primitive Christianity as to be unworthy even of the name Christian. It should be ranked as antichristian-a false religion. Some of our modern skeptics have sneeringly styled Christianity the foe of all progress. But it has not been true Christianity that has been hostile to enlightenment and universal advancement; it has been this false Christianity imposing itself upon the world as the religion of Jesus Christ and attempting to exercise supreme authority and dominion over the souls and minds of men. The true religion of Jesus finds its noblest examples, during the medieval period, in those very heretics that Rome sought so earnestly to destroy. CHAPTER XVI. MODERN CHRISTIANITY. The Reformation of the sixteenth century introduced a new era in the history of Christianity. For ages the world had lain under a dark cloud of superstition and error, a period during which the dominion of the hierarchy was complete. But the dawn of a new and better day was heralded by Wyclif, "the morning star of the Reformation," who produced the first English translation of the entire Bible. And John Huss, the Bohemian reformer, whom D'Aubigne styles "the John Baptist of the Reformation," preceded Luther about a century, and appealed powerfully to the Word of God, losing his life as a result, through the instigation of popish tyrants at the Council of Constance. With the advent of Luther, however, the time was ripe for the seed of gospel truth to be sown again. During the long reign of false religion true evangelical Christianity had almost died out. The Bible was a book almost unknown to the common people, and even many of the clergy had never read it. Ignorance prevailed. "The Bishop of Dunfield congratulated himself on having never learned Greek or Hebrew." One of the monks declared: "The New Testament is a book full of serpents and thorns," and, "Greek is a new and recently invented language, and we must be upon our guard against it." Thomas Linacer, “a learned and celebrated ecclesiastic, had never read the New Testament." D'Aubigne records these instances.1 Only a few copies of the Bible were in existence, and these were generally kept in some secluded place, carefully chained. While Luther was in the convent, he found his greatest consolation in pouring over the sacred pages of one of these chained Bibles. In the Reformation true Christianity reappears publicly after the lapse of many centuries. While Romanism retained a few Christian doctrines, which continued to exercise some influence for good in the world, still the vital element of heartregeneration was lacking in the system, and religion was to the Romanists a mass of ceremonies and forms void of all spirituality. Such is not Christianity at all in the true Bible sense. And while we find some traces of the divine religion among the so-called heretics of the middle ages, we discover it only in the almost inaccessible mountain fastnesses, in the valleys of Piedmont, or in other by-places of the earth. The reform 1 History of the Reformation, Book I, Chap. 3. ers, however, boldly took their stand against the papal hierarchy and brought the Bible forward as the Word of Life for sinful men. After Luther obtained the experience of conversion himself and became a real Christian, he preached justification by faith, and the doctrine was embraced by thousands of people. From that time until the present day there have not been wanting multitudes of men and women who possessed the experience of Bible salvation. As It could hardly be expected, though, that the entire system of truth as revealed in primitive times should be restored to the world at once. we have before shown, advancement must of necessity be gradual on account of the limitations of humanity. Now, ignorance and superstition had for ages exercised such complete control over the masses that we may feel safe in saying that at the Reformation period mankind was in an infantile state so far as all spiritual enlightenment was concerned, and therefore required a course of instruction gradually leading upward to the greater heights of Christian truth. So much of superstition and of error remained that time was required in order to divest Christianity of the many objectionable features associated with her. The infusion of new life into the body would lead eventu declared: "The New Testament is a book full of serpents and thorns," and, "Greek is a new and recently invented language, and we must be upon our guard against it." Thomas Linacer, "a learned and celebrated ecclesiastic, had never read the New Testament." D'Aubigne records these instances. Only a few copies of the Bible were in existence, and these were generally kept in some secluded place, carefully chained. While Luther was in the convent, he found his greatest consolation in pouring over the sacred pages of one of these chained Bibles. In the Reformation true Christianity reappears publicly after the lapse of many centuries. While Romanism retained a few Christian doctrines, which continued to exercise some influence for good in the world, still the vital element of heartregeneration was lacking in the system, and religion was to the Romanists a mass of ceremonies and forms void of all spirituality. Such is not Christianity at all in the true Bible sense. And while we find some traces of the divine religion among the so-called heretics of the middle ages, we discover it only in the almost inaccessible mountain fastnesses, in the valleys of Piedmont, or in other by-places of the earth. The reform 1 History of the Reformation, Book I, Chap. 3. |