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064 - 1 The Heralds of Protestantism · Short History of the Christian Church

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Speaker 1: Part three, Chapter one of Short History of the Christian
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Speaker 1: Church by John Fletcher Hurst. This LibriVox recording is in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. Part three The Reformation a d. Fifteen
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Speaker 1: seventeen to fifteen forty five, Chapter one, The Heralds of Protestantism.
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Speaker 1: The Reformation, like all great historical movements, was of slow
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Speaker 1: and unattractive development. Long in coming into notice, it was
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Speaker 1: equally long in finding its champions. The cause was waiting
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Speaker 1: for its men, and when the need was supreme, they
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Speaker 1: appeared with heroic spirit, great organizing genius, and amazing power
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Speaker 1: of endurance. Protestantism was an oak of young and vigorous
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Speaker 1: growth in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, but
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Speaker 1: its roots lay deep in the soil of the fourteenth
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Speaker 1: The Reformation possessed two characteristics, one national, with all the
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Speaker 1: individuality that might be expected of race and land, the
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Speaker 1: other cosmopolitan, having general fiber and color, always the same,
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Speaker 1: whatever the country or people. From Norway to the Alps,
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Speaker 1: and from Transylvania to the Bay of Biscay, the Reformation
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Speaker 1: has proved to be the chief turning point in modern history.
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Speaker 1: It is that great religious and intellectual revolution which marks
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Speaker 1: the boundary line between the Middle Ages and the modern period,
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Speaker 1: the call for regeneration was deep and loud. Superstition had
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Speaker 1: become interwoven with the pure doctrine of the Gospel. The
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Speaker 1: morals of the clergy, from the papacy down to the
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Speaker 1: humblest monks had become corrupt. The highest ecclesiastical offices were
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Speaker 1: reached by vicious means. The common people were purposely kept
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Speaker 1: in ignorance against these evils ruinous atime, once to intellect
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Speaker 1: and soul, the reformers made their bold protest and called
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Speaker 1: upon the people to rally to their standard. Their aim
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Speaker 1: was at first a purification of the church within itself
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Speaker 1: and by its own servants. This proved a total failure.
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Speaker 1: The next step was to withdraw from the fold and
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Speaker 1: establish an independent confession and a separate ecclesiastical structure. This succeeded,
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Speaker 1: and the result is that vast and aggressive sisterhood of
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Speaker 1: Protestant churches which exists today in all the advanced countries
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Speaker 1: of the world. The pioneers of reform in religious life
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Speaker 1: and doctrine were obscure, and some of the very names
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Speaker 1: have not become known to history, but their work was
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Speaker 1: heroically performed Protestantism, when it emerged from its seclusion and
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Speaker 1: became a thing of the noon day, had the great
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Speaker 1: benefit of a slowly late and solid basis. But not
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Speaker 1: all the predecessors of the successful reformers of the sixteenth
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Speaker 1: century were unknown men. Some of them a few in
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Speaker 1: each country which took its place in the community of
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Speaker 1: Protestant nations, have become familiar names and belong in the
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Speaker 1: same front line with the reformers themselves. It is not
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Speaker 1: difficult to account for the failure of those first workers
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Speaker 1: for the religious regeneration of Europe. More than one generation
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Speaker 1: is always needed to achieve a moral revolution. A work
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Speaker 1: that shall last for the ages requires a larger and
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Speaker 1: longer sacrifice than a few calm toilers. Through a few decades,
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Speaker 1: the heralds of the Reformation trod in new paths. They
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Speaker 1: labored steadily on without a single encouraging precedent, and ran
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Speaker 1: the constant risk of losing their heads. An archbishop's voice
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Speaker 1: could silence behind the bolted doors of the London Dame Tower,
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Speaker 1: the loudest protesting voice in Britain, while the mere role
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Speaker 1: call of the Council of Constance could hasten even huss
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Speaker 1: to the stake. When the real reformers came upon the
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Speaker 1: scene of action, especially in Germany, the risk of losing
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Speaker 1: life was not so great. Charles the Fifth aped towards
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Speaker 1: the Protestants, the charity of Julian the Apostate towards all
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Speaker 1: the faiths of the later Roman Empire. Hence, while Charles
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Speaker 1: the Fifth was Emperor of Germany, he openly favored moderate
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Speaker 1: measures towards the Protestants. That is to say, all repressive
