How came The Reformation?
The Reformation did not and does not consist in exposure and denunciation of the iniquities of the Roman church.
That is included in The Reformation, as an incident; because it is of the essence of Christianity to hate iniquity, as it is to love righteousness.
It was the iniquities, enormities, and desolations, wrought by the Roman church, that caused the universal desire and the pressing demand that there should be a reformation. Yet The Reformation was not wrought by magnifying or dwelling upon those things.
The Reformation springs from another principle, lives in another atmosphere, and works in another field, than that.
If exposure and denunciation of the iniquities of that church could have wrought reformation, then The Reformation would have been in the world more than five hundred years before it was.
The quotations in the preceding chapter of the many scathing words of denunciation and exposure of the Roman church on her own part, and of the papacy as a whole, and all by men of standing in that church itself, are sufficient to show that if that could work reformation there was enough of it to have accomplished the most complete and perfect reformation.
Yet all that is only a little of what could just as easily be quoted. And all of it said by men who lived all their days and died in full and honored membership in that church: some of them now saints of that church.
The men whose preaching made The Reformation could have said all that they ever said, and more, in denunciation of the iniquity in the church, and the enormities of the Popes; and yet could have remained in good standing in that church, all their days: if they had still held that church to be the only and true church, and have held themselves in conformity with her accordingly.
All men saw the iniquities practiced. They actually felt them on every side. Nobles, kings, emperors, priests, bishops, cardinals, and councils, called for reformation. Even Popes confessed the sore need of it.
Princes and peoples wanted it for relief. The more observant of the clergy wanted it because of the fear that without it there would be such an universal uprising of the people in wrathful retaliation as would literally wipe out the whole order of the clergy.
But from whatever cause a reformation was desired, it was always attempted without righteousness. It was from men only, and not from God. And it was in this way from the very men who were essentially the cause of the demand for reform, and were essentially of the thing that must be reformed: that is, the church.
Inevitably all such attempts must be flat failures. How dismal was the effort--the failure--of the Council of Constance at reformation, when what was considered the best that it could do to save the church,--the burning of Huss and Jerome--was the worst thing that it could possibly do, for any cause or for any reason!
The explanation of this blank incongruity, and the key of the whole vicious circle of self-involved contradictions, is in the fact that all those men who denounced the Popes and their evil practices, and the extortions and oppressions of the clergy, held that the church of which all these evils were but the expression, was the true and only church!
Even when they were compelled to admit that the church was inextricably involved in it all, and when they were thus required to reflect even upon the church, this was always done with the reservation and apology that in spite of all this she was the true and only church.
They denounced the men and the activities of the men, even of the Popes and the papal court, but still apologized and pleaded for the machine.
They condemned the evil practices, but justified the system by which alone it was possible that those practices could not only be perpetuated, but could even exist.
The times were evil, but {the church} which made the times what they were, was {righteous!.}
Church-men were bad; but {the church,} whose members and the expression of whose like those churchmen essentially were, was {good!.}
Customs were pernicious; but {the church,} whose the customs essentially were, was {the abode of sanctity!.}
Practices were abominable; but {the church,} which invented many and profited by all of these practices, was {holy!.}
Popes were demoniac; but {the church,} of which the Popes were {the head}--the acting will, the guiding mind--was {divine!.}
See the grand churches and magnificent cathedrals! Hear the {heavenly.} music of the {divine.} chants! Catch the impressive odor of the {holy} incense! Feel the awe of the {solemn} services, as the richly-robed ecclesiastics minister at the {altar,} kneel before the {host,} and move in {holy} procession! Think of the wide extent of her {missions!} Behold her {perfect organization,} by which she executes as by one man the wonders of her will, holds empires in awe, and rules the world! Isn't that the true and only holy church?
The church was {the ark of God,} the ship of Salvation. The pilot, the captain, and the crew, might all be pirates, and use every motion of the ship only for piratical purposes, and load her to the sinking point with piratical plunder, and keep her ever headed straight toward perdition, yet {the grand old ship} herself was all right and would come safely to the heavenly port. Therefore, {cling to the ark,} {stand by the old ship,} and you will be safe and will land at last on the heavenly shore.
