti ness of the papists were added the zeal and artfulness of Loy ola and his order, the Protestants were finally corrupted by the arts and stratagems of their opponents and induced to revive the subtleties of the schools in defending and illustrating religious truth.
So it may be said with truth that, while the Protestants imbibed scholasticism from the Catholics, they allowed the Catholics to steal from them their zeal. All that will be needed to prove and illustrate it, will be simply to mention the subjects of controversy that engaged the Protestant disputants for more than a hundred years.