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Speaker 1: methods must be adopted, except death itself. In Holland, however,
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Speaker 1: Charles the Fifth dealt out death with merciless hand. In
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Speaker 1: his commands to his son Philip the Second, in whose
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Speaker 1: favor he abdicated, he urged him to spare no pains
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Speaker 1: to uproot the new heresy. But there was a difference
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Speaker 1: between his relation to Germany and to Holland. Of the former,
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Speaker 1: he was only emperor by election. Each country had its
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Speaker 1: separate ruler, and the civil relations were in charge of
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Speaker 1: the rightful princes. But Charles the Fifth was king over
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Speaker 1: the Netherlands, having received that country by inheritance. Therefore, when
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Speaker 1: the Dutch rebelled against the civil authorities and declared themselves
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Speaker 1: Protestants and Republicans. It was a revolution against his personal authority.
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Speaker 1: He accordingly put to death the Protestants of that country
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Speaker 1: without the least hesitation, while in Germany he never went
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Speaker 1: so far as to claim such rights. In England, the
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Speaker 1: condition was still more encouraging for Protestants. Henry the eighth
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Speaker 1: not only professed their faith, but protected his subjects against
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Speaker 1: all interference on the part of the priesthood and the
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Speaker 1: management of the Pope. In sharp contrast with this general
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Speaker 1: improvement in personal safety during the progress of the Reformation
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Speaker 1: was that previous insecurity. The herald of reform was not
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Speaker 1: safe an hour. He had no protector. There was no
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Speaker 1: organization of sympathetic minds. Each earnest individual who lunged for
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Speaker 1: the better day became an object of suspicion, and in
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Speaker 1: due time of bitter persecution, the shedding of blood for
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Speaker 1: a slight offense, especially against the Church, was an easy
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Speaker 1: thing to bring about. The secret methods of silencing honest
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Speaker 1: speech had long since grown into a fine art. The
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Speaker 1: two kinds of reformers were happily blended. In the foreground
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Speaker 1: of the Protestant picture. The herald who cried in the
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Speaker 1: wilderness was a fit companion of him whose coming he proclaimed.
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Speaker 1: The former because silenced for the moment, appeared to fail.
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Speaker 1: The heralds of Protestantism caught their successors by their own
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Speaker 1: experience what dangers to avoid and what were the true
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Speaker 1: forces of success. Luther, for example, in the most delicate
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Speaker 1: and difficult part of his career his relation with the
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Speaker 1: princes of Saxony, learned from the indiscretion of Savonarola in
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Speaker 1: his dealing with the Medici and the temporal government of Florence,
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Speaker 1: that the reformer is never fully master of himself and
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Speaker 1: can never be the finally successful leader, unless he holds
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Speaker 1: severely aloof from all political management and confine his labors
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Speaker 1: to the one work of religious reform. Luther saw that
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Speaker 1: the moment the reformer turns aside from his work, he
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Speaker 1: is in danger of forfeiting his entire mission. He has
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Speaker 1: in any event lost his crown, the sublime unity of
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Speaker 1: moral purpose. The Paris reformers planted the first seeds of
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Speaker 1: Protestantism in Franks. In the reformatory councils, they spoke strong
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Speaker 1: words for universal regeneration the University of Paris, where they
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Speaker 1: taught was the scene of their heart, hotly contested and
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Speaker 1: unrequited labor. Peter de Ali born thirteen fifty and died
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Speaker 1: fourteen twenty five contributed largely towards awakening and desire for
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Speaker 1: a thoroughly new religious life in priesthood and people. His
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Speaker 1: genius ripened early. He saw the vanity of the prevailing
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Speaker 1: scholasticism and applied its better qualities to biblical interpretation. He
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Speaker 1: laid before the Council of Constance a plan for the
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Speaker 1: reformation of the Church, which proved of no avail. He
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Speaker 1: nullified his own work, however, and stained his otherwise fair
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Speaker 1: fame by voting for the condemnation of has. He never
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Speaker 1: withdrew from the Roman Catholic Church, and died in discontent
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Speaker 1: with the evils which he failed to remedy. His great
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Speaker 1: service lay in the distrust which he created towards the
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Speaker 1: papal authorities, and in the dissatisfaction with the Church, which
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Speaker 1: pervaded his sermons, lectures, and writings, and which in time
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Speaker 1: became a dangerous factor against the Romanism of the land.