Such in essence is the conception held, and that for ages had been inculcated. For instance, in the very passage quoted on page 93 from Cardinal Baronius, in which he describes the fearful conditions of that church in the ninth century, there stand the cardinal's words as follows:--
{Christ was then assuredly sleeping a profound sleep in the bottom of His vessel whilst the winds buffeted it on all sides, and covered it with the waves of the sea. And what was more unfortunate still, the disciples of the Lord slept more profoundly than He, and could not awaken Him either by their cries or clamors.}
And in the General Council of Basle, 1432, the Pope's legate exhorted the Bohemians that--
{In the time of Noah's flood, as many as were without the ark perished.}
So long as this delusion was systematically inculcated, blindly received, and fondly hugged, of course reformation was impossible.
But as soon as there arose men with the courage of conviction and the confidence of truth, and spoke out plainly and flatly that the Roman system is not The Church at all in any feature or in any sense, then The Reformation had begun.
That is how The Reformation came. And without that The Reformation never could have come.
The Reformation as in the sixteenth century--the times of Luther--is not in fact the beginning of The Reformation. That was more the revival of it than the beginning.
The Reformation in truth began near the middle of the fourteenth century. And it takes that of both the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries to make The Reformation indeed.
The Reformation arose practically at the same time in England and in Bohemia: in England by Wicklif, 1360-1384; in Austria and Bohemia by Conrad of Waldhausen, 1350-1369; in Bohemia by Militz, 1360-1374; by Matthias of Janow, 1370-1394; and all of these were summed up in John Huss in Bohemia, 1398 July 6, 1415, and Jerome of Prague through the greater part of Europe, 1374-May 30, 1416.
These men saw the Roman church as it is. They were compelled to contemplate the deplorable scene of exactions, oppressions, and devastations, wrought by the church, and the anarchy of the popedom. It was ever before their eyes.
They considered this universal and deepening sea of iniquity, of all of which the Roman church more than anything else was the chief cause. They considered that church herself, in what she claimed to be, and in what she had proved herself to be. And upon thoughtful consideration, and in sober view, of it all, they were compelled to ask--
Is that, can that be, the true Church?
Is that the Church that Jesus sent into the world, to bless and save the world?
Is it the best that Christ the Lord could do to save the world, to put in the world a system and a power that proved itself only an unmitigated and deepening curse to the world?
Then they studied anew the Scriptures to know what is The Church according to the word, the thought, and the purpose, of God.
They asked of the living personal Christ that He make plain to them His own truth as to just what is His Church.
They asked that the Holy Spirit of promise should guide them into this truth: that in this, He should take the things of Christ and of God and show unto them.
Here is a prayer of Militz, that is good for every person in the world for all time: . {I prayed often that Almighty God would give me the Holy Spirit, and anoint me with His unction, that I might not fall into any error, and might enjoy the taste and perfume of true wisdom, so that I might deceive none and be deceived by none, and wish no longer to know anything but what is necessary for me and the Holy Church.}
And here is a touch of the experience of Matthias which is met with an answering glow in the heart of every Christian: {Once my mind was encompassed with a thick wall. I thought of nothing but what delighted the eye and the ear, till it pleased the Lord Jesus to draw me as a brand from the burning. And while I, worst slave of my passions, was resisting him in every way, he delivered me from the flames of Sodom, and brought me into the place of sorrow, of great adversities, and of much contempt.}
{Then first I became poor and contrite; and searched with trembling the Word of God. I began to admire the truth in the holy Scriptures, to see how, in all things, it must be fulfilled. Then first I began to wonder at the deep wiles of Satan: to see how he darkened the minds of all, even those who seemed to think themselves wisest.}
{And there entered into me, that is into my heart, a certain unusual, new, and powerful fire; but a very blessed fire, and which still continues to burn within me and is kindled the more in proportion as I lift up my soul in prayer to God and to our Lord Jesus the crucified. And it never abates or leaves me: except when I forget the Lord Jesus Christ, and fail to observe the right discipline in eating and drinking! then I am enveloped in clouds, and unfitted for all good works, till, with my whole heart and with deep sorrow I return to Christ, the true physician, the severe judge, He who punishes all sin, even to idle words and foolish thoughts.}
Those earnest Christian words fairly indicate the Spirit and source of The Reformation. It is only from the Spirit and Word of God, manifested in the regeneration of men: not in any revamping of a system, nor even in a renovation of manners.
Wicklif taught in the University of Oxford. The king of England married Anne, a sister of the king of Bohemia. Queen Anne received the Gospel. She read the Wicklif Bible, and recommended it to the high ones of the kingdom about her.
The University of Oxford, the University of Paris, and the University of Prague, were at that time the three great universities of Europe. Anne of Bohemia being England's queen formed a connecting link between Prague and Oxford.
Bohemian youth went to Oxford to study and were there seized with enthusiasm for the doctrines of Wicklif; and young English theologians went from Oxford to Prague where they spread the truths which they had learned from Wicklif. The writings of Wicklif were owned and studied by professors of the University of Prague.
Also the English students who went to Prague, met there the preaching and writings of the Bohemian Reformers; and the students who went to Oxford from Bohemia carried there these writings and teachings. Thus The Reformation in England and Bohemia became one. Jerome studied in Oxford. Huss studied the writings of Wicklif in the University of Prague.
Wicklif's teachings centred in the keeping of the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus. The teaching of the Bohemian Reformers included that, but centred more in the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, Matthew 24, and 2 Thess. 2, and other scriptures concerning the second coming of the Lord, and The Church: the Church, true and false.
By the work of Militz, Conrad, Matthias, and their disciples, evangelical truth was spread throughout Bohemia; and the field was thus prepared for the writings of Wicklif.
The mingling of the students of the two countries was the means of the blending of the great features of the respective teachings: each becoming the complement of the other.
Thus the teachings in the two countries of England and Bohemia became a symmetrical whole in the evangelical message that sounded throughout Europe, that was the rise of The Reformation.
Then the papacy arose in her wrath to put it down.
The burning of Huss and Jerome kindled a flame that speedily spread over all Bohemia. Within four years from the death of Huss, the bulk of the nation had embraced the faith for which he died. The papacy attempted by the force of mighty imperial armies to quench it; but at every turn she was miraculously defeated.
Miraculous is the word to use. No other would tell the whole truth.
Crusade after crusade was pushed upon devoted Bohemia. The armies of 70,000; 80,000; 100,000; 130,000; 180,000; were of the veterans of Europe. They were led by the emperor and the Pope's legate-a-latere. They were officered by electors, dukes, landgraves. and princes. They were directed by the best and most practiced generals that Europe knew. [1]
The Bohemians were mostly innocent peasants armed with flails and such other implements as they might gather--till they were supplied with arms from the defeated crusaders. Their general was a man totally blind--John Ziska. And yet, besides many skirmishes and sieges, in sixteen pitched battles that blind man and his peasants defeated the imperial armies. They never lost a single battle, siege, or skirmish.
Ziska died of the plague in 1424. He had named Procopius as his successor. The victories continued: and, in some sense, in even a more miraculous way.
In 1427 the crusading army of 180,000 was at the river that flows by Meiss prepared to attack the town. The Hussites marched up to the river on the opposite bank, and stood still. It was only for a moment that the invaders contemplated the Hussite ranks. A sudden panic fell upon them. They turned and fled in the utmost confusion.
In 1431 the crusading army of 130,000, marching from Nuremberg, invaded Bohemia. They were encamped at a point near Reisenberg. The Hussites were not yet in sight; but the sound of their wagons and the chanting of their host were heard. The Pope's legate stood on an eminence to see the great battle that was impending. But instead of his expected battle he saw a stampede of his whole army. He was startled by a strange and sudden movement in the host. As if smitten by some invisible power, it appeared all at once to break up and scatter. The soldiers threw away their armor and fled, one this way, another that; and the wagoners, emptying their vehicles of their load, set off across the plain at full gallop.
The panic extended to the officers equally with the soldiers. The Duke of Bavaria was one of the first to flee. He left behind him his carriage: in the hope that its spoil might tempt the enemy to delay their pursuit. Behind him, also in inglorious flight, came the Elector of Brandenberg; and following close on the elector were others of less note, chased from the field by this unseen terror.
The army followed: if that could be styled an army which had so lately been a marshalled and bannered host; but was now only a rabble rout, fleeing when no man pursued.
The cardinal legate tried to stem the tide. He threw himself in the path of flight, exhorting that they stand and fight for Christ and the salvation of souls, and urging that they had a better chance of saving their lives by fighting than by flying.