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Speaker 1: Diailli made several excursions into the field of science, and
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Speaker 1: Columbus was indebted to him for his idea of a
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Speaker 1: Western passage to the Indies. He stood high in the
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Speaker 1: estimation of the church. John Charlie Gerson born thirteen sixty
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Speaker 1: three and died fourteen twenty nine was a disciple of Diali.
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Speaker 1: He rose to great prominence in the University of Paris, and,
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Speaker 1: withdrawing from scholasticism, aimed at the reconciliation of Mysticism with Christianity.
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Speaker 1: He laid great stress on the necessity of a pure
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Speaker 1: religious experience, protested against the kur state of the Church,
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Speaker 1: and declared that the two rival popes in Rome and
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Speaker 1: Avignon should be removed, rather than that Christians should be
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Speaker 1: compelled to endorse either the one or the other. His
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Speaker 1: sermons after he became pastor of a church in Paris
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Speaker 1: attracted large audiences because of his eloquence and his bold
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Speaker 1: position for ecclesiastical reform. He became an exile because of
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Speaker 1: the opposition of the Duke of Burgundy, and only in
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Speaker 1: his later life, in fourteen nineteen, returned to France. He
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Speaker 1: resided in Lyon and died in the Roman Catholic fold.
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Speaker 1: He saw but little fruit of his reformatory labors and
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Speaker 1: passed away with only the hope that others might possess
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Speaker 1: what he had striven in much sorrow and disappointment to attain.
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Speaker 1: He was a transitional character, possessing the qualities of both
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Speaker 1: the Romanist and the reformer. For example, he did not
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Speaker 1: recognized the Church and the papacy, but the Bible as
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Speaker 1: the only rule of faith and the one to which
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Speaker 1: all final appeal must be made. At the same time,
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Speaker 1: he opposed the reading of the Bible in the popular
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Speaker 1: language in the rural churches, and believed that all should
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Speaker 1: submit unconditionally to the Church. Nicholas Clemanay born thirteen sixty
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Speaker 1: and died about fourteen forty was a disciple of both
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Speaker 1: Diali and Gerson, but he marked a great advance beyond
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Speaker 1: them in reformatory spirit. He declared that the councils were
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Speaker 1: superior authority to the papacy, that the Pope was inferior
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Speaker 1: to the Council of Constance, and that the Bible had
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Speaker 1: authority even over the council. He boldly advocated the doctrine
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Speaker 1: of the invisible Church and held that the Church can
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Speaker 1: only exist where the Holy Spirit is present. He was
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Speaker 1: an eloquent defender of the independence of the Gallican Church
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Speaker 1: against the absolut rule of the papacy. The Paris Theologians
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Speaker 1: failed in their work, and from very obvious causes. They
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Speaker 1: never withdrew from the Roman Catholic Church or took steps
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Speaker 1: to establish a separate ecclesiastical organization. This has been a
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Speaker 1: general cause of the failure of French Catholic reformatory movements,
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Speaker 1: even down to our own times. When the final hour came,
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Speaker 1: the Paris reformers hesitated to revolt. They halted and did
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Speaker 1: not take the one last step of departure from the
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Speaker 1: communion which they could not love or approve. Besides this
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Speaker 1: fatal mistake, the attack of the Paris Theologians was not
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Speaker 1: a steady, earnest and specific progress. It was a sudden
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Speaker 1: blast and often repeated, but not an onward march. Some
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Speaker 1: of the weakest points of Romanism were entirely overlooked by them.
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Speaker 1: They expressed, for example, but little sympathy with reft formatory
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Speaker 1: measures in other countries. They belonged to the learned class,
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Speaker 1: moved in that circle alone, and unlike the German reformers
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Speaker 1: who also arose in a university, were without popular tastes
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Speaker 1: and affinities, and had only a limited, though cultivated constituency
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Speaker 1: during their whole career. On the other hand, they planted
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Speaker 1: the seeds of a permanent popular dislike of the prevailing
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Speaker 1: order of things, and were the real and direct precursors
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Speaker 1: of the brave, huge naughts. The mystics of the fourteenth
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Speaker 1: and fifteenth centuries arose as a spiritual reaction against the
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Speaker 1: supremacy of the scholastic philosophy. Remotely, they were an opposing
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Speaker 1: school to all the immorality and spiritual oppression of the times.
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Speaker 1: They saw the injury inflicted on the Church by the
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Speaker 1: long and fruitless discussions of the schoolmen, and aimed to
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Speaker 1: call back the Christian mind to the sense of dependence
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Speaker 1: on God, the need of a profound religious experience, and
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Speaker 1: a contemplative and receptive attitude of the soul which awaits
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Speaker 1: constant communications of the Holy Spirit. The mystic attached too
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Speaker 1: little importance to the written word and magnified the worth
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Speaker 1: of merely spiritual impressions. He was contemplative and rhapsodical, and
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Speaker 1: held himself constantly ready for new revelations. Intuitions were his
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Speaker 1: second Bible. He did not regard monasticism as the solution
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Speaker 1: for the spiritual dearth of the times. Neither did he
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Speaker 1: think the best way to build up a new religious
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Speaker 1: life was to separate from the church. His thought was
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Speaker 1: to preach to the people and awaken them to a
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Speaker 1: sense of their needs, and thus from the center to
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Speaker 1: reform the whole body of the Church without disturbing the
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Speaker 1: existing economy and order. The mystic cared not who might
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Speaker 1: be the Pope of the hour, or whether there was
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Speaker 1: a pope at all. He considered that personage a fine
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Speaker 1: piece of ornamental work, like a marble saint in a
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Speaker 1: cathedral chapel, but having no relation to the general architecture
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Speaker 1: of the edifice. The one concern of the mystic was
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Speaker 1: the condition of the individual heart, the religious life of
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Speaker 1: the private believer. Germany was the central scene and native
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Speaker 1: country of the most notable reformatory mystics. Master Eckhart, who
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Speaker 1: died about thirteen twenty nine, belonged to the Dominican order
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Speaker 1: of monks and produced a strong impression by his writings
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Speaker 1: and preaching in favor of a purer religious life. The
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Speaker 1: general drift of his teaching was that the doctrines of
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Speaker 1: the Bible were the only truth and that this truth
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Speaker 1: has its proper effect in the purity of the heart.
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Speaker 1: We reach purity by introspection. God is in the soul.
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Speaker 1: We look outwardly when we should look within. But purity
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Speaker 1: must be deeply rooted in the soul, for God will
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Speaker 1: not enter where there is an unholy thought. Many of
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Speaker 1: Eckert's order pronounced him a heretic because of his fearless speech.
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Speaker 1: The three fundamental objections to him were his bold charges
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Speaker 1: of immorality in the clergy, his strong language against the
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Speaker 1: worship of Mary, and against the power of purgatory to
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Speaker 1: purify a corrupt soul. John Roysbroke was born twelve ninety three.