He succeeded in rallying a few. But it was only for a few minutes. They stood their ground only till the Bohemians were within a short distance of them. Then that strange terror again fell upon them, and the stampede became so perfectly uncontrollable that the legate himself was borne away in the current of bewildered and hurrying men ....
He left behind him his hat, his cross, his bell, and the Pope's bull proclaiming the crusade--that same crusade that had come to so ridiculous a termination.
This is now the second time the strange phenomenon of panic had been repeated in the Hussite wars.... There is here the touch of a Divine finger--the infusion of a preternatural terror.
So great was the stupefaction with which the crusaders were smitten that many of them, instead of continuing their flight into their own country, wandered back into Bohemia. While others of them, who reached their homes in Nuremberg, did not know their native city when they entered it; and began to beg for lodgings as if they were among strangers.
Then the papacy turned to new tactics. She proposed negotiations. And the Bohemians allowed themselves to be lured with her wiles and to be taken in her net!
The council of Basle was in session, 1432. The Bohemians were invited to come to the Council for a conference. Three hundred of them went; and in a discussion continued through three months, held their ground. Then they went home.
Next the Council sent a proposal to renew at Prague the negotiations that had been broken off at Basle. The Bohemian chiefs returned answer to the Council, bidding them to send forward their delegates to Prague.
The Diet of Bohemia was convoked, in 1434, with special reference to this matter. The outcome of the meeting was that the Bohemians agreed to a compromise. And of all things, a compromise of such character as revealed that they had already forgotten The Reformation; and that they now cared far more for peace with Rome than they cared for divine truth and the peace of God for which the Bohemian Reformers had so nobly contended, and for which Huss and Jerome had gone to death at the stake.
The compromise was that the four articles on which the Bohemians insisted, were accepted by the Council: the right of explaining the articles, to belong to the Council! [2]
This was only to give everything away to Rome. Rome knew this, and so intended it. The secretary of the Council, who himself drafted the document, said of it:--
This formula of the Council is short, but there is more in its meaning than in its words. It banishes all such opinions and ceremonies as are alien to the faith, and it takes the Bohemians bound to believe and to maintain all that the Church Catholic believes and maintains.
And when this same man became Pope--Pius II--he repudiated his own handiwork, and launched excommunication against Podiebrad [king of Bohemia] for attempting to govern on its principles.
Why could not the Bohemians see that this compromise was nothing but a complete surrender to Rome?--They had turned from the light to the darkness, from God to Rome.
God could fight for them and wondrously deliver them from all the power and expectation of Rome. He had abundantly shown to all the world that He would do this--while they stood with Him against Rome.
But when they allowed themselves to be lured from Him by the wiles of Rome and drawn into negotiations for peace with Rome, He could not fight for them in that. He could only let them have their own chosen way--and that the way of Rome!
The Reformation which had been so nobly begun and so wondrously maintained in Bohemia, was given away. It was not sold for a price. It was not even bartered, for a consideration. It was thoughtlessly given away.
This surrender was made by those who professed to be of The Reformation, but did not know The Reformation in spirit and in truth: those who had espoused the cause of The Reformation, but not The Reformation itself: those who had never received the divine principle and truth of The Church of the living God, but in whose minds and hearts there still lurked the superstitious fallacy that the Roman church is the true and only church: those who were glad to be freed from the exactions and oppressions of Rome, but cared not most of all to be freed from Rome herself.
When these met what seemed to them to promise the privilege of enjoying the benefits brought by The Reformation, and also the fellowship of Rome, of course they accepted it; for that is just what they had always wanted.
Yet there were those who were faithful. These utterly rejected the compact in which all was surrendered to Rome. Of those who accepted that compact, these said-- In this manner they receded from the footsteps of Huss, and returned to the camp of Antichrist.
These who were true to The Reformation became the object of bitter attack from all parties, and of persecution from all sides. Those who had professed to be of them, but had given themselves away to Rome, were the first to make war upon them.
By the cruel persecutions poured upon them, they were dispersed in the woods and mountains. They inhabited dens and caves. And in these abodes they were ever careful to prepare their meals by night, lest the ascending smoke should betray their lurking places.
Gathering round the fires which they kindled in these subterranean retreats in the cold of winter, they read the Word of God, and united in social worship. As they read and worshipped, and year after year went by; their numbers few, and the persecution ever persistent; and the reign of Rome universal; they were led to wonder how fared it with Christians otherwhere, or whether there were any others.