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Speaker 1: He became prior of the monastery of Gruenthal near Brussels
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Speaker 1: and was the founder of the Dutch mysticism. He saw
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Speaker 1: a universal sinfulness in his age, priests and people alike,
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Speaker 1: overwhelmed and whirled on by the current of sin. The
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Speaker 1: prime source of the prevailing corruption was the impurity of
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Speaker 1: the church and its incapacity to resist the temptation of
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Speaker 1: gold and lust. It was too far gone to save itself,
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Speaker 1: even the popes, said Ruisebroke bowed the knee to the
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Speaker 1: God of gold, the church had no healing power. Only
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Speaker 1: God in the soul could deliver from sin. Ruesbroke was
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Speaker 1: a twofold character, contemplative and mystical on the one hand,
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Speaker 1: and on the other the practical and every day reformer.
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Speaker 1: He had two constituencies. His voice reached palace and hut
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Speaker 1: with equal force. Henry Souso, born in Swabia in twelve
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Speaker 1: ninety five, took his name from that of his mother's family,
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Speaker 1: Swiss or Seuss, which he latinized into Souso. His early
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Speaker 1: religious life was spent in self torture and contemplation. He
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Speaker 1: lived in a thick gloom. His thought was that only
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Speaker 1: by the suffering of the flesh could God be pleased.
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Speaker 1: His close fitting shirt of one hundred inn fifty nails
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Speaker 1: with points turned inwards towards his flesh was his favorite
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Speaker 1: and royal robe. He loved it better than the purple.
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Speaker 1: For sixteen years he tortured both soul and body. By
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Speaker 1: the hearing of Towler in Cologne, he was admitted into
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Speaker 1: larger liberty. He became less acetic and more a citizen
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Speaker 1: of the world. He called himself the servant of the
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Speaker 1: eternal Wisdom, to whom he paid a lover's homage as
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Speaker 1: to a radiant may queen. He was passionately fond of music,
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Speaker 1: and when in ecstasy, fancied himself in the midst of
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Speaker 1: angelic ministers. Of his book The Horologue of Wisdom, he
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Speaker 1: said that it came to him in moments of supreme joy,
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Speaker 1: when he lay passive in the power of the high inspiration.
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Speaker 1: He summed up his whole theology in the following, A
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Speaker 1: meek man must be deformed from the creature, conformed to Christ,
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Speaker 1: and transformed into the Deity. The entire tendency of Souso's
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Speaker 1: teaching was in favor of religious reform. His life was
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Speaker 1: one long lament over the evils of his times, for
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Speaker 1: which he held the Church responsible. He declared of the
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Speaker 1: popes that good government had departed from them, and that
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Speaker 1: they thought more of gold and the putting of their
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Speaker 1: relatives into power than of the Church of God, and
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Speaker 1: that the cardinals, bishops, abbots, teachers, monastic orders, and secular
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Speaker 1: clergy were corrupt and debauched and unworthy their places of honor.
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Speaker 1: He believed that his whole generation was so depraved that
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Speaker 1: a reformation would be a very miracle of divine mercy.
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Speaker 1: He feared the miracle might never come. His pleas were lamentations.
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Speaker 1: He was the Jeremiah of the fourteenth century. John Toller
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Speaker 1: born twelve ninety and died thirteen sixty one was a
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Speaker 1: devoted disciple of Eckart. He was more a man of
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Speaker 1: the people than his master. He spoke in plain language
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Speaker 1: and often aroused the sensibilities to the highest pitch. He
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Speaker 1: excelled all the medieval mystics in his burning zeal, his
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Speaker 1: popular sympathies, and his profound adherence to the doctrine of
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Speaker 1: justification by faith. In this last sense, Luther followed only
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Speaker 1: in his footprints. He was the most eloquent preacher of
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Speaker 1: his times. Strasbourg was the chief scene of his ministry.
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Speaker 1: There was much realistic power in his preaching that often
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Speaker 1: people were overcome and became insensible during the delivery of
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Speaker 1: his sermons. He taught that there are three stages possible
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Speaker 1: to the heart, nature, grace, and the direct shining of
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Speaker 1: the divine Spirit. When this last and highest stage is reached,
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Speaker 1: the soul forgets itself and God possesses it wholly. The
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Speaker 1: human spirit is as molten wax in which the Holy
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Speaker 1: Spirit makes its image. Towler rebuked the priestly pretensions of
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Speaker 1: his times and cried aloud for each man to think
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Speaker 1: and feel for himself. He declared the true priesthood of
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Speaker 1: every Christian man and insisted that the Christ should dwell
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Speaker 1: within us. Like some of his mystical predecessors, whose language
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Speaker 1: was too strong for the fashion of the times, he
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Speaker 1: was threatened with excommunication, but he continued his preaching against
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Speaker 1: the prevailing sins of the church without serious interruption, and
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Speaker 1: the authorities in Rome were finally compelled to let him
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Speaker 1: proceed as a person more dangerous to interfere with than
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Speaker 1: to be at liberty. The Black Death, a violent plague,
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Speaker 1: together with the papal interdict, rested upon Strasbourg, but Towler's
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Speaker 1: preaching attracted the entire part population, diverted their thought, and
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Speaker 1: was the only relief to the sorrow and suffering of
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Speaker 1: the people. He declared that the troubles were a divine
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Speaker 1: visitation because of the sins of the people, and that
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Speaker 1: only by repentance and a pure life could relief come.
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Speaker 1: His principal work was his imitation of the poor life
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Speaker 1: of Christ. Of all the mystics, Towler was the nearest
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Speaker 1: approach to a universal character. Real goodness, like genius, is
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Speaker 1: at home in every age. Towler was not only reverenced
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Speaker 1: by the devout and zealous Christians of his own time,
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Speaker 1: but stands out as a grand and towering figure in
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Speaker 1: the spiritual world of all later periods. He was a
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Speaker 1: striking example in a dark age of how far one
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Speaker 1: man can lift up his generation and furnish light for
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Speaker 1: even later ones. A voice as unto him that hears,
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Speaker 1: a cry of the conquered years, to one that with
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Speaker 1: us works. When the reformers arose, they immediately discovered in
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Speaker 1: Towler a kindred soul, one in whom they found great joy,
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Speaker 1: and who had contributed largely to harald their approach. He
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Speaker 1: was but an elder brother to the groups. In both
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Speaker 1: Wittenberg and Oxford. Luther himself edited the Theological Germanica, supposed
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Speaker 1: by some critics to have been written by Towler. Luther's
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Speaker 1: own words would not suit Towler when he says in
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Speaker 1: his preface to the Theologia Germanica that it was written
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Speaker 1: by a German gentleman, a priest and warden in the
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Speaker 1: house of the Teutonic Order at Frankfurt, but whether by
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Speaker 1: him or not. It reflects his pure spirit and that
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Speaker 1: of all the better mystics, and is singularly in harmony
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Speaker 1: with Towler's preaching. Luther communed with Towler's writings as with
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Speaker 1: a living and present friend. To John Lang, he wrote,
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Speaker 1: keep to Towler, he gave his friend Spolatin this advice,
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Speaker 1: if you would be pleased to make acquaintance with the
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Speaker 1: solid theology of the good old sort in the German tongue,
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Speaker 1: get John Towler's sermons, For neither in Latin nor in
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Speaker 1: our own language, have I ever seen a theology more
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Speaker 1: sound or more in harmony with the Gospel. The School
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Speaker 1: of Saint Victor was one of the marvels of the times.
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Speaker 1: It represented, in organized and compact form, the aspiration of
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Speaker 1: the age for purer thinking, for spiritual absorption, and for
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Speaker 1: revolt against the prevailing ecclesiastical evils. Within eighty years of
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Speaker 1: its founding in the eleventh century, it could count its
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Speaker 1: thirty abbeys and eighty priories. Its two most notable members
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Speaker 1: were Hugo and Richard. They were at once speculator thinkers
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Speaker 1: and spiritual mystics. They aimed to harmonize mysticism with scholasticism.
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Speaker 1: These were but terms of the day for the too
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Speaker 1: old and still ever new names of revelation and science.