Were they alone all the witnesses of truth left on the earth? or were there others: companions with them in the faith and patience of the kingdom of Jesus Christ? They sent messengers into the various countries of Christendom, to inquire secretly and bring them word again.
These messengers returned to say that everywhere darkness covered the face of the earth; but that nevertheless, here and there, they had found isolated confessors of the truth- -a few in this city and a few in that--the object like themselves of persecution.
Yet they remembered the words of promise of coming day, that had been left them.
Wicklif had written that from amongst the monks some brothers whom God may vouchsafe to teach, will be devoutly converted to the primitive religion of Christ, and, abandoning their false interpretations of genuine Christianity, after having demanded, or acquired of themselves, permission from Antichrist, will freely return to the original religion of Christ; and they will build up the Church like Paul.
Matthias of Janow, as he was dying, said to his sorrowing friends: The rage of the enemies of the truth now prevails against us; but it will not be forever. There shall arise one from among the common people, without sword or authority, and against him they shall not be able to prevail.
Huss, in the dungeon in chains, just before his death, dreamed that certain persons had resolved to destroy in the night all the pictures of Christ that were on the walls of Bethlehem chapel in Prague where he used to preach: and that, indeed, they did destroy them.
But the next day many painters were engaged in drawing more pictures, and more beautiful ones, than were there before: upon which Huss gazed in rapture. When the painters had finished, they turned to the company of people who were looking on, and said: Now let the bishops and priests come and destroy these pictures.
And a great multitude of people joyed over it; and Huss rejoiced with them. And in the midst of the laughter and rejoicing, he awoke.
There were no real pictures of Christ on the walls of Bethlehem chapel. There were inscribed only the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and single verses of precious Scripture.
Of the dream, Huss said: I hope that the life of Christ which, by my preaching in Bethlehem, has been transcribed upon the hearts of men, and which they meant to destroy there,--first by forbidding preaching in the chapels and in Bethlehem, next by tearing down Bethlehem itself--that this life of Christ shall be better transcribed by a greater number of better preachers than I am: to the joy of the people who love the life of Christ. Over which I shall rejoice when I awake: that is, rise from the dead.
And as he stood at the stake, made fast to it by a chain, he said: It is thus that you silence the goose; but a hundred years hence there will arise a swan whose singing you shall not be able to silence. [3]
The hundred years passed. And then came from among the monks the brother of Wicklif, the one from the common people of Matthias, and the swan of Huss--Martin Luther.
On the morning of Oct. 31, 1517, the Elector Frederick of Saxony, in his castle of Schweinitz, about eighteen miles from Wittemberg, related to his brother, Duke John, and his chancellor, the following experience:--
The Elector.--Brother, I must tell you a dream which I had last night: the meaning of which I should like much to know. It is so deeply impressed on my mind, that I will never forget it were I to live a thousand years. For I dreamed it thrice, and each time with new circumstances.
Duke John.--Is it a good or a bad dream?
The Elector.--I know not: God knows.
Duke John.--Don't be uneasy at it; but be so good as to tell it to me.
The Elector.--Having gone to bed last night, fatigued and out of spirits, I fell asleep shortly after my prayer, and slept quietly for about two hours and a half. I then awoke, and continued awake till midnight--all sorts of thoughts passing through my mind. Among other things, I thought how I was to observe the feast of All Saints. I prayed for the poor souls in purgatory; and supplicated God to guide me, my counsels, and my people, according to truth.
I again fell asleep, and then dreamed that Almighty God sent me a monk, who was a true son of the Apostle Paul. All the saints accompanied him by order of God, in order to bear testimony before me and to declare that he did not come to contrive any plot; but that all that he did was according to the will of God. They asked me to have the goodness graciously to permit him to write something on the door of the church of the castle of Wittemberg. This I granted, through my chancellor.
Thereupon the monk went to the church, and began to write in such large characters that I could read the writing at Schweinitz. The pen which he used was so large that its end reached as far as Rome, where it pierced the ears of a lion [4] that was crouching there; and caused the triple crown upon the head of the Pope to shake. All the cardinals and princes, running hastily up, tried to prevent it from falling. You and I, brother, wished also to assist; and I stretched out my arm--but at this moment I awoke, with my arm in the air, quite amazed, and very much enraged at the monk for not managing his pen better. I recollected myself a little; it was only a dream.