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Speaker 1: Both Hugo and Richard saw no antagonism, but held that
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Speaker 1: each was the complement of the other. Hugo aimed to
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Speaker 1: solidify and clarify spiritual thinking by logical methods. He disdained
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Speaker 1: the rigid uniformity of the traditional creed of Romanism and
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Speaker 1: called for freedom and faith, and freedom in faith. He
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Speaker 1: declared that there is an eye of the soul by
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Speaker 1: which we contemplate and see new truths, and by them
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Speaker 1: attained to a blessedness of the soul and a peaceful
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Speaker 1: trust in God. The common and natural faculties cannot see deeply.
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Speaker 1: The spiritual sense alone is far sighted, enabled to apprehend
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Speaker 1: in the day distant spaces the spiritual truth. But we
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Speaker 1: must guard against delusion, not the fancy, but faith can
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Speaker 1: reveal it to us. Richard of Saint Victor was a
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Speaker 1: native of Scotland. In eleven sixty two he became prior
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Speaker 1: of the abbey. Ervisius was the abbot and therefore responsible
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Speaker 1: for the discipline. The morals in the abbey had been
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Speaker 1: at a very low Ebb and Richard saw in them
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Speaker 1: a picture of the moral prostration of his times and
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Speaker 1: the need of a new spiritual life. He regarded mysticism
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Speaker 1: as the only hope of relief. But it must be
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Speaker 1: a carefully adjusted, firm and well rounded system. None of
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Speaker 1: your wild and absurd fancies of a disturbed brain. Build
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Speaker 1: up mysticism on logical scholasticism, and you have what you
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Speaker 1: need to cure the evils of the day. Thus Richard
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Speaker 1: reasoned and wisely enough, but when he came to touch
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Speaker 1: the revealed truth, he lost his balance. He converted all
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Speaker 1: scripture into a string of shining allegory and metaphor. He
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Speaker 1: surpassed all the fancies of origin and the Alexandrian school,
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Speaker 1: and found in the Bible in a limitable realm of truth.
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Speaker 1: No history or incident existed that did not mean far
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Speaker 1: more than the letters said. He made meditation the great
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Speaker 1: theological basis. Contemplation was a height which could be reached
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Speaker 1: by six steps, the uppermost of which is penitents. When
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Speaker 1: the soul once stood on that, it was above the
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Speaker 1: low steps of imagination and reason, and was lost in
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Speaker 1: sublime ecstasy. The age was corrupt. Thrice dead and plucked
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Speaker 1: up by the roots, and nothing could save it but
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Speaker 1: purer morals, a return to better thoughts, and the coming
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Speaker 1: back of the Church to an unselfish and zealous spe
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Speaker 1: spiritual life. The Brothers of the Common Life were an
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Speaker 1: association of mystical minds who made it their aim to
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Speaker 1: reform the Church by a purification of the heart. They
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Speaker 1: placed more emphasis on the regeneration of the soul than
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Speaker 1: the outward organization of the church. They held that if
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Speaker 1: once the heart is right, the outward forms will soon
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Speaker 1: assume right shapes. The whole life must be centered in
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Speaker 1: the love of God, and then the heart will be sanctified.
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Speaker 1: Thomas A. Kempis belonged to this fraternity. His Imitation of
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Speaker 1: Christ has always been a favorite among both Romanists and Protestants,
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Speaker 1: and has had the largest circulation of any book except
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Speaker 1: the Bible. It has been translated into all the principal languages,
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Speaker 1: and is known to have passed through three hundred editions.
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Speaker 1: The Friends of God were an organization of laymen which
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Speaker 1: flourished in the latter part of the fourteenth century. They
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Speaker 1: were warm in their attachment to the Roman fold, and
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Speaker 1: yet were alarmed at the evils which they saw about
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Speaker 1: them in both clergy and laity. This society was a
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Speaker 1: strong proof that the moral declension of the times was
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Speaker 1: seen and understood by devout minds among the laymen, as
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Speaker 1: well as by ministers of the Gospel. Its members extended
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Speaker 1: throughout western Germany and the larger part of Switzerland, and
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Speaker 1: contributed largely to prepare the way among the people for
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Speaker 1: Luther and his coadjutors. Nicholas, a layman of Basel and
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Speaker 1: a convert through the preaching of Towler, wrought in connection
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Speaker 1: with them and was their most conspicuous representative. Among their
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Speaker 1: members must be Reckoned Conrad Abbot of Kaisersheim, the nuns
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Speaker 1: of unter Linden in Colmar and Basel, the sisters of Ethelgal,
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Speaker 1: the knights of Rheinfeld, Faeppenheim and Landsberg, and the the
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Speaker 1: rich merchant ruleman Mrzwyn. The Love of God was the
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Speaker 1: one universal law which the Friends of God insisted upon.
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Speaker 1: They declared that the Church had closed its doors to
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Speaker 1: the truth, and that the only hope for their opening
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Speaker 1: was a higher spiritual life. Tewler called the Friends of
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Speaker 1: God the pillars of Christendom and the protectors for a
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Speaker 1: while from God's just cloud of wrath. Holland was one
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Speaker 1: of the earliest and most forward countries in which the
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Speaker 1: spirit of reform was manifested. The universities were the great fountains,
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Speaker 1: whence the Protestants stream arose, and from which it descended
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Speaker 1: into the less educated masses. John Pepper, born about fourteen
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Speaker 1: o one, took the family name of Goch from the
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Speaker 1: place of his birth, a town near Cleves, and called
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Speaker 1: himself John of Goch. He founded the Priory of the
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Speaker 1: Canonesses of Saint Augustine in Mech in fourteen fifty one,
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Speaker 1: and for twenty five years occupied the office of rector
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Speaker 1: or confessor to the nuns. He combined in rare harmony
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Speaker 1: the spiritual and the practical. He held that faith must
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Speaker 1: precede reason, for reason without faith is a blind and
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Speaker 1: a false guide. Scholasticism is a mere logical play, and
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Speaker 1: must be fought by sound theological logic, which draws its
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Speaker 1: power from the written word of God. The scholastic philosophy
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Speaker 1: is false because it is not based upon the Bible,
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Speaker 1: but on Aristotle. His whole theology has been strikingly summarized
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Speaker 1: into of God, through God and to God. We derive
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Speaker 1: all from him. He is our father, the giver and
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Speaker 1: teacher of all good. We should give to him our
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Speaker 1: deepest love and supreme confidence. All freedom is based on love,
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Speaker 1: and love is our best assurance. So future blessedness. John
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Speaker 1: of Goch's entire system of doctrine was reformatory, a protest
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Speaker 1: against the usual modes of laying down doctrine and a
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Speaker 1: holding up of mere good works to contempt. In practical life,
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Speaker 1: he hurled his strong lance against the sale of indulgences
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Speaker 1: and the personal corruption of the clergy. The mission of
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Speaker 1: the early Dutch reformers was very important. They caught the
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Speaker 1: spirit of the times and were bold and defiant in
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Speaker 1: their protest against the immorality of their day. If we
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Speaker 1: ask why was it that Holland gave such a prompt
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Speaker 1: and cordial reception to the doctrines of Lutheran Calvin, the
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Speaker 1: answer is the soil was fully prepared for the precious seed.
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Speaker 1: The Dutch people had been taught by these early preachers
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Speaker 1: of a purer morality that the time was fully come
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Speaker 1: for a new spiritual order. They did not know whence
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Speaker 1: the light would break, but the whole land was astir
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Speaker 1: with a longing for it and an expectation of its
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Speaker 1: speedy dawn. Hence, when they heard the strong words from
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Speaker 1: Wittenberg and Geneva, they rejoiced in them as the fulfillment
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Speaker 1: of their hopes. To them, the new truth was no surprise.
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Speaker 1: They had listened to their own prophets and believed their
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Speaker 1: burning words end of Chapter one