I was still half asleep, and once more closed my eyes. The dream returned. The lion, still annoyed by the pen, began to roar with all his might so much so that the whole city of Rome and all the States of the holy empire ran to see what the matter was. The Pope requested them to oppose the monk, and applied particularly to me on account of his being in my country. I again awoke, repeated the Lord's Prayer, entreated God to preserve his holiness, and once more fell asleep.
Then I dreamed that all the princes of the empire, and we among them, hastened to Rome, and strove, one after another, to break the pen. But the more we tried, the stiffer it became--sounding as if it had been made of iron. We at length desisted. I then asked the monk (for I was sometimes at Rome, and sometimes at Wittemberg) where he got his pen, and why it was so strong. 'The pen,' replied he, 'belonged to an old goose of Bohemia--a hundred years old. I got it from one of my old schoolmasters. As to its strength, it is owing to the impossibility of depriving it of its pith or marrow; and I am quite astonished at it myself.'
Suddenly I heard a loud noise--a large number of other pens had sprung out of the long pen of the monk. I awoke a third time: it was daylight.
Duke John.--Chancellor, what is your opinion? Would we had a Joseph or a Daniel enlightened by God.
The Chancellor.--Your highnesses know the common proverb, that the dreams of young girls, learned men, and great lords, have usually some hidden meaning. The meaning of this dream, however, we will not be able to know for some time,--not till the things to which it relates have taken place. Wherefore, leave the accomplishment to God, and place it wholly in His hand.
Duke John.--I am of your opinion, Chancellor: tis not fit for us to annoy ourselves in attempting to discover the meaning. The God will overrule all for His glory.
The Elector.--May our faithful God do so. Yet I will never forget this dream. I have indeed thought of an interpretation; but I keep it to myself. Time, perhaps, will show if I have been a good diviner.
At noon of that very day the interpretation of the dream began, and the meaning to be made plain. For at that hour, without having made known to anybody his intentions, the monk, Martin Luther, nailed to the door of Wittemberg church his ninety-five theses against Rome.
The Reformation had arisen again.
And it had risen, nevermore to be put down. Luther in Germany, Zwingle in Switzerland, and soon others with these and everywhere, to the joy of a great multitude were engaged in restoring the image of Christ in the lives of men.
And among the laughing and rejoicing peoples there were two hundred congregations of Reformation Christians in Bohemia, who were descended through the long night and had watched eagerly for the promised day.
What it meant to all, was summed up in the words and sounded forth in the voice of one in curious garb, holding aloft a large cross, and chanting in a tone that seemed fitted to cause the dead to hear, as Luther entered the City of Worms--
Thou art come, O desired one!--thou for whom we have longed and waited in the darkness! [5]
Through a hundred years the Roman church had demonstrated that for The Reformation, for The Church and the Christianity which The Reformation revealed, she holds only perpetual enmity. In this additional field--the field of the strictly spiritual--the Roman church had further proved to all the world the truth that the Reformers preached, that she is not the true church in any feature nor in any sense.
The conditions in Europe were now barely less deplorable than when The Reformation first arose. The hundred years between, had been but a hundred years more of all that the Roman church could show herself to be.
The promise and effort of the Council of Constance to reform the church in its head and members, had amounted to nothing more than the ending of the open anarchy of the church, and the bringing back of the popedom to only one Pope at a time. All of the other evils of the church held steadily onward.
The speech that was made by Duke George in the Diet of Worms, and that was put in writing for the action of the Diet, will be sufficient evidence here that the church was still the same--simply incorrigible: and this simply because that church being infallible is irreformable of itself. Duke George said:--
The Diet must not forget the grievances of which it complains against the court of Rome. What abuses have crept into our States! The annats which the emperor granted freely for the good of Christendom, now demanded as a debt; the Roman courtiers every day inventing new ordinances in order to absorb, sell, and farm out, ecclesiastical benefices; rich offenders unworthily tolerated, while those who have no means of ransom are punished without pity; the Popes incessantly bestowing expectancies and reversions on the inmates of their palace, to the detriment of those to whom the benefices belong; the commendams of abbeys and convents of Rome conferred on cardinals, bishops, and prelates, who appropriate their revenues, so that there is not one monk in convents which ought to have twenty or thirty; stations multiplied without end, and indulgence shops established in all the streets and squares of our cities--shops of St. Anthony, shops of the Holy Spirit, of St. Hubert, of St. Cornelius, of St. Vincent, and many others besides; societies purchasing from Rome the right of holding such markets, then purchasing from their bishop the right of exhibiting their wares, and, in order to procure all this money, draining and emptying the pockets of the poor; the indulgence, which ought to be granted solely for the salvation of souls, and which ought to be merited only by prayers and fastings, sold at a regular price; the officials of the bishops oppressing those in humble life with penances for blasphemy, adultery, debauchery, the violation of this or that feast-day, while, at the same time, not even censuring ecclesiastics who are guilty of the same crimes; penances imposed on the penitent, and artfully arranged so that he soon falls anew into the same fault, and pays so much the more money.
Such are some of the crying abuses of Rome.
All sense of shame has been cast off, and one thing only is pursued--money! money!
Hence, preachers who ought to teach the truth, now do nothing more than retail lies--lies, which are not only tolerated, but recompensed, because the more they lie, the more they gain. From this polluted well comes forth al this polluted water.
Debauchery goes hand in hand with avarice.
The officials cause women to come to their houses under divers pretexts, and strive to seduce them, sometimes by menaces, sometimes by presents, or, if they do not succeed, injure them in their reputation.
Ah! the scandals caused by the clergy precipitate multitudes of poor souls into eternal condemnation!
There must be a universal reform, and this reform must be accomplished by summoning a General Council.
Wherefore, most excellent princes and lords, with submission I implore you to lose no time in the consideration of this matter.
That he should retract what he had written in denunciation of the Roman church in all these things, was part of the demand that was made upon Luther at the Diet of Worms.
He replied: I have composed books against the papacy-- books in which I have attacked those who, by their false doctrine, their bad life, and scandalous example desolate the Christian world, and destroy both body and soul. Is not the fact proved by the complaints of all who fear God? Is it not evident that the human laws and doctrines of the Popes entangle, torture, martyr, the conscience of the faithful; while the claimant and never-ending extortions of Rome engulf the wealth and riches of Christendom, and particularly of this illustrious kingdom?
Were I to retract what I have written on this subject, what should I do?--What but fortify that tyranny, and open a still wider door for these many and great iniquities? Then, breaking forth with more fury than ever, these arrogant men would be seen increasing, usurping, raging, more and more.
And the yoke which weighs upon the Christian people would, by my retraction, not only be rendered more severe, but would become, so to speak, more legitimate; for by this very retraction, it would have received the confirmation of your most serene majesty, and of all the States of the holy empire.
Good God! I should thus be, as it were, an infamous cloak, destined to hide and cover all sorts of malice and tyranny.
And because he would not retract, and so confirm the papacy in all that she is, there was published against him the Edict of Worms, which brought, in opposition to it, the Protest that put into the world the word Protestant which the Federal Council of Churches did retract.
And the retraction of the word Protestant, by the Federal Council of Churches, carries in it, the sanction of all that the retraction by Luther that day would have sanctioned. This means the same as that would have meant.
It means the making choice of Rome, not merely instead of, but against, The Reformation.
And this creates the situation in which every person in America must now make his choice of--
The Reformation or Rome.
And the impetus given to the Romeward trend, and the encouragement given to Rome herself, in this Nation, by that retraction of Protestant--that choice of Rome against The Reformation--by the Federal Council, will soon develop the situation in which every person will be compelled to make his choice of--
Rome or the Reformation.
Notes:
1. The sources of the quotations, facts, and dates, in this chapter are, Wylie's History of Protestantism, Book III, chap. xiii-xix; D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, Book III, chap. iv; Book VII, chap. iv, viii.
2. The four articles were--I. The free preaching of the Word. II. The right of the laity to the Cup, and the use of the vernacular. III. The ineligibility of the clergy to secular office and rule in all parts of Divine worship. IV. The execution of the laws in the case of all crimes, without respect of persons.
3. The word Huss in the Bohemian language is equivalent to goose.
4. Leo X was then Pope.
5. Advenisti, O desideribilis! Quem expectabamus in tenebris!